The Daily Grind of a Work @ Home Mom...

When a wonton is not just a wonton: lasagna cupcakes

I'm either really hungry lately or just really into creating food because I can't stop thinking about what I'm going to make next. Maybe it's both but either way, in my next life I think I'd like to be a chef. Seriously. So yesterday, in honor of the Superbowl Sunday, I made lasagna cupcakes and a bunch of other stuff, but I need to share this recipe because it was SO good.

Lasagna Cupcakes:

You'll need:

• small container of ricotta cheese
• grated parmesan
• grated mozzarella
• 24 wonton wrappers
• 1 store-bought tomato sauce
• 1/3lb ground turkey
• store-bought pesto (optional)
• cupcake tins for 12 cupcakes

First, brown the ground turkey, and season it with chili pepper and garlic powder (or whatever you have). Remove and set aside. Spray cupcake tins with cooking spray and line with wonton wrapper. Sprinkle with grated parm, drop a small amount of ricotta (I use part-skim), and cover it with a layer of tomato sauce and add grated moz. If you have simple kids (like I do!), cover with another wonton wrapper and add another layer, ending with grated moz. Otherwise, add cooked ground turkey over the ricotta and add a touch of pesto before the tomato sauce. Repeat.

 

Adult Version

 

 

Kid Version

 

I put them in the oven on 350 for about 15 minutes (keep on eye on them), and they looked like this:

And finally:

 

Dinner

 

 It was fantastic. They looked intricate and pretty but so simple to make.  Great the next day too. Enjoy!

Slow-cooked lemony chicken

So after many, many months of (over) using my credit card to buy stuff for my new house, I had accumulated zillions of "points" that could be used toward zillions of items, gift cards, and pretty much anything under the sun. Usually, I put my points toward gas cards, the occasional Bloomies gift card (hey, a girl's got needs!) and cash cards, but recently I got myself a slow-cooker. And while I've not yet become BF's with it, I am definitely trying.

So far it's been all shredded bbq quicken all the time (add chicken breasts to pot, cover in whatever bbq sauce you have and cook away) but this weekend I got a bit more adventurous and made up a recipe for lemony chicken.

Here's what I used:

• two chicken breasts, four legs (only way I can get the kids to eat this stuff)
• half a yellow onion
• two lemons
• cup chicken broth
• lemon dill rub (Whole Foods brand)
• EVOO
• half package Good Seasons salad dressing
• tbsp capers (optional)

While I didn't do much measuring, I started out by tossing the chicken with a bit of evoo and putting some of the lemon dill rub on it. I put it under the broiler for a while so we wouldn't be eating albino chicken (gross). After the broiler, I layered the bottom of the crock pot with very, super thinly sliced onions, covered that with thinly sliced lemons, and added the chicken.

I set all that aside and made a sauce of about 1/4cup of evoo, the Good Seasons, the juice from half a lemon, and about half a cup of chicken broth. I poured that over the chicken, added a few more lemon slices and set it for four hours to cook. I added some whole organic carrots for the last hour to serve next to the chicken on the plate.

It was awesome. I mean, I could have made this in the oven (see recipe below for a variation on this), but the chicken would not have come out so tender. It almost fell off the bone. And there was almost no heavy lifting at all. 

Obviously I forgot to take an after picture but the pre-cooking pic is pretty indicative of what it looked like.

Too bad I can't share the smell that permeated my house - that was half of the experience.

 

K, so I cooked.

But before I cooked, I moved. During Hurricane Sandy. With two kids. And lots of stuff.

But that's ancient history and now I have an awesome new kitchen with granite and killer counter space and a brand-new Bosch oven (you may or may not recall that my previous oven was in its ninth life), and lots of cooking prowess and even the desire - but not much time. So a dear friend of mine thought to send me a house-warming gift  - a fab new book from Williams-Sonoma that has quick healthy meals.

So I made one and it looked like this:

No, I swear. It did. 

I know it's almost Thanksgiving and most of you are all turkey and mashed potatoes, but if you get the urge to unclog those arteries and eat something healthy, here it is:

• 4 pieces of chicken breast
• 8 ozs cherry tomatoes, halved
• 1.5tsp balsamic
• 2.5tsps EVOO
• sea salt to taste
• fresh pepper to taste
• lemon, 1, cut into 8 think slices
• lots of fresh sage

Preheat oven to 375, spray baking dish with olive oil spray.Place chicken in dish, arrange tomatoes around it, Drizzle chicken & toms with olive oil and balsamic, sprinkle with s&p.

Add lemon slices to chicken, two slices on each, and add sage (no stems). Finish with another drizzle of EVOO and bake for about 30mins.

Happy cooking!

I eat my feelings.

And I bet I'm not the only one who does. Matter of fact, isn't most of the food industry reaping billions per year preying on people just like me? Oh, it's been a tough day, I deserve a big, fattening, delicious, nutrient-deficient meal that I'll regret in an hour. I wrote the book on this topic.

Kids are annoying me? Ice cream.

Work day is not going as planned? Sushi lunch (and I don't mean thinly sliced, fat-free sashimi).

Guy in the left lane taking his time while I'm rushing somewhere totally unsafely? Steak!

Oh, my love-hate relationship with food seems to haunt me day in and day out. Just so happens, my good friend, Susan, is a health coach and every morning, she wakes with the birds to post some food-related fact on her Facebook page. There's almost never a morning when I can't relate to what she's talking about, because she has a way of speaking to her followers rather than AT them that helps make her tips and factoids resonate. Like, she speaks in a way that makes you believe she too has these problems and overcomes them or was once in the shoes of an average (or below average body), while in truth, she's 11 feet tall and slim and beautiful as a rose.And she's nice to boot which is just annoying.

But I digress.

This morning, I awoke to this visual that hit me over the head. Check it out:

OHMYGOD this is me! It's sooooooo me. I want to do better in my habits, but I feel like it goes deeper than just wanting chocolate. It's like, I MUST HAVE THE CHOCOLATE, I'M A SLAVE TO THE CHOCOLATE and that's not really normal.

I'm going to print this and spend some time thinking about it. In the meantime, if you live in the Boston area and want to engage with a fantastic health coach, click on Susan's name and giver her a call. She's awesome. And no, she doesn't even know I'm writing this.

Fiesta Carmelita

Every so often, I come across a recipe on the internets that speaks to me.  It doesn't happen often, but a few months ago I fell on these crazy looking Carmelita's on Pinterest (courtesy of Lulu the Baker). Everything about them appealed to me.  The drippy caramel, the melted chocolate, and the fact that all this was sandwiched inside of an oatmeal crust - just thinking about it makes me... hungry. But one cannot subscribe to healthy eating and to a world where Carmelita's are a regular occurrence so I tucked the recipe into that little spot in my brain that I reserve for naughty stuff and went on my way. Then, the perfect event reared its head - we were invited to a Mother's Day BBQ and I was tasked with dessert!  So I cracked open that naughty nook and got to work.  And now, I share with you, the sickest dessert in the history of desserts - I even added a little party to the name for affect - the Fiesta Carmelita.

Ingredients:

• 2 bags of chewy Werthers caramels
• 1 cup heavy cream
• 3 sticks of butter (I never said they were healthy!)
• 1.5 cups brown sugar, packed
• 2 cups flour
• 2 cups old-fashioned or rolled oats
• 2tsp's baking soda
• 1 bag of chocolate chips

While I amended some of the ingredients a bit, I followed Lulu's instructions to the t:

"Combine caramels and cream in a small saucepan over low heat. Stir until completely smooth; set aside. In a separate bowl, combine melted butter, brown sugar, flour, oats, and baking soda. Pat half of the oatmeal mixture into the bottom of the pan. Bake at 350 degrees for 10 minutes. Remove pan from oven and sprinkle chocolate chips over crust. Pour caramel mixture over chocolate chips. Crumble remaining oatmeal mixture over caramel. Return to oven and bake an additional 15-20 minutes, until the edges are lightly browned. Remove from oven and cool completely before cutting.

*A stint in the fridge will help them cool off if you're pinched for time. They shouldn't be served cold, but all of that molten caramel takes a long time to cool down. They should be stored and served at room temperature."

Yield - A 9x13 pan of perfection.

Happy Mother's Day!

 

The Fresh Diet Post-Mortem

So I spent a week enjoying fresh food that I did not cook, calorie-count, weigh or measure, delivered to my door on a daily basis. 

Can you say WINNING!

Ok - so about the food: most of what I ate on The Fresh Diet was delicious.  Things I might not otherwise eat; turkey meatballs that were very tasty and nicely textured, steak & egg burrito with pico de gallo and sour cream that was a breakfast treat, even a small steak one night that fixed my craving for red meat.  Most of the food was great.

Since so many Twitter folks have asked me about it, I'm going to go into more detail than I might have otherwise, but the idea is to honestly share my thoughts and if it means anything, I'm continuing The Fresh Diet even though my free trial is over.  I've lost over 7lbs over the past 3 weeks and I have to attribute at least 1/3 of that to the fact that I looked forward to my next meal during my week on TFD.

Food stuff:

• Salad - I love a good salad and some of my salads were great.  I loved the citrus glazed chicken
  salad with honey ginger dressing, loved the "classic" cobb (sans egg), loved the horseradish dressing but did not love any of the salads topped with steak.  They were simply beef on greens, no veggies, etc. and they didn't satisfy me. Going forward, I plan to stick with chicken topped salads.
• The dips were worthy of dipping.  What's better than freshly made hummus or olive spread? I wasn't nuts about the minuscule pieces of pita that accompanied them, though.
• Wasn't wild about anything called "bruschetta" which was like salsa, or the mini egg salad pita hors d'ouevres as their size just made me hungrier HOWEVER the chicken tenders hit the spot as did the chicken satay.  What can I say - I'm a protein girl.
• Loved the omelettes and breakfast burritos (pictured) - artichoke and brie cheese? Goat cheese, sun-dried tomato and spinach?  Yes, please!
• Desserts - butterscotch chip cookies rocked, as did the coconut brownie.  I LOVED the berries with ricotta cheese (I added sweetner - yum), and the chocolate chip bread pudding, but didn't love the artificially sweet tasting regular chocolate pudding.
• Presentation - While the food was mostly really above average for this type of thing, I thought TFD could separate the sides from the main courses.  As a result of the transportation, the meals sometimes had to be prettied up (who doesn't style their food prior to eating??) but I am aware that it would not be very environmentally friendly. So maybe comparmentalizing the different foods could be an idea TFD might consider in the future.

Portions were, well, "weight-loss" portions.  In other words, while portions were size-challenged, I never walked away from a meal hungry.  Being not a large woman, I selected the lowest caloric range so there were days I was hungry between meals and found myself adding a 100 calorie yogurt, or a small, low-calorie soup.  I also added veggies and salad with low-cal dressing to the days I ate sandwiches for lunch.  I would say that it would be nice if the meals came with the salad since anyone knows that salad is the Joanie to the sandwich's Chachi. 

In conclusion - TFD food was there every morning, was never late and made no excuses.  Better than a dinner date, that's right!  For details about delivery options as well as pricing, visit The Fresh Diet.  For now, can receive 3 days free with the purchase of a 31-day plan at $29.99 per day. Use promo code SEMOMMAR29.

Like I said, just because my free trial is done doesn't mean I am.  I'm on-board as a paying customer for the next while at least and you should try it too, if you are looking for a simple way to shed a few for Spring without deprivation. 

I may even blog about it.

“This post is sponsored by The Fresh Diet. I also received a week’s supply of The Fresh Diet food to facilitate this review. All opinions are my own.”

The Fresh Diet delivers healthy food to your doorstep

You see that post about the nutella-filled treats a few posts down?  That (among others) is one of the reasons I've committed to beginning a healthy eating regimen starting ASAP.  This warm winter combined with the fact that March is already here have made me cognizant of the crap I've been ingesting for the last few months and how it's affecting how I feel in my jeans, how I know I'll feel in my summer clothes, and how I feel about myself in general.

It's my opinion that a woman, mom or otherwise, must feel hawt at all times.  And while that doesn't necessarily mean size 2, it does mean feeling healthy and fit.

So I am lucky to be part of The Fresh Diet campaign.  The Fresh Diet is a healthy, fresh meal delivery program that makes eating mindfully easy.  No measuring, no pre-planning, and no frozen meals (though in all honesty, I have had great success with frozen meal plans).  You have two options on The Fresh Diet: daily delivery which is only offered in select cities at the moment, or twice weekly delivery, available everywhere.  The food is delivered fresh in temperature controlled thermally insulated refrigerated cooler bags to your doorstep and you just put it in the fridge to store it.

Selecting a menu was easy.  I went to the microsite, selected my calories per day (I picked
1000-1200/day for weight loss but you can choose as much as you'd like) and my food "dislikes" which didn't remove those foods from my menu choices (that might have been nice), but did alert me if I chose a food that included any of my dislikes.  I had four choices for each meal of the day, four choices for snacks (which included sweets as well as more food-like selections like chicken satay or pita an hummus), and two choices for side dishes (like grains and veggies).  It also alerted me if I was getting too carb heavy on a particular day.  While I would've like even more choices per meal (I don't eat fish or pork so that instantly reduced my number of choices for many meals), there was plenty to choose from.

The food looked appetizing in the images provided with descriptions (if not big in portion size - but I guess that's the point), and the selections were foods I might eat anyway.  I chose egg white burritos, salads topped with protein, steak and veggies.  Most of the foods offered were familiar items but I also selected some things I wouldn't otherwise eat like turkey meatballs.  Full food review to come.

I'm being treated to a week of taste-testing the meals, and (hopefully) losing a few LBs.  My plan is not to stray from the plan (I'm headed to Vegas in two weeks and need to feel good in my Vegas clothes!) and really focus on being mindful of portion and what I'm ingesting.  I'm hoping my children will take care of their own meals for the week and it'll feel almost like a vacation!  Almost.

I'll post again after my week on the program.  Wish me luck.

If you're interested in trying out The Fresh Diet, you can receive 3 days free with the purchase of a 31-day plan at $29.99 per day.  Use promo code SEMOMMAR29.

“This post is sponsored by The Fresh Diet.  I also received a week’s supply of The Fresh Diet food to facilitate this review.  All opinions are my own.”

 

Nutella-filled half-moon shaped spring roll thingys

I know.  Sounds crazy.  But I've been bit by the Pinterest bug and I've become obsessed with amazingly delicious-looking food pictures and I came across this from Recipe Girl:

So, ours didn't look like that; we made our sort of flat, like half-moon shaped simply because we (my girls and I) were more interested in teasing our taste buds rather than our eyeballs (but aren't the heart shapes beautiful?).  So we bought a package of Nasoya egg roll wrappers, a jar of nutella and got to work.

We literally smeared a tablespoon or two of the hazelnut chocolate spread inside of each egg roll wrapper, wet the edges to seal it in half, and tossed it in the frying pan with about a quarter inch of canola oil and, dare I say it, fried until brown.  That's it.  Obviously they were devoured quicker than I could photograph them but the pics above are far more aesthetically pleasing than ours looked. 

Next time we are feeling crazy, we'll tackle these babies, courtesy of The Apron Gal:

Oh, and stay tuned for my latest weight loss update. :)

Four Ingredient Cookies

I received an email from my mom the other day. It wasn't a fwd: fwd: fwd: fwd about the deadly lead in lipstick or how the plastic cups in my home are going to come alive during the night and kill us all. Nope - it was a recipe for cookies, with just four ingredients. And it looked so strange that I had to try it. So yesterday, during one of my computer breaks, I made these:

Four Ingredient Cookies

• 3 egg whites, mixed (not beaten)
• 1 cup chocolate chips
• 1/2 cup coconut
• 1.5 cup Craisins

Bake at 400 for 10 minutes.

My mom's recipe called for Heath or Skor bar instead of coconut but I had none in the house so I improvised. Here's what we got:

They were TOTALLY delicious and without all the added stuff we usually use to make cookies, not horribly unhealthy either. So there you have it. Now we're going to work them off running around in the sprinkler.

Health(ier) No-Egg Double Chocolate Cupcakes

Yesterday was a gray day in Boston.  We slept-in a bit and with every passing Spongebob, our idea of heading to the Museum of Science were dashed more and more, until there was nothing left.  So we did what any mom and daughters would do - we baked!  However, in keeping with my mindful indulgences theme, (at least for them, (am I the only mom who is more respectful of what goes into her kids bodies than what goes into her own?  Didn't think so.) I wanted to bake something delicious (read: chocolate) but still relatively healthy.  Oh, and I was out of eggs.  So I dusted off my old stand-by (thanks, Norene!), and found a recipe for No-Egg Double Chocolate Cupcakes.  We made an adjustment or two, but the recipe ended up like this:

No-Egg Double Chocolate Cupcakes

• 1.5 c flour (I used .5 c whole wheat flour)
• 1 c sugar
• 1/3 c unsweetened cocoa
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 3 tbsp canola oil
• 2 tbsp applesauce
• 1 tbsp white vinegar
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 1/2 c orange juice
• 1/2 c coffee (or water)
• 1/4 c chocolate chips (or not. but we did.)

Preheat oven to 350F.  Spray a muffin tin with non-stick spray (we used cupcake liners).  Combine dry ingredients in a large bowl.  Mix well.  Add wet ingredients except chocolate chips.  Mix until smooth and blended.  Stir in chocolate chips.  Don't over mix or cupcakes will be tough.

Pour batter into the muffin tins.  Bake at 350F for 20-25 minutes, until done.  Cool completely.  You can sprinkle with icing sugar or ice with store bought icing (but keep in mind this will increase calories and fat).

Yield: 12 cupcakes. These freeze well and recipe can be doubled.

183 calories per cupcake, 5 g fat (or 166 cals and 3.9 g fat without chocolate chips).

 Enjoy!