Going to TRY and follow through with this...again...

So, I have sadly neglected this blog, and I've also sadly neglected my diet. :( I've noticed some of my clothes aren't fitting properly lately and a hop on the scale told me why- I've regained about 8-10 pounds over the last few months! :( Big, huge sad face. So I decided to start dieting again. Instead of making a huge goal like I did in 2009 (was at 163ish, need to be down to under 140 for my big Mexico trip in November), I'm going to do some little goals.

My first little goal is to lose 5 pounds by October 29. Why October 29? I'm taking a mini-vacation to Door County over that weekend. It's about 5 weeks away. I need to lose a pound a week. Not a bad goal.

Right now, I am hovering at about 146.5 lbs. If I can manage to lose 1 pound per week, I should be around 141.5-142 lbs by October 29.

The challenges I think I'm going to face this time around is my unpredictable work schedule. For the majority of 2009 I had a "9-5" job of sorts. Now I have a weird schedule where I work 4 hour shifts until 8pm two days a week, 8 hour shifts two days a week, am off (for now...) on Fridays, work Saturday mornings and then am off again until Monday afternoon. It makes for eating healthy when I get home from work at 8:30 a challenge. But hell, I lost 30 pounds in 2009- I can eat healthy despite my weird schedule and lose 10 pounds before 2011!!

Here goes nothing! :)

What's for dinner? Chicken Kabobs!

Last night, we made chicken kabobs for dinner. Delicious, easy, and summer-y!

Usually, chicken kabobs in this house entail mushrooms, zucchini and green peppers, plus the chicken.

I start out by cutting the chicken into chunks (about 1-1.5 inches), and then marinading them for at least an hour in the fridge before tossing them on the grill.

Last night's marinade included Wildtree's Hickory Smoked Grapeseed Oil, which adds a delicious smoky flavor, Southwestern Seasoning (from Pampered Chef!), cayenne pepper and a spicy garlic from Dean Jacobs. What we actually did was add the spices first and tried to coat the meat as thoroughly as possible, and then added in the grapeseed oil, then added some more spices and mixed it again.

Tossed in the fridge for an hour to let the flavors marinade together.

On Monday, I went out to run some errands and happened across a produce stand on my way home. Since I actually had cash on hand, I made sure to stop. I picked up a dozen ears of corn ($6), two large zucchini ($1.50/lb), two ginormous green peppers ($o.75/lb), some green beans (~$1.50/lb), a pint of blueberries ($2.50) and two cucumbers ($0.75 each). My total came to just over $14 which is WAY better than I'd have been able to do at the grocery store. Plus, it was fresh and local!! Bonus!

For the kabobs, I had bought two green peppers and two zucchini, since that's what we'd used for our last round of kabobs. Since the peppers and zucchini were much larger than the ones we get at the grocery store, we only had to use 1 of each. We sliced the zucchini and peppers, and started threading the kabobs. We have a nice set of wood handled kabobs that we use, but please keep in mind that if you are using wood kabobs, don't forget to soak them in cold water for about 20 minutes (minimum) before adding the meat and veggies so they don't go up in flames when you put them on the grill!

Toss the kabobs on the grill, making sure to check on them and rotate them regularly. It took about 15 minutes for the kabobs to cook thoroughly on medium high heat.

Kabobs are delicious and a fun way to eat chicken and veggies. The prep time is not that long, I'd say about 20 minutes total and that includes cutting up the chicken and making the marinade, and then to cut up the veggies and thread the kabobs (but allow about 1 hour to marinade).

And it's only chicken and veggies, so it's not bad for you at all. There are marinades available at the grocery store, but if you have oil/grapeseed oil on hand, I encourage you to make it yourself! We have also used sesame seed oil for a marinade with success.

Happy grilling!

Mmm...Indian Food...

So, once upon a time I blogged about how much I adore Indian food. Because I do adore Indian food. I love Indian food so much that I hope when I die, heaven is actually just an Indian buffet that is all-you-can-eat and you never get full.

That being said, however, I've really been wanting to make Indian food in the meantime (before my all you can eat Indian buffet heaven plans). :) While I have always been a huge fan of Indian food, the budget is a bit tighter now and a typical Indian restaurant trip usually runs us in the $40 range once you figure in all the delicious appetizers!

So when I came across this recipe for Chicken Tikka Masala (aka my favorite Indian dish!) on AllRecipes, I knew I HAD to try it.

It sat in my recipe box for a while (btw, I'm going to take a quick minute to plug AllRecipes. It's awesome. And the recipes are endless. And most of the ones I've made have been delicious! So I suggest that you finish reading this blog and head over to AllRecipes to log in and create your own account!), but I finally decided I really needed to eat Indian food since I don't think I've had anything save my Trader Joe's frozen meals since New Year's Eve. Or maybe February. But that is too long ago.

The one thing I noticed (which surprised me a bit) was that I pretty much had all of the ingredients already: chicken, plain yogurt, lemon juice, cumin, cinnamon, cayenne pepper (okay, well, had to borrow this from the neighbor since ours ran out a few months ago and forgot to replace it, but now it's been replaced!), black pepper, ginger (recipes calls for fresh, I used powdered), salt, butter, garlic (minced), paprika, tomato sauce, jalapeno pepper, heavy cream & cilantro. Aside from the heavy cream & yogurt, most of the ingredients were here or already on our regular grocery list.

The recipe was clear and easy to follow. Aside from using powdered ginger instead of fresh ginger, I didn't really make any modifications. Chicken marinaded in the fridge for about an hour while we ran some errands (including to get some cilantro, since the stuff we'd bought about a week earlier was already gross). Trader Joe's has frozen naan, both plain and garlic, but I decided not to get any this time.

After marinading and soaking the wooden skewers in cold water for about 1/2 hour, we threaded the chicken onto skewers and tossed them on the grill.

While the chicken was on the grill, we started on the cream/tomato sauce. The recipes calls for melted butter and then jalapenos and a whole bunch of spices to be sauteed prior to the cream & tomato sauce being added. Almost burned the butter! but was able to keep it from burning by hurrying up the spices and tossing in the cream. Phew. Crisis averted. The jalapenos and spices combined with the cream & tomato sauces turned into the lovely orange chicken tikka masala sauce that I know and LOVE! :)

I also had a bag of basmati rice so I made sure to cook that up to go along with the meal, especially given that I had passed on the naan.

After the chicken was grilled and the sauce was ready, we added chicken to the sauce & let it simmer for about 10 minutes.

THIS. WAS. AMAZING.

Holy crap and holy crap again. I honestly think this is one of the best dinners we've EVER made and that's saying something as it includes the Sprecher beer cheese soup, the Pioneer Woman mac & cheese, the chicken tortilla soup, the Jamaican jerk chicken and any of Andy's awesome chili. So yeah, I highly recommend this. A lot. And did I mention you should possibly go out and make this tomorrow?

So given that a chicken tikka masala dish at a good Indian restaurant will usually run about $10 (on the low end), and I don't really think this is "healthy" (though it yields 4 servings at 404 calories a pop, so really not as bad as I thought it would be), but I think it fits the "frugal" aspect.

Chicken: 3lbs @1.99/lb = $6

Heavy Cream: 8oz @0.89 = $0.89

Yogurt: large carton = $2.25

Tomato Sauce: 8oz @ ~$1

Cilantro: ~$1

Jalapeno Pepper: ~$0.50

Cumin, Cinnamon, Lemon Juice, Cayenne Pepper, Black Pepper, Salt, Ginger, Butter, Garlic & Paprika, Basmati Rice: Already found in the house. :)

So for the whole dish, it was roughly $11.65. For 4 servings. No tip necessary! :)

Next time, however, I am going to try a few different things to try and make it a bit healthier. The entire recipe as written calls for 7 teaspoons of salt. Uhh...sodium much? A few of the reviews on allrecipes said the salt didn't matter. So I think I'll just do a bit of trial and error with that. The recipe also calls for a tablespoon of butter, but it really was just to saute the jalapeno and spices. I am going to try substituting grapeseed oil for that next time. No risk of me burning then either....

Overall I give the recipe an A+. It tasted pretty similar to my favorite Indian restaurant's chicken tikka masala (though I'm not going to stop frequenting my favorite Indian restaurants because of it). I was really surprised at how relatively easy it was to make, and I was very impressed.

Extreme Comfort Food and Fun with the Grill

Periodically, this blog strays away from the healthy aspect. :) This is one of those days...

For a while, I've been itching for some good, homemade mac & cheese. This was inspired by a recipe that I found in the copy of the most recent Penzey's catalog. I even went out and bought some mustard powder on my last Penzey's trip to make this mac & cheese! But the Penzey's recipe, while it sounded delicious, was baked. And the humidity had struck and the air conditioning is on so there was no way that I was going to turn on my oven. :) So, I thought I was going to have to put the mac & cheese on the backburner for a while.

And then I found this recipe last Wednesday. And I was in love. And we went to the grocery store Thursday night so I immediately picked up all the ingredients that I didn't already have.

Scan over the recipe and I dare you not to fall in love with it too.

I'll start out with the modifications that I made: I followed the Pioneer Woman's recommendation of using Cavatappi noodles (I find this recipe calls for a "heftier" noodle than just a macaroni noodle!) and eliminated the jalapeno pepper completely. I also used 1 cup of Pepper Jack cheese and 1/2 cup of Monterey Jack cheese instead of all Pepper Jack cheese.

I more or less followed the rest of the recipe as is, except I used a combination of Garlic olive oil and Chili olive oil.

Olive oil, onions, red bell pepper, garlic & corn:

Shredded Pepper Jack & Monterey Jack cheese:

I don't even want to think about how many calories were in this delicious dish, but sometimes it's worth it to take a break from the healthy living to have the ultimate in comfort food. :) And mac & cheese IS the ultimate in comfort food, and having the spicy elements adds a bit of a "grown-up" twist. Not to mention this mac & cheese is not neon orange a la Kraft Macaroni & Cheese. :)

I definitely will be making this again. I liked the modifications that I made, but I think I might add Jalapeno Grapeseed Oil to the mix instead of Chili Olive Oil. Go out and make this mac & cheese. Probably not this second, but this week. For sure. :)

The next entry in this blog post is much healthier!

For dinner tonight, we made Black & Red Chicken from the Penzey's catalog, and added grilled asparagus and mushrooms for a side dish.

The chicken we made as is. We dipped the chicken in Natural Grapeseed Oil and then sprinkled on quite a bit of Black & Red seasoning before rubbing the seasoning into the chicken. We then left the chicken in the fridge for an hour to let the flavors "soak" into the chicken.

After the chicken was "marinaded" for an hour in the fridge, it was put on the grill for about 10 minutes at medium high.

For the mushrooms, Andy drizzled olive oil and sea salt on them, wrapped them in tinfoil and put them on the grill. He made two "batches" - one with garlic olive oil and one with chili olive oil. They were grilled on medium high for about 15 minutes.

The asparagus was brushed with chili olive oil and put directly on the grill for about 5 minutes on medium high.

Overall- really really tasty!! Not very much salt/sodium in it since the Black & Red seasoning is salt-free and we only used salt in the mushrooms (and not very much). A really good recipe, but possibly I will use less Black & Red next time because it was extremely HOT (spicy!).

I think grilling vegetables is going to become a new staple in our house. A little bit of olive oil, shake on some spices and put on the grill and veggies are tasty but still relatively healthy (not being sauteed in butter helps, haha). I'm hoping to experiment more with grilling veggies throughout the summer.

The importance of good spices!

So lately, my life has been pretty uneventful. I haven't really done much cooking since it's either been humid, we've been grilling out, or we've been hitting the town with Eating Milwaukee (since my last post here we've reviewed Speed Queen BBQ and Barbiere's Italian Inn- a review which has not yet been published but is coming soon!) Over the weekend, however, I took a trip to one of my two favorite food-type stores in the entire world: Penzey's!

I went to Penzey's to pick up a few things and ended up with an entire bag full of spice-related goodies. Oh, that store never ceases to make me wish I had an unlimited cash flow and cabinet space (even though I, um, have an entire cabinet devoted to spices).

I went there for two specific reasons: 1- that I had a coupon from my last catalog for a free Northwoods, BBQ 3000 or Black/Red seasoning. 2- in the most recent catalog (which I suspect is never showing up at my house because it was due to arrive when the maintenance people switched around our mailboxes with the neighbors and right after that switch happened, we didn't get any mail), I read about a Beef Roast Seasoning that sounded a-MAZING! So of course, it was necessary to make a trip to Penzey's!

So, after browsing for about 1/2 hour, what did we emerge with?

Beef Roast Seasoning

Northwoods Fire (one of Andy's favorites, this jar was a replacement for the last one)

Black & Red Spice (because it smelled delicious, was one of the "free" options, and also because the Black & Red Chicken sounds tasty!)

Mustard Powder (because there was a recipe in the latest catalog, which I happened to pick up a copy at the store, for mac & cheese which called for mustard...)

Taco Seasoning (because who doesn't love a good taco seasoning?)

Chicago Steak Seasoning (self-explanatory! and also because we ran out of my favorite steak seasoning: the Rancher Steak Rub from Wildtree)

Pasta Sprinkle

and

Pizza Seasoning

Man, life is good since I live really near Penzey's!

My goal for the next few years is to get rid of all of my spices that aren't Penzey's, Wildtree, The Spice House or from other specialty shops. I know McCormick's spices are not bad, but they just aren't as good! For example, in 2005 I started making pumpkin pies for Thanksgiving. I used my McCormick cinnamon. The pie was good, of course, it's pumpkin pie! The next year, I had gotten some Penzey's Cinnamon (in this case the China Tung Hing Cinnamon) and used that instead. China Tung Hing Cinnamon = much tastier pumpkin pie. Promise! Now to get ginger and cloves from Penzey's...

Other Penzey's favorites in our house include the Cajun Seasoning, Chili Powder, Cinnamon Sugar (great in applesauce!), Tandoori Seasoning, Sandwich Sprinkle and Tsardust Memories.

I realize that spices from places like the above are not the cheapest, so it may bring about the question "how is this frugal?" Well, splurging on good spices equals even better food. You may cut corners by buying bulk meats and freezing it, making more things from scratch, drinking Crystal Light or Kool-Aid (don't knock it...) instead of buying soda, some people use beans more often than meat (I'm not going to do that since I don't like beans, but I've read that it is good for the budget!), etc etc. There are a lot of ways to cut your food budget, but I think skimping on spices is a poor way to do so. For example, if you are pouring over the ads every week and see a good deal on chicken and buy a bunch of it to freeze, when the time comes to eat said chicken, a cabinet full of good spices equals a lot of choices for making a delicious marinade.

A lot of spice specialty shops also have multiple sizes of their spices. With very few exceptions, I buy the smallest jar possible of a spice before I know if I am going to love it or not. I can always buy more if it turns out that it is the Best. Spice. Ever.

One of the problems with buying higher end spices is that it gets seriously addicting and then you are devoting an entire cabinet to spices. Not that I would know...

So I highly encourage you to find a specialty spice shop in your area and go there for your spice purchases from now on. If this is old news and you already do this, where do you shop and what are some of your favorite spices?

Coming soon- a post on the importance of good olive oil. It makes a difference, really!

Jamaican Jerk Chicken!

I have had the recipe for Jamaican Jerk Chicken in my "recipe box" on AllRecipes for over two years now and just haven't gotten around to making it! However, I decided a few weeks ago that I really wanted to make it since we were at the Brewers game instead of going to Rhythm & Brews when they had their "Jerk" night a few weeks ago.

So, without further ado, Jamaican Jerk Chicken!

The recipe calls for 4 limes (juiced) and a cup of water to put the chicken in. We used 5 limes since a- we have a lot of limes leftover from our Memorial Day BBQ where the featured drink was gin & tonic, and b- we don't have juicer and I don't think squeezing the limes by hand maximizes the amount of lime juice...

The rest of the marinade was made up of allspice, nutmeg, salt, brown sugar, thyme, ground pepper, and ginger. It also called for vegetable oil, but I substituted Natural Grapeseed Oil instead since I have almost a whole bottle of it that I've only used twice. The recipe called for ground allspice, but I only have the whole allspice, but since it gets put in the blender I hardly think it really matters. Blended all that together and then added the chopped onion, chopped green onion, 6 cloves of garlic, and the peppers. The recipe called for habanero peppers but we used jalapeno and serrano peppers instead since habaneros are hella hot! After all that was blended together, it was added to the chicken/lime juice/water and marinaded in the fridge for two hours.

This chicken went on the grill after it was marinaded and only took about 15-20 minutes to grill thoroughly. There was a little marinade leftover so that it could be used to baste the chicken on the grill.

Finally, we served it with a side of basmati rice, since that's what we had in the house, when we make it again I'll probably use a more authentic side such as red beans and rice or anything from Zatarain's. :)

Overall, a great dish. Easy to prepare and easy to cook. Prep time was pretty accurate on the recipe, it took about 20 minutes to prep everything before going into the fridge. 221 calories per serving (about 5 WW points) not including the rice. Even without the habanero peppers, there was a bit of spice in the dish, but nothing outrageous (I can't imagine how hot it would have been with the habaneros, though!). Fun to make, and perfect for a summer day!

Even in the year 3000, the question will be "what's for dinner?"

If anyone else happens to remember that commercial from the 1980s promoting canned food, then mad props to you. There is nothing more weird than a space housewife promoting canned vegetables, and if that doesn't promote canned food, then I just don't know what does!

Anyway. My friend Erin periodically runs a post on her food blog called "what's for dinner" and I decided to steal her idea sincerely imitate her and do a post like that of my own. :)

On Friday we made hamburgers with sauteed mushrooms and onions (sauteed in Hickory Smoke Grapeseed Oil), on Thursday we cheated and went to The Chancery for 1/2 price pasta night.

On Wednesday night, however, I made Spaghetti Pie. When I was a kid, my mom made spaghetti pie a lot and it has become one of those nostalgic favorites. I had never attempted to make one myself, though I have tried to make lasagna and have deemed it to be a lot of work and I don't like making it that much. Spaghetti pie, however, is another story.

I don't really have any recollection of what recipe my mom used, so I poked around online and found one that sounded good at AllRecipes.com. There were a number of spaghetti pie recipes there, but I settled on Spaghetti Pie II because it sounded the easiest and most basic.

Since I had never made this recipe before, nor had I ever made a spaghetti pie before, I decided to just follow the recipe more or less as is, except that after I had made the "crust" (spaghetti, 2 eggs, and 2tblsp of butter in a pie pan), I realized I had bought tomato paste, but no diced tomatoes. Oops. Luckily, one of the reviewers of the recipe noted that instead of tomatoes/tomato paste, they used spaghetti sauce. So I used a plain spaghetti sauce instead, and it turned out fine- you're just mixing the tomatoes/paste with ground beef, onions and green peppers anyway.

Aside from that minor substitute, I followed the rest of the recipe as is. It turned out really good and was not that hard. Now that I have a basic recipe down, it will be easy to substitute and do my own variations of it. I am also going to ask my mom for her spaghetti pie recipe to see how it differs- I don't remember having that much ground beef in the pie as a kid.

I recommend this recipe- easy, tasty and for me, nostalgia. But unlike some nostalgia (like Sunny Delight - ew), this one is still good. :)

Chicken Tortilla Soup

I love Mexican food, and I'm lucky enough to live in a city where there is a large percentage of Mexican restaurants. :) That being said, however, I have only found two places with a suitable Tortilla Soup- La Carreta at the El Dorado Seaside Suites in Riviera Maya, Mexico, and Riviera Maya Mexican Restaurant (I'm sensing a common theme here...) right here in Milwaukee. Since La Carreta is a bit far away (ha) and Riviera Maya is a bit expensive, I decided to try making my own.

I found this Slow-Cooker Chicken Tortilla Soup recipe on AllRecipes.com, and decided to give it a shot. It was ridiculously easy, ridiculously tasty, and relatively healthy. I didn't make any modifications to this recipe at all.

The "hardest" part of the recipe was the chicken shredding, because it's pretty tedious. General chicken shredding instructions found here, thanks to eHow. I used the boiling water stovetop method, no pounding involved. Something the tutorial doesn't say but I've found has been extremely helpful is to cut the chicken into small strips. The cooking time is much shorter, and it's easier to shred smaller pieces of chicken than a full sized chicken breast. Today's chicken came from Trader Joe's, and I mis-read the label and bought chicken tenderloins, so they were already pre-cut and smaller, but cutting regular chicken breast into the tenderloin size would work too.

I used La Preferida mild red enchilada sauce and diced green chiles. I'd like to try making the enchilada sauce when I make this again, but for now the La Preferida was just fine. The recipe also called for a can of whole peeled tomatoes- mashed. I decided to go for the mashing tomatoes with a fork method. :)

Chopped the onion using our Slap Chop, which was courtesy of my family's Xmas White Elephant exchange. It makes chopping onions much easier and tear free- I highly recommend getting one, especially if you like onions!

After the chicken, onions, enchilada sauce, green chiles, tomatoes, garlic, chicken broth and water- we added the cumin, salt, pepper, bay leaf and chili powder. Since I'm a spice snob, I used chili powder from Penzey's (while Penzey's is a specialty spice shop- they have amazing spices, and if you subscribe to their catalog they have amazing coupons. For example, the first catalog I got had a coupon for a free Cajun spice.)...I highly recommend Penzey's if you live near one, and be sure to sign up for their mailing list!

The last things to be added was the frozen corn, and fresh cilantro. I had picked up a bag of fire-roasted corn at Trader Joe's about a month ago and it was PERFECT. The recipe calls for 1 tablespoon of cilantro, but since i had bought a bunch of fresh cilantro at Piggly Wiggly, we added way more.

I took this picture prior to turning on the CrockPot. Since I didn't get a chance to go to Trader Joe's to pick up the chicken until about 2:00, I had to cook it for 3 hours on high instead of 7 hours on low.

Right before the soup was done, we made the tortilla strips. We sliced up 5 soft corn tortillas, brushed them with garlic olive oil from the Olive Cellar.

I put them in the oven for about 8-10 minutes at 450 since the recipe did not really specify, but next time I may put them in for 15 minutes at about 350 instead.

The tortilla strips were perfect. Next time, I may try using our chipotle oil from the Olive Cellar, or chili olive oil from The Oilerie. They also might be a fun snack to make with leftover corn tortillas.

All in all, this recipe did not require that much assembly and it turned out delicious!

Caloric count: 262 calories per serving (recipe does not specify serving size), or approx. 2000 calories for the entire pot of soup. Our pot yielded five large bowls- approx 400 calories, or 8 WW points per bowl. Since it was heavy on the protein, it was also very filling so we didn't have any side dishes with it at all.

I cannot say enough good things about this recipe and I encourage you to try it out yourself. It was super easy to make, super tasty and the most difficult part was shredding the chicken. It would be a perfect weekend dinner because you can assemble it in the morning and then put the crock pot on low and let it cook all day. Depending on time, you could also make it in the morning before work, but since shredding chicken is a huge chore for me, I don't think I'd ever make it during the week if I had to work during the day. :)

Blog Revamp!

I've decided that my weight loss blog needed a "makeover" of sorts since I have been lax in keeping up with it. :) So I decided to expand my blog to include frugal living, since I still have no job. The "good" part about having lots of free time is that I also have lots of free time to come up with cooking ideas, rather than just eating prepackaged food (okay, not that I cook very much, especially in the summer because summer is when Andy grills out a lot). For example, last week, we took this Wisconsin Native's Beer Cheese Soup recipe that I found on AllRecipes and added Sprecher Black Bavarian Beer to it. It was absolutely delicious (albeit anything but healthy with the 6 cups of cheese and an entire stick of butter). In terms of frugality, however, I had spent about $4 on a cup of beer cheese soup at a coffee shop, making an entire pot of beer cheese soup was much more economical. We did end up inviting over my parents and our neighbor to help us consume the beer cheese soup that night so that we wouldn't have leftovers, but under normal circumstances, we could freeze leftovers.

Anywho, I will also soon be renaming the blog to reflect that new changes. For now, it's been temporarily titled "Lauren's Healthy & Frugal Living" but I'm going to spend some time brainstorming a more clever name. :)

Pudding Pops!

I've never mentioned it before on this blog, but I have been signed up for SparkPeople for a while. I don't use it very often, but I do get recipes emailed to me every day. Most of them get put in the circular file of my email account (haha), but some make it into the "SparkPeople Recipes Folder" that I have. :)

One of the recipes that made it to the "SparkPeople Recipes Folder" is their recipe for Frozen Pudding Pops. As you can imagine, I am all about sweet frozen treats (see also Diet...Ice Cream??), so the recipe's promise of a low-fat frozen snack that you can actually make yourself sounded like a fun 'challenge.' Soooooo I picked up a packet of Trader Joe's Instant Chocolate Pudding (sigh, here I go again promoting TJ's, but really I haven't been to P&S in forever!) on my last grocery run. But any sort of pudding mix will do- next time I may try a Jell-O pudding mix. ;)

Anywho, according to the recipe, just make the pudding according to directions, then put the pudding into either a popsicle mold or just paper cups with popsicle sticks. Since I'm attempting to be more conscious of buying things I can reuse versus just throw away, I was hopeful of finding a popsicle mold, but wasn't sure where I would find one. Let me tell you, today was my lucky day! I was at the Dollar Tree picking up cleaning supplies (including some Totally Awesome Laundry Detergent which I'm linking to because I probably wouldn't have believed that this was in fact the brand name either....but I digress) and I thought to myself that I should check into buying some paper cups and popsicle sticks. I was perusing the aisles when I actually found a popsicle mold! Score one for me....

So I mixed up the batch of pudding- it probably took about 12 minutes altogether before the pudding was set, and 10 of those minutes were waiting. I put the pudding into my spiffy new popsicle mold and then rummaged around in my freezer to find some space to set the mold so it wasn't tipping over or anything. The jury is out on how they will taste frozen, but the pudding itself was quite tasty :)

Caloric breakdown:

Per the pudding box, serving size is 1/2 cup prepared with 4 servings. I made the whole box, so I'll quadruple the calories. 1 serving = 110 calories, 5 calories from fat, with 1g fat and 0g saturated fat, 23g carbohydrate with 19g of sugar. Calories for the whole box = 440. The recipe called for 2 cups of milk, and 2 cups of skim milk has 160 calories. Total calories for the pudding mix = 600. I figure I used about 1/3 of the total to make my pudding pops, so 200 calories for all of the pops, and there were 8 pops made, so 25 calories each. Not bad...not bad. :)

Low Fat Diet Fun!

Lately, we've taken to doing a lot of our shopping at Trader Joe's (I really should be getting royalties from there for all the promotions I do on my blog) because it's usually just as cost-effective (and sometimes more so) and a lot of their food is tastier and more fun to eat. :)

Today's exciting food option is the Low Fat Chocolatey Cats Cookies. A fun, tasty and cute snack!

(original image found here)

I really like these cookies, though I haven't tried the vanilla or ginger kind yet (though I expect I will pick some up on my next TJ's run).

The run-down:

15 cookies, 110 calories, 15 calories from fat (1.5 g of fat, 1g saturated fat), 24g of carbohydrates (1g dietary fiber and 9g sugar).

Oh, and did I mention they are cute? The only problem I have had so far is that my cat seems to think they are kitty treats. I would think that would be some pretty twisted kitty treats if the kitty treats were kitty-shaped....

One of the best ethnic foods...ever.

One of my very favorite ethnic foods to eat is Indian food. There is nothing better, in my opinion, than a tasty serving of Chicken Tikka Masala or Chicken Makhani (aka Butter Chicken!), with some fresh naan (even better is garlic naan!) and basmati rice. Man, I'm salivating just thinking about it.

The problem (if there is one) with Indian food is that it is usually impossible for me to go out for Indian food and not have to waddle out of the restaurant. Really, I should just bring a set of wheels so I can roll myself out. In addition to the tasty main course, the side of naan and unlimited basmati rice, the meals often begin with papadum, and then tasty appetizers, often which include samosas and pakora- cheese, chicken and/or shrimp.

Like I said...Indian food is delicious. And filling. And extremely bad for your diet. And bring a set of wheels so you can roll yourself out afterwards.

However, I have found an option for those days when you want Indian food, but not all the calories. Or for those days when going out for Indian food isn't really feasible (aka the days of 1/2 hour lunches!).

Once again, Trader Joe's comes to the rescue (they really should pay me since I promote them all the time!!)!! :) They have a delightful frozen Chicken Tikka Masala. I've had it twice now, and it really does taste pretty good. Not quite the same, but it's a pretty decent option. Also, there are portion controls. :)

Photo originally found here.

There are between 3-6 pieces of chicken. The first time I had it, I had 6 smallish pieces of chicken, the second time there were 3 huge chunks of chicken. So roughly the same amount of chicken, just portioned differently. It also comes with a side of basmati rice. And it can be heated in the microwave in just over 5 minutes!

Photo found here.

For those counting calories: 300 calories per serving, with 110 calories coming from the 12g of fat (5g saturated fat). From a weight watchers perspective, about 7 points. Given that many of the SmartOnes/Lean Cuisine/Healthy Choice frozen entrees are between 5-8 points, this pretty much falls into the same category for frozen entrees. There is also a lot of rice, so it's more filling than it would initially appear to be.

So while it is not nearly on the same level as Indian Food Bliss that can be found at an Indian restaurant, it is much healthier (and portioned!), and cheaper, too. :)

Lauren's Organic Chicken Noodle Soup (+recipe)

A few days ago I attempted to post my chicken noodle soup recipe, but blogger was making me mad and was putting the picture wherever it felt like putting it! So I finally gave up, but then it posted anyway...yeah, it was fun times with blogger! :)

Anyway....so my husband had the flu last week so I decided that I wanted to make chicken noodle soup from (mostly) scratch because there is nothing better than chicken noodle soup when you're sick.

I didn't really use a recipe, aside from the basic concepts of chicken noodle soup: chicken, chicken broth, carrots, celery and salt/pepper.

However, I made two little adjustments and I think that the finished product was even more tasty. Not quite to the level of taco chicken soup I made a few years ago with leftover taco chicken and homemade (yes, you read that right HOMEMADE noodles), but it was still quite tasty.

Adjustment number 1: Use organic!

Adjustment number 2: Curt's Cooking Spice!

And now, Lauren's Organic Chicken Noodle Soup. Apologies in advance as this is the first recipe I've ever written. :)

Five 14oz cans of Swanson's Chicken Broth.

1.5-2 lbs boneless, skinless chicken breasts (I used Trader Joe's).

2-2.5 cups uncooked Trader Joe's Organic Fusilli Pasta.

3-4 large organic carrots

5-6 large organic celery hearts

sea salt and freshly ground pepper to taste (can use just regular salt & pepper too, but it won't taste as good!) :)

Curt's Cookie Spice to taste.

Bring medium sized pot of water to boil and add chicken. Boil chicken for 20 minutes. You may have to boil the chicken half at a time. Remove chicken from water and shred with two forks. General chicken shredding instructions here.

Slice up carrots and celery as desired. Set aside.

Add chicken broth to a large pot and simmer until chicken is fully shredded. After chicken is shredded, add the chicken to the broth and continue to simmer. I also added about 14oz of water to the broth even though it said "do not add water." It gave more broth, but I didn't find it to be any less flavorful.

Bring medium sized pot of water to boil and add noodles. Cook noodles about half-way, drain.

Add noodles and vegetables to chicken and chicken broth, turn up the heat. Add salt, pepper and Curt's to taste.

Once spices are added as desired, cover pot, and turn heat on high for 5-7 minutes.

Turn heat back down to simmer, uncover and eat.

As one can imagine, this soup was not very high in calories or fat (a little high in sodium though).

Chicken broth = 10 calories per half can, 20 calories per can x 5 cans = 100 calories.

Carrots = according to this website, 100g of carrots have 43-48 calories. I had a hard time figuring out how many carrots is 100g...I'm guessing that the 3 carrots I used would be about 150 calories?

Celery = according to this website, 110g of celery has 18 calories. I'll go out on a limb and guess that I had about 60 calories of celery.

Fusilli Pasta = per the bag, 3/4 of a cup has 210 calories. I'm going to guess I used about 2 cups, so that's approx 500 calories or so of pasta.

Chicken breast = I had a hard time finding a definitive calorie count for chicken breasts, and the package is long gone. Generally, 8oz of chicken breast = 250 calories. I used about 32 oz of chicken breast so roughly 1000 calories.

Salt, Pepper and Curt's = 0 calories.

So for the whole, huge pot of chicken noodle soup, we're looking at 1800 calories. This sucker had about 8 servings in it, so per serving we are looking at 225 calories per bowl. Not bad!

There are different ways to add fewer calories. Add more veggies, less chicken. Add less pasta, or take a whole wheat pasta with fewer calories and more fiber. Use egg noodles, they are bigger and take up more space, so you can use less. You could also substitute rice for pasta. The possibilities are endless!

My next quest is to try and reproduce that taco chicken soup- probably won't make the noodles from scratch again though.

Note to Self

When actively trying to maintain target weight, it is a poor idea to walk to CVS, buy two bags of Easter candy and eat a small percentage of about half of majority of both bags over the course of three days. Just sayin'.

On a note of actually sticking to a plan of eating healthy, Trader Joe's (oh, how I ♥ you) has a "light" version of string cheese. It has 60 calories per, um, piece (what is the unit of measurement for string cheese?) and approximately 1 WW point. Since I reside in that great dairy state (happy cows don't come from California that's for damn sure) of Wisconsin, I loves me some CHEESE! And as it seems that all cheese that is good is also full of calories and fat and is generally just not so good for you, the fact that Trader Joe's has a decently relatively VERY tasty lower-fat/lower-calorie (unit of measurement) string cheese...well, that just merits even more love to the Trader Joe's (I am sincerely sorry to those who do not have Trader Joe's near them). It's no Union Star Cheese Factory, but it'll do.

Diet....Ice Cream?

In my last post, I blogged about what diet sodas I love and mourned the lack of diet ice cream. However, in the interest of full disclosure, that's not completely true. Over the last year or so (ESPECIALLY during the summer months, ah, summer, what is that?), I have looked over the freezer section of my local Pick N Save in hopes of some sort of ice cream that would allow me to eat ice cream, while not breaking my diet too badly. Or at all.

I would be lying if I said that it was all ice cream- it's not, but there are some very tasty alternatives to ice cream that are just as good or maybe, in the eyes of some, better than ice cream. While I don't have a list of 10 as of yet, I've got a few tasty options in the ice cream variety. And this is coming from someone who lives in the city where custard is king!

But I digress, there's nothing diet about eating Red Velvet Custard.....

Lauren's Favorite Diet Frozen Treats (okay, so it doesn't have a ring to it, oh well).

• Skinny Cow Chocolate Truffle Bars. Yum. Yum. Yum. YUM. Chocolate ice cream with chocolate drizzled over it. And it doesn't taste low fat. Or low flavor. Or low anything. It tastes fatty, ice creamy, chocolate-y and delicious-y. And at 100 calories for one bar with only 25 calories from fat? It doesn't get much better than this. Around here, it's usually about $5 a box for 6 bars, so it initially seems pricey, but then you realize it's less than $1 per bar. I have also had the Skinny Cow French Vanilla Truffle Bars, and while they are good, I don't like them as much. But other people I've talked to like them better. All a matter of preference. Aaaaaaaand if you're counting Weight Watchers points, only 2 WW points per bar.
• Skinny Cow Mint Ice Cream Sandwich. Again...YUM. Does not taste a bit like diet ice cream. Again, about $5 for a pack with 6 ice cream sandwiches, so more economic than walking to Dairy Queen (even though you burn calories by walking there) anyway. 140 calories per sandwich, and only 15 calories from fat...and only 2 WW points. I feel like this should be too good to be true....but it's not.
• Skinny Cow Vanilla Ice Cream Sandwich. See above, but substitute vanilla for mint.
• Edy's Fruit Bars. It's like a fruit-filled heaven that is frozen and on a stick. Okay, that might be a bit over the top, but I don't tend to like fruit....except these fruit bars. My very favorite is the strawberry. Only 80 calories per bar, and no fat. That's right, no fat. Yay! Pick N Save puts them on sale every few weeks at 2 for $6 (but they'll sell you 1 box for $3 too), which puts them at 50 cents a bar.
• Trader Joe's Frozen Fruit bars. These are pretty much identical to Edy's Fruit Bars, but they only come in a few flavors (strawberry, lime and one other that I can't remember). It's 1.99 for a 4 pack all the time. I couldn't find any nutritional info online, but from what I remember, they are pretty much identical to the Edy's in all ways. Might be a touch bigger though and IIRC, I think there were a few more frozen strawberries in them. If you've got a Trader Joe's near you, I would definitely check them out. They also have 100-calorie chocolate bars! :)
• Edy's Slow-Churned Ice Cream. A long list of flavors of yummy ice cream including ice cream with 1/3 the calories and 1/2 the fat. It does taste a bit diet-y, but it is still very very good. And if the other options just aren't up your alley and you want some ice cream, damnit, then I would definitely recommend the Slow-Churned. In fact, right now, you can even get Girl Scouts Thin Mint ice cream. Yummmmmmmmmmmm.

So there you have it. Some good, diet-friendly frozen treats. This list will probably be updated as I add more flavor favorites, but for now, I'd suggest starting with the Skinny Cow and going from there. Happy Dieting!

Diet Soda...

So unfortunately, there is nothing that I seem to like more than soda (except for chocolate, ice cream, potato chips, etc etc). I know, it's not good for me, blah blah blah, but it is just...well....so tasty!

So along the way of my diet (which is now coming up on almost a year! hooray me!), I've come across a number of relatively tasty DIET sodas. Yes, I used to run screaming away from the dreaded word DIET before the word soda. My irrational fear of diet soda probably is due to the fact that we actually used to have this crap in our house while I was growing up- it really doesn't get worse than Caffeine Free Diet Pepsi. *shudders* Not only is it diet, but it's caffeine free, which totally misses the point of Pepsi in the first place. I'm sure if you added some brown food-coloring to seltzer water, it might actually have more flavor.

But I digress. And since I have wanted to continue drinking soda while dieting, I've had to come up with some calorie free or low calorie options...and that often includes diet soda.

And without further ado, Lauren's Favorite Diet Sodas! (while they are numbered, there is not really an order of preference).

1. Diet Coke. Ah yes, the classic. Who doesn't drink Diet Coke? I will be the first to admit that this has been an acquired taste for me. I love Coke, so switching from Coke to Diet Coke was a bit of a struggle. I have now learned to love Diet Coke, just not as much as Coke. While I am not a big fan of lime, I have heard rave reviews of Diet Coke with Lime, so if you like lime, I would definitely check that one out.

2. Diet Dr Pepper. Unlike with Diet Coke, I did not have any problems drinking Diet Dr. Pepper. That could be, however, because I never really drank regular Dr. Pepper, so there wasn't an obvious taste difference here. However, I don't think Diet Dr. Pepper tastes all that "diet-y" anyway.

3. Diet Dr. Pepper Cherry. Even better than Diet Dr. Pepper. Good cherry flavor, not the overpowering taste of Nutrisweet...definitely tastes more like regular cherry cola...however, I never really drink Dr. Pepper Cherry...so again...

4. Coke Zero. Coke Zero markets itself as having real coke taste, zero calories. It definitely has a much closer taste to regular Coke than Diet Coke, but still not quite there. I much prefer Coke Zero over Diet Coke. A slight peeve of mine for this is that it is not as widely available in restaurants. The only restaurant I can find it at regularly is Five Guys...and really, if you're eating a huge burger and an order of fries, I think calories from your soda is frankly the last of your caloric concerns. :)

5. Sprite Zero. I must say that this one tastes more like regular Sprite than Coke Zero tastes like regular Coke. I absolutely love Sprite Zero.

6. Diet Sunkist Lemonade. This one is not 0 calories like all of the others so far, but for 10 calories per can, I can totally make this a regular in my fridge.

7. Diet Cherry 7Up with Antioxidant. I admit, this one made me a little hesitant at first. Who cares if soda has antioxidant? Clearly, if I was concerned about my health I wouldn't be drinking soda in the first place (hahaha). If you like cherry but not so much cola, cherry 7Up is a pretty good choice. My main peeve with this soda is it seems to be exceptionally carbonated. For real. I usually can only drink one of these a day.

8. Diet 7Up. Still not as diet-y and far far less carbonation than Diet 7Up Cherry....

9. Mr. Pibb Zero. I have a very difficult time locating this both locally (I've seen it in Pick N Save like twice) and on the web. It's like it doesn't really exist! Okay, it really does exist, and if you can find a 12 pack, I highly recommend trying it if you like Dr. Pepper, or if you like Mr. Pibb. I think Mr. Pibb used to be better than Pibb Xtra, but I'll take what I can get.

10. Sprecher Lo-Cal Root Beer. Oh, if only all of the other Sprecher sodas came in a lo-cal variety!! I would actually recommend ANY of the Sprecher sodas, but sadly, none of the others are diet-friendly (all of the other sodas range between 4-6 weight watchers points...for 1 soda). Kudos to Sprecher for making such a yummy diet option.

Sodas that did not make the cut:

Diet Pepsi anything. I hate Diet Pepsi with a fiery passion. Again, I believe it goes back to having Caffeine Free Diet Pepsi in my house....

Caffeine Free Diet Anything. Ew, just ew.

Cherry Coke Zero. They try, but IMO, fail.

Vanilla Coke Zero. Just, ew.

Diet Mountain Dew...

Any other suggestions for sodas that should make the cut, or sodas that definitely do NOT make the cut??

Now if only they could come up with a good, diet ice cream.

Sub sandwiches....not as good as we think...

So, I really like eating subs. However, subs really aren't as good for us as we like to think. I mean, it's just a sandwich, right? What can possibly be so bad for me if it's just a sandwich? I'm better off eating that than a burger and fries!

Well, yes and no. Since we tend to be under the assumption that subs are good for us, we don't often watch what we eat on our subs.

Take a regular Jimmy John's #4 Turkey Tom. Basically- it's about 7inches of french bread, turkey, provolone cheese, lettuce, tomato, sprouts and mayo. That doesn't sound too bad, does it? Well, according to the Nutrition link on the Jimmy John's website, that sub equals 615 calories and almost 30g of fat. According to Dottie's Weight Loss Zone (one of my favorite sites to check WW points value), a Turkey Tom has about 13.5 WW points, but Dottie's doesn't include cheese on that. So, a Turkey Tom actually is closer to about 15 points. Yikes. So much for healthy.

But subs are so good, and with a few adjustments, the same sub with Dijon mustard and no cheese is 335 calories and about 1.5g of fat. Dottie's lists this sub as having 8.5 points instead of 15. The key to eating subs is to eliminate the cheese and mayo. Both of those add tons of calories and fat, and make the sub a lot worse for you than it should be.

Another good rule of thumb for subs is to load up on veggies as they are good additions and make you feel more full. Also, beware of bread. A lot of sub places offer fancy breads, but most likely those fancy breads just add more calories. If there is a wheat bread option, that is usually the best, otherwise a plain white bread is good too.

So, as with everything else, eating sub sandwiches just requires a bit of knowing what to choose and what not to choose. :)

Epic Fail Week

So, I failed at dieting this week...but that's alright. I've got a good excuse- I have a cold and sore throat. So, my diet has included quite a bit of ice cream. Not good for the diet, but good for the sore throat. Oh well.

With any luck, I'll have a real, diet-related post in the near future...once I kick this damn cold, anyway.

New Year!

Okay, so I really pretty much just stopped blogging about my weight loss "adventure" a few months back. But now, I have been wanting to blog again and I figure that can be part of my "new year's resolutions."

So, I more or less accomplished my weight loss goal (I'm now hovering between 134-136, depending on the time of day and time of month). Hooray for me! I did not hit my goal at the allotted time (mid-November) because from about mid-October to mid-November I was so busy and away from my house a lot so I more or less just made it my goal for that month to Not. Gain. Any. Weight. Back. I pretty much succeeded. I didn't "officially" weigh in before I left for Mexico, but I was around 138. Sweet.

After getting back from Mexico, I more or less dropped those extra 2-4 pounds.

Now, I am faced with the difficult task of maintaining my current weight, as well as assisting my husband in his diet.

I am going to make it my goal to post in my weight loss blog once a week! This doesn't count- so I've got until Saturday night to write another post. :)