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

Meal Planning Monday

Monday- Last day of the 8 day challenge, so today is a shake day!

Shake Recipe for the day (PB&J shake)

8 oz. almond milk

1 scoop of lean

1 oz. global superblend fruit juice

1 tbsp. PB2

Tuesday- Breakfast for dinner

Low carb/ Protein waffles (recipe will be on weight loss wednesday)

Scrambled Eggs

Breakfast Sausage

Wednesday- Leftover chili with Quinoa from Sunday

Thursday- BBQ Bacon Cheeseburger and Brussel Sprout Skillet from Words & Whisks Blog... I found this recipe under the Low Carb section on The Tasty Kitchen Blog!! I'm pretty excited about this recipe. I recently tried brussel sprouts and the aren't that bad... this should make them AMAZING!!

Friday- Either Leftover chili or Brussel Sprout Skillet

Saturday- Paleo Tilapia from last week because I never cooked it, or hibachi with the family for my dad's birthday/father's day!

Sunday- Crock Pot Honey Mustard Whole Chicken

I am seriously sooooooooo excited about this! I am sooooo obsessed with honey mustard. I bought a whole chicken a few weeks ago, and it's been in my freezer. I plan on eating this for Sunday lunch with  a strawberry spinach salad and some corn!! Then, I plan on using the leftover chicken during the week for salads, chicken pizza, a maybe a past dish! 

Sweet Saturday.... Lemony Goodness

I have made a lot of "sweets" prior to the weight loss journey....which probably explains the need for a weight loss journey.... Anyways, for the next few weeks, at least, I am going to share one of these sweets each Saturday, along with a link to some "sweets" I want to try from pinterest on cheat days!!

Lemon Blueberry Cake

My friend Brooke celebrated her birthday last week, so I knew I was going to be making her a cake! As far as cakes and food in general go, we pretty much have the same tastes. I knew I really wanted a good lemon dessert, and I was tight on money, so I wanted to use things I had at the house. I knew she would approve of lemon as well, so when I found a lemon cake mix in the pantry, I was excited! I wanted to do more than just make a lemon box cake, so I jazzed it up a little.

So here it is... Lemon Cake with Blueberry filling and a lemon buttercream!!!!

Ingredients

Lemon Cake Mix (and whatever it calls for)

Lemon Zest... about 3 lemons 

juice of the lemons from above

1 cup of blueberries, plus some for garnish

6 cups of powder sugar

1 stick of butter

a few tbsp. of heavy cream

Cake

For the cake, I baked it according to the box. I added some lemon zest to the batter, and that is it.

Filling

In a saucepan, I combined blueberries, 1 cup of powder sugar, juice of one lemon.

Let it cook until you have a light boil.

Remove from burner and cool.

You can either mash the blueberries if you want it chunky or puree it in a blender like I did. I added more powder sugar to thicken it a little more. 

Icing

In a mixer, beat butter and slowly add remaining powder sugar and lemon juice from remaining lemons. 

After you've added all of the sugar, gradually add heavy cream until you get the consistency you want. Stir in remaining lemon zest.

Assembly

Place one cake on plate. 

Top with blueberry filling.

Place second cake on top.

Ice the cake with the buttercream.

Decorate... I used a little fresh mint and blueberries.

Enjoy! 

Pinterest Lemon Goodness on my "to make list."

Starkbucks Lemon Loaf Copycat

Hellloooooo! I love this cake! Heck Yes for a copycat!!!!

and then there was a muddy buddy recipe.... oh me, oh my....

Lemon Muddy Buddies

Peace, Love, and Geaux Tigers