looksies..

Here is a quick pic of the babies before I went walking with them in the jogging stroller..also it is official, I cancelled my gym membership, until I get to New Mexico and I am able to start a new one. I am a little sad, and nervous that I will gain while Ion is away.

Happiness is on its way

I can feel it. I have found a house that I want so badly. The lady that is the current owner, is very nice. I pray she will favor us for this place. More about that later, once I get further information. Do send us your best wishes, this will ease a lot of stress off of me!

I found something this week at Trader Joe's I thought we would try. Usually, I enjoy anything I buy at TJ's. This was not the case. This particular sausage caught my eye, because it is stuff with seafood only, white fish, shrimp and scallops. We all ate it, with funny faces on, there was a taste that was off. I couldn't put my finger on it though. I would not recommend this particular find. I hope they take this one off the shelf soon. LOL


Sorry I thought I took pics of it cooked, but I forgot.

I got it, yay!!

So last night, I was browsing laptops online, and was torn between the vaio, and an acer. I did not know much about acer. I learned that they have all the bells and whistles of all the other comps but sometimes cheaper. I had some things added onto it, and decided the acer with the extra things I needed was worth it, and it came out cheaper than the Vaio, although the silver vaio looked prettier, I was not willing to pay nearly 400 dollars more for less things, and a shorted battery life. I am happy. I started playing on the laptop today, to set it up for all my school stuff. Yay! Now, all I need is the new digi cam that Ion is "surprising" me with at the end of the month and I can start taking lovely pictures of my dishes, I feel so out of rhythm on this particular blog. I am working on it though.

Onto better things, a little back tracking. Over this past weekend, we all spent the weekend, at the beach. We went to Zuma and Carpinteria. I failed to take pics of food, although I did try a new recipe for myself to pack on the trip. Cucumber and cream cheese tea sandwiches. They were delicious. Next time I will post a pic and a recipe.

Here are a few pics of the beach though :)

Wheat, banana bread..yum

I found a recipe on sparkrecipes Thanks,MAGGSR74!

I thought the recipe called for 2cups of whole wheat flour, whoopsy!! It really said white flour. LOL. The bread came out delicious anyway. Just denser than expected. So I altered the recipe just a little.

1 cups all purpose flour
1 cup whole wheat flour
3/4 cup sugar
3 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 egg
3/4 cup milk
1/4 cup applesauce
2 cups mashed bananas



Directions
Preheat oven to 350. Grease bread loaf pan, unless it's non stick.

Mix all dry indredients into a large bowl, make sure to mix well.

Mix all wet ingredients in another bowl, make sure to mix thoroughly.

Add liquid mix to dry mix and stir thouroughly.


Put into bread loaf pan and cook for approximately 55 to 65 minutes. I always start checking the colour around 50 minutes, should be a nice golden brown. Insert a toothpick in centre to check if it's done. Toothpick may be moist from bananas, just make sure it's not moist from batter.


Let bread cool in pans for about 5 to 10 minutes. Run a knife along outside edge to loosen sides.



This bread is great warm with peanut butter or honey on it.


Number of Servings: 12
Nutritional Info
Servings Per Recipe: 12
Amount Per Serving
Calories: 149.4
Total Fat: 0.9 g
Cholesterol: 18.5 mg
Sodium: 380.9 mg
Total Carbs: 32.5 g
Dietary Fiber: 1.3 g
Protein: 3.5 g

Updates:

I will be doing some updates real soon, my computer crashed and so its hard to get pics up and stuff til' i get a new one within 2 weeks, however I will be trying prepare them with some more funky pics(hence the lousy pics lately) We spent the weekend at the beach, so I will fill you in later. Boy, am I tired, woohoo!

honey-mustard yum!

I have a deep love for honey mustard, dipping sauce. So, naturally I would make my own my mixing honey and mustard. I simply marinated them in honey & mustard, and put them on skewers. Grilled for a few minutes on each side. Serve with honey mustard dipping sauce.

7 days, binge free?!?!

How did that happen!?!?!

I am still not sure, and I am sure I will binge again, LOL. However, I have not had a binge or overeating, til I was sick session for 7 days in a row!! I have been reading a book all week though called "Women, Food & God" by: Geneen Roth.


Now I am not sure, if this truly has had anything to do with it. I will take what I can get. I have been eating on target and that is exciting because for a change, I feel no urges to overeat, it is not a fight to say no! I have not finished the book though. As school started back up yesterday and I have been busy reading about blood ha!
TaTa

More bite sized bites..and 2 lbs gone..

So, unexpectedly I lost 2 lbs on this weigh in, I figured with the baklava obssession and the chinese take-out sweet hubs, decided to reminicse on from our old days. I assumed I would stay neutral. However, I suppose the workouts paid off this past week, and the scale Gods worked in my favor.
*Did ya know- 1 lb of fat is equal to 4 sticks of butter? Yuck!
This time I wanted to try out the good-looking pepperoni bites from noble pig I decided that my babies would eat these up like crazy, starving animals, and I was right! The little piggies and the big piggy(Ion) inhaled them, I managed to nab a couple for me. These are definitely treat items, I intend to make them again with pineapples and canadian bacon or ham pieces, for a hawaiian pizza bite.. hehe.. I am sure the combinations are endless. Which is exciting for me, so I can I can find a healthy version.. I revamped my flour blends yesterday too!

Ingredients:
*Flour, white, 1.5 cup
Mozzarella Cheese, part skim milk, 4 oz
*Hormel original pillow pack pepperoni, 4 servings
Egg, fresh, 1 large
Baking Powder, .75 tsp
Milk, 1%, .75 cup



Directions
Blend baking soda and flour.
Add in egg and milk and beat together.
whisk the rest of the ingredients together.
scoop in mini muffin tin, bake 20-25 mins at 375 makes 24 mini muffins




Nutritional Info
Servings Per Recipe: 12
Amount Per Serving
Calories: 140.8
Total Fat: 6.6 g
Cholesterol: 35.6 mg
Sodium: 250.1 mg
Total Carbs: 13.1 g
Dietary Fiber: 0.4 g
Protein: 6.6 g

My "Cherry Tassie" attempt..

I saw on NoblePig a recipe or 2 I wanted to try with my mini muffin pan. I decided to try out the Cherry Tassie recipe, it also was not low fat, or low in calories ..eek! I plan to remake this in a healthier version hopefully it will be tasty too.

Ingredients:
Powdered Sugar, 2.25 cup,
cant believe its not butter, 20 tbsp (room temp)
Flour, white, 2.5 cup
Vanilla Extract, 1 tsp
Baking Powder, 1 tsp
peppermint extract, 1 tsp
1 egg
Maraschino cherries, 48 cherry
Brach's Star Brites Peppermint Mints, 18 pieces (crushed into a powder=about 1/2 c.)

Heat oven to 350 degrees.
Divide the sugar, leaving 3/4 c. out . Beat baking powder, butter. beat in egg, & extracts. Add sugar, and flour gradually. Then add peppermint.

Break dough into small balls, roll in remaining powdered sugar and flatten into each muffin pan. Then drop in a cherry in each one.

Bake 12-14 minutes.
As you can seemy son was attempting to rob the muffins out of the picture.. LOL














Nutritional Info
Servings Per Recipe: 24 (2 tassies)
Amount Per Serving
Calories: 184.4
Total Fat: 7.0 g
Cholesterol: 8.9 mg
Sodium: 100.2 mg
Total Carbs: 29.1 g
Dietary Fiber: 0.7 g
Protein: 1.6 g



The twins enjoying the tassies for breakfast! LOL

In the Sandpits..

Today, I decided to take the twins out and about for some old fashioned physical activity. So we went to a gigantic park with sandpits. Instead Francesca was more worried about playing soccer for a while, then Eli ran to the pits and she followed. I was happy to get in a few minutes of jogging on the wide empty soccer field.






For dinner, I cooked pizza. If the kids could eat this everyday they would, however if I make it, at least I know fresh veggies are going into them.


This particular pizza has 8 servings at 253 cals. Luckily, the dough is a little heavy and very filling,you could always roll the crust into a thinner crustfor a larger pizza and less calories per pizza. I just happen to prefer thick crusted pizza..yum!
Ingredients:
Fresh & Easy 1 pkg. whole wheat pizza dough,
trader joe's organic marinara, 1.5 cup
hormel mini pepperoni, 55 grams
mozzarella cheese shredded, 104 gram(s)
Black Olives, 10 jumbo
Tomatoes, 1 medium whole

Roll out the crust. Ladle marinara, slice tomatoes and olives. Add all the toppings. Bake at 400 degrees for 18-20 minutes. Yum!

Planters?

Well, maybe I am late to the game but at wal-mart theother day, a lady was out at a Planters stand doing samples, of course Elijah catches her attention and I hear: mom, mom, my snack. LOL! So we stopped for them to "sample" it, except the little old sample lady was intrigued by the notion of twins and kept feeding them! After I believe they have eaten and entire can of these nuts, I decided to buy them, they are salt/sodum free completely!!



I then measured and packed the servings accourdingly.Ready for my on the go snack.
Today I decided to go for a bike ride today, down the path along thecity, I thought I was gonna die, I was so exhausted, as I stopped to catch my breath I found a lizard,who offered me a staring contest. I am not normally a lizard kind of person, but since he stared at me for so long, I had to acknowledge him.

New items located..hehe..

I am always out and about for one grocery item or another it seems. I was at a super target, in hunt of a mini muffin pan, looking to try a recipe from a blog I found; Noble Pig I then realized I needed a few groceries,and decided to peruse the aisles. I found these goodies:

At only 110 calories, these bagel thins, like the sandwich thins, are delicous.
The vitamin waters are apparently naturally sweetened,with stevia.So I can't wait to taste them.

The Miso soup looked interesting, I like the idea of individual packets. I will definitely be trying this soon!

Butternut Squash..

Out and about while grazing the aisles looking for a new idea, I found some gems (or so I thought) at Fresh & Easy. Butternut Squash Ravioli. Unfortunately, I did not remember in time to take a picture of the package. Anyway, I thought 300 calories for a serving, was a bit high to just be pasta, however the sodium was low at 160mgs per serving. I began to measured the fresh,uncooked ravioli, and sadly it was only 5 raviolis per serving. They were delish and I did enjoy them, I wanted more LOL! Just not very filling, I ended up eating again in 40 minutes.

Athena's Rotisserie & Pizzeria

I was interested in trying out a new place yesterday, so a friend and I, decided to scope one out. We tried Athena's Rotisserie & Pizzeria, right here in the SCV. Well... it was not as fabulous as I had read about. The lentil soup was not very warm, the vegetarian platter was ehh.. the only redeeming quality was the tzatziki(a yogurt,dill & cucumber mixture) The gyro was ginormous however and tasty, that I would return for, and at a good price of 5.95, could not beat that!

Ruby Gettinger

I was watching Ruby
I love her,she is such an inspiration. She began her journey at 716 lbs and has lost over half her body weight. Last night's episode was about her visiting the plastic surgeon looking for an opinion on the option of surgery to remove her excess skin. It was a sad episode, I pray for her and for me that I hope to not need to the surgery when all is said and done. Whenever you feel you will never finish losing the weight, tune into her story, it will definitely give you a boost again. It got me out of bed to the gym last night for sure:)Here is her before photo: and her so far:

I realized something today..

I have been neglecting this blog, for about 7 weeks(I missed all of March, YIKES!) and as a side effect, I have lost track of my foods and was not calculating anything. I did gain a little. However, I have gotten my ass back on track and lost 7 lbs. These past two weeks have gotten me refocused, all while finishing my classes for the term. This week it is onto attempting to get my son moving in some good direction for potty training. Now we have also decided to move to New Mexico by July. Wish me luck,I will surely need it. I will try to keep my posts semi-consistent for those who keep asking about it through all this madness.