Meal Planning Monday

Time for Meal Planning Monday again!

I didn't get around to cooking the honey mustard crockpot chicken saturday evening since the fam was coming to Clinton yesterday for hibachi, so I put it in last night for this week! I really did some digging this week to find recipes to eat honey mustard chicken with all week. I think I was pretty successful! Just for your information... I am very obsessed with several things lately.... honey mustard, caesar salad dressing, and all things laughing cow cheese. I try not to eat them everyday, but sometimes, I do. This week, they are taking over my menu :)

Monday

Honey Mustard CrockPot Chicken....(smelllllllls WONDERFUL), sweet potato with a cinnamon laughing cow cream cheese, and a side caesar salad. 

Tuesday

Honey Mustard Chicken Pizza :) There isn't a link for this one, but I am going to use wheat flatbread that I have, a little honey mustard for the sauce, some shredded chicken from Monday, and i'll use some of my laughing cow swiss cheese and shredded mozzarella on top! I'll top it will some crumbled bacon and some fresh basil from my garden! My stomach is really growling now!!!!



Wednesday

Chopped Chicken Caesar Salad... I'll take some spinach, lettuce, boiled egg, bacon, parmesan cheese, and chicken, and chop it up and toss it in caesar dressing. It's my quick and easy go-to meal these days!


Thursday

Honey Mustard Chicken Pasta

I'll change the bowties to wheat pasta, remove the peas, and make some other minor adjustments for this yummmmmmo looking meal!!!



Friday

Club Wraps....to wrap up the end of the chicken! I'm going to put these on the George Forman to make mock paninis to go with my Low Carb Chips and Dip :)



Saturday- eggs, a sandwich, something easy. I have two party invitations, so I'll be out.

Sunday

I have pork in the freezer, so I'm thinking about these little babies.... I just need to go get some peaches.... of course they'd have to be on my george, so they would be as good, but this is just yelling summer sunday lunch!






Please notice that I finally figured out how to embed a pin correctly.... at least I think I did!!! :) 

Crockpot Jambalaya! Sooooo Easy!

This is seriously the easiest meal I have ever cooked! It is also soooooo delicious! 

Ingredients

2 bags of Louisiana Brand Jambalaya Mix

1 bell pepper

1 jalapeno

1/2 onion

Whatever meat you have.... I used left over pork roast, raw chicken breast, and deer sausage.

Stock instead of water (according to the amount needed on package of mix)

Chop up meat, peppers, and onions. Dump everything in the crockpot. Cook for 6-8 hours.

YUMMMMMMMY!

This is one of my Saturday during fall go to meals, but it is good anytime!!! 

Cheat Day Recipes, Pasta Edition... Alfredo, Carbonara

I cannot tell you how many times I get asked for my Alfredo recipe. I posted it on my other blog some time back, but I haven't posted it on this blog or added pictures, so I figured it's about time. I will start by saying that I do not measure anything when I cook this... I just add until it looks right; therefore you may have to adjust the measurements a tad.

Chicken Alfredo

Ingredients:

3 tbsp. of butter

3 cloves of garlic

1 cup heavy whipping cream

1 cup of shredded parmesan cheese

salt and pepper

pasta of choice

protein of choice

extra parmesan for topping

In a saucepan, melt butter. Add garlic, and cook until soft.

Add cream, and bring to a low boil.

Add cheese, cut heat down, and stir until cheese has melted.

Season with salt and pepper- you do not need a lot of salt, but I add A LOT of pepper!

Add past to saucepan and stir. Top with Grilled Protein and shredded cheese.

Serve with crusty garlic bread and salad :)

This one is relatively new to me. I have come to LOVE this one almost more than alfredo.

Chicken and Shrimp Carbonara

Ingredients:

3 slices of bacon, diced

3 tbsp. butter

3 cloves of garlic

1/2 cup of cream cheese

splash of cream

1/2 cup parmesan cheese

fresh basil

protein of choice

pasta of choice

In a saucepan, cook bacon and garlic in butter until bacon is cooked.

Add cream cheese and whisk until smooth. Add parmesan and cream. Whisk until you have a sauce consistency. I like mine thick.

Toss in pasta and grilled chicken and shrimp.

Top with fresh basil and parmesan.

Serve with crusty garlic bread and a salad!

Weight Loss Wednesday.... Goals Met, Rewards, and Low Carb Pancakes!

Before I share the recipe for low carb pancakes that I promised in Meal Planning Monday,  I have an announcement to make!!!

Sunday was the end of my 20th week with Xyngular, and I can proudly say that in 20 weeks, I lost 50.4 pounds and a total of 58 inches!!!!! Below you will see the most recent transformation picture... I plan on doing a really good one at 60 pounds lost, as that will be my halfway point.

Let's talk about rewards for a moment. I have a reward system set up for myself because, lets face it, we are encouraged and motivated by rewards!

For -25 lbs, I gave myself a mani/pedi

For -35 lbs, I gave myself a subscription to birchbox.

For -42 lbs (it was a personal goal), I gave myself a diamond candle :)

For -60 lbs, I will give myself a hair makeover ( which is when I will do an official transformation picture)

For -75 lbs, I haven't decided... I will either buy myself something nice or maybe a roadtrip

For -90 lbs, I plan on another diamond candle, mani/pedi, new make-up

For -100 lbs, it will time for new hair again!

For -120 lbs (which is ultimate goal), I plan on buying myself an iPad!!

Do you set goals for yourself? If so, what are some of your ideas?

Low Carb/ Ricotta Pancakes will have to be delayed... decided to eat Zaxby's yesterday (fyi one meal is an entire day's worth of calories) and I wasn't hungry last night, so i skipped dinner.

Low Carb Pancakes

2 posts in 1 day?!? whaaaaat!! Actually, this one belongs with the other one, but I couldn't get it all out at one time, so here we go with post 2 for the day! :)

Decided to make waffles instead of pancakes because I have yet to use the waffle maker I got for Christmas that mom, Spenser, and Michael fought for during Black Friday! However.... I think these work better in pancake form. I did alter the recipe to what I thought would give me really good waffles, but really there were just pancakes in waffle shapes.

This isn't my recipe entirely. A girl doing xyngular with me posted it in our recipe group on My Fitness Pal. She found the recipe in a really old cookbook.... see cookbooks are still gems :)

Low Carb Ricotta Pancakes

4 eggs 
1 cup ricotta cheese 
1/2 vanilla flavored whey protein powder
1 teaspoon baking powder 

optional

blueberries

bananas

walnute or pecans

chocolate chips

Spray griddle with non-stick cooking spray.

In a mixing bowl, whisk together the eggs , butter, and ricotta until smooth. Whisk in the protein powder, baking powder. Mix until well combined. 

Drop batter onto the griddle... amount depending on your preference of size. Flip pancake when it starts bubbling.

Serve with real butter, sugar-free syrup or jelly, or Splenda and cinnamon.

Nutrion Facts (no options added or topping) 

Serving: 1 waffle

Calories: 182

Fat: 13 g

Sodium: 87 mg

Carbs: 2.8 g

Fiber: 0

Sugar: .6 g

Protein: 14 g

***I use full fat everything because I am on a low carb diet, and low fat means high sugar and carb count.
****Nutrional Facts are based on the brands of ingredients I used. I sit in the store and read every label to get the best facts. That may not be the case for you.

Peace, Love, and Geaux Tigers

P.S. On the blog tomorrow-------- CHEAT Day (Pasta Edition)

Teacher Tuesday... Keyboarding Edition

It's summer...Hallelujah!

That means, curriculum planning, poster making, theme developing, and a lot of pinterest professional development. As I mentioned last week, I am going with a pirate theme this year. Thanks to oriental trading, my wall display has been purchased along with lots of incentives. Walmart had a bunch of pirate party decor on a super sale, so I racked up!! 

Today, I am going to focus on second grade. Next year, I plan on taking on a huge task...teaching the second grade students (and probably 3rd and 4th) how to type. Here are some nifty things I've found to help me conquer this task.

I plan to start off with a lesson from Doreen Cronin and the Cows... I am a librarian, so I feel like I have to integrate literacy :)

Then I am going to make one of these for each student. They will keep it in their library folder. We will color the keys according to which finger you use to hit that key. Before we actually move to a computer, we will use this for a month or so to practice locating the keys on the keyboard.

Then at some point, after we know the keyboard, we will use some type of program like this one to begin keyboarding! I just love this particular program!!!

I would love to make this on a big wall in my library; however, I do not have anywhere to actually put this .... I am still thinking about this! 

If you have any ideas for teaching second grade students how to type, I am all ears!

Peace, Love, and Geaux Tigers



P.S. This is my first time to figure out how to embed the pinterest widgets.... so be patient please!

Chips and Dip (low carb style)

Part of my Xyngular diet is eating low carb. I usually drink a protein shake for breakfast, a 500-600 calorie meal for lunch, and endless protein and green veggies for dinner. On shake days (when I drink 3 shakes instead of meals), I get two 6 oz. protein snacks. I always struggle with snacks because I get tired of eggs, cheese, nuts, and chicken. There are also days when I desperately want a snack like chips and dip, but that's obviously not a good protein snack. Therefore, it was time to find an alternative!

Today's Snack is...... Pepperoni Chips with Greek Yogurt Ranch Dip

Ingredients

Pepperoni Slices (I use Turkey)

Greek Yogurt

Ranch Season Mix

Chips

line a baking sheet with aluminum foil

lay out pepperonis on the sheet 

Bake on 425 for 10 minutes

pat pepperonis to remove excess fat

Dip 

Mix greek yogurt with a ranch season packet

*i normally just make enough for one serving, so i sprinkle the season mix until it has the taste I want

Nutrition Facts (for 20 chips and 1 oz of dip)

Calories.....82

Fat.... 4G

Sodium... 726MG

Carbs... 4G

Fiber... 1G

Sugar... 2G

Protein... 9G