The Singing Christmas Tree

I'm finally getting around to posting yesterday's photos. I started the day off by making Cranberry Orange Muffins, Baker's Corner brand from Aldi. These muffins were pretty good. They had a great flavor. They were a little sweet for my taste, but probably no sweeter than any other muffin mix.

They got sort of over done on the outside. I'm not sure if it's my oven or what. I baked the muffins according to package directions, but for some reason they got a little over done on the bottom first, while the top was not, so I turned the broiler on to brown them a little on top, but that didn't solve the problem because they were also not done in the middle. Well in order to get the middle done I had to let them bake a little longer. I did lower the temp, but they still got a little darker than I prefer. It didn't effect the taste or anything, but I was not happy  with the way they looked.

Luckily I was happy with the way they tasted. I put a little cranberry orange relish on mine. The tartness of the relish went wonderfully with the sweetness of the muffin.

For lunch I had leftover vegetable noodle soup with my corny cornbread.

I crumbled the cornbread up into my soup. It was really good this way.

Dinner turned out to be a series of snacks. First off, I had some flour tortilla chips with a mixture of several different packets of duck sauce.

I sprayed a little cooking spray on each side of a flour tortilla cut into wedges and toasted it up in my toaster oven. I didn't let them get as crisp as I would have liked, but they were still pretty good.

My second dinner/snack was a couple of slices of Muenster cheese with a couple of dill pickle spears.

After the snacks I was headed to the church to see Lexi perform in the Singing Christmas Tree program. As some of you know, my people pictures aren't too good. It took the entire Christmas program to figure out which setting my camera needed to be on; by then it was over. BTW this was not taken on the right setting, but it's still not the worst picture I took. I will keep taking crappy photos and hopefully one of these days, I will at least get better at it.

After the program they served snacks and punch, so for my third & final snack, I had a glass of punch and what I called a pms bar and this, which I call goo cake.

We had a good time at the program watching Lexi perform and playing with Mary. They did such a good job. I was too tired last night to get this posted and the girls were here early today. I also finally got my tree decorated. I'd contemplated just leaving it bare, since it's only a week until Christmas, but I went ahead and decorated it. I usually leave it up for a week after Christmas anyway. I'll try and post pictures later.  Have a great night and a great day tomorrow!!!

Mystery Muffin

I'm chilly this morning for some reason. It is down to 59 degrees this morning, but I don't suppose that's so cool. It didn't help that I had a cool breakfast. Speaking of breakfast, yesterday was another Banana Pudding smoothie. Just a few days without them, but I have really enjoyed having them again. I'm still disappointed when I get to the bottom of the glass. I probably couldn't hold any more, but I drink it so quickly, my brain doesn't know it yet.

 

 

I had a Weight Watchers Smart Ones Four Cheese Pizza for lunch. It cooks in the microwave. Well, you know how microwaved pizza can be.

Actually this one wasn't bad. I do have to say it's the best microwaved one I've had. It comes with a silver disk that the pizza sits on while cooking, which helps brown and crisp the bottom of the pizza. The down side is that the top never browns. It was one of the whitest pizzas I've ever eaten also.

I was worried that the bread would become tough and chewy, but this was not the case. It also tasted pretty good. I've actually had oven pizza that didn't taste as good. Do I prefer this to one fresh from the oven? Uh..NO, but for a quick one person meal, I would eat it again.

 

I also had some of my hummus with carrots.

 

Now for the Mystery Muffin which I found in my freezer. It wasn't labeled with what kind of muffin, so I defrosted it to find out.

 

Any guesses? Should I tell you now or make you wait? In hope of getting some comments, I think maybe I should wait. I will tell you this much, it was yummy and delicious and it was the kind I was hoping it would be. I don't have a prize for the right answer, but I hope to get to that point eventually.

 

I had a little snack mix about an hour or two before dinner. It was a sweet salty mix, more sweet than salty. I prefer it the other way around, but it served the purpose. Sometimes when mixes are just right, I add things to them to make them better. Unfortunately at the time I didn't think of it and I really didn't have anything to add anyway.

 

For dinner I had the last of the Stouffer's mac & cheese with a few add-ins. Yesterday's add-ins were petite diced tomatoes, red bell pepper, onion and taco seasoning.

 

This was good but I do love mac & cheese with just plain tomatoes, no other add-ins needed.

I really should have and would have loved to have had a salad with this, but I needed to finish it off to avoid tossing it. Lucas and I were the only ones to eat a party size pan. Dale refuses to eat anything, but the crap in the blue box. Hopefully I can work off some of it this evening at Zumba. I would have loved going for a walk this morning, but I don't think I'm up for both and I prefer Zumba. Come back tomorrow and I promise I will let you in on the flavor of the  Mystery Muffin. You can subscribe if you like, via email or rss. Follow me on Twitter also where I post a link to every new blog post. Don't forget to hit the StumbleUpon button if you like the blog. Thanks!! Happy Tuesday!

Finally Blueberry Muffins

Well I finally got around to making the blueberry muffins. I used the Multi Muffin Mix recipe + 3/4 C. of blueberries, which didn't knock a dent in what I have, so I guess I will have to freeze some. They turned out very well. They did take a little longer to brown in my oven. I used to complain about my old stove when I started taking longer to bake things, then I finally got a brand new stove and it takes longer in it than in the old stove. I was very disappointed, but I did get the glass top instead of the round burners. The top heats up fast.

 

The original recipe calls for an additional 2 Tbsp. of sugar for the blueberry muffins, but I think 3 would be better. They were good, but my blueberries were a little tart, so a slightly sweeter muffin would have been better I think. I also added 1/4 c. oatmeal & 1 Tbsp. of ground flax. I spread a little margarine on two of these for breakfast. I was late eating, but it was well worth it.

 

For lunch, if that's what you can call it, was more or less just snacking. I had one serving of the Lean Cuisine garden vegetable dip with pita bread. It comes with two servings.

 

You get half a pita and a small cup of the vegetable dip. I was very skeptical about this at first, but decided to try it. To my surprise, it was very good. The pita was soft and not rubbery after heating in the microwave for 15 seconds instead of the 20 it called for.

 

I used the called for time in heating the dip. I was pretty warm, but not too hot and was very good on the pita bread.

 

This made a nice snack, but I could have eaten the other one.

I ate the pita and dip while I fixed a few onion rings and that was lunch. Lunch was late also, so I just munched to hold me until dinner.

I had a good dinner though. I fixed a salad with iceberg lettuce and some of the cucumber and tomatoes I gathered from my sad little garden. I also used the last of my orange bell pepper. I had the salad along with a few sweet potato puffs and a MSF Chik'n Griller.

I really like the little sweet potato puff, even better than the fries. You can spice them up a little or just eat them plain. They are great either way.

I just had them plain yesterday with the last of my spicy ranch blown all over my salad. I just love meals that really satisfy me and this was one of them.

After dinner I got started playing games online. (not a good idea) I made the mistake of playing Angry Birds. It's very popular and so I thought I would try it out. I can now see why it is so popular. It's looks very simple, but it is so addictive. I stayed up way too late because of it. I tried putting the games on the Android tablet we have, but they don't work too well on it for some reason, so I played it online in my Chrome browser. The Facebook app sux. It was terrible. Every time it would pop up wanting to post it to FB, it would freeze and I'd have to refresh the page. Sometimes it would show that I'd finished the level  and sometimes I'd have to do it all over again, hence the reason I played the chrome version. I haven't tried it in Firefox and I don't use Internet Explorer. 

I think I will go and have some breakfast and deal with my angry bird issue. I have Zumba tonight, goody. Happy Thursday!

Finding Healthy Habits That Work

In case you are wondering, I'm not dieting. I'm simply trying to find a way of eating that works for me. Yes, I'd like to lose a few pounds, but I want to learn to eat in a way that doesn't require special foods or complete deprivation. I want to eat healthy, but I'd also like to splurge occasionally within moderation. My problem at the moment is splurging too often. I try to cut down on sugar. I compromise with fruit. I also try eating less bread, cheese and starchy foods. Lately I haven't been doing so well. I like to try to eat small amounts of the bad stuff and larger amounts of the good stuff. It almost works most of the time. I mean, I'm not gaining weight, but I'm not losing.

Now this is why, I'm trying to get in more exercise and drink more water and even though I don't always do well, I keep trying everyday. For me staying active is important. The less I do, the less I want to do. I have to make myself do things and once I do them, I feel better. It makes me want to do more. I try not to skip any days of doing some sort of exercise, because then I start talking myself out of doing it more often and eventually stop. Once I get a routine going, of doing 15 or 20 minutes of exercise, then I increase the amount. I want to work up to at least one hour per day. I am so glad we are getting to do our Zumba classes and that I have people to exercise with. It makes me accountable and helps me stay motivated.

I hope this gives you an idea of what I'm doing, why I'm doing it and what my goals are. I think everyone has to experiment and find what works best for them. Everyone is different. I believe you have to recognize what you're doing and realize whether or not it's working for you and if not, find a way that works that you can live with. I don't believe diets works. Sure, you lose weight, then you stop dieting and you eventually gain it all back, if not more.  

Ok well that's enough of that. I just felt the need to express myself. Now I will tell you what I ate today. It's not diet food and it's not all healthy, but it's what I have and sometimes you have to deal with that too.

For breakfast I had a repeat of yesterday. I didn't mind, but I hate to bore you. I love navel oranges and my strawberry oatmeal muffin was great too. I do wish I'd had some sort of protein in mix, but there was an egg in the muffins and a few slivered almonds in there too.

 

 Lunch was leftover Southwestern Salad with spinach and some other salad greens, corn, black beans, onions, some cheese (maybe Mexican blend?) and some corn tortilla strips (@Cathy, where'd ya get those?). There was also a good yogurt Ranch type dressing we had, but I forgot to bring any home, so I had my Chipotle Mayo Dressing, made with light mayo, with it today.

 

This was very filling, but very good.

A little later I snacked on my piece of the birthday cake. I did only bring one piece of it and I scraped off some of the icing. 

I didn't realize there was even icing in the middle. This cake was mostly icing. I guess I lost the battle today, lol.

For dinner I did a little of the leftover broccoli casserole, some nuked (microwaved) frozen broccoli and a tiny little MSF veggie sausage on a tiny little canned biscuit. 

 

I know what I ate today probably doesn't work for me, but sometimes you just have to eat as healthy as possible and make up for it later on. Are you dieting or changing your eating habits? Have you found what works for you? Share what works for you.

Double Birthday Dinner

Up early this morning. I had myself a sunny breakfast, a navel orange and one of my strawberry oatmeal muffins made with my multi muffin mix.

 

 

Today with dinner at Mom's we were celebrating both my grand daughter Mary's 1st birthday and also my Aunt Lynda's birthday which happens to be the day before Mary's. 

Here's what's was on the dinner menu.

Turkey Cutlets

 

  

Pepper Cube Steak

 

Pineapple Chicken

 

Orange Chicken with rice and veggies

 

Southwestern Salad

 

Stir Fry Veggies

 

Stuffing

 

Angel Biscuits

 

Broccoli Casserole

 

Brown Rice

 

Italian Pasta Salad

 

Mashed Potatoes

 

We also had veggie egg rolls, which I didn't get a shot of, but I did have on my plate. This is my plate. I had stir fry veggies, brown rice, an angel biscuit, southwestern salad, broccoli casserole and of course, the egg roll. I was stuffed after all this.  

Now here are the birthday girls.

Here are a few shots of the present opening.

This baby racked up. 

 Now for cake or should I say cakes. Yes, we had two. This is a shot of the Strawberry cake courtesy of  La Patisserie and my sister Cathy, photo courtesy of Mom.. It was so yummy, we didn't get a photo before the first cuts.

  Mom also had a special little cake for Miss Mary, chocolate with white icing.

We had to let Mary have her first cake experience. Confession, I experienced a small piece of each cake. Didn't get a shot of it either, but it was good.

 

Lexi enjoys every birthday, no matter who's it is.

  

Mary, not sure about this stuff at first. No worries though, she quickly got the hang of it. Unfortunately my camera died. I think I am just going to start charging my battery every Saturday night, so that I don't have this problem again.

We had a ball with the kids. 

After I got home, I had to charge my camera battery, which delayed dinner #2. I used some leftover rice, red and green bell peppers, onion and salsa to make a sort of spanish rice. I had the rice with some refried beans and another spinach and cheese quesadilla. The rice turned out great.

 

Well I hate to cut this short, but I'm late getting to bed. I hope you enjoy the photos. Have you checked out my recipe page lately. I'm slowly adding new recipes. If you'd like to be updated on new posts and recipes, you can subscribe via rss feed or email (links on the right). You can also follow me on twitter or with Google friend connect. I love getting new subscribers and followers. Come back soon. Leave a comment, let me know you're out there.