Sick but on program!

Finally came down with the family's Christmas cold/ flu. Dd10 was sick too, so we stayed home from school together. In-between bouts of coughing I managed to track points for what I ate. Go me!

With the new PointsPlus program, I do find myself making better choices. smoothies are more attractive than ever with the free fruit and the reasonable points for low fat milk products. I had half a bagel instead of a whole one (bagels increased in the pointage) with my chicken noodle soup.

I thought I'd share a picture of my froth making machine I posted about yesterday. A lovely frothy chai latte is wonderful in-between bouts of hacking. I love my little machine that literally takes seconds to do its magic.





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Homemade delicious chai

Well, kind of homemade in the preparation at home dept. My dh bought me a frother (sp?)(after I pointed it out and drew a map to the store!) for my bday in November. It's great for my fave Starbucks drink the Chai latte. With the Starbucks chai mix from the grocery store (2pts) and skim milk froth (1pt) it's not bad pts wise either! I want to try the London Fog one, too- another good latte. I'm addicted to the flavoured coffee creamer, but I think the skim milk froth would be a good change and a points friendly one, too!

As promised, here are a couple of recipes from the WeightWatchers New Complete Cookbook using the PointsPlus values.


When my sister sent us home with some left over ham on New Year's Day, I decided to look up a scalloped potatoes recipe to go with them. The binder has a 5 point one Scalloped Potatoes with Cheese. They were tasty and dh (not a potato guy) even asked for seconds- as did the girls. The recipe divides into 8 pieces, not huge, but enough.

I was rushing the cooking of the potatoes (almost 2 hours long for after work), so I kept the temperature at 350 for the whole cooking time. They browned up a bit in spots, but it all worked out. The two other changes I made were (1) they didn't have red potatoes at Costco, so I just bought honking big white ones from PEI there and (2) I never see fat free half and half in our stores (can you buy it in Canada anywhere?), so I used light half and half and skim milk, so pointswise, it worked out the same.




I also made the Slow Cooker Lasagna from the PointsPlus: Getting Started book. It counts for 11 points, but if I made it again, I might add another layer of the 3 lasagna noodles- separating the cheese section. I think it would firm it up a bit, too. I'd have to look up the points. It shouldn't add more than 1 point? Anyway, we all liked the lasagna, but the family told me they like my regular lasagna (a family party staple) better.

At my Christmas cocktail party, as I said before, I tried a number of starters from the Weight Watchers PointsPlus binder: Classic Guacamole (2), Baba Ghanoush (2), and Keema Samosas (2). They were all good, the Baba Ghanoush was my least favourite, but I think I used too much eggplant (mine was large), so I might try it again. I love Baba Ghanoush! The Samosas were my favourite. I accidently added a 1/2 tsp extra spice, so they were extra spicy (yee haw), but still really good. My dh is not a curry fan, though, so if I remake them another time, it will have to be a time when we have company! Perfect for starters anyway, right?

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Seasonal Eatings

Ok. having major picture upload problems. Something went wonky in my iPhone blog app or in blogger itself (an update probably?) and all my pictures disappeared. oops.

Anyway, long time, no post! Hope everyone had a great holiday! Ours was good- but busy and quickly over. I tried a number of new Cooking Light recipes- basically using the November 2010 Holiday Special for all my Christmas day recipes. It was a busy day, and I didn't get ANY food close ups. oops again. My sister brought rolls, wonderful sweet potatoes and an amazingly delicious salad (spiced pecans anyone?), adding to the following CL recipes that I did: Orange-Buttermilk Dinner Rolls, Framboise Cranberry Sauce, Apple-Poblano Whole Roast Turkey, Brussels Sprouts Gratin, and Sausage and Sourdough Bread Stuffing. I liked everything very much. The dinner rolls were the only thing that didn't really work out- though mil said she liked them- part of the problem was dh accidently turning off the oven in the middle of things. argh. ;)

From the same CL issue, I also made Vanilla Cake with Italian Meringue Frosting twice: for boxing day at the inlaws and for New Year's Day at my sisters in Toronto. It was really good, too, with its marshmallowie icing, though a little too delicate and slidey (held by dd13 in the backseat, the top fell off) to make the trip to the big city. It looked a bit trashed, but still got thumbs up from those who ate it. The vanilla cake inside was so light and tasty. I made my own lemon curd (from a roasted chicken recipe from my Cooking Light binder) for it, since I didn't see it in the store and I'm pretty confident in making it quickly (since I've made it a bunch of times unlike the rest of the holiday recipes!)

In Weight Watcher's news, I have started on the new program after falling off the wagon over the holidays. (too many bonbons and 2 Saturday meetings cancelled due to holidays) I tried a number of appetizer recipes for a cocktail party that I had before Christmas and a couple of others recently from the New Complete Cookbook using the PointsPlus stats. I will share these tomorrow, since it's late after all my picture woes. I will also add points to the recipes above!

Hope everyone had a nice Christmas and all the best of health and fitness in the new year!

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Late Quickie Check-In

I was hoping to post earlier...but you know life! Anyway, I'll just post a quick one with the HYC news and one crockpot ( my iPhone wants to call it "crackpot"- hee!) recipe.

First of all, I went to the show and ate very salty movie popcorn on Friday- right before my Saturday am weighin, ergo my loss this week: zero pounds. It's back down now again; so I think it was just water retention. I'm ok with slow weight loss (sticks off better?) but fast is more fun. Kwim?

I didn't workout as much as I should have, but when I did, I felt good. I still need to get to bed earlier (surprise!) and drink more water!

I do feel proud of doing a crockpot recipe from my fancy crackpot recipe book (art of the slow cooker) that I've shared a long time ago. I always feel proud when I do a cp recipe- like I'm super organized or something.'lol. Yes, I know there's someone out there that used one everyday for a year! Small steps for me!

I don't have the chicken cacciatore (the slow cooker recipe's) points yet: I'm having trouble logging on to ww for the recipe builder! Anyone else have trouble with that site? I'll post more dets tomorrow! I am supposed to be getting to bed earlier! Eh?


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Thankful for Thanksgiving

I had a very nice Thanksgiving weekend! My mom visited from outside Montreal, and we had a birthday celebration for her on the Monday- and one for my sister, Laurie, on the Sunday. (Can you sense the danger: Thanksgiving AND cake!) Just the fact that I didn't eat myself to a state of feeling stuffed (like I always used to do on Thanksgiving), is definitely a cause for extra celebration! woo hoo!

I tried a few recipes over the weekend. For the Thanksgiving dinner at Laurie's, I brought a pumpkin pie from Cooking Light- Classic Pumpkin Pie (4pts) and a side dish from Healthy Cooking magazine, Cheddar Mashed Potatoes (4pts) from their Thanksgiving section. The pumpkin pie was really good, though I had to cook it a little longer than called for (after reading the reviews, I noticed that one person had discussed this.) The pie called for 12 servings which made for a pretty tiny piece, but it was enough, really, if one didn't gulp it down as usual. At least that's what I'm telling myself! ;) The pie was a big hit, especially with dd10.

I also made the Pumpkin Spice Bagels from Healthy Cooking (3pts) yesterday. Mine looked pretty pathetically shrunken (lol), but they were pretty tasty and I was pretty jazzed that I actually made bagels! I'm going to try them again and see if they go better. I don't own a bread machine, btw, but they have instructions for without (and with).

I also made an Angel Food cake for my mom's birthday. I cut it in half and put strawberries and a teeny bit of whipped cream (left over from the pumpkin pie recipe) in the middle. I'd like to experiment for other variations. I looked for a pumpkin version, but didn't find one.

...and finally, in terms of HYC check-in, I had another successful week at my Weight Watcher's weighin: I was down over 3 pounds again (3.4) for a loss over 10 pounds thus far and surpassing my 5 percent. woo hoo! I do need to pump up the exercise-I was better this week though. So far, I got out for a speed walking session with dd 13 on Monday, did boot camp today (Tuesday) and have a gym workout date with my friends tomorrow. Hope I can keep it up! Hope you all had a good week, too! :)


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HYC Check in

I thought I'd start doing the Tuesday check-ins again for the Healthy You Challenge. I'm having a few banner issues (had to take down my old "lost 20 pounds" one, since I found them again- sigh!) Anyway I'm going to leave my weight loss reflections for Tuesday (or Wednesday morning).

Anywhooooo. ;) I had a successful Saturday weighin: down 3 pounds- yeah! Some of that weight was last week's loss- where the scale didn't budge on wi morning, but I knew I'd lost. I'm down further now, but we'll see if it sticks till Saturday. (Don't trust those tricky reappearing pounds!) I should be at a 10 pound weight loss.

I survived our birthday month, avoided lots of party foods while having an occasional high points food in moderation. (Pictured: my salad share with my friend, Karin from the bday trip to TO.) I worked out at boot camp and once (eep!) at the gym. I need to get a few more of those in this week.

Hope everyone had a great week!

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Monday, Monday!

Actually, it should be titled "Weekend! weekend!" since this post is about recipes that I tried on the weekend. Today, I had left over chicken tossed in some curly noodles and sauteed veggies. Tasty, but a tad boring to discuss. ;)

Anyway! On the weekend, I tried a couple of Cooking Light recipes from the new magazine (Oct. 2010). The first pictured is Greek-Style Skewers. (5pts) It was a really quick and easy recipe and everyone enjoyed it, except for dh who didn't like the garlic. The garlic does have a good bite in these, as you brush on the marinade AFTER the chicken is cooked. Interesting, I thought! I really loved the flavour. Also, there was a lot of the olive oil based marinade left in the bowl (how much can you brush on to cooked chicken? 3 tbsp is a lot!), so I think the point value might even be closer to 4 in the end, but I counted it as a 5.

Some changes I made: I didn't have fresh oregano (everyone else got their CL copy first, my grocery store was out!), so I used about a tsp of dried and I used grape tomatoes instead of cherry ones (as that's what Costco had). Shocker, I know! Oblong rather than round. It changed the taste completely! ;) I really liked the grilled tomatoes, btw. I haven't had them grilled for awhile. That's what's good about following a recipe, even an easy one like this, just getting out of the regular routine!

I also tried the cover recipe from this month's issue Peanut Butter Banana Bread. (4pts) This recipe dh could get behind, though dd10 didn't like it. It's a dense banana bread with a lovely peanut butter sugary glaze on the top. What's not to love? I always enjoyed the peanut butter and banana sandwich, so here's a chance for a flashback, right? I also have an overload of ripe bananas in the house (and my family only eats green tinged ones), so I might be trying some more banana recipes from this issue!

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