I Made A New Friend

This is my new friend Gerty.

Gerty lives in the backyard at my friend Tina's house. Tina made me get closer to Gerty than I really wanted to- see my scared face?
Then I had to pretend that I was more comfortable with holding her- shes heavy! (WW works Gerty FYI) lol

We went to lunch at a Chinese restaurant- Gerty had to stay home. I was about 1/2 way done with my won ton soup when Tina mentioned that I forgot to take a picture of my bowl of soup. :( sorry. It was tasty though- full of fresh veggies too! OH! I also passed on the yummy egg roll that sat next to me the entire time! OMG it looked yummy! TJ 1 -egg roll 0!! YES!

We stopped at a great local farm to get some fresh produce. Again Gerty had to stay home, but she would have loved all of the vegetables and fruit they had there.


When we came back to Tina's house we sat on the porch and had a Crystal Light ice pop. I had orange, Tina had fruit punch and we decided to act like we were kids again. ( We did meet when we were about 6- so its easy for us to act like kids again!)


I left Tina's to go to my parents house to have dinner with my Mom. We had a smorgasbord of sorts! Trader Joes Apple chicken sausage with spicy mustard, fresh tomatoes, an Italian zucchini dish my Mom makes, and the last 2 artichokes that I made. Everything was so good, my belly was stuffed!




I had a fun day today! I love hanging out with Tina- THANKS GIRL! :) And its always nice to see my Mom :)
Hope everyone had a fun day!! Im going to my Wii Advanced step class now. I hope the class isn't crowded! :) HEHE BYE!

NOT Your Local Chinese Take-Out!

I was craving chinese food. Uh oh! If I head out my front door and walk in any direction I can easily be faced with four different places. I have only been to one of them, when we first moved in, but the temptations are too easy to get my hands on if I go more often. So I opened my freezer, took out 3 chicken tenders(4 ounces) -ran them under hot water just long enough to be able to chop them up. Sprayed PAM in a pan, threw in the chicken. Diced up some veggies, and measure out 1/4 cup of this great curry sauce from Trader Joe's for only 80 calories a serving. This was a fast, healthy lunch and I love the fact that I dont feel bad for satisfying a craving. Let's be honest here, I feel better about the fact that I didn't have to tell the waitress at the Chinese restaurant that I didnt want the egg roll -when God knows I could have eaten a dozen of them. :) Wheww There is ALWAYS a healthy option! I just ate a huge plate of chicken curry that came out to only 5 points! WOW! I am so happy that I picked Weight Watchers to guide me on my weight loss journey- THIS MY FRIENDS IS NOT A DIET! :)

I was looking through some old pictures that I have in frames. We have been living here for a while now, but I didnt bring all of my stuff with us. I left a few frames and decorations in storage but came across a picture that I did bring. It is one of my favorites of Sean and I. It is from August 2005 and we were on a cruise. We were both so relaxed, so happy, and the picture always made me smile to look at it. I unwrapped it this morning and cringed. My fat face stared at me! I don't even want to put it up. Then of course I had to put it next to a newer picture to see the difference- because in my mind I still feel like this girl:
This is July 2009:
Does anyone else want to take all of the old pictures down? Hide them in fact? lol I used to love that picture, now I can't stand to look at it. I also wonder why it took me so long to do something about my weight. I am not finished, but I am so much happier that I am doing this. It is DO-ABLE! :) More importantly I feel better, so much better. :)

Have a great afternoon everyone! :)

Fast WI Post & Answers :)

Hi everyone! I just wanted to quickly post my WI for this week. Only down .2 but considering I was bloated and feeling munchie from the dreaded TOM...I will take the loss no matter how small it is! :) Current weight 172.4 Totals: Down 41.2 with WW! Grand total: 59.6! Yippeee! Still headed in the right direction-Happy Dancing! :) hehe

I took some granola bars to my friend Cindy today. I think they are good but wanted her opinion as well. She liked them but preferred the last ones I made. She liked the crunchier ones better. These are not too soft but stay together nicely. I put them in the fridge today so they last longer. When Sean comes home I will get his granola thoughts as well. :)

Thought Id answer some questions from the last post since Im not cooking and sharing a recipe tonight!

Tasha- man I guess I should of video taped myself eating the artichoke now for ya huh? How to eat one- well you pick off the leaves and scrap off the "meat" lol When you get to the center there is a fuzzy part that you can spoon out and then eat the heart. The entire leaves are not edible. I hope that helps ya! :) I ate one of those last night as I watched TV! I rolled over in the middle of the night and my hands must have been close to my nose and all I smelled was garlic! I can still smell it on my fingers now. lol Oh and Tasha, come on over, anytime! :)

Andrea-Thank you so much for the link to spark people! I need to do that tonight for all of the NI on those bars! I appreciated the info! :)

Lila Leeds- I take out the choke too- but not before I cook them- when I get to the soft fuzzy part I remove it to eat the heart. Did you make the bars?? Im curious! :)

Lola The bars are a lil crispy on the edges right from the oven but now that Ive had them in a baggie (and now the fridge) they are chewy. These stayed together very well. I made some that just fell apart. I think the egg beaters helped. :)

Hope everyone had a great day!! :) bye!

BUSY DAY!

Grocery shopping this morning followed by laundry AND cooking = back pain for Tj :( But I was so excited to make a new recipe for some granola bars and I had some artichokes that were calling out to me from the fridge...anyway after my bite of granola bar it was SO worth the pain. lol :)

First up- Artichokes. I know everyone has their own way of cooking these guys but this is how I learned from my Mom, and yeah I think its the best way to make them. :) Start by cutting off the stems (save these) and tops-discard.
Cut tops off the pointy leaves-
peel stems (yes u can eat these!)
Carefully open up leaves- making a lil room between them-
Peel a whole bunch of garlic-
Take out your frustrations with the chopper (not the slap chop- Pampered Chef- but just as much fun to use! lol)
I had to wash my hands with this stainless steel thingie- My hands grab the garlic smell BAD! My Mom bought me this and it works great!
Next stuff all of the chopped garlic in the artichoke leaves-
Place all of the chokes in a pot, fill about 1/2 way up with water. Top artichokes with a lil salt/pepper/parsley and a drizzle of oilve oil. Don't forget to toss the stems in the pot too!
Bring water to a boil, cover and cook for about 35 minutes or until knife slips through center of artichoke smoothly. These taste so good just like they are. I know lots of people dip the leaves in mayonnaise or melted butter- but really these are great just like this and full of flavor! :)
Here is mine- all set and ready to eat!

Whew that was a lot of pictures to upload! lol

Ok now on to my yummy granola bar recipe! I have been doing a lot of research about what to add to these guys! I knew I wanted them to be 2 points each. They also had to have some fiber, nuts, and dried fruit. Here is what I made today and I must say they came out pretty darn good! I added the ingredients to the WW recipe builder but I was wondering if there was a web site that I could add it all to so I can see the actual nutritional information. I would like to know just how many calories, fat and fiber is in each bar. If anyone has any recommendations on a site I could check out please let me know- either by comment or email tjbooboo@gmail.com THANKS! :)

Pistachio Cherry Granola Bars
(I made a second batch with almonds and cherries!)

1 cup quick-cooking oats
1 cup fiber one original cereal
1/4 cup whole wheat flour
1 cup pistachios-roasted/salted/shelled-chopped
1/2 cup dried cherries-chopped
1/2 cup dry fat free milk
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 cup honey
1/2 cup egg beaters
1 Tablespoon chia seeds

Preheat oven to 350. Coat a 9x13 pan with cooking spray. Add all ingredients to a large bowl mix well. Transfer mixture to the pan; spreading mixture evenly-pressing down firmly. Bake until browned around the edges, about 25 minutes. Cool and cut into 16 bars. 2 Points each.


Wheww Ok, I am so tired! I still need to put away the laundry! uuggh! lol Weigh in tomorrow, not sure how things will turn out. I did well each day-and stayed within my points, but I am not feeling very confident. I will let you all know how it goes tomorrow. Have a great day everyone! :) BYE!

Lots of pictures....

Friday and Saturday pics to share:

We tried this frozen rice mix from Trader Joe's- It was good, nice curry flavor. It had pieces of apples in it and raisins. We had it with leftover cutlets and grilled zucchini.

Our produce loot! YUM!

Bocce game! I was hoping for a win, but Sean was going strong with an early lead. Oh but wait- SCORE 4 points for TJ! I ended up winning- big comeback with two 4 pointers in a row! Whoohoo!! :)

Dinner was grilled vegetables

Dessert was frozen yogurt.
I had to make a sample cup- cookies and cream, orange cream, and toasted coconut. By far the best was the coconut !I loved it! The orange cream tasted like baby aspirin-YUCK! :P

On the way back from Fro Yo, we stopped at Best Buy. I love this store- my inner electronics geek comes out in full force when I walk through the doors! lol I wanted to see what was new over in the Wii area and I saw a cool step attachment for the balance board. One of my favorite wii fit games is the advanced step class, but I felt that the board was too low, making the exercise too easy. I haven't unpacked it yet, but I cant wait to give it a try!

Off to spend the day with my Mom. Hope everyone is having a fun weekend! :) BYE!

Another Taco Bell Creation

I know I covered this one before...but I have a lot of turkey taco meat to get rid of here people! lol My version:

Tj's Nachos Bell Grande! OLE!

2 corn tortillas- cut, sprayed with pam, and baked into chip form(2)
2 ounces lean turkey taco meat(2)
1/2 light cheddar cheese stick-diced or shredded (1)
green onions (0)
tomatoes(0)
1 tablespoon light sour cream(1) added to snack size baggie and squeezed out to spread over nachos evenly and to look cute-Right Lola? lol
Taco bell Mild sauce (0)

Total: 6 points

Taco Bell's Nachos Bell Grande has 18 points just in case you were wondering. :)

We had a wonderful evening last night with Sean's parents. Everyone loved dinner and dessert. We got in a little walk down the trail behind the house and even went to Trader Joe's to grab some stuff for Sean's parents. They dont have one real close to them so they wanted me to show them some good stuff. Hey I could actually start up a business based on that idea- Tj's Tj's Trips! HAHAHAHAH! Im crackin myself up over here! lol ooohhh ok...so Sean's parents came bearing gifts! A huge bag of cherries (they know Im addicted), yummy looking grapes, a big bunch of bananas, some dried fruit mix from Costco
, 4 pounds of pistachios, and 3 pounds of raw almonds!! WOW! I can not open the pistachios- I think I might eat the whole bag today. lol Any ideas on recipes that I can make to use up those nuts? humm?

It's a beautiful day today! They sun just came out actually! We get the fog that rolls in over the Oakland/Berkeley hills. I like that it cools us off, and I don't mind the dreary looking weather in the summer at all! Beats the heat! :) Leftover cutlets tonight- nothing fancy. I am actually tired from getting everything ready yesterday- I was nervous, but all went well! :) My 30 minutes of rest is scheduled for today in the form of acupuncture. Not sure it's helping much this time around, so I might not schedule another visit. I guess each needle poker does it differently- and this lady just isn't doing much for me. Oh well. Happy Friday my friends! :) BYE!

Tj's Burrito Supreme

This is for you Dina!

Who needs Taco Bell! Fourth meal? Forgettaboutit! Instead of making that run for the border- check this out!

Tj's Burrito Supreme

1 LaTortilla Smart Wrap (1)
2 ounces Lean ground turkey-w/taco seasoning (2)
1/4 cup fat free refried beans (.5)
1 teaspoon light sour cream(.5)
1 tablespoon sliced black olives (.5)
tomatoes (0)
hot sauce (0)
------------
TOTAL- 4.5

Taco Bell Burrito Supreme- CAL 430/FAT 18 WOW! That puts it at the 10 point range! Now, who's burrito would you rather eat? lol That my friends is how I beat a craving! (or a run to the border!) Did I inspire you Dina? :)

Cleveland or BUST!

All the blog posts yesterday about a blogger meet up was exciting! I dunno about the location, but who am I to judge! lol So I was trying to figure out a way to tuck some money under the mattress or something, but I asked Sean if I could go- and I got a yes! I'm not sure if he will remember that he said yes, I asked him after a 13 hour + day of work. hehe :) At least I dont have to lie and say that produce prices went up to steal money or anything. :) haha

I cooked a lot yesterday- I made cupcakes for tonight's dessert. Sean's parents are coming over for dinner. So dessert outta the way. I also made some turkey taco meat for taco night and Kate's Riced Cauliflower.

Dinner:


I like saving the 3 points that I usually use for taco shells with the lettuce. These came out great- and even Sean ate his without the shells! wow!

Speaking of Sean, he got on the scale this morning. 158lbs. I might be wrong- but I think that is almost 20 pounds down since December! I pack his lunches and give him snacks- all healthy stuff. He has been really good with passing up the crap at work, and the eating out for meetings. I'm just mad that I still weigh MORE than him. Not by much, so watch out! :) I'm teasin- Im very proud of him. :) It's funny when he is out with his cousin and calls me to ask how many points are in a big mac though. Actually, I got him to stop eating fast food almost entirely! Yippee! :)

Tonight for dinner I wanted to make something easy so I am making the same meal that I made when I had my family over for dinner a few weeks ago. Roasted vegetables with pasta. This really is a great dish to make for a party or get together. You can make it in advance and it really doesn't need to be served hot. Here is a picture from last time we had it- Same cupcakes too:

Off to chop up the veggies to roast! So happy that we are having cooler days right now, nice not to have the A/C on all day! Should be a fun evening with Sean's parents, hope they like my dinner! :)

Hope everyone has a great OP day today! :) BYE