It's smoothie time!

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Frozen raspberries and mango, 2/3 banana, 2 tbsp mini chocolate chips, 1 tbsp coconut, 1 tbsp maple syrup, 1 cup skim milk.  Whiz in the magic bullet and voila!  Very yummy!  7 points+ for the whole thing and worth every point.  If I'd left the chocolate chips out I could have saved 3 points+.  They didn't blend really, so I think next time I'll leave them out and maybe bump up the coconut a bit.

 



Fruit, glorious fruit

Pin It For those of you who know me well, you know that fruit is not one of my favorite foods.  I'm a banana/apple kinda girl and even the apples don't thrill me unless they're the "good" apples (or in a pie or something).  I used to love strawberries (in fact, still do), but developed an allergy to them in my 20s so can no longer eat them :-(  I am more of a veggie person - oh, and a chocolate person, mustn't forget the chocolate.  Well, last night I tried a different kind of smoothie (I'm a smoothie newbie of sorts).  I'd been making them with OJ and fruit, but it KILLS me to spend 3 points+ on juice.  Last night I decided I was going to use a cup of skim milk instead of the OJ and see how it went.  It was delish!!  So this morning for breakfast I had my usual oatmeal, 2 tsp PB and 2/3 banana (4 points+) and then I made another smoothie - 1 cup skim milk, 1 cup frozen raspberries, 1 cup frozen mango and 1/3 banana, bit of splenda and some no-sugar added syrup (both zero points+) and some vanilla.  YUM!!  My whole breakfast was only 6 points+!  AND...I've achieved my fruit/veggie quota for the day.  All in one meal.  I know I'll have more veg later in the day, but I thought it was kind of funny that it's not even 9am and I've had 5 fruit servings today...could make for an interesting day...we'll see!

New recipes...planned and accidental!

Pin It I tried THREE new recipes today!  I made Broccoli-Bacon Salad for tomorrow's potluck at church.  I only had a tiny taste (have to save some for the potluck!) and it was YUMMY!  In addition to the recipe below, I also added some Epicure Sans Sel Red Garlic seasoning...I can hardly wait to try this tomorrow once it's sat in the sauce overnight.

click recipe to enlarge...


I also made squash fries...I was  originally going to make my usual sweet potato fries (baked, of course) when I saw a review on chipotle sweet potato fries that mentioned that they used squash (which is now zero points, thank you very much).  I decided I could forgo my potato for tonight and go with squash (along with tilapia, mushrooms and broccoli).  YUM!  These taste almost exactly like the sweet potato fries!  But a large sweet potato is now FOUR points, whereas the squash, as I mentioned, is ZERO :-)  I did add 2 tsp of olive oil (2pts) to my roasted veggies, but I think they'd be good even with just cooking spray if you had already had your healthy oil for the day.

My third recipe of the day (this is the accidental one) was a mixed-fruit sorbet.  I was watching TV and these Magic Bullet commercials kept replaying over and over, but one of the recipes they mentioned was frozen fruit with a "splash" of OJ blended up in the Magic Bullet.  I looked in my freezer and low and behold I had mixed fruit from M&Ms (mango, blueberry, raspberry) that I had forgotten about.  I also had some OJ in the fridge leftover from a work event last week (couldn't fit it in the fridge at work, so I had to take it home)...I don't normally have OJ in the house.  I decided to go with one cup of OJ and about a cup (ish) of frozen fruit.  Into the Magic Bullet it went then I blended til it looked all mixed up (that's the technical term ;-).  I took the blade off expecting a fruit smoothie and discovered sorbet!!  I ate it with a spoon and it was SO good!  I'm going to head to M&Ms tomorrow I think to buy some more mixed fruit.  It's a bit costly, but their mix is one of the few that does not contain strawberries (allergy), AND it has mango in it.

Overall it was a good day.  WW in the morning (HUGE CLASS) - so glad I bought my kit for the new program last Sunday - apparently they'd sold out of them by Tuesday!  I knew it!!!  I was down 1.8lbs I (the same 1.8 I've bee playing with for the past three weeks).  The leader went over the new program once everyone got weighed in (took a lot longer - I think there were a ton of new folks there).  The good news is that I had been doing things right all along.  I think because I've been eating "real" foods more and more lately that I'm not going to notice a great big difference.

After WW, Cheryl and I headed to Goodlife for my second (ever!) aerobics class.  I'm going to admit it.  I absolutely HATED the class.  It was classified as a beginner class, but I think it should really be classified as "low impact for folks who know what they're doing".  I'm the most uncoordinated person you've ever met (probably why I can't dance) and the instructor would show us a move, do it twice and then quickly move onto the next move.  By the time I'd figured out move #1, she was on move #5!  I got so frustrated - both with her and myself.  Needless to say I will not be going to that class again.