Lately, there seem to be a lot of studies about how much sleep a person needs to be healthy, aid in weight loss or what ever. I don't seem to fall into any where near enough sleep to be rested, healthy or my weight loss. I work at 5 AM, my alarm goes off at 3:25 and I hit snooze a few times then I get up a little before 4. Here's the kicker, to make sure I get eight hours of sleep I would need to go to bed at....7:30. As if that could EVER happen!
Like most women, when I say I'm going to bed it will still take some time to get into bed - I have a lot to do first. I have to get my clothes ready for the next day (so not to wake up the Hubs or baby), then I get my food ready (if I haven't already), get the things together for my shower, get changed, then go to bed where I will spend several seconds - if not a full minute - putting on my Burt's chap stick. Let me side bar for just a second - Burt's holy Burt's! I'm so addicted to putting on chap stick at night that I cannot sleep until I have a good coating on - but it's not just putting on a good coating, I look like a crazy lady just lying in bed rubbing the golden yellow tube of minty bees wax chap stick on my mouth in slow motion for 20-30 - up to 60 seconds. You know how to you see the crazy lady smearing their lipstick all over their mouth, missing her lips and getting her face but she thinks she looks good - yeah, that's me with my Burt's!
Anyway... back to a 7:30 bed time.... L goes to bed at 8, the baby goes to be around 7:30. If I want to have a conversation with the Hubs, wait for it - WITH OUT INTERRUPTION - I have to wait until after 8. So, lets say I go at 8:30, well, that would be do-able, but then I'm too tired to get off the couch to go to bed. Besides, I might as well wait up to watch the weather, right? Ha! At this point, I'm also too engrossed in whatever we're watching on TV...
I guess I have no other choice but to live with too little sleep and live with the consequences of lack of sleep... I'd rather be tired then miss my family! Who cares if I look crazy - the hubs loves me anyway! ;-) LOL!
Be well!
Monday, February 27, 2012
Wednesday, February 22, 2012
Cinnamon rolls
Having gone through the weight loss process I did, I NEVER thought I could eat a cinnamon roll again. I say that like it was high on my prioiety list when in fact, it was FAR from. I have these moments of wanting to feel "normal" which means eating the way I did before I lost weight. Of course, that would be foolish to do because I'd just gain the weight back. All of that leads to this blog where I make the the foods I miss or want to try in a healthier way.
OK - my point...I made cinnamon rolls! YAY! This is something I put togehter from watching Daphne Oz, on the Chew, and Giada, on the food network. I sort of combined the two and then made it my own. All of this was originally inspired by my sis-in-law - she made homemade (dough from scratch) cinnamon rolls but I couldn't try them because of the sugar.
Daphne used puff pastry, so did I, Giada used a can of crescent roll dough. I guess I'll tell you what I did and you can check out their sites for their recipes. I softened one stick of butter in the microwave, added cinnamon - maybe a tbsp? - then a tsp of vanilla. Then I added some brown sugar. I kept one roll/sheet of the puff pastry folded in thirds and rolled it out so it was long and narrow. From there, I spread half the butter mixture and rolled the dough so I had around a 12" log and repeated with the second piece of pastry dough. I cut the dough into pieces roughly 1 1/2" - 2". Now here's the tricky part. I went all Giada and put brown sugar and chopped pecans into the bottom of a baking dish, put the rolls down and baked them at 375. The first mistake was using a baking dish, the second was the brown sugar. As I watched the rolls fall over and turn messy, I decided to follow the advice of someone who gave feedback on Daphne's recipe and moved them to muffin pans. Let them finish cooking and it was so much better!
Did I add that I FROSTED THEM!!!! Oh yes I did! Frosting was easy, slowly melt 1/2 a stick of butter on a really low heat, add 4 oz of cream cheese cinnamon, sugar and vanilla to make the frosting. Smear the frosting on the roll while the roll is still warm and oh, enjoy!
By the way, the heart shape is merely by chance.
Enjoy - Be well!
OK - my point...I made cinnamon rolls! YAY! This is something I put togehter from watching Daphne Oz, on the Chew, and Giada, on the food network. I sort of combined the two and then made it my own. All of this was originally inspired by my sis-in-law - she made homemade (dough from scratch) cinnamon rolls but I couldn't try them because of the sugar.
Daphne used puff pastry, so did I, Giada used a can of crescent roll dough. I guess I'll tell you what I did and you can check out their sites for their recipes. I softened one stick of butter in the microwave, added cinnamon - maybe a tbsp? - then a tsp of vanilla. Then I added some brown sugar. I kept one roll/sheet of the puff pastry folded in thirds and rolled it out so it was long and narrow. From there, I spread half the butter mixture and rolled the dough so I had around a 12" log and repeated with the second piece of pastry dough. I cut the dough into pieces roughly 1 1/2" - 2". Now here's the tricky part. I went all Giada and put brown sugar and chopped pecans into the bottom of a baking dish, put the rolls down and baked them at 375. The first mistake was using a baking dish, the second was the brown sugar. As I watched the rolls fall over and turn messy, I decided to follow the advice of someone who gave feedback on Daphne's recipe and moved them to muffin pans. Let them finish cooking and it was so much better!
Enjoy - Be well!
Cocoa tomato chicken
I made this for the boys (the Hubs and L) for Valentine's Day - tried to tie the whole cocoa/chocolate thing together. Yeah...so it didn't turn out quite like I thought. Plus, I totally chose the wrong side dish! HAHA - it was a REALLY bad choice for a side.
OK = so, this is a Paula Dean recipe - of course! Essentially, you cook chicken for a few minutes on both sides, remove it from the pan and build the sauce. The sauce has two cans of tomatoes (one sauce, one diced), onions (I used too much), two tbsp of cocoa powder and a little sugar - think I'm missing something here. You get the sauce cooking then add the chicken back it, letting is simmer for 15 minutes, turn the chicken and cook for another 15 minutes.
Yeah, um, Ms. Paula suggests rice as the side...I used mashed potatoes....I should have used rice :-/.
I really enjoyed the chicken but I had a lot of sauce left over - it was so much that I could have frozen it - I didn't. I don't think the boys liked it so much.
As I'm writing this is I realized that this would be great on steak. You could use a denser cut of beef, roll it in flour, brown in the frying pan with some olive oil. From there, build your sauce in the same pan to pick up the drippings. Once it's all set, throw it in the crock pot for a few hours to break down the beef making it more tender.
I would suggest giving this a try - it's worth it. If you're looking for a strong chocolate flavor, you won't get it - you're getting more of a mole sauce.
Enjoy - Be well!
OK = so, this is a Paula Dean recipe - of course! Essentially, you cook chicken for a few minutes on both sides, remove it from the pan and build the sauce. The sauce has two cans of tomatoes (one sauce, one diced), onions (I used too much), two tbsp of cocoa powder and a little sugar - think I'm missing something here. You get the sauce cooking then add the chicken back it, letting is simmer for 15 minutes, turn the chicken and cook for another 15 minutes.
Yeah, um, Ms. Paula suggests rice as the side...I used mashed potatoes....I should have used rice :-/.
I really enjoyed the chicken but I had a lot of sauce left over - it was so much that I could have frozen it - I didn't. I don't think the boys liked it so much.
As I'm writing this is I realized that this would be great on steak. You could use a denser cut of beef, roll it in flour, brown in the frying pan with some olive oil. From there, build your sauce in the same pan to pick up the drippings. Once it's all set, throw it in the crock pot for a few hours to break down the beef making it more tender.
I would suggest giving this a try - it's worth it. If you're looking for a strong chocolate flavor, you won't get it - you're getting more of a mole sauce.
Red soup
I have very wonderful friends and we get together every so often for good food, drinks and we play Pokeno which is sort of like bingo but way better! Anyway, the last Pokeno night my BFF's sister K made red soup. I loved it and asked how to make it; it's a very easy recipe. I decided to make it but my own version; one because I didn't have the ingredients and two because I wanted to control the salt. So, I'm stealing the name and the flavors but not the same way.
Here's my recipe for Red Soup (by the way, this is my first real recipe I've ever come up with):
saute 1/2 onion or shallot in tbsp olive oil
add 1 tbsp chopped garlic
add any left over veggies you may have (I stole this from K's recipe) I used carrots
saute until tender
add 6 cups of stock
1 small can of tomato sauce (again stolen from K)
2 cups of your favorite pasta cooked
add 1 cooked pound of your favorite beef or chicken
one to two boulion cubes to add flavor
salt and pepper to taste
allow to come to a boil and allow to simmer 15 minutes do the flavors have time to blend
The bread - so simple! It's a can of thin crust pizza dough that I cut into pieces, spread with melted butter and sprinkled with paresan cheese and a little garlic powder then baked on 350 for 15 minutes.
Like I said - I got the basic concept from K but I stole it and tweaked it so I could call it my own ;-)! That being said, this is just a concept - you can make this anyway you want. I hope you will!
Enjoy, Be well!
Here's my recipe for Red Soup (by the way, this is my first real recipe I've ever come up with):
saute 1/2 onion or shallot in tbsp olive oil
add 1 tbsp chopped garlic
add any left over veggies you may have (I stole this from K's recipe) I used carrots
saute until tender
add 6 cups of stock
1 small can of tomato sauce (again stolen from K)
2 cups of your favorite pasta cooked
add 1 cooked pound of your favorite beef or chicken
one to two boulion cubes to add flavor
salt and pepper to taste
allow to come to a boil and allow to simmer 15 minutes do the flavors have time to blend
The bread - so simple! It's a can of thin crust pizza dough that I cut into pieces, spread with melted butter and sprinkled with paresan cheese and a little garlic powder then baked on 350 for 15 minutes.
Like I said - I got the basic concept from K but I stole it and tweaked it so I could call it my own ;-)! That being said, this is just a concept - you can make this anyway you want. I hope you will!
Wednesday, February 15, 2012
Cream Cheese Tarts take 2
I think one of my first posts, it was the video I made, was Paula Dean's cream cheese tarts - esentially, they are mini cheese cakes. As with most recipes, I follow the recipe the first go round with the obvious substitutions for sugar and such. The next time, I make it my way - generally, slightly different.
I was getting together with my NH (New Hampshire) girls and needed to bring a dessert so I decided to make the tarts again. They are so easy and tasty! I'm not going to go too far into the recipe, I'll just add that I used real butter (which I think it calls for) and I used the Sugar/Stevia blend - so tasty. YUM!
The tarts are topped with a fresh strawberry or blueberry sauce I made. The sauce is really easy, it's fruit, sugar and a corn starch/water mixture for thickening. Cook it on the stove to soften the fruit, from there, I let it cool so when I put it on the tarts, it won't melt them.
Somehow, I had a lot of the cream cheese mixture left over so I lines an 8 x 8 glass baking dish with Nilla Waffers pour the mix in, added waffers to the sides to make a side crust and then baked it for 20-25 minutes. Have to tell you, I liked that so much more than the tarts - flavor was better.
Enjoy - Be well!
I was getting together with my NH (New Hampshire) girls and needed to bring a dessert so I decided to make the tarts again. They are so easy and tasty! I'm not going to go too far into the recipe, I'll just add that I used real butter (which I think it calls for) and I used the Sugar/Stevia blend - so tasty. YUM!
The tarts are topped with a fresh strawberry or blueberry sauce I made. The sauce is really easy, it's fruit, sugar and a corn starch/water mixture for thickening. Cook it on the stove to soften the fruit, from there, I let it cool so when I put it on the tarts, it won't melt them.
Somehow, I had a lot of the cream cheese mixture left over so I lines an 8 x 8 glass baking dish with Nilla Waffers pour the mix in, added waffers to the sides to make a side crust and then baked it for 20-25 minutes. Have to tell you, I liked that so much more than the tarts - flavor was better.
Blueberry Almond Muffins
Who says you can't eat muffins while trying to loose weight or stay healthy? If you make them from scratch, they can be what ever you want. I am blessed that my mother has all her dad's recipes and has passed them on to me and the siblings. I want to keep those recipes close to home so I won't be sharing them, just yet.
You may be wondering why I'm telling you about it then, well, it's more the concept that I'm sharing. In these muffins, my grandfather used "lard" or "fat", I use butter - the real thing. (I have switched to real butter versus margarine, figure if I'm going to bother using fat it might as well be less processed than it has to be.) The I increased the amount of fruit because I like to have a lot of blueberries! The nuts were added simply because I had them. The biggest change I made though was the sugar. I have been cooking with a Splenda/sugar blend however, I ran out and the grocery store didn't have any either. In stead, the hubs found a Domino sugar/Stevia blend. I promise this is sooooo much better than the Splenda blend. It tastes far more like real sugar - could even say better than real sugar. It works the same as Splenda - 1 cup of sugar = 1/2 cup of the blend.
Again, take your favorite recipe and adjust accordingly.
Enjoy - Be well!
You may be wondering why I'm telling you about it then, well, it's more the concept that I'm sharing. In these muffins, my grandfather used "lard" or "fat", I use butter - the real thing. (I have switched to real butter versus margarine, figure if I'm going to bother using fat it might as well be less processed than it has to be.) The I increased the amount of fruit because I like to have a lot of blueberries! The nuts were added simply because I had them. The biggest change I made though was the sugar. I have been cooking with a Splenda/sugar blend however, I ran out and the grocery store didn't have any either. In stead, the hubs found a Domino sugar/Stevia blend. I promise this is sooooo much better than the Splenda blend. It tastes far more like real sugar - could even say better than real sugar. It works the same as Splenda - 1 cup of sugar = 1/2 cup of the blend.
Again, take your favorite recipe and adjust accordingly.
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