New look!

Feb 9, 2012 by Jennifer

If you keep checking back here and see a different layout, it’s because I keep playing around with different themes! It’s so fun to find new layouts and customize it differently.

This one I like, so I may keep if for a while and see how it goes. If you find that it takes a while for you to upload the page, let me know and I’ll more than likely find a different theme!

Not much news to report. I stayed home from work Monday and Tuesday because my daughter Claire was sick. She’s all better now, and even though I had to use 2 vacation days, it was nice to be with her and I got a lot of laundry done – I don’t have any clothes on my basement floor right now

Eating wise, it’s been different. I kind of went overboard on Monday being home all day and access to the fridge – but Tuesday I reeled in some self control and did great.

Our Team in Training is going well, I have to run 8 miles this weekend and of course it will be the coldest day of the week. We’ve been lucky to be in the 40′s which is so nice, but by Saturday at 8:00 a.m. it will be in the teens – that’s cold! I invite you to make a donation – we’re raising money for cancer – here is my donation page - no amount is too small – it all adds up!

My weigh in is on Fridays. I’m not doing weight watchers like my twin Biz or doing any formal program, just trying to stick to normal portions and no 2nds after dinner and no junk at work – so far it’s working, I’m the lowest I’ve been in a LONG time!

How is everyone’s week going? Have a great day!

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Future Food Network Star?

Feb 6, 2012 by Jennifer

Over the weekend, I had the pleasure of helping a 12 year old girl Sophie have her dream birthday party – a kind of a cooking throwdown with her friends. Her favorite shows are chopped and Cake Boss!

She wanted to have an appetizer, a main entree and dessert. So her Mom and I e-mailed back and forth and I gave her some ideas about what we could do, made a list of ingredients and made a recipe card for her friends to take home.

I belong to a Mom mail group in my town and a Mom had asked for help because her daughter wanted a cooking party, but she had no idea how to make it happen. I e-mailed her right away and said “I can help!” Then I called my twin sister Biz and asked if she would join in the fun – and she jumped at the chance.

When we got to the party, the birthday girl Sophie had set the tables so fancy!

The kitchen was gorgeous – Biz and I were drooling over the kitchen island with a sink in it, the 6 burner stove, gorgeous lighting – it was deluxe!

On the menu? Pot stickers for an appetizer, thin crust and deep dish pizza for the main meal, and crepes for dessert.

The Mom, Maryanne had everything ready when we got there.

The pot stickers turned out great and the girls spent time plating their dishes beautifully:

The girls got to chop veggies, fill their won ton wrappers as Biz and I sauteed them.

Once we finished eating pot stickers, it was on to the main dish – pizza!

My team did thin crust, and Biz’s team made deep dish. I showed the girls how to make the no rise pizza dough.

2 cups flour
1 cup warm water
1 packet of yeast
pinch of salt.

Mix the water and yeast together and let sit for 5 minutes. Add that to the flour and mix with a wooden spoon until it starts to get incorporated. Then you can take it out and knead it for a few minutes. Then just roll it into 1 big pizza or 2 smaller ones.

My team decided on green pepper, onions and spinach.

I like how the girls thought to place the green peppers around the edges – it turned out great!

Now my sister’s team made a deep dish pizza – the link to that recipe is HERE

Everyone loved the deep dish too!

And after the girls were done eating pizza – it was time for dessert!

Sophie wanted crepes – so we made crepes with strawberries, bananas and Nutella – you can’t go wrong with that.

I used the recipe from Mark Bitterman’s How to Cook Everything and it’s super easy to make.

1 cup all-purpose flour
Pinch salt
1- 1/4 cups milk
2 eggs
2 T corn oil

Just mix together in a bowl and take about 1/4 cup of the batter for each crepe. It only takes about 3 minutes per side.

Then, just fill it with whatever you like!

All in all it was a great night – Biz and I got to do something we love – we got to spend time together and met a great group of girls.

Happy 12th birthday Sophie!

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Salsa Chicken Noodle Soup

Feb 1, 2012 by Jennifer

Usually when I grocery shop every weekend, I have a plan about what I am going to make every week. When that doesn’t happen, I just buy things that I know I can make things with. Chicken, veggies, ground beef, etc… and work around that.

Yesterday I was trying to think about what to make with the stuff I had on hand. I had boneless chicken tenders, veggies, only a pound of ground sirloin (not enough for my family of 5!). I didn’t have any tomato sauce – and then it hit me – I’ll make soup! But what kind?

Since I had the chicken tenders and I had lots of veggies since we had stir fry the night before I thought I would make chicken noodle soup.

Jenn's salsa chicken noodle soup

Ingredients

3 garlic cloves, chopped
4-5 mini bell peppers (I had red and yellow), diced
3 green onions, chopped
4 carrots, peeled and sliced
4 stalks of celery, chopped
1 package boneless chicken tenders
2 tsp. chili powder
1 tsp. garlic salt
1 tsp. pepper
dash of crushed red pepper flakes
1/2 bottle of Pace salsa (or your favorite salsa)
8 cups water
6 tsp. chicken stock (the powdered kind in a jar)
3/4 bag of egg noodles

In a big pot, I added a few teaspoons of Canola Oil. Add all the chopped veggies and cook for about 5 minutes. I cut the chicken tenders into bite sized pieces and added that to the pot. I cooked that until the chicken was almost done, but still pink in the middle. Add the water and chicken stock and the egg noodles and salsa and simmer for about 20 minutes or until the veggies are cooked through and the egg noodles are done.

I know my family likes what I make when they ask for seconds! I was proud of myself for sticking to my one serving – since December I’ve banned myself from 2nd helpings and I’ve stuck to it

After dinner, we talked about what homework everyone had and I went back into the kitchen to clean up. I figured with the leftovers I would bring some for my lunch. When I walked into the kitchen I quickly realized that was not going to happen. This was what was left….

Yep – not a morsel left!!! I was shocked. But also a part of me was happy that my family liked this soup so much!

Do you make dinner so you have leftovers – or do you like to make just enough so there are no leftovers?

I personally love leftovers because then it is an easy choice for what I’ll have for lunch the next day.

***

Now onto my work outs for the last few days. I could have run outside since its so warm out, but I have been working out after 8:30 p.m. when my daughter goes to bed. Over the weekend I found some more work out videos, I got 3 more Taebo work out tapes as well as a Beach Body one with Tony Horton.

So last night, I did a double work out – 40 minutes of Billy’s boot camp. Then I wanted to see if I could do any of the Beach body tape. It was level 3/4 and it had a huge label on it not to attempt unless you could complete the first 2 levels without stopping. Ha! I was going to try it anyway. I lasted about 20 minutes. It was so hard. At one point he did 1 1/2 minutes of straight push ups. One set with your arms wide, the other side with your arms closer together and the last set with your arms REALLY close together. Nope, that was not going to happen. Although I did do one 30 second set with my feet on my stepper (the actual way was putting your feet on top of a chair and doing push ups). During that set, my son happened to enter the room and he said “That’s impressive!”

And last nights workout brought back lots of memories. It’s the Taebo advanced workout and it is at least 13 years old I would say. My twin sister Biz and I once lived in a 2 flat together. She lived upstairs with Hannah and my family lived downstairs.

We would talk the night before about working out before work. So I would set my alarm clock early, get up, bring the baby monitor upstairs (the boys were small) and we would workout with Billy. We always had a great time and would laugh at each other if we couldn’t get a move right. I forgot how hard that work out was!!! It’s crazy hard. But I’m glad I did it!

Have a great day everyone!

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Chicken Breakfast sausage = yummy/filling breakfast

Jan 30, 2012 by Jennifer

Ever since I got my Penzey spices breakfast sausage seasoning, I not only use it to make things taste great like breakfast sausage, but I’ll sprinkle it on eggs, potatoes, veggies, it makes a lot of things taste great.

Last week before work, I was thinking of what to bring for breakfast to work. I had run out of frozen fruit, so I couldn’t make my smoothie. Then I remembered I had bought some ground chicken and decided to make a breakfast sausage out of it.

If you’ve never worked with ground chicken, it is SUPER moist! I took 4 oz. of the ground chicken, 1/4 bread crumbs, and the added about 2 tsp. of the breakfast sausage seasoning. In a small skillet coated with cooking spray, I cooked each side for about 4 minutes, until it’s cooked through.

I didn’t have any eggs in the house, so I ended up making a weird, but delicious breakfast. I had 2 cups of mixed veggies, added the chicken sausage (chopped up) and 1/2 oz. of cheddar cheese.

My breakfast sausage veggie breakfast!

This was so good! The best part is the breakfast sausage seasoning is so flavorful, you don’t have to add anything else, which saves calories!

So last week I tried 2 things I’ve never had before…a kumquat and pea shoots!

Kumquat

A coworker of mine brought these to work and gave me one. I said “How do you eat it?” She said she really didn’t know! So we googled it and found this video. You can eat the skin. You just need to wash it, then you roll it between your fingers to release the oils and pop it in your mouth. It does have a few seeds – kind of like eating a grape with seeds, you just need to be careful about that. Anyway – I thought it was fantastic – sweet and tart.

And we brought salad club back at my office a few weeks ago. This last weeks salad was spectacular!

Setting up for salad club

For those of you who don’t know a few coworkers and I bring a fruit/veggie to share and any kind of greens and we set up a salad bar. My friend who brought the kumquats brought pea shoots and I had never seen/had those before, so I added them to my salad.

My salad!

What are pea shoots? They are the leaves of the pea plant. I thought they tasted great. My friend bought them at Trader Joe’s – they came in a plastic package found near the fresh herbs. You can read more about them here.

How was everyone’s weekend? Happy Monday!!!!

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