New Recipes May 24, 2016

I love to cook.  And I love finding and trying new recipes!  For week 2 of my SW journey, I tried out a couple of new recipes this past weekend.  Since most of what I find online in the way of SW-friendly recipes come from the UK, there is generally some tweaking that has to occur regarding ingredients as well as syn counts.

The first recipe I tackled was a fairly simple one (who am I kidding, they both were!).  They’re called Magic Muffins – using oats, eggs, sweetener and a Kroger brand blueberry flavored light yogurt.  They turned out tastier than I’d expected.

The second one I did was for a Garlic Bacon Chicken Pasta dish.  Another excellent dish and at 1/2 syn per serving (for the tomato sauce) it’s a perfect and very filling lunch that I can just reheat while I’m at work!

Off now to sort out what will be on the menu for next week!!

~dg

Slimming World ~ wk 1 done May 22, 2016

A week ago this past Friday (on Friday the 13th!!) I decided it was time to do something about trying to lose some weight and I signed up for Slimming World online.  I will admit that day 1 was an utter disaster…mostly because I didn’t have a clue what I was doing yet.

On Sunday I cooked up a chicken and rice recipe for my lunches for the upcoming week.  I found the recipe online and it was loaded with carrots, celery & onions.  There was supposed to have a syn-free sauce to go over it made from yogurt.

Now, I don’t generally buy yogurt.  I don’t like it.  So, when I picked up the container at the store, I failed to notice that it was vanilla flavored.  oopsie!  I scrapped the plan for the sauce and made some chicken gravy instead – it worked out at 1/2 syn per serving.

I had lots of fresh fruit for the start of the week and some frozen and canned fruits for later in the week.  As well as some Kashi bars that would count for my Healthy Extra B’s.  They made a great quick breakfast that I could snack on at my desk at work.

Near the end of my first week, I had my first real challenge to staying on plan.  Dinner out with a group of friends.  I ended up looking up the restaurant online and reviewing their menu ahead of time so I knew what I wanted to order before I even got there.  This way I was able to stay on plan (for the most part) and I didn’t have any stress trying to figure it out at the last minute while the waiter was standing there waiting for me to order.

All in all, it was a good week.  I never felt like I was hungry.  In fact, I was a little worried about my weigh in on Friday morning because of how much food I actually did eat during the course of the week.  But, I was so excited to find that I’d lost 4.4lbs in my first week!  Can’t wait to see what this week brings!

xo ~dg

Recipe Organization January 19, 2012

I love to cook and I love to collect recipes.  Over the years, the collection has gotten a bit out of hand.  One of my resolutions for this year was to get it sorted and organized.  With that in mind, I headed out to the local Barnes & Noble and picked up a recipe binder. 

 

 

It came complete with a variety of already labeled dividers, printable recipe pages, hints and tips on a variety of topics, a notepad, magnets and more.  I picked the binder up on clearance for about $6.  Of course, this is something that would be easy enough to put together yourself and possibly even save you some money. 

 

Starting this project motivated me to purge a fair amount of recipes from my collection.  You know those recipes that have gorgeous pictures included?  The ones you think – ‘someday I will through an elaborate/elegant dinner party and cook this for all my dearest friends’ ?  All those recipes that called for Essence of Lavender, the cheeses you have never heard of, spices that you cannot find at any store in town, etc.  Yeah, I had those in my stash also.  And, in all the dinner parties I have had over the years, I have never even considered attempting one of them.  If it takes that much work to gather the ingredients, I am most likely not going to ever make it.  It was time to be honest with myself and keep only the ones I have used or know I will someday try.  Everything else was filed in the recycle bin!

 

Another bonus to the project was the discovery of many recipes that I had long forgotten about.  Mom’s Cheesy Garlic Biscuits, Dad’s Microwave Peanut Brittle, the Ice Box Bran Muffin recipe I got from Mary, and more. They have all made it back into rotation in my kitchen.

 

All the recipes I kept have been typed up, printed out and filed in my new binder.

 

And, on that note, I’m going to share with you another recipe that I re-discovered during this project.

 

Taco Soup, courtesy of Apple A Day (a wonderful restaurant that sadly, is no longer in business)

 

1 onion, chopped

1 lb ground beef

1/2 – full pkg taco seasoning mix

2 cans kidney beans, drained

1 can corn, un-drained

2 cans Mexican-seasoned tomatoes, un-drained

2 C water

 

Sauté onions and ground beef and drain.  Stir in taco seasoning.  Add remaining ingredients and simmer for 20 minutes.

Top bowls with shredded lettuce, sour cream and an edge of lime.

Serve with warm, rolled flour tortillas as dippers.

 

Enjoy!

dg