Spring Pickins

Sassy Sous-Chef

This is one of my favorite food times of the year.  Everyone is getting excited and planing their gardens, farmer's markets are open again, road side produce stands are back and fresh strawberries are ready for the pickin!  I loove fresh, ripe strawberries and we are lucky enough to have a local, patch about 10 minutes away from us.  I snuck away for a little Me-Time last week while the munchkins were both in school and managed to pick just over 12 pounds.  Nothing crazy, but enough that I needed to find something else to do with them in addition to eating them non-stop.  I started feeling a little like Bubba from Forest Gump. Fresh strawberries... frozen strawberries... strawberry banana muffins... strawberry panzanella... strawberry jam... strawberry smoothies...strawberry pancakes...

Being in the Kinda Country offers us quite a few of Pick-Your-Own options, but this patch, Hilberts {Nazarene Church Road, west of Dayton, VA,(540) 879-2595}, is also spray free-- not the norm.  This is my second season visiting and I will return every spring.  I love that is so close and I love getting to know our area farmers.  Last year BigBoy was covered from head to toe in mud and Farmer Gary hosed him off for me. This year he said he wished he had a long sleeve shirt to give me cause my arms were allergic to something in the patch.  Real People and Real Food.  Can it get any better than that?

As Farmer Gary rang me up, we chatted about spraying techniques and he told me about his friend who transports tomatoes and strawberries up from Florida.  The friend told him how he is in charge of ripening them up before they get to Costco, Walmart, Kroger, etc.  The fruit gets picked green and they get gassed along the way at various points to ensure they get ripe just in time for unloading. um, yum?  I gave him a big Thank You for providing us with a spray- free patch and let him know how much we appreciate it.  I brought my loot home and couldn't keep Sassy out of the fridge.  She figured out that since I picked them, she didn't need me to worry about washing them (it had just rained- prewashed!), and she was grabbing strawberries all. day. long.

The strawberries were amazing, ruby red and sooo sweet.  None of us could really stop eating them.  I ended up freezing most of them and I made one batch of strawberry banana muffins, one of my favorites. I briefly thought about making Strawberry Panzanella again. but eating an entire dish like this (which I would totally do) probably isn't the smartest thing to do pre-summer.  I'm going back later this week to pick some more and hope to do a batch of strawberry ice cream. YUUUUUUM!

I tweaked the recipe since the berries were so sweet already.  I almost always cut back on the amount of sugar, but for this I subbed out some of the butter, and subbed some regular flour for whole wheat.  I made a batch each way and couldn't tell the difference by much.  The munchkins gave them four thumbs up, so it's a keeper!  You could also play around with using molasses in place of the sugar or agave nectar.  I used molasses last year when I was obsessed with molasses, and they were super tasty, but totally spaced on it this time around.  What do you like to do with strawberries?  Any recipes to share??

yuuuuuummy!

Strawberry Banana Muffins (adapted from joyofbaking.com)

1/4 cup (1/2 stick) unsalted butter, melted
1/4 cup unsweetened, organic applesauce
1/2 cup light brown sugar
2 large eggs, lightly beaten
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
2 large ripe bananas, mashed (about 1 cup)
1 - 1 1/2 cups fresh strawberries (cut into bite sized pieces)
1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup whole wheat flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon salt

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.  Position rack in center of oven.  Line a 12 cup muffin pan with paper liners or grease with butter or a vegetable spray.

In a small saucepan melt the butter.  Set aside.

In a medium sized bowl whisk together the brown sugar, applesauce, eggs, vanilla extract and mashed banana. Add the melted butter to the brown sugar mixture and stir to combine.   

In another large bowl combine the flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, and salt. Gently fold in the berries, making sure they are coated with flour. This helps to prevent the berries from sinking during baking. Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and stir only until the ingredients are just combined. Do not over mix the batter or tough muffins will result.

Divide the batter evenly among the 12 muffin cups, using two spoons or an ice cream scoop. Place in the oven and bake until a tester inserted in the center of a muffin comes out clean, 20 to 25 minutes. Transfer to a wire rack to cool.

Makes 12 regular sized muffins

Food, glorious food.

I love, love, love this time of year. The seasonal produce is kicking into high gear. I'm faced with the daily dilemma of just how many tomato sandwiches I'm going to eat in a day- my all time favorite summer food.

I've been winging it more often with meals than follow an actual recipe, using what we have on-hand and making it up as I go. I've created some interesting combos: egg, corn & tomato breakfast burritos, kitchen sink veggie/chicken tacos (literally any vegetable that as in the fridge plus a little chicken), and some tzatiki-ish dip.

I'm also testing out new recipes to use up our morning bounty. And then there's the nights when it's just too dang hot to put on our Barbie Oven (the smallest. oven. ever.) and I go all "raw food" on the family proclaiming dinner to be edamame, cheese and fruit smoothies.

During my Family Command Center project, I also organized my recipes a bit better so planning meals (again) will be a snap. I actually have two Recipe Binders, well three. tee hee. One for recipes I use regularly or will be using in my meal plan and one to collect recipes- holiday items, stuff to try, family recipes, etc. And one other cool binder my friend Nikki made made with her personal family recipes. I loooove binders and hole punchers/page protectors for holding my recipes Plus it gives me another reason for office supplies!! Hooray! But seriously, it makes it so easy find my recipes. I hate those little cards, they just don't do it for me. I also have a delicious account to tag and organize recipes online. I use delicious to bookmark/tag just about everything I organize online. It's a social bookmarking site, so you can actually search for terms that other users have bookmarked/tagged too. It's super easy if you download their toolbar buttons.

I have lots of favorite food websites I check out, but these are the ones I go to the most:
tastespotting - Best food porn around
101 cookbooks - Things I typcially don't try, but love to think I will.
simply recipes - I've done quite of few of hers. Lots of Hispanic recipes too!
green lite bites - great healthy, recipes.
all recipes - My go-to site. Community based with reviews and pictures.

But honestly, when I'm looking for a new recipe for say, zucchini, I would just google "recipe zucchini" and see what pops up. Zucchini Patties was the latest. Something I wouldn't have created or searched for. But it was great! And the entire family loved them. We ate them with eggplant parmesan and fresh sweet corn. This turned out to be one of my favorite locavore meals and vegetarian to boot (something I try to do once a week.) I stopped by the produce farm up the road to got our usual eggs, plus eggplant and corn, we had zucchini already- viola!

I've had my fair share on not-so-great meals, but if you don't try you won't get any better or try something totally different, like zucchini patties. So jump out of your food comfort zone. What are you going to try with your yummy summer produce? Please post a new/favorite recipe in the comments that uses great summer veggies or fruits! I know, I know, it's scarey posting something in the ominous comments box. But I have faith, you can do it. You don't even have to leave your name, I'm making it easy for you!

panzanella = evil (tasty, delicious, evil)

I'm in strawberry heaven. or hell depending on how you look at it. I prepped all the berries from last week's strawberry pickin' and made the goods. strawberry muffins. strawberry-banana oatmeal cups. strawberry syrup. strawberry ice cream. strawberry pancakes. strawberry panzanella. I'm all Strawberry Bubba-Gumped out.

I was in strawberry bliss. Now I'm just taunted by strawberry goodness that will NOT help my bathing suit challenge. Froze all the extras (lots!) and now they are all calling my name. Mocking me. And the panzanella. OH the panzanella. Seriously to. die. for. I ate some last night for dessert okay, okay for a mid-day snack. And dinner. And breakfast today! Don't judge! And it was divine. Think country style croutons but SWEET and loaded butter and brown sugar and a little cinnamon with tons of fruity spots and chunks of fresh berries, topped with creamy Greek yogurt. I even drizzled local raw honey on top. cuz I could.

Am I seriously dreaming of strawberries and farm eggs. really? Is this what inner peace is? Strawberry and bug fed, happy chicken eggs. I'm in a food coma. But not the tryptophan Thanksgiving bloated type food coma. I'm in a food coma of utter amazement. Food really tastes THIS different? Yes. Fresh berries, picked in the cool morning after (and during rain) and farm fresh eggs from one town over. It just makes my belly happy.

I just know BigDaddy is sick of my detailing the beauty of our farms eggs. The colors! The sizes! The shapes! Look at the two different types of whites! And the yoke! Have you ever seen such an ORANGE yoke! Look at it!! Perfect! I'm becoming the Crazy Egg Lady aren't I? The Crazy Egg Lady who eats Strawberry Panzanella all day long.

Because I'm a giver, here are my two favorite strawberry recipes:

Strawberry Muffins from Stoneyfield Farms

I opened the lid on our yogurt container and viola! A recipe stared me down. The Yogurt Strawberry Gods spoke to me. Make muffins! Maaaaake muuuuuffins! So I did. And they rocked. I also substituted molasses (I think I used 1/4 cup) for the sugar and they came out a nice dark brown. Big hit with BigBoy.

Ingredients

1 cup all-purpose flour 1 cup whole wheat flour 1/2 cup sugar 1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda 2 eggs 1 cup Stonyfield lowfat plain yogurt 1/4 cup butter, room temperature 1 teaspoon vanilla 1 cup chopped strawberries

Directions

Preheat oven to 375°F. Grease a 12 muffin tin or line it with paper baking cups. In a large bowl, sift together flour, sugar and baking soda. In another bowl, stir together eggs, yogurt, melted butter and vanilla until blended. Toss the strawberries with the flour mixture. Pour the egg mixture into the flour mixture and stir until the flour is just moistened. The batter will be lumpy. Spoon the batter into the muffin cups. Bake for 20 – 25 minutes, or until the tops are golden brown.

Yields

12 muffins

Nutrition Facts

(1 muffin) Calories 160; Fat Calories 45; Total Fat 5g; Carbohydrate 25g; Protein 5g; Fiber 3g

And then the Panzanella.... sweet child o' mine:

Strawberry Panzanella from 101 Cookbooks.

Panzanella is usually a savory bread salad, so this is a great twist and comes out like a yummy shortcake/breadpudding type dish. I omitted the poppy seeds and added a little drizzle of honey. D'lish!

Ingredients

1/4 cup unsalted butter
1/4 cup + 2 tablespoons natural cane sugar OR brown sugar*
couple pinches of fine grain salt
1 pound loaf of hearty, substantial day-old bread, cut into 1-inch cubes
1+ pint basket of ripe strawberries, trimmed and cut into matchsticks
a 7 or 8 ounce container of plain (Greek) yogurt
poppy seeds for garnish

Directions
Preheat oven to 350F degrees. In a large pot melt the butter. Stir in the sugar and salt. Stir until the sugar dissolves and remove from the heat. Add bread cubes and toss, coating the bread cubes. Toss for a minute or so to get decent coverage. Pour the bread out onto a baking sheet and arrange them in a single layer. Toast for about 15 minutes or until bread is well toasted, tossing every 5 minutes to make sure all bread surface areas get golden and crunchy.
In the meantime, place half the chopped strawberries in a small bowl and mash them with the remaining 2 tablespoons of brown sugar. I found a potato masher works well for this. Keep mashing until berries are super juicy and appetizingly chunky - this is your dressing.
When the bread cubes are done toasting (and have had a few minutes to cool and crisp up), toss them in a big bowl with the mashed berries. Add the remaining chopped strawberries and toss a bit more. Give the yogurt a good stir, and serve on the side garnished with poppy seeds (feel free to sweeten it a bit to your liking).
Serves 6 or so. Or just one Crazy Egg Lady.

I think I can... I think I can.

I'm feeling overwhelmed with eating better and going green. It takes a lot of thinking and planning at the front end. I know that, but when the kids are hungry NOW and we've been outside all day, and the pre-planned meal will take at least 45 min or needed to simmer for 2 hours and I didn't plan right, this just seems like a lot of work. Can you tell I'm cranky?

Two days ago we rushed to the easy dinner. Pizza. We tried the new joint in town for take out. I saw the pizza and it looked reeeeally greasy, too greasy. On slice 2 I had to stop and was out of commission for the rest of the night with stomach cramps and then I just crashed. for 12 hours. BigDaddy rocked my world but just taking over and I didn't wake up until the next morning at 6:30. So my point. I did the cop out and it hurt me, literally. On the positive side, I've turned a corner. My body rejected the crap I tried to put in it. This was not the norm for me anymore. Hooray!

I KNOW this is good for me and my family. But I'm whiny right now. And tired. Last night was my semi-norm of 5 hours of sleep. And we played all day with friends. And I desperately need to go grocery shopping. Which will make my head hurt. And my body even more tired. But somehow I managed to have dinner simmering already, my meal plan ready to go and most of my grocery list set. I CAN do this. I WILL do this.

I actually have a post in the works about organic shopping, the how and the why. It's taking longer because I have a lot of research to do. And I'm tired. Did I mention that yet? It's taking a while because we need to prioritize and figure out what's important to us. Buying local vs. organic. What organic things are a MUST be vs. not a big deal. That kind of stuff. I'll share with you my Food Doctrine when we finally figure it out.

Here's my plan for the week or so. Lots of my go-tos since we are down to old Mother Hubbard status again. This plan looks crazy, not my general template per se. We have some visits to friends' houses, some travel, BigDaddy gone some nights, etc. I also need to get a stash of quick, easy and healthy summer meals that the kids will eat too. If you have any suggestions, please, PLEASE leave a comment and/or link!

Thursday- Turkey Bolognese w/ Spaghetti Squash (also making a batch of turkey meatballs and patties to freeze)
Friday- Muffuletta Sandwiches with Greek Salad (we'll be gone all day so this will sit all day and be ready to go when we get home for dinner)
Saturday- Homemade Pizza & Watermelon?
Sunday- Breakfast for dinner and fruit salad
Monday- Chicken Cacciatore (crockpot)
Tuesday- Tilapia Pimiento w/ quinoa This is my current favorite recipe!
Wednesday- TBD
Thursday- Sunday Mac & Cheese, homemade chicken strips, homemade turkey meatballs

Meal Plan 5/3

If you haven't read Meal Plan 101, see the previous post.... This is a follow-up post.

Meal Plan 5/3 (and kind of next week) When I haven't been to the store in ages and we are purging the cupboards, I like to do more of a 1 1/2- 2 week meal plan. I think most, if not all, of my recipes are on delicious.com under sassyaztec.

Monday
Roasted Chicken (crock pot or roaster)
Potatoes and carrots

Tuesday
Tilapia Fish Tacos
white yogurt sauce
Slaw, beans

Wednesday
Spinach/zucchini lasagna, homemade bread

Thursday
Turkey Bolognese on spaghetti squash? or pasta?
Salad

Friday
Pizza Night
Greek Salad

Saturday
Chili Verde w/ Mexican Rice

Sunday
Turkey Parmesan Meatloaf

Monday
Eggplant Parmesan?

Tuesday
Salmon Stir Fry
"Fried" rice

Wednesday
BBQ Pork Sandwiches (crock pot)

Thursday??

Friday
Pizza Night
Fruit Salad?

Saturday
BigDaddy Special as I will be in Baltimore! woo hooo!

Sunday??

Meal Planning 101

As I sit down to plan my week o' meals, I thought I'd share a little on Meal Planning 101. The basics are pretty easy. I promise if you take a bit of time up front, you will save TONS of time and money in the long run.

I also think it good to KISS your meal plan. Keep It Simple Stupid or Keep it simple, stupid. I don't feel like it's SUCH a huge task when I just need to fill in the blanks. Each day is a specific type of meal day. Of course you can change it if you feel the need, but this is Plan A. Plan B will happen at some point, and that's okay. I've also tweaked this quite a bit the longer we do it. Look at what your weekly schedule is like and plan around THAT. If you have to take the kids to soccer practice and need some quick and easy, make it panni night or breakfast night. If you are going to be gone all day, use the crock pot. My current version looks like this:

Monday- Vegetarian Meal (grocery store trip during the day)

Tuesday- Fish Night (workout , park day and EZ Lesson day)

Wednesday- Crock Pot (this is mainly because our sitter comes from 3:30-5:30 and I'm usually gone. this will probably change this month)

Thursday- Pasta Dish/or Breakfast for dinner (workout/EZ Lesson/ Farmer's Market?)

Friday- *New!* Pizza Night with homemade pizza dough (Funschool)

Saturday- BBQ or try a new recipe night (workout/EZ Lesson/Farmer's Market?)

Sunday- Batch cook breakfast and dinners (still working on getting this going). Plan out next week's meals.

This seems to work for us. We want to have fish once a week and now we are adding a veg. meal once a week. We tried out the pizza dough in our bread machine and it ROCKED and super easy. Before that I have used pita bread for mini pizzas. The kids love it, but BigBoy said the homemade dough was delicious and he liked it better. Hooray!

I really need to find some great summer recipes. It just gets warmer and we want lighter food (haven't made soup or chili in weeks.) I need to have BigDaddy sustenance and Munchkin approved food that's easy and quick and healthy to boot. Salads will be key. We all like them, just need to make sure BigDaddy has enough to eat.

There are literally a ton of meal planning sites. I found this one a while ago and it was a great basic website to get me started.

Menus 4 Moms
By no means are these meal plans healthy. But it's a good start, just generate some ideas. Sometimes I would see a recipe and then google it for a different version. This site also has a ton of worksheets and print outs to get you in the right mindset of planning out meals. You can also sign up for their weekly menu via email here.

My current favorite places for ideas/recipes:
Roni's Green Lite Bites
101 Cookbooks
simply recipes
allrecipes.com
and of course, google.

Hope that helps! Now, get on with your planning!

Quinoa and Canvas

Quni-who? No, Quinao (Keen-wha). This will be the one that puts me over the line. I will be certifiable crunchy now. The kids and I made quinoa last night. You've probably heard about quinoa as a superfood or the supergrain that isn't a grain. My muse Roni uses it. I've seen "healthy recipes" using it. I've heard all the hype. I just wasn't really sure what exactly it was or what to do with it. Basically it's a superfood from South America. It's actually a very small seed pod. But I told the kids it's like rice. And it's fun to say. Say it with me: KEEEENWAAAA!

I've slowly been overhauling our diet. The processed snacks are all but gone-- I have a few Annie's Bunny Snacks and organic fruit strips from Tar-jay. oh and graham crackers. Our staples. But I decided we needed to start ADDING things, not just getting rid of things. I needed to go to the actual grocery store, not superstore. I bought some Agave nectar, organic vanilla, Greek yogurt, organic chocolate syrup, etc. Then I went over to the bulk section. Quinoa. There it was. It called me. Come on Lisa... make the jump. Just buy me and put me in your kitchen for a bit. Get used to being an owner of quinoa. So I grabbed a few scoops. They also had decent canvas bags for $5, so I grabbed two. I will slowly build up our stash. Before checking out they had lighter weight bags for a buck a bag! grabbed a bunch. I was a little nervous. Dumb I know, but checking out "out of system" was a weird feeling for me. I didn't know if it would hold up the line, if the checker would secretly be cursing my granola-loving name. But the kids weren't with me and it wasn't really busy in the store. I had 4 bags total (1 nice one and 3 cheaper ones.) They were huge! I couldn't believe how much stuff fit in them! And the cashier remarked "It's great how much can fit in here!" Yes, it was great. And Ms. Cashier Lady, you just made my day. I broke out of my comfort zone. Quinoa and Canvas bags. I made the jump. And didn't feel like a dork in the process.

So back to the quinoa. It was fish night and we didn't have tilapia like I thought, so it was Salmon. So now what? Time to get something going for dinner. Quinoa. It would be quinoa. It had to be quinoa. Roni had a recipe she used, but it didn't thrill me and we didn't have all the ingredients. I found recipe for a quinoa salad at another favorite site of mine: 101 cookbooks. It looked fantastic. I had everything we needed. It was a lemon-cilantro base and I had some Newmans Own Light Lime Vinaigrette that I could use instead of the recipe dressing and then I could also throw it on the Salmon with more cilantro. Some broccoli added to the mix. Viola! The best part was everything would only take about 15 min.

The kids wanted to help and since everything was so easy, they were able to do most of the work. Sassy was running around yelling "I make quinoa! Me turn!" They both took turns and pretty much made the meal. The results? A beyond delicious and nutritious meal. The kid verdict? A beyond delicious and nutritious meal. Really. They ate everything!! BigBoy didn't want the quinoa salad (he doesn't do tomatoes or onions) but proclaimed the quinoa w/some butter one of his favorite things to eat, along with the salmon. The kid wouldn't eat fish past the mandatory "One Bite Rule." He claims to love salmon so much now, that he wants it everyday for dinner. They've helped with dinner before, so I'm not really sure what magically happened last night. The quinoa, it had to be the quinoa.

too tired for a title: boxing, horses and food.

I'm BEAT! I woke up rested and then worked out to my new wii game Gold's Gym Cardio Workout. First thoughts: I love it! It was super easy to get started, you DON'T need Wii Fit (only a few moves use the balance board since it's mainly a boxing workout) but I DID use my second remote instead of the remote/nunchuck option.

You get your "membership card" to Gold's (laaaame) and then pick your mii (why don't these games use the wii miis??) fill out your info, pick your trainer, etc. I chose Alex so I could have some eye candy. If Alex asks me to give him a few more punches I'm game! Anything for you Alex, you hunk of boxin' love! Nina, not so much. It's more like "Nina, you skinny little B*#$, I know this is easy for you... but you obviously don't have kids or a post-baby body. I'm tired and the kids are yelling for me as we speak. So no, Nina, I don't have anything for you! Where was I? Oh, yes.... Fun music, if a bit cheesy, you can select on your own after you finish the basics lessons. I picked Eye of the Tiger. of course. (Mr. Hancock may have issues with the not-so-sophisticated graphics, but I'm cool with it.) This is a great review from youtube:



I went through all the "learning the basics" and got to the actual workouts. I picked the beginner level that was 6 minutes long. I love that it's longer than the wii fit mini-games (my big beef with the system). Mr. Snarky (aka Wii Board) told me I'm up to "overweight" BMI again. He also called me out on not checking in all weekend. Suck it Mr. Snarky! I'm a bit bummed I'm gaining weight again, but I know I am going about this the right way. Eating better, working out and slowing changing my lifestyle for the better.

I must have had a bunch of energy, or was on a runner's high kind of ride, because I went into super cleaning mode and went to town on the house. Not that it looks significantly better now since the kids ransacked their rooms and the guest room in the process of staying out of my way. DirecTV guy came out and fixed our set up (the receiver was bad). I think I worked it a bit too much today for my own good. I'm dragging and BB refused to take a nap which means no nap for Mama Bear. sigh.

I did manage to take a few pictures. I ran outside to catch the horses lying down. I've never seen them do this before, at least not all at once. Some weird climatic reaction like when dogs freak out before earthquakes? I wish PW didn't have 100 million followers. She would know. Or at least her hubby, MM, would. The only other horse person I know is The Boss' Wife's daughter. But I'd have to text her. And truth be told, I despise texting. I don't even like that word "texting." Sounds like a non-word. So I'll go googling around later tonight I'm sure. (Googling = word?)

I'm running out of steam and need to get dinner fired up. Without further ado, the Weekly Meal Plan. I'm not counting points anymore, just focusing on lower fat and natural ingredients. Plus they need to be fairly easy and quick to prepare.

Monday
Baked Eggplant Parmesan, sauteed veggies (asparagus, zucchini, yellow squash and red onion) leftover mashed potatoes. * made this last night and it rocked! We ended up having a totally vegetarian meal. yeah! We are going to try and incorporate a total veggie meal once a week or so.

Tuesday
Tilapia with Pimiento Sauce over brown rice (this is my new favorite meal. love, love, love it!)

Wednesday
Split pea and ham soup, crusty bread-- homemade? (from our Easter Ham leftovers)

Thursday
PW's Mac n cheese, salad (I'm totally sold on this, but BB wants to make it.)
or
pork stir fry with udon noodles (based on this), "fried" rice

Friday
Breakfast for dinner: egg sandwiches, fruit

Saturday
Make your own pizzas (toppings: black olives, turkey pepperoni, veggies)
PW's Apple Brown Betty?

Sunday
batch cook chicken
easy chicken tacos, beans & rice

Monday
Italian Beef Sandwiches?

~Lunzy

It's a sunshine day

(I actually wrote this yesterday, about the day before... and then accidentally on purpose fell sleep in BB's bed before posting. oops!)

I'm not really sure what was so great about yesterday. The GAWGEOUS sunshiney day? Being outside more than inside? Walking around campus searching for BigDaddy and seeing other grownups, ahem, adults? Feeling good about the direction my life is going? Maybe it was a day for everything to just come together. The Universe being aligned for me. It definitely wasn't a clean house (it looks like a tornado ran through) it wasn't my oh-so-cute ensemble (I threw on some jeans-that no longer fit!!! and are too long, my favorite shirt, a baseball cap and ran out the door sans a shower). It was just a great day.

As soon as the horses came 'round we ran outside, cameras in hand. I had our parental model (Luminex), BB had our older sony, and the Babe had our kiddie fisher price. We set out to be photographers. We had a blast. The day was beautiful and we hadn't spent a lot of time with "our horses" in a while. They were eager to see us and say hello. Even Old White Horse sniffed my hand for the first time. Zip, the most popular guy (he would be the high school QB that is gorgeous AND nice AND smart AND all parents love) hung out for quite a while letting BB get some great shots. That's him in the last two shots, with the white stripe. Then we ran around the yard taking "interesting" shots. I told BB to look at things that might be interesting or are special to you. Daffodils. His shadow. More horses. Our house. a bush. Then the kids wanted to go for a nature walk. This means walk over to BigDaddy's office and check out what's new on campus. Um... okay. Gimme 5 to pretty up a bit. *** run in, wash face, put on powder, pit juice, ball cap, ponytail) We're off!

The kids looooove going to BD's office. They say hello to everyone in the offices, sometimes get treats, and get doted upon. What's not to like?? BB had his camera out the entire time. I love it. The Babe? Not so much. She prefers to chase the cat with the camera and run around the house and document "Doll. Sitting pretty." or "Vacuum hose" or "BigBoy-Spiderman" or "FamilyDog...Backleg" That kind of thing. Outside she's my dreamer. Lost in nature, checking out blades of grass, playing in dirt, looking for birds. She can't be bothered with looking through a lens.

We finally found BigDaddy and walked home with him for his lunch. I STILL don't have his schedule down, probably won't til the end of the semester. But what else is new?

I took off to the bank and post office with BB while the babe napped at home with BD. He loves going to the bank. We don't do candy for the most part and he gets a sucker from the bank. So he was pumped. He yelled into the intercom "Thanks for my sucker!!! I love it!!" Off to the post office to grab some Priority boxes. I'm gonna do it. I'm actually going to sell some stuff on ebay. * Thanks Roxy for inspiring me!!

The kids are in an official Art Show next weekend. I'm pumped. We have some paintings and maybe some digital pics. But I still need to print the pics, do some matting, get it all ready to go by..... tomorrow. ack! I also called the local elementary school to see about registration. April 2. wow! glad I called. They will have an open house as part of registration. But I really want to see how the classrooms are when they don't have an audience and with, well, kids in them. So I left my info with the Principal's secretary and waited for a call back. I was actually getting a little stressed. Like wow, this is real. and wow. I'm waiting for my kids PRINCIPAL to call me. I know he's our "pal" and all (do you remember that spelling rule??) but it felt weird. Like I/he was in trouble. Can you say flashbacks of ditching in high school and just praying you weren't gonna get caught. Yeah.... moving right along.....

I tried to come up with some type of meal plan, but instead figured on doing meals in general, not necessarily day-by-day. I'm feeling overwhelmed and this is getting the job done, but still halfassing it as much as I can. Is halfassing a word? anyway.

Meal Plan:
Carnitas
Tilapia with Pimiento Sauce Recipe (made this tonight with brown rice, cooked in chicken broth. It rocked!!)
Chicken Enchiladas, coleslaw, Santa Fe rice and beans (going to try and duplicate the smart ones entree)
Baked Chicken, homemade nuggets for the kids
Roast Pork Loin w/ broccoli
Parmesan Turkey Meatloaf w/??
Scrambled Eggs with bacon bits, fruit, cottage cheese

Extras
Banana Berry Oatmeal Cups
Maple Syrup Scones

Our sitter comes every Wednesday, which is great, but she let me know last minute she had to leave early. aaaaack! NOT today. But even that didn't mess up my day, more crazy, yes, but BD said to just drop off the kids with him and we are good. Go BigDaddy!! I headed off to WallyWorld feeling good. really good.

I had my sunroof open, cruising down the highway, music crankin' in my jacked up minivan. I looked around and said "Self, life is good!" I feel great about the choices we are making. My body feels good, I've lost a little more weight. But now that I'm losing it again, little by little (3 lbs. from last weeks food fest damage) I'm not all that worried about it. I like what we are doing and I'm pretty satisfied with that feeling.

Tomorrow starts a crazy weekend. Homeschool co-op with a long lunch, rush to clean up for Papa, Dinner, Papa! This weekend should be nice again and we are going to build our garden boxes just like PW ordered me to!

Meal Plan... for three weeks?!

I printed out a month page from my regular old calendar and started plugging away meals. For some reason I got all ambitious (lost in my thoughts during the silence that occurs during the Babe's nap and BigBoy's computer time??) and realized I planned almost THREE WEEKS of meals, give or take. I'm going to post, but realize, this will most likely change. I like looking at meal plans, so thought I would just include everything anyway.

I also made some of my favorite 1 pt. banana muffins. But uh, ooops. forgot the baking soda so they are a bit on the heavy side. still yummy, and the kids and BigDaddy don't care, so oh well. BigBoy was messing around and I had to yank his cooking license for a bit. This was at the exact moment I was supposed to add the soda. Ahh, baking with your kids.

UPDATE: My world has been crushed. my beloved 1 pt. banana muffins are actually- GASP, 2 points. damn. False advertising!

Meal Plan
Monday- White Chicken Chili, wheat sourdough bread. FF/SF cheesecake pudding with cheery topping
Tuesday- Stir Fry Salmon (making this up, will report back), spaghetti squash, fried rice
Wednesday- Chicken Cesar Salads, Baked Potatoes, MYO Pizzas for the kids?
Thursday- (Weigh-in day) Turkey Bolognese Pasta * Make Banana Bundt Cake for playgroup
Friday- Mac & Cheese for kids, Smart Ones entree for momma (w/added chicken)
Saturday-Vday Breakfast (using extra points) Menu TBD, Meatball subs
Sunday- Batch cooking, chicken. cherry angel food cake?
Monday- Beef Stew
Tuesday- Baked Tilapia, Creamed Spinach
Wednesday- Smothered Pork Chops might try this version
Thursday- Baked Eggs, fruit salad
Friday-Spinach Sausage Soup (Olive Garden recipe that I am going to WW revise)
Saturday- Turkey Meatloaf (defrost and bake, from batch cook)
Sunday-Batch cook?

Next week's thoughts
Monday-Sweet N Sour Crockpot Chicken, fried rice, kimchi?
Tuesday-Salmon
Wednesday-Turkey Sloppy Joes- cook with mom night? * Boil Chicken
Thursday-Chicken Enchiladas, Spanish rice? (WID)
Friday-chicken broth based soup
Saturday/ Sunday??
Monday- Crockpot Turkey chili
Monday's Food Journal:

Food	Units
egg muffin sandwich, spinach, lc cheese. coffee w/milk	5
smart ones entree, ham sammie, ww yogurt, dt. ibc	7
laughing cow cheese, crackers	2
white chicken chili, bread, cherry jello cheesecake pudding dessert	7
Total:	21

Table provided by Roni's Food Tweet, Eat, Post Generator.

Brownies and wine and dip - OH MY!

My Hall Pass Weekend. Get out of (Diet) Jail Free Card. Whatever you want to call it. I did it. And I did it really well.

I think I gained all the weight I lost. But I'm ready to get back on track. I'm still Miss Stuffy Sniff-A-Lot and feeling crappy, but I can't just give up.

It started on Friday. I was feeling exhausted but needed to man-up since I was participating with BigBoy in our home school puppet show. I needed to be a gregarious turtle. I felt anything BUT gregarious. Gross, maybe. But he was soooo excited about his part and BigDaddy was going to be there, along with a real audience. The kids had been working on it all month. I couldn't let him down. But then the million dollar question... "What's for dinner?" I had been in such a rush all day, becoming one with my turtleness and all, that I hadn't started anything and had "soup" on my plan. THAT wasn't happening. Maybe make your own pizzas? That meant being even more creative. Negative. Well, we do have 35 extra points a week..... okay, how about we just get our most favorite pizza in the whole world- just not the XL like we usually do. Done.

After a stellar performance we headed home and crashed. Saturday we did a ton of cleaning and then BigDaddy brought home some Tostitos Lime Chips and Pinot Grigio- why don't you just set me up in a corner with an IV so I have a more direct route? I'm such a cheap date now that a glass or two will get me all liquored up. So one thing junky choice lead to another snack... and so on and so for. Suddenly I have an entire pan full of fresh baked brownies. (In my drunken logic, I wanted to get them out of the way of my diet.) Then Super Bowl, you get the idea. I actually made some chicken soup since we are all sick now and the Babe will almost always eat veggie soup. So I did have some healthiness going on this weekend. Oh and does the spinach in the dip count?? Anyway, I'll include some recipes in case anyone is interested....

My mom's chicken soup (Sopa de Pollo)
Whole young chicken
one onion
a few potatoes
a head to 1/2 head of cabbage
carrots
zucchini
any other veggies you want really

The bird prep: rinse, take out any innards (or whatever they are called) stick in a big pot with an onion (quartered) and cover with seasoning salt and garlic salt. Cover with water, bring to a boil, cover and simmer for a few hours- until the chicken starts to fall apart.

Take out the chicken and de-bone. My mom just chops it up and leaves it all in, I prefer boneless, especially with the kiddos eating it.

Plop it back in the pot. Add your veggies and cook until the potatoes are soft about an hour or so. really, that's it.

Sunday consisted of snacks, dips and more junk...
Paula Dean's Spinach and Artichoke Dip- I did a low-fat version and it still tasted great.
Pico de Gallo and Guac

Meal Plan
Monday- Italian Beef Boardwalk Sandwiches
Tuesday- Turkey Meatloaf mashed cauliflower
Wednesday- Fish Tacos & Bean Burritos, pico de gallo and slaw (combine roni's fish batter recipe with mock lowfat rubios sauce recipe)
Thursday- Mac & Cheese w/ sliced apples (BigBoy's Pick) Steak for the grownups?
Friday- Crock pot Ham & Split Pea Soup salad, crusty bread
Saturday- Left overs

Sunday- Batch cooked baked chicken
Monday- White Bean Chicken Chili (scroll down to friday)
Tuesday- Salmon
Wednesday- Eggs (frittata?)

** I am only doing a week and 1/2 since I am fading already. Need to find some fun sides and maybe a dessert or two.

I actually stuck to my last meal pretty well. It was great having everything all in-house and ready to go. I lost 5 lbs- and then probably found them again. But moving forward...

Meal Plan- take I

I did this late in the week, so I started with Tuesday.

• Tuesday- Mini Meatball Subs, broccoli, sliced apples
• Wednesday- Turkey Chili w/ cornbread muffins (but didn't use the crockpot)
• Thursday- Smothered Pork Chops (I didn't use milk, added a can of mushroom pieces, pepper on the chops), roasted cauliflower. (I just tossed cauliflower with 4 tbls of Newmans Own Light Balsamic Dressing and 2 tbls parm cheese) Baked cinnamon apples for dessert
• Friday- Make your own pizzas, white bean dip, carrots
• Saturday- Mac n cheese (kids) Smart One's frozen dinner (me)
• Sunday- Ham Paninis ** Batch Baked Chicken for the week
• Monday-Chicken Cacciatori with spaghetti squash (how the heck do I cook this?)
• Tuesday- Baked Talapia, broc or green beans
• Wednesday- Chicken Caesar Salads w/ Baked Potatoes?
• Thursday- Bfast for dinner- Baked Eggs, fruit salad, cottage cheese
• Friday- Black Bean Soup (can't find this recipe right now.... will update later.)
• Saturday- Pasta- not sure what yet
• Sunday- Turkey Parmesan Meatloaf?