Crash Bang Boom

Well, despite a small voting percentage on my last poll, the general concensus is that those of you who read my blog enjoy it as is and I don't need to change anything. I've been on a blog reading spree myself, and for anyone who is interested, some of my favorites are:

http://www.sweettoothsweetlife.com/
http://www.hungrymeetshealthy.com/
http://www.hungryrunnergirl.com/

Moving on!

Unfortunately I won't have a blog entry this week. The wounded memory card in Randy's camera finally died and I lost all my pictures from this past week. I will have to use my Iphone to take pictures of this week's eats. Booo!

I will say this week was highlighted by a trip to Jungle Jim's as well as copious amounts of fudge brownie frozen yogurt.

Sorry folks! I will update again sometime this upcoming week.

Dockside Restaurant

Randy and I originally had plans to check out the Dockside Restaurant in Botwood on Friday but since it was 27 degrees out here on Friday, we decided to break out the barbecue again and postpone our Dockside trip to the next day.

Randy made some homemade hamburgers with lean ground beef, chopped onion, salt, pepper, and steak spice and threw them on the BBQ along with some fresh corn on the cob. As an extra side, I also threw some McCain spicy fries in the oven:

Randy's burgers were awesome; super juicy and not dry at all. And with the addition of the corn on the cob, I really felt like summer was here! (this thought was soon to be dashed by the fact that the next day was 5 degrees outside).

On Saturday, we made our way out to the Dockside Restaurant in Botwood. We wanted to try a decent restaurant and had exhausted all of our options here in Grand Falls. We had heard a lot of nice things about the Dockside restaurant so since it was only 25 minutes away, we decided to drive out there for supper.

The Dockside is a small restaurant basically on the water in Botwood and doubles as an inn as well. The inside is very cozy and quaint and we arrived eager to get our grub on.

We were first served with some delicious rolls which you could tell were homemade. I couldn't taste it as much as I wanted to, unfortunately, because I was suffering from a nasty head cold:

As an appetizer, I ordered the strawberry spinach salad:

This salad was awesome. Unlike so many strawberry spinach salads that I have ordered at other places, this salad didn't come drenched in a creamy poppyseed dressing. Instead, it had a very light vinaigrette type dressing and was the perfect start to my meal. My only complaint would be that I wanted a few more strawberries.

For his starter, Randy ordered the soup of the day which was a Turkey Vegetable soup:

Randy's turkey vegetable soup was delicious and homemade - the only downside he said was that it seemed a little too sweet which he rectified by adding extra pepper.

For my main course, I ordered a chicken and mushroom crepe with mashed potatoes and the vegetables of the day:

The crepe was amazing. Fresh mushrooms and chicken inside a light, fluffy crepe with gravy inside and outside. I loved it and the portion size was just right. Just enough to make me satisfied without being overly full.

For Randy's main, he ordered the braised lamb chops with french fries:

Randy enjoyed this meal - he said it was a good portion, well-cooked, and not a whole lot of seasoning which was actually a good thing. The fries were crispy and not overcooked and he ate about 2/3's of them (I snacked on a few as well).

We decided to split a dessert and went with the chocolate cheesecake:

The dessert was pretty decent. Not as good as 48 High's cheesecake, but tasty nonetheless and I was glad we decided to split it. The perfect amount of sweetness to finish off our meal!

With reasonably priced and delicious food, I would definitely recommend the Dockside Restaurant!

On Sunday, I made a Weight Watchers chicken spinach meatloaf of one of my previous posts. It only has 5 ingredients: spinach, ground chicken, onion soup mix, breadcrumbs, and an egg and is really simple and tasty. I served it alongside some Parmsean flavoured Sidekicks and a garden salad with cucumber, tomatoes, and balsamic vinaigrette:

I also enjoyed a little dessert afterwards courtesy of my brother who brought me back some tasty Irish Truffles from his travels in Europe:

Thanks Chase!

Today, I fried up some ground turkey and made tacos complete with green pepper, tomato, spicy salsa, sour cream and romano cheese:

Messy looking I know, but it's hard to get a decent picture of a taco! With the taco seasoning I used, you'd never know these weren't beef tacos and by using turkey, I saved some of the fat and calories. I enjoyed three of these and then relaxed on the couch before Randy and I trekked out to McDonald's for a soft serve.

Shoutouts from the past few days go to: McDonald's vanilla cones, licorice, and spicy hummus.

Here's Sebastian being ultra comfortable:

Not Yo Nachos

Before I jump right into today's entry, I just wanted to let you guys know that I have finally changed the topic of my poll. I have been reading quite a few food, fitness, and healthy living blogs and all of them have different styles and topics. So with that in mind, I changed my poll to see if there's anything the readers of this (if there are still any of you out there) would like to see more or less of in my blog. So vote and let me know what you think!

Tuesday was a pretty decent day here so Randy fired up the barbecue. I had picked up a box of boneless, skinless chicken breasts from M & M meats so he put one on the grill for me and a t-bone steak for himself. As a side, I made a simple spinach salad with cucumber and chopped tomato and a balsamic vinaigrette dressing as well as some homemade mashed potatoes with a little sour cream mixed in:

Randy's t-bone steak before:

(Notice how he globbed the ranch dressing on? I like to think my salad looks more elegant)  And after:

Yesterday I went with a Rachael Ray Recipe from my "Book of 10" Cookbook that my brother gave me for Christmas. The recipe was entitled "Shrimp and Pork Balls with Coconut Curried Noodles". I'm not going to post the recipe for this for a few reasons: it's super long and I don't honestly know if I will make it again. It was really, really tasty but requires a lot of prep work and a lot of dishes. Here's a sample of some of my prepped ingredients:

Grated ginger, carrot, chopped green onion, and sliced red pepper

And this is the finished product: Meatballs made of shredded shrimp, pork, green onion, ginger and various spices a top linguine noodles tossed with onions, ginger, pepper, carrots, coconut milk, chicken broth, and various spices:

And again:

Preparing this dish was a whirlwind. Not only did I use about a million dishes (which I moaned and groaned about when it came time to wash them) but it also required a lot of prep work and took quite a long time to prepare.

Randy and I had a difference of opinion about this dish. I loved it. If you enjoy Indian food, this dish is for you. The curry powder and ginger are very distinct in the dish and it has a bit of a kick to it spice-wise. I LOVED it. I don't know if I would make it again for the simple fact that it required so much work (both in prep, cooking, and cleanup) but I really enjoyed it. Randy said it was "okay" and commented that it tasted pretty lemon-y, which I attribute to the grated ginger. If you like ginger, you will enjoy this dish. If you don't, then it's probably not for you.

Today, I got quite a few workouts in. I did an hour and a half of Yoga from my P90 X dvd's, did a quick 2 km run, and then went for a 3 km walk with Randy after school - it was beautiful outside here today! So what do you do when you workout a lot? Why, eat half a pack of bacon, of course.

We had some leftover Tostitos from the nachos Randy made in my last post so I decided to make nachos myself but substitute bacon for the beef. I baked (yes, baked...it is the new way to go for bacon) about half a pack of bacon and topped the nachos with green onion, chopped bacon, and mozzarella cheese:

I had a Miller Lite beer while I prepared these and then Randy and I attacked them while watching last week's episode of Top Chef Canada (go Todd!). If they look like they are a little skimpy on cheese, it's because I ran out but they were still pretty darn good!

Tomorrow Randy and I are going to check out a steakhouse in Botwood that is supposed to be half decent.

Shoutouts from the past few days go to: Dark-chocolate filled mousse chocolates, red licorice, Toppables crackers with spicy hummus

Here's Sebastian chilling out when I taught in Makkovik (that couch was the BEST nap couch ever):

May 24 Weekend

Hope everyone had a safe and happy May 24th weekend! As for me, I didn't do too much. It snowed here on Saturday. Yes, snowed. So the thought of roughing it in a tent or cabin was not a great idea in my books. I spent most of the weekend chilling out on my couch with a mixture of Sebastian, wine, and copious amounts of chips (I may or may not have polished off a big bag of Spicy Nacho Doritos by myself).

On Wednesday, Randy barbecued the leftover hotdogs we had and while I didn't get a picture of them, they were delicious.

On Thursday, I actually felt like cooking so I went with a Sausage and Pepper Po'Boy recipe from my Emeril 20-40-60 cookbook again. I wasn't sure what a Po'Boy was (and still aren't) but since it's a southern Louisiana/New Orleans cajun type cookbook, I figured it was some sort of sandwich and I had everything on hand so I went with it. Emeril describes this recipe as:
             "my rendition of the traditional Italian sandwich, which is also popular at New York City's
              street festivals - it is a favorite at the San Gennaro festival in Little Italy.  I have added
              a New Orleans spin here by kicking up the mayo with a little Louisiana hot sauce."

For 4 servings (I halved all of the below measurements to create 2 servings), you'll need:
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
- 1 red bell pepper (thinly sliced)
- 1 green bell pepper, thinly sliced
- 2 cups sliced yellow onions
- 2 teaspoons Emeril's Creole Seasoning (see my blog entry on Turkey Soup for the seasoning recipe)
- 1 teaspoons Italiano herbs
- 1 pound mild Italian sausage, removed from casings and crumbled
- 1/2 cup mayonnaise
- 1 tablespoon hot sauce
- 1 loaf soft French bread (I just used sub sandwich rolls)
- 4 ounces sliced provolone cheese

1. In a large saute pan, heat the olive oil over medium-high heat. When the oil is hot, add the bell peppers, onions, Creole seasoning, and Italiano herbs. Cook until the vegetables have softened, 4 to 5 minutes.

Transfer the peppers and onions to a paper-towel lined plate.

2. Add the crumbled sausage to the hot pan and cook until the meat is cooked through and lightly browned, about 5 minutes. Set aside.

3, Preheat the broiler.

4. In a small bowl, combine the mayo and hot sauce.

5. To assemble the po-boys, spread the cut sides of each piece of bread with the spicy mayonnaise.

Divide the sausage evenly among the bread, then top evenly with the peppers and onions.

And a close up- shot (I sliced the sub rolls in half):

Arrange the cheese slices over the filled subs. Place the sandwich halves on a baking sheet, cheese side up, and heat under the broiler until the cheese melts, 1 to 2 minutes. Serve immediately.

Since the sandwiches were so full, I served the rest of the sliced peppers with some spicy hummus as a side:

These sandwiches were fan-freakin-tastic. The combination of the sausage and creole seasoning (as well as the spicy mayo) gave the sandwiches a bit of a kick without being overwhelmingly spicy.Very tasty. And very filling! Neither one of us was able to finish both halves of our sandwich.

On Friday, Randy took me out to Don Cherry's for a meal. We both worked that day and were feeling like relaxing over a decent (but not too pricy) meal. We started our meal off with the usual, two pints of Coors:

I ordered the Fajita Wrap with a side Garden Salad. The fajita wrap was a mixture of chicken, salsa, sour cream, peppers, and cheese:

I had a raspberry vinaigrette for my salad dressing. The salad was meh, nothing special. Typical garden salad and the lettuce seemed like it had seen better days. The wrap was decent, although you can tell by the picture that there was way too much sour cream in it. Good thing I could swim in drink sour cream. I ate all my salad and half my wrap, saving the other half for when we got home.

Randy ordered a rack of ribs with fries and a side of gravy:

Randy really enjoyed his ribs and was enjoying his fries...that is, until he found a long, nasty hair in his gravy. That pretty much put the brakes on the fries. He called over our waitress (who, although nice, was very irritating. Every time she would come over to bring us something or check on us, she'd always say "Hi there" in a very high-pitched voice. We said hello to you when we came in - it's cool, we're acquainted. You don't need to say hi EVERY time you come over. But anyway, I digress) to tell her about his wonderful find. She apologized and said she would take the gravy off the bill.

Exsqueeze me? Take the gravy off the bill?

Is it just me, or should we not have gotten a discount on the entire bill? That was one nasty hair. Taking 75 cents off of a 40-50 dollar bill doesn't really compensate for the fact that Randy could no longer enjoy his whole meal, in my mind. Dummy waitress.

Randy was contemplating not tipping her at all, but I told him we should give her something - after all, it was the chef/cook's fault for the hair, she was just the one who served it to us. So we left her a tiny tip, enough to show it wasn't her fault but to also show she should have done more about it. Slick ones, aren't we? :)

On Saturday, we didn't really cook a meal as such. Randy picked up some fresh scallops and made bacon-wrapped scallops so we snacked on those. There was a big difference between these and the frozen pre-made ones: they just tasted a lot fresher (obviously) and we let Sebastian enjoy one as well as his reward for winning the Survivor pool (yes, our cat was in our Survivor pool. Damn you, Boston Rob!). I also ate copious amounts of chips.

Yesterday, I went with an oldie but a goodie: Pad Thai:

Randy wasn't in the mood for Pad Thai so he just made some soup with crackers.

Today, I went with a recipe from the Mexican section of my Weight Watchers cookbook "Take-out Tonight". The recipe is for Spinach, Rice, and Black Bean Quesadillas. I didn't take a picture of this because I scarfed it before I remembered to snap a pic but it was pretty tasty! Healthy with few ingredients and actually didn't taste like a "diet" burrito.

Shoutouts from the past few days go to: Brownie frozen yogurt, Cadbury Creme Eggs, and Spicy Naco Doritos.

Check out Sebastian in his Italian Vogue photo shoot:

And since I forgot it earlier, a prep shot of me chopping peppers for the Sausage and Pepper Po-Boy

Easter Junk - why do you mock me?

Yep, believe it or not, we still have Easter junk. Granted, we have certainly put a major dent in our once overflowing Easter baskets but there is still a nice bit left. Randy said he actually had a dream a few nights ago that he made me throw it all out. Never! I don't like wasting food, period, and I sure don't like wasting chocolate.

Saturday evening I successfully convinced Randy to make his yummy beef nachos to enjoy with a beer or two. He fried up some extra lean ground beef with Frank's Red Hot Sauce, cajun seasoning, and salt and pepper. We also had some jalapenos in the house so he included these on the nachos, creating this delicious nacho pile:

We also had some light sour cream and medium salsa alongside this. These nachos were spicy. My eyes were watering and my nose running the entire time, but it was worth it because they were so good. When we were eating these, there was a "The Best Thing I Ever Ate" episode on the Food Network and it featured the best foods involving bacon. A show about bacon and a tray full of nachos? I was in foodie heaven.

I also made a Shrimp Dip for the weekend from a recipe in my Makkovik cookbook. I combined one cup of mayonnaise with about two cups of grated marble cheese, a sprinkling of onion powder, one tablespoon lemon juice, a few squirts of hot sauce, and two tablespoons of worcestshire sauce. Oh, and a can of baby shrimp, of course. I finished it off by sprinkling some paprika on the top and refridgerated it for a few hours:

I thought this dip was great. However, I dipped plain chips in it and it turned out to be quite a thick dip so a lot of the chips broke off in it. I think it would work better as a spread for crackers instead.

On Sunday, I had some leftover ground beef in the fridge from Randy's nachos so I went with a recipe for chili macaroni and cheese in my Emeril 20-40-60 cookbook. This is the same cookbook of my previous posts involving Linguine Alla Carbonara and Chicken Vegetable Soup. The title for this recip is "Better than Mama's Chili Macaroni and Cheese". It calls for:
- 2 teaspoons olive oil
- 2 medium onions, cut into small dice
- 2 jalapenos, minced and stemmed
- 2 to 3 teaspoons salt
- 2 pounds extra lean ground beef
- 5 tablespoons chili powder
- 1 tablespoon oregano
- 2 tablespoons minced garlic
- One 28 ounce can of whole plum tomatoes, broken with your hands, including the juices
- Two 15 ounce cans kidney beans, drained
- 1/2 cup water
- 1 pound elbow macaroni
- 1 pound medium sharp cheddar cheese (I just used marble)
- Sour cream, for serving (optional)

*** If I were to make this again, I would definitely half the recipe. I ended up with two BIG casserole dishes worth of it!

I don't have any prep shots because, as Randy can attest to, I made a gigantic mess in the kitchen preparing this. Anyway, on with the directions!

1. Heat the olive oil in a soup pot over medium-high heat. Add the onions, jalapenos, and 2 teaspoons of the salt. Cook until the onions are soft, about two minutes. Add the ground beef, chili powder, oregano, and garlic and cook, breaking up any clumps of meat with a spoon, for five minutes. Add the tomatoes and their juices, beans, and water. Stir, and bring the chili to a boil. Then reduce the heat to a simmer and cook until thickened to chili consistency, about 20 minutes. Taste, and add one more teaspoon of salt if needed.

2. While the chili is simmering, preheat the oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit.

3. Boil the macaroni and cook until just tender, about 6 mins. Drain and rinse under cool running water; set aside. Grate the cheddar cheese and set aside.

4. Once the chili has finished cooking, fold in the cooked macaroni and 1/3 of the cheese. Transfer the chili-mac micture to a casserole or baking dish and top with the remaining cheese. Bake until the chili is heated through and the cheese has melted, about 10 minutes.

5. Remove from the oven and let cool for 5 minutes before serving. Garnish each portion with a dollop of sour cream.

This is what it came out like:

This was a tasty, different spin on a traditional macaroni and cheese dish and Randy and I both enjoyed it. He took leftovers to work yesterday and today, and I even have two containers full of it in the freezer! The recipe says makes six to eight servings but I think it's way more than that.

Yesterday, I went with a Weight Watchers recipe from my newest Weight Watchers cookbook "Take-Out Tonight". This cookbook offers traditional calorie-laden takeout meals in the form of healthier, home-made do-over's. I picked a recipe from the Italian section for Vegetable Calzones.

For this recipe, you'll need:
- 3/4 cup warm water
- 1 teaspoon sugar
- 1 package active dry yeast
- 2 cups all-purpose flour
- 1/2 cup whole wheat flour
- 3/4 teaspoon salt
- 1 large egg (I actually forgot this...whoops!)
- 1 cup shredded part-skim mozzarella cheese
- 3/4 cup part skim ricotta cheese
- 2 plum tomatoes, chopped
- 1/2 green bell pepper, chopped
- 3 scallions, thinly sliced
- 2 tablespoons chopped fresh basil (I used dried)
- 1/4 teaspoon fresh ground pepper

1. Combine the water and sugar in a small bowl. Sprinkle in the yeast and let stand until foamy, about 5 minutes.

2. Combine the all purpose flour, whole wheat flour, and salt. Add the yeast mixture and egg, and form a smooth ball.

3. Spray a large bowl with nonstick spray; put the dough in the bowl. Cover tightly with plastic wrap and let the dough rise in a warm, draft-free place until it doubles in size, about 1 hour.

4. Meanwhile, combine the mozzarella, ricotta, tomatoes, bell pepper, scallions, basil, and pepper in a medium bowl.

5. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit. Spray a baking sheet with nonstick spray- set aside.

6. Punch down the dough. Sprinkle a work surface lightly with flour. Turn the dough onto the surface and cut into 6 pieces. Knead each piece lightly, then roll each piece into a 6 inch circle. Put 1/6 of the cheese mixture on half of each circle, then brush the edges lightly with water. Fold the dough over the filling - crimp the edges to seal. Transfer the calzones to the baking sheet:

Okay, so they're not the most attractive looking things in the world...

Make three 1-inch slashes on the top of each with a sharp knife. Bake until golden - about 20 minutes.

This makes six servings, which I actually did make, but got Randy to take the picture before I finished making them all. Each calzone is 304 calories and seven grams of fat. I served the calzones with a side spinach salad with mushrooms, the leftover green pepper, and some balsamic vinaigrette dressing:

These calzones were not bad, not good, they just...were. To be honest, there wasn't a whole lot of taste in them. I didn't hate them but I'm not sure I will bother making them again. It was a lot of work for something that wasn't really much of anything.

This is a picture I snapped the other day of my two favorite boys:

Aren't they cute? I think Sebastian is at the epitome of comfort.

Shoutouts from the past few days go to : Peanut Butter M$M's, fresh raspberries, and chocolate easter bunnies

A Trip to 48 High

Happy Sunday, everyone! I hope you're all relaxing and anticipating the long weekend next week! As for me, I won't be camping. Sleeping on the ground is not high on my list of fun activities.

Wednesday was the day before grocery shopping so as I'm sure you all know by now, groceries and meal ideas were pretty sparse. We had two chicken breasts left in the freezer so Randy so kindly volunteered to barbecue them, despite it being freezing outside. He made a mixture of Onion BBQ sauce and Frank's Red-Hot Sauce and got to work outside while I prepped things inside. To go with the chicken breasts, I made a Sidekicks chicken and broccoli noodle package andd served some canned peas and carrots alongside it:

If you know me at all, you know that peas are one vegetable I cannot stand. I hate the texture and the taste just doesn't jive with me. But since we didn't have any fresh veggies on hand and I felt like I should healthify this meal a little, I sucked it up and ate a few. I wasn't as repulsed as I have been before, but I'm still no fan. Peas will forever be my 'in case of veggie emergency' vegetable.

Thursday was a pretty rushed day - I had to take my car in to get its winter tires off (resulting in a MUCH smoother ride), my mom was stopping in town for a little while, and it was grocery day. So needless to say, my supper was a mish-mash of quick and easy to throw together items. I had some lasagna in the freezer that our landlords had given us a few days back, so I heated that up and served it with some homemade garlic bread (buttered toast topped with garlic powder, bacon bits, and marble cheese put in the oven until the cheese melted) and some boiled carrot rounds topped with a little pepper:



Not too bad for a thrown together meal after lugging home a boatload of groceries! Lasagna is a meal that my tastebuds have definitely warmed up to as I got older. I can remember being forced to eat it when I was younger and visiting friends and family with my parents and being completely revolted. But now, what's not to like? Meat, pasta, and cheese. I'm in.

Friday, Randy took me out to 48 High - the classiest (and most expensive) restaurant in Grand Falls. We don't go very often because it is fairly pricey but I've had several tasty meals here. We started things off with a 1/2 liter of white wine and then proceeded to order some appetizers. Randy got the Sweet Chili Pork soup:

 He said it had a lot of flavour and just reminded him of simple, good homemade soup. I ordered a spinach salad for my appetizer:

This was unlike any other spinach salad I've ordered before. It came with bits of real bacon and egg in it! I was in love. The mushrooms were really fresh as well and it came with diced tomato, a little sprinkling of cheese, and a side of creamy poppyseed dressing. I was a huge fan of this salad. Bacon really does make everything better.

For an entree, Randy went with the special: a raspberry venison. It came with a side of rice and some veggies:

Very photographable, don't you think? I was really pretty surprised that Randy ordered this; he's not a fan of fruit in "untraditional" food settings (like strawberries in a salad). Randy thought it was well cooked but he really was not a fan of the raspberry so he wasn't head over heels for this dish. He said the rice was dry, tasteless, and bland. Not a huge win on his end!

As for me, I ordered the Chicken Pesto Fuscilli:

I've got to learn how to take non-blurry photos on my Iphone! Grrrr.

This meal was delicious. It was thin slices of chicken breast tossed with rainbow pasta, olive oil, cheese and sauteed spinach, roasted red pepper, onion, and grated carrot. I really enjoyed this meal. But like most restaurant pasta dishes, it came in a massive portion size so I ate about half and asked for the rest to be boxed up so I could save room for this:

A decadent vanilla bean cheesecake. Our server told us the vanilla cheesecake is the "best in town". Well, I don't know how competitive the cheesecake world is in Grand Falls, but this was really delicious. Randy and I split it but I could have easily consumed the entire thing on my one. It was soft, rich (but not too rich) and not too heavy-feeling. We finished the evening off with a Chocolate Biscuit martini (Randy) and a Margarita (me). We left with happy hearts and tummies, for sure.

Shoutouts from Wednesday to Friday go to: Vanilla Bean Cheesecake (duh), Shrimp Dip (made by yours truly...recipe to come!), and Coffee Crisp Easter Eggs.

Here's Sebastian helping himself to my glass of water:

April Showers bring May...Cold?

Turns out Saturday was just a cruel tease. Today, it's a lovely 5 degrees, cloudy, and windy outside. Hmmph! Come on, summer!

On Sunday, I took two salmon fillets out of the freezer for supper. I had some bottled Teriyaki Marinade left over from several entries back when I made a Beef Satay with Peanut Sauce so I poured some in a ziploc bag and let the fillets marinate in it for a solid five hours or so.

I baked them in a casserole dish (along with the extra marinade) at 350 for about 20 minutes and served with a baked sweet potato and some of the leftover caesar salad from Saturday's BBQ:

Marinating the salmon all day was definitely a good call. It was tasty, moist, and not too fishy at all. The baked sweet potato was...meh. I really enjoy sweet potato fries but turns out, that's the only way I like them so far. I hadn't yet had a baked sweet potato and lacking the patience (and sharp knives) to turn my sweet potato into fries, I figured baking it would be just as good (and much easier). I was wrong. Better stick to the fries.

I realized that I have a massive bag of chocolate chips left over from my Christmas Cookie Bake-a-thon and since I will be moving out of here in a month and a half and I hate to waste food, I wanted to make some chocolate chip muffins with them. Not wanting something too fatty and heavy, I searched the Internet for a decent low-fat chocolate chip muffin recipe. I hit the jackpot! I found a 'Cooking Light' low-fat and low calorie chocolate chip muffin recipe that is light and fluffy and delicious. Now, I have made low-fat muffins before. And they lacked...well, taste (Jillian Michaels, this one's for you). So needless to say, I embarked upon this recipe with a healthy dose of skepticism in my brain. But holy moly, I was in for a pleasant surprise. So here you have it: Low Fat Chocolate Chip Muffins (courtesy of Cooking Light):

You will need:
- 1 1/3 cups whole wheat pastry flour (I did not have pastry flour so I substituted half all-purpose flour and half whole wheat flour)
- 2/3 cup all purpose flour
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1 whole egg, plus one additional egg white
- 1 cup fat free plain or vanilla yogurt (I used vanilla)
- 2 tablespoons canola oil
- 1/2 cup skim milk
- 1/3 cup brown sugar
- 2 teaspoons vanilla
- 3/4 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees and spray a 6 cup jumbo (or 12 cup standard) muffin tin with cooking spray (or use paper liners) and set aside.

In a large bowl, combine flours, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.

In a separate bowl, whisk together eggs, yogurt, oil, milk, brown sugar, and vanilla.

Add the dry ingredients to the wet and stir until everything is just moistened:

Fold in the chocolate chips:

Spoon the batter into muffin cups, filling them about 2/3 full. Bake for 20-25 minutes, or until golden brown and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Wait 10-15 minutes for them to cook before removing from the pan:

Yum! The nutritional information for these (if you use a normal 12 cup muffin tray instead of a jumbo 6 cup one) are: 131 calories, 2 grams fat  (with zero grams of saturated and trans fats!). I enjoyed one this morning for breakfast, warmed with a little butter. Delicious!

I'm afraid I don't have too many exciting or innovative meals to report as...you guessed it...Thursday is grocery day!

Looking once again to use up stuff around the house, I defrosted some leftover hamburger casserole I had frozen a few weeks back and had that for supper on Monday along with some canned corn:

Yesterday, Randy so generously agreed to barbecue some hot dogs despite it being freezing outside. I have had barbecued hot dogs on the brain ever since our barbecue on Saturday so while I was at work on Monday (subbing for my boyfriend, the nerve!), Randy picked up some All-beef, no by-products weiners and on Tuesday barbecued them for us. I served them with some spicy McCain crispy fries:

I had a blob accident with the ketchup as you can see but damn, sometimes all it takes is a couple of basic hot dogs to hit the spot.

Shoutouts from the past few days go to: Mr.Solid Easter Bunny (which I ate half of in one sitting), Kashi Punpkin Spice bars, and chunky Skippy peanut butter

Here's a shot Randy got of Sebastian interrupting my yoga workout, as per usual: