Our Potential Pupper, 4 Miles, A Bit of Cooking

So like I briefly mentioned, I've been wanting to get Reuben a sibling! Reuben, for those who don't know, is our 3-year-old, 6-pound Shih Poo, a mix between a Shih Tzu and a Toy Poodle. Aside from the fact that we love his personality and everything else about him, we love that he's hypoallergenic, non-shedding, easy to train and of course, cute as a bug! I've heard that two shih tzus don't do well together, so I thought a Maltipoo would be perfect, a mix between a Maltese and a Toy Poodle. Meet this pup, who I hope to meet in person on Sunday, October 24. She will be 16 weeks (same age Reuben was when we got him!), and she won't get bigger than 4-5 pounds (we want a pup that will be smaller than Reuben to increase the liklihood that he will be the dominant one as per his personality). We love that she's a total furball and looks JUST like Reuben did when we got him (well aside from the coloring of course... and gender clearly). I HEART her little brown mask and brown nose, and hope that Reuben likes her, that she has a sweet personality and that she is a healthy little fur baby. Here's some pics from her breeder, Christi, who has been SO sweet and great to work with:




Don't you think her and Reuben would be the best of friends? I hope so. She's a little ewok doll - just like Reuben was when he was a pup - see:

I wonder if she'll change colors too! Reuben is practically all gray/black now!

Anywho, these are the days of my life. I'm very excited, and appreciate you guys' feedback on introducing a new pup! I've been doing research and definitely feel that a girl may be best for Reuben. Then again, I hear of people having great success with boys too so I guess as long as their personalities jive, boy or girl, i'm good to go!

Other than puppy stuff, yesterday was pretty standard. Just work, 4-mile walk during lunch, more work, and then I cooked a bit! I'm going with meal plan #7 this week:

1. Breaded Chicken Sandwiches
2. Easy Yellow Curry
3. Spaghetti
4. Bacon/Egg/Cheese Muffins
5. Red Curry Chicken
6. Baked Pesto Chicken
7. Baked Swiss and Sausage Omelet
8. Bourbon Chicken
9. Baked Shrimp with Tomatoes and Feta

Tonight I made several of these, #3, #4 and #5. We're out of town this weekend, so I can't cook too far ahead - some may need to wait until I'm back in town Monday. We'll see!!

Q: What did you do last night - cook anything yummy? I normally don't cook on Mondays, but I was feeling it so why not?!

Q: Male or female pets - have a preference? I've always had boy dogs - she would be my first girl dog!

10K Training, 7 Miles, New Comfort Food Recipe, Cooking Fever, 3 TV Pilot Reviews

Thanks, friends! The breakfast really was yummy! Sounds like bagels get a lot of love too, and am so glad i'm not the only one out there loving on Modern Family (well clearly not the "only" one - they won a shiz load of emmys - but you know what I mean, in the blog works!). Moving on! haha Yesterday was a great day! I popped up early feeling wonderful - and hit the grocery store at 7 a.m. for a few more items for new recipes! Then it was on to work at 8 and get stuff done! During lunch I headed to the gym - I walked 1/4 mile at 4.0, then ran for 3.5 miles straight at 6.3 mph, then walked for another 1/4 mile. GREAT workout! I did all of this in a little under 41 minutes. Then I just stretched, headed home, and worked more. At 5, I headed back to the gym for a 3-mile walk at 4.0, taking my total miles today to 7 miles.

Then it was time for a cooking marathon. No, I didn't need to cook, but I wanted to! So I made some stuff that could be frozen. hehe Here's a pic of my prep meals: LOVE IT!

4 chicken enchilada casserole, 4 egg soaked ham & bacon breakfast pizzas, 6 brunch pizza squares, 3 cheesy slowcooker chickens, 5 poppy seed chickens, 6 taco soups and 6 southwestern cream of chicken soups

We had new recipes for lunch and dinner! Then we watched some more TV pilots. The Undercovers -meh - wasn't feeling it. Was only able to watch about 20 minutes. Not for us - we didn't buy the actors who were playing spies. Then we watched Lonestar - it definitely caught us early on. Great beginning, interesting story (man in TX leading a double life) and it was nice to see Jon Voight! It got a little lost in the middle but we're going to give it a chance. Lastly, we watched My Generation - being a class of 2000 graduate myself, I TOTALLY loved it, especially the year 2000 references with music, events, and seeing where people ended up - so cool! I'm going to watch this for sure. K - here's what I had for lunch - GOOD!

Adapted from Real Mom Kitchen
Poppy Seed Chicken

Makes 6 Servings

20 oz. diced cooked chicken
1 (10 3/4 oz.) can fat-free cream of chicken soup
1 cup fat-free sour cream
20 reduced-fat Ritz crackers, crushed
2 tbsp light land o’lakes butter melted
1 tbsp poppy seeds
3 cups white rice, cooked

In a bowl, mix together soup and sour cream until well blended. Stir in diced chicken.
Spread creamy mixture into a 9 x 9 inch baking dish. In a small zipper bag, crush crackers. Then add poppy seeds and butter to bag and seal. Toss to coast. Sprinkle cracker mixture over chicken. Bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes. Serve over cooked rice.

yummy 6 servings!

My serving


Nutritional Information: 390 calories, 52 carbs, 6 fat grams and 24 protein grams.

Review: Awesome. It was super creamy and flavorful. I did have to add a bit of salt to mine, but other than that it was yummy, filling and creamy southern comfort food (without all of the extra calories!).

SIDEBAR: This song has been making my runs fly - LOVE IT!

Q: What song has been pumping up your workouts lately?

Q: What's your favorite comfort food?

I'll post a new recipe tomorrow for the soup we had for dinner (LOVE), and I finished Jane Green's The Beach Trip during my afternoon walk - i'll post a review!

New Breakfast Recipe, Mini Cooking Marathon, More TV

Hola amigas! How goes it? All is good here! Glad you think the book sounds good! I was happy with it for sure. I'm now listening to James Patterson's 4th of July audio book love it! Yesterday was a pretty good day! Time for a nutshell:

• Worked in the a.m., and the glass peeps came to fix my window (thanks, Toby, for covering the damages!)
• Took lunch to hit up the female doctor (blah) and the grocery store (time to make some new recipes, peeps!)
• Worked more and had a super productive afternoon.
• Headed straight home to start cooking! I made 3 new recipes: 4 servings of Egg Soaked Ham & Bacon Breakfast Pizza, 6 servings of Poppy Seed Chicken and 4 servings of Cheesy Slowcooker Chicken.
• I had the breakfast recipe for dinner. YES, I know, it's breakfast - but, as we've discussed before, breakfast for dinner can be the bomb!
• Watched more TV - LOVE it. Tonight was One Tree Hill - so dramatically fabulous. Glee - LOVED. I feel so bad for Finn though - that coach is out of line. Grrr. Modern Family - SO hilarious. I laughed out loud numerous times!
• Late night snack: Vitatop with a tsp of light chocolate syrup. The bomb.

Here's the new recipe adapted from Our Best Bites.

Egg Soaked Ham & Bacon Breakfast Pizzas

Makes 6 Servings

6 English muffins, cut in half
4 eggs
2 tbsp milk
1/4 tsp kosher salt
10 dashes Tabasco sauce
12 thin deli slices of ham (hormel natural choice)
6 slices turkey bacon (butterball)
¾ cup shredded cabot 75% cheese
1/3 cup green onions, diced

1/3 cup green bell peppers, diced

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Line a baking sheet with aluminum foil and spray liberally with non-stick cooking spray. Set aside.In a pie plate, whisk together eggs, milk, salt and Tabasco sauce. Cut each English muffin in half and soak each inside in the egg mixture--you want the egg mixture to soak into the bread, but you don't want the English muffin to fall apart. Place the muffin, cut/egg side up, on the baking sheet. If any egg is left over, carefully pour over less-soaked pieces. Cook bacon in the microwave. Add slice of ham on top of each muffin. Rip bacon in half and add a piece on top of each muffin. Add green onions and peppers and then sprinkle with shredded cheese. Bake for 15 minutes.

Nutritional Information: 296 calories, 28 carbs, 10 fat grams and 22 protein grams.

Review: I LOVED these. They really tasted like little pizzas - I especially loved the bites with the onion/peppers (upped the amount on list above). I also liked that they had ham & bacon - very tasty. And the cheese melted nicely holding it all together. LOVED. The whole "french bread" soaking in egg idea is super clever, thank you Our Best Bites! These will be a regular around here - WOO!

yummy - lots of fab breakfasts!

Q: English muffins or bagels? Have a pref? I'm all for English muffins - they're my fave. Although those little bagel thins are the bomb... :)

Q: Modern Family: yay or nay? I'm in love - I watch each episode 3-4 times - it just cracks me up and makes me happy!

My First Birthday Present, Twilight, C25K, Pre-Cooking for a Long Weekend!

THANK YOU for your sweet comments on my last post - interesting to hear your take on success, and of the ideas about our blogs, efforts and goals. I don't know about you guys but this has been a super stressful week for me! Lots of stuff, at work and at home, has been keeping me working around the clock! So glad I have a holiday on Monday - I'm going to need it! Backing up....

Yesterday, while LONG, was great! I got up, worked, walked 3 miles before lunch and had a working during the lunch hour (Jason’s Deli – I ordered the turkey wrap with tortilla chips/salsa… but had a cookie!) After lunch I worked more, then headed over to our parent company’s gym for 3.5 miles, P90X ab ripper and upper body ST. For the mileage, I did 3 minutes at 4.0, 21 minutes at 6.3 and 1 minute at 7.5, then I walked at 4.0 until 3.5 miles! So 22 minutes/straight – still building back up! After the workout I showered at the gym, then hit up Trader Joe’s for a few items Austin couldn’t find at lunch at the other store, then met my mom at Nordstrom. I ran in and they were having a major sale – grabbed Austin another pair of Sevens & 3 Lacostes and a pair of shorts – great prices! Then we went out to the car and my mom gave me my first birthday gift for my upcoming 28^th birthday on 7/7. OMG – greatest gift ever!!

Mini back story: I think I’ve mentioned that we’re trying to do more with the outdoors (i.e. color scheme: navy, apple green and yellow; bought a green umbrella; bought navy pillows… still need to do more). Well mom bought us GREAT Pottery Barn outdoor entertaining flatware (24 pieces in yellow/white), a large navy Tag bowl (for salads) and an awesome Pottery Barn condiment set with classic ketchup, mustard, relish and mayo. LOVE IT. Now I just need to have peeps over. LOL Thanks, Mom!!!

image found online - she got me 2 sets of these!

image found at PB - how CUTE is this?! Love!!

Taken with iPhone as my upload cord is at work - grrrrrrr!

After receiving the best b-day present ever, we walked over with our Twilight lanyards to see an early preview at 9 p.m. (before the opening at midnight). The entire theater – seriously – was Twilight. Just wear your lanyard and sit where you want. We sat down at 10 til, mom grabbed some popcorn and drinks for us and then BOOM it started – no previews. SWEET! I don’t want to ruin the movie for anyone but I will say that the boys looked cute, this was one of my favorite books of the 4, there were a couple of lines that were laugh-out-loud funny and I’d definitely see it again (for free of course). :)

After the movie me and mom got lost in the parking deck, got found and then headed home. I got in at 11:30 p.m. beat, but not too exhausted to make Austin try on all of the clothes. The shirts were a hit, the pants too big and the shorts too long. 3/5 – I’m down with that! Then we opened up my gift – Austin loved it too!

I ended up at 2,045 calories, 177 fat grams, 97 carbs and 54 protein grams. Here’s what I ate. Too many calories fo sho but I admittedly can’t pass up movie theater popcorn (which partly explains why I rarely go! Haha j/k).

Today I just worked, stressed out a bit, walked 4 miles during lunch and read 50 more pages of Wildwood, worked then headed straight home to do the following:

• hung out with Reuben & Austin - duh
• Pre-cooked the following: 4 fiesta chicken, 4 beef taco mixes, 6 sausage and egg casserole (new!), 6 sausage and potato bake (new!), and 4 bacon/ranch slowcooker chicken pastas.
• Reorganized my kitchen cabinets (they were a mess! did this while the above was baking!)
• Ran a load of laundry
• Gave Reuben a new toy!
• Watched Make it or Break It (so glad it's back!)

Great night! And now I have 12 breakfasts and 12 lunch/dinners ready to go! I ended up at 1,516 calories, 177 carbs, 67 fat grams and 68 protein grams. Here's what I ate.

Q: What are you doing for the 4th? We're headed to the lake on Friday - gotta get Reuben's life jacket ready!

Q: Can you believe it's already July?! I'm in shock! Where did June go?!

Pre-Cooking, Scampi, 4 Miles, Intense Book!

Thanks you guys!! We’re loving our new grill friend, and I appreciate the links/ideas for more grilled yumminess. Monday we had hoped to make it over to Crystal and Jason’s to visit/grill out/etc. but my tummy started feeling a bit funky again, and I got the inspiration to cook so I decided it was best to stay home. I cooked for two hours (while watching Blindside... again), and made the following!

• 6 servings of Taco Soup
• 4 servings of Pepperoni & Tomato Pizza
• 6 servings of Brunch Pizza squares
• 8 snack-size servings of Big Pigs in a Blanket
• 4 servings of Orzo and garlic veggies & chicken

I also divided the leftover pasta into 3 snack-size tupperwares for the week, and defrosted, chopped and weighed chicken so it's ready for my Easy Thai Curry!

Yum!

Hard not to eat the pizza right away!

Everything fit into the drawer - yay!

After cooking, I started reading Koontz's Intensity. Whoa - intense is not a strong enough word - what a crazy book! I got through about 160 pages, 100 of which I read on the treadmill! I headed over for 4 miles of cardio and read the whole time! When I got back from the gym I sautéed the last two servings of marinated shrimp! I added angel hair (sautéed in chicken stock, minced garlic and parmesan) then ate it up - SO good!

I hadn't had angel hair in SO long! I've found that the shorter noodles (farfalle, penne, rotini, etc.) reheat better, whereas the longer ones (and thinner ones) tend to go limp and taste funky. But because I made this "fresh" it was so nice to have! After dinner we watched the Flashforward finale, a comedy special and called it a night. I ended up at 1,804 calories, 248 carbs, 43 fat grams and 94 protein grams. Here's what I ate.

Today was pretty good, especially because the day after a holiday can be rough! I just worked, and then had lunch with Mel, Stacy and new girl Kami at P.F. Chang's (we split the wonton soup and I had chicken lettuce wraps for my entrée). Fun to get away during the day and talk to the girls - they've inspired me to start some new TV seasons this summer (The Goodwife, Madmen, Fringe and Life Unexpected). Then I just worked more, raced home, read 100 pages of Intensity, went to the gym and walked 3.5 miles while reading 70 pages, then home! Next was pepperoni & tomato pizza with a side of law & order - great dinner! Now i'm winding down, hoping to finish Intensity tonight!

Any TV shows you plan to start watching this summer? I'm excited to start these from the beginning and hopefully find some more shows me and Austin can watch together!

What's your favorite pasta shape? Mine is probably farfalle - those little bow ties are SO cute, as are the wheels - adorable!

Tomorrow i'm going to do my assessment for May. I had another kind of rough month. I don't know if i'm losing motivation or what? Hmmm.

New Recipe, 4 Miles, Reuben's New 'Do and More Cooking!

Thanks for the shoe feedback, ladies!! I’m still undecided, but will definitely try these shoes on to just satisfy my curiosity if nothing else. I’m also going to look into your suggestions so thanks for taking the time to post!!

So yesterday after Austin’s parents left we chilled, and had a new recipe for dinner: Real Mom Kitchen’s Slow Cooker Spaghetti! Here’s the recipe we followed – it makes SIX large servings!

not a good pic - taken in tupperware! I'll take another later this week!


1 28 oz can whole peeled tomatoes
1 15oz can of tomato sauce (roasted garlic)
1 12.5 oz Italian flavored diced tomatoes
10 oz fresh mushrooms
1 tbsp Italian seasoning
1 lb 96/4 ground beef
½ tsp dried basil
2 tsp minced garlic
Other: 6 tbsp reduced fat parmesan; 12 oz. dried spaghetti; 6 slices light wheat bread; spray butter and garlic salt.

Add thawed meat to a slow cooker covered in nonstick spray. Add in all the cans of tomatoes, and break the ground meat up with a large spoon. Stir in the spices and mushrooms. Cover and cook on low for 8 hours. When done cooking, break up the ground meat a bit more, add dried basil and minced garlic. Serve over pasta of your choice, adding 1 tbsp parmesan on top of each.(2 oz. dried pasta per serving).

We chose spaghetti and, including a slice of light wheat bread sprinkled with garlic salt and toasted, it came out to 457 calories, 65 carbs, 7 fat grams and 33 protein grams. So yummy and SO filling. This will be a staple around here for sure! Bonus: the house smelled amazing all. day. long. YUM!

After dinner I made a new recipe for later this week, Baked Swiss and Sausage Omelet (will post tomorrow once we try it!!).

Again - will take another later this week!


Then we watched some West Wings and passed out. I ended up high… at 2,116 calories, 260 carbs, 78 fat grams and 103 protein grams. The shower food + late night pizza added up. Duh. Eek! It happens – and I’m back on track so it’s all good. Here’s what I ate.

Today I woke up tired after a toss-and-turn night of sleep. Grrrr. I headed to work, had breakfast chilaquiles again, worked, walked 4 miles during lunch, had more spaghetti (love it!), then at 2:30 headed over to Atlanta’s Children’s Shelter with my team. We volunteered spending time playing with the children staying there. It seemed like a great organization, and the staff was nice to work with. I think everyone on my team had a good time! After the shelter I headed home and got straight in bed exhausted! Austin brought some pizza home from work so I caved, but only had one slice. It didn’t fill me up, so later I had a smaller version of the planned dinner – a taco. I’ll post my stats tomorrow! After dinner I made some of this week’s recipes – Red Curry Chicken and a new one Baked Pesto Chicken! Great night – now in bed with West Wing – woo!

Yum!


What’s your favorite show to watch with your significant other?
Any West Wing fans out there?

I leave you with Reuben's new 'do!

I didn't even recognize him at first! Little fella - he gets so cold now short - i'm ready for him to grow out and be a teddy bear again!!