Today's meals

Breakfast:

Breakfast of champions!

Bites of fresh pineapple and strawberries and kiwi (YUMMINESS) (0pt)
1 honeycrisp apple (0 pts)
2 egg whites (1 pt+)
1 egg (2 pts+)
1/4 C Monterrey/Colby shredded cheese (3pts+)
Sauteed:
1 tsp olive oil (1 pts+)
mushrooms
spinach (about 2 C)
1/4 red onion
minced garlic
Total: 7 points+

AM snack:
homemade oreo truffle 1 pt+ (guessing)

Lunch!

Lunch:
1 Chicken Sausage (3 pts+)
1 meatball (L made them homemade--I am guessing on points) 3 pts+
1 sand thin (3 pts+)
1 TBSP cream cheese (1 pts+)
1 TBSP ketchup (0 pt)
1 Chobani blueberry greek yogurt (3pts+)
Bites of  fresh pineapple and strawberries and kiwi (more deliciousness) (0pt)
Total:  13 pts+

Afternoon snack:
COKE ZERO (opts)
Before practice: 7 almonds (1pts+)

After practice: Homemade chewy granola bar (6pts+)

Dinner (when I got home from practice--late, I know--ate around 9:30 pm)
1 1/4 C generic rice krispie cereal (3pts+)
1 C skim milk (2 pts+)
1 banana (0pt)

Total: 5 pts+

Total for the Day:  33 pts+  (1 under)

I ran for 24 minutes = 7pts+
Football practice (2 hours 30 minutes):
105 minutes HIGH
30 minutes Medium
15 minutes Low
Total: 31 points

Activity Points earned:  38 pts
Healthy Checks:
Water:  8+
Dairy: 2
Fruit/Veggies: 5
Healthy Oil: 1 (I need to work on this aspect. I need to get the full 2 in on a daily basis.)
Vitamin
Activity

Not too shabby of a day!!

WI Wednesday!

219.1

-2.1!!!

WW yelled at me when I entered my number-it said I was losing weight too fast.  I'm not sure how I feel about that.  I am not starving myself (far from it), and I am working out.  I drink water like it's going out of style, I don't drink my Coke Zero on Monday or Tuesday, and I have been trying to get all my healthy checks in.  If I was starving myself, I might agree.  But I am eating and drinking more healthfully than ever before. 

My daily point target has gone down--I am down to 34.

-55.9!!!!!!!!!!

I'm pretty excited about that!!!

Skillet (or in my case, pie-pan) Souffle

Stolen from Beth, but L doesn't eat eggs and I had a yogurt for breakfast, so I made this my lunch meal.  The whole thing.  It was only 9 points, and it was DELICIOUS--and SUPER easy!!

Pre-oven

Ingredients:
3 eggs
2 tbsp fresh dill (or herb of choice)
1/2 tbsp butter (1 used 1 full TBSP)
1 oz soft goal cheese  (I didn't put this in mine!)
salt and pepper to taste

Directions:
Preheat oven to 400º.
Separate eggs into two separate bowls. (egg whites in one, egg yolks in another.
Mix the yolks with the dill, salt and pepper and beat with a fork until well combined.
Using an electric mixer, beat egg whites until soft peaks form, about 3 minutes.
Combine yolk mixture with egg whites.
Melt butter in a cast iron skillet, swirling around to cover the entire bottom of the skillet.
Pour egg mixture into greased skillet and crumble goat cheese on top.
Bake for 10 minutes until slightly browned on top.

Post-oven

 
1 Giant portion = 9 pts+
1/2 = 4 pts+

My attempt at only eating 1/2.  FAIL.

Seriously EASY and awesome!!!

Retaliation...

So, my body is PISSED at me. 

And not because of all the bruises that I have or my jammed (and purple/black) pinky.  Or because I am sick and have a sore throat. 

Nope.  It is pissed at the last 24~48 hours of eating.  And now I have a headache that won't go away even with my never-fail excedrin migraine with a coke zero. Because I ate like crap.  And I think it is because I ate too much sugar.  Which honestly, I am surprised by.  I have been doing well lately.  My eating habits have significantly changed.  I didn't think that stepping off track one day would impact me this much, but it has.   

I've allowed myself to fall off course a few times before--usually it is on the weekends--and I repeat the pattern--feel guilty and contemplate my choices.  This time I don't feel guilty.  I feel gross. I feel run-down (hopefully that is just my cold). I feel like I want to barf.  I feel like I want to eat vegetables and fruits for the next month straight. 

Here are some of the things I have eaten that my body is pissed about:
Sampling of the following that I made/bought this weekend:
Oreo truffles
Mint Oreos
Pound cake (homemade)
rice krispie treats (homemade)
marshmallows (homemade)
pizza (domino's cheese small)
cheesey bread (with garlic butter dipping sauce)
waffles (yes, plural)
creamer in my coffee (full-fat/sugar/flavored)
1/2 a red velvet cakeball (this might have put me over the edge...holy sweet/rich)

Seriously, as I type I want to barf.  Gross. 
I am proud that I recognize this, but also I know that I hurt my body this weekend by not giving it what it needs to recover from the workouts I have been putting it through--especially Saturday's practice. 

I have noticed that on the weekends our fridge/pantry is pretty bare and lacking in my normal fruits and veggie selection.  I either need to have us adjust our grocery shopping day, or get more to last me the FULL week--including the weekend so I don't give in to temptation and laziness.

Seriously I feel like crap.  This might be a good thing--maybe I won't overeat at my birthday dinner tonight. 

FIRST JAMMED FINGER!!!

Note that the non-injured pinky is all water-wrinkled. I took an excessively long shower after I got home from practice today. 

I am in pain--not because of my finger (though it hurts), but today was full-out tackling for the first time.  I am exhausted, yet exhilarated, pained, yet relieved.  It was awesome today!!!
The finger got hurt the first time I got tackled. Of course, luck was on my side, and I was tackled for the first time by a 10-year veteran who is basically amazing and at least one of the top 3 biggest women we have on our team. 
Yeah.

GO SHOCKWAVE!!!!!

Homemade Marshmallows!!!!!!

I can’t even believe how good these turned out. I thought the process would be more challenging, but it was more multi-step that was intensive.
I don’t even know how this desire came about, but I do know that I noticed several different recipes, but I went with Smitten Kitchen’s recipe and notes after doing my own research.
My notes and additions are in purple. Everything else is from SK.

Springy, Fluffy Marshmallows 
Adapted from Gourmet, December 1998

Prepare to get sticky!!! This is definitely NOT a mess-free endeavor.

Makes about 96 1-inch cubed marshmallows
About 1 cup confectioners’ sugar

3 1/2 envelopes (2 tablespoons plus 2 1/2 teaspoons) unflavored gelatin

1 cup cold water, divided


Oiled pan/powdered sugar

2 cups granulated sugar (cane sugar worked just fine)

1/2 cup light corn syrup

1/4 teaspoon salt


Sugar cooking setup.

2 large egg whites or reconstituted powdered egg whites
1 tablespoon vanilla (alternately: 1/2 of a scraped vanilla bean, 2 teaspoons almond or mint extract or maybe even some food coloring for tinting)

Oil bottom and sides of a 13- by 9- by 2-inch rectangular metal baking pan and dust bottom and sides with some confectioners’ sugar.

In bowl of a standing electric mixer or in a large bowl sprinkle gelatin over 1/2 cup cold cold water, and let stand to soften.

Egg whites in my new copper bowl!

In a 3-quart heavy saucepan cook granulated sugar, corn syrup, second 1/2 cup of cold water, and salt over low heat, stirring with a wooden spoon, until sugar is dissolved. Increase heat to moderate and boil mixture, without stirring, until a candy or digital thermometer registers 240°F, about 12 minutes. (It was about 6 minutes for me--so be sure to watch the thermometer). Remove pan from heat and pour sugar mixture over gelatin mixture, stirring until gelatin is dissolved.

With standing or a hand-held electric mixer beat mixture on high speed until white, thick, and nearly tripled in volume, about six minutes if using standing mixer or about 10 minutes if using hand-held mixer. (Some reviewers felt this took even longer with a hand mixer, but still eventually whipped up nicely.)
In separate medium bowl with cleaned beaters beat egg whites (or reconstituted powdered whites) until they just hold stiff peaks. Beat whites and vanilla (or your choice of flavoring) into sugar mixture until just combined.

gelatin + cold water + time

Pour mixture into baking pan and don’t fret if you don’t get it all out (learning from my mess of a first round) (I took her notes to heart--read her blog for more, but I will tell you I feel the same way about loss--I try to get every drop out of every pan and utensil. It isn’t feasible with this recipe. The mixture is BEYOND sticky, and firms up quickly. Trust me when I say it is better to lick the beater than it is to try to scrape it off.) Sift 1/4 cup confectioners sugar evenly over top. Chill marshmallow, uncovered, until firm, at least three hours, and up to one day.

Mixing

Run a thin knife around edges of pan and invert pan onto a large cutting board. Lifting up one corner of inverted pan, with fingers loosen marshmallow and ease onto cutting board. With a large knife trim edges of marshmallow and cut marshmallow into roughly one-inch cubes. (An oiled pizza cutter works well here too.) Sift remaining confectioners’ sugar back into your now-empty baking pan, and roll the marshmallows through it, on all six sides, before shaking off the excess and packing them away.

Do ahead: Marshmallows keep in an airtight container at cool room temperature 1 week.

Egg whites

Absolutely delicious.  For my birthday dinner with L's family, instead of heading to the Melting Pot (we are broke), L's mom and stepdad, stepsister and brother-in-law, are putting together their own fondue night for me.  My job is to bring the dippers for the chocolate fondue.  I'm bringing these marshmallows, and I am making homemade poundcake and rice krispie treats later today, and also bringing strawberries.  I'm just a little excited!!!! :)  

Batter

Yum

Evidence

Marshmallows

Cutting setup

cut up!

Thinking of transitioning to a new site...

But I am worried.
Change is scary.
What if no one visits??

Argh.

It's still a work in progress....any thoughts/suggestions would be awesome!

Here

Creamy Parmesan Orzo

Made an awesome "side" dish tonight, but I will be making this again for sure--comfort food that could easily sub for mac-n-cheese cravings.

In the pan

Creamy Parmesan Orzo
1 TBSP Butter
1 C orzo
1 1/4 C reduced sodium chicken broth
1 1/4 C water
1/4 C Parmesan cheese
1/4 tsp salt

Melt butter in a medium saucepan.  Cook dry orzo in butter for 3 minutes--STIR CONSTANTLY!
Add broth and water and bring to a boil.  Reduce heat and cook until orzo is done (liquid is absorbed~15 minutes).  Remove from heat and add cheese and salt.

2 cups 1 serving = 1/2 C
5pts.+/serving
Worth every point. 

Close up orzo yummyness

My dinner.  Lentils from Tuesday, ciabatta roll buttered and cooked in a frying pan (like my mom used to make with rolls on Saturday mornings for my little sister and I), and orzo.  This meal would have been totally on plan if I wouldn't have super-buttered the ciabatta roll.  Whatever. It was DELICIOUS.