Fruit smoothie "ice cream" & healthy treats!

Finally! My kid is devouring fruit! 

Both my 4 year old and I are not crazy about fruit. Usually it's too tart, or too mushy, over ripe or not ripe enough. Texture is also an issue with both of us when it comes to eating. 

I've tried smoothies in the past and didn't like them so I haven't tried to feed them to my kid until now. 

Recently I saw a smoothie tip on PBS and they made "ice cream" smoothies. The tip was to slice bananas and freeze them, then grab a handful of frozen banana slices, and whatever other fruit you want. The texture came out like frozen yogurt. 

I added fresh-then-frozen blueberries and frozen strawberries in addition to the bananas. I read on other blogs that you can add juice, milk or yogurt to the smoothie. I added orange juice (that was a mistake). When adding liquid, add just a little at a time. You don't want to make it soupy.

It came out very tart! But a great "ice cream" texture. I mixed in a couple heaping spoonfuls of Greek yogurt (which my daughter also does not like) and she said it was SO good! She's devouring her fruit like ice cream right now! 

I took the remaining smoothie and poured it into little plastic cups (mini throw-away sippy cups. We also use these to put Easer egg dye in.) and then stuck a plastic spoon in the cup for a Popsicle stick. The smoothie was thick enough to stand the stick (spoon) up. If the smoothie is not as thick as you'd like, add more bananas! 

I'll add more fun smoothie ideas after we experience them! It feels so good to know my daughter had a big, healthy intake of fruit today! 

Let me know how you all like them or tell me your take on smoothies for kids, or getting kids to eat more fruit!

Time for Dinner

Every time I go to "Time for Dinner" I have to talk about it. It is the greatest concept since anything convenient! It's for working families who don't have time to constantly put together fresh, portioned, meals. For people who are not the best cooks (me) and have trouble coming up with different meals and think most recipes are too hard. It's for the people who buy tons of ingredients for one meal, and waste all the rest because they don't know how to tie the ingredients into anything else (also me).
Time for Dinner is a place where you go to make fresh dinners in bulk. There are stations set up for each dinner offered, with recipe cards to follow, and all ingredients laid out in front of you. You bag up your meal and move on to the next station. The best part? They clean up your mess for you! By time you get to the next station- you are set with clean utensils to make a meal!
At www.TimeforDinner.com, you place your order and pick the time that you'd like to come in and make your meals. When ordering 1 meal, you are ordering 6 servings split into 2 meals of 3. For my family of 3, we get 2 dinners out of 1 meal purchased. I take one portion size, my 4 year old takes half a serving, and my husband gets 1.5 servings.
My neighbor who told me about this place more than a year ago, they have 4 people in their family and eat most of the 6 servings. The rest gets packed for the husband's lunch.
The dinners are fresh, and usually have a freeze expiration date of 6 months. All dinners come with nutrition facts and even Weight Watchers points (bonus for me!). These are NOT microwaved meals and my husband and I agree that most meals are restaurant quality and definitely better than anything I make on my own! Seriously.
I typically pull a meal out 2 days before I want to make it to give it enough time to fully thaw in the fridge. Most meals bake for a half hour. You just pop 'em in! Some have the option of grill or broil, some in the skillet and every once in a while you'll get a dinner that goes in the crock pot.
All meals come with a sticker on the package with cooking instructions.
Time for Dinner is located at Manchester off of Brentwood Blvd in St. Louis.
It is WELL worth the drive!
Www.Timefordinner.com
Did I mention this is fun too? I hate cooking but I love going to Time for Dinner!!! Please use me as a referral: Amanda Sansone

Tonight we tried crab Rangoon chicken-- our favorite so far! Even the 4 year old scarfed it down!! Chicken breast wrapped around a cream cheese filling. I left out the crab. (I'm not a seafood eater and can't ignore the crab if I actually have to put it in there myself!) Topped with a sweet & sour glaze and won tons! SO GOOD!

The most filling healthy meal I've ever had!

Tonight I had THE most filling, yet healthy meal I've ever had!!

Cheese stuffed Chicken breast with sauce and mashed cauliflower

Weight Watchers power points:
Chicken breast (smaller) 3 pts
Mozzerella string cheese 2 pts
Spaghetti sauce 1 pt
Smashed cauliflower 1 pt

Preheat oven 375
Spray pan with Pam

I butterfly-sliced the chicken breast and stuck one string cheese in each breast. I used toothpicks to close the chicken breast. I hear a better way is to hammer out the chicken breast very thin and roll it around the string cheese.
I seasoned the chicken breasts with garlic powder, salt, pepper, and Italian seasoning. Top each chicken breast with a 1/2 cup of spaghetti sauce.

Bake for 30 minutes.

Cauliflower: Steam a whole head og cut cauliflower until a fork slices the cauliflower easily. Once soft, drain the water from the cauliflower. I did not measure everything, but I did put 3 tablespoons of butter, a little chicken broth, garlic powder, salt, pepper and mashed.

YUM

1 cup of mashed cauliflower =about 2 points. This should make about 4 servings.

This dinner was SO filling because of the cauliflower!! I hope you enjoy it as much as we did. I think this might be my 4 year old's new favorite dinner!!! She loved it!
The husband loved it too.

Flat Out Pizzas

Tonight we tried out Flat Out brand Flatbread to make healthy pizzas. Flat Out has had wraps for a while-- but I wasn't a huge fan and did not like pizza on them either. The flatbread is so much better! We preferred one flavor over another, though.

I picked up Rosemary Olive Oil and Spicy Italian. Both 4 WW points for one wrap. First, you pop them in the oven at 350 for 4 minutes to make them slightly crisp- and trust me- you'll want to do that so all your toppings don't slide off your "floppy" pizza.

After that, add your favorite pizza sauce & toppings. I used sautéed bell peppers, onion & garlic, and a 1/2 cup of mozzerella cheese (4 WW pts). Bake for another 4-8 minutes depending on the amount of cheese. I baked for another 6 minutes but could have left it in a couple more min.

Our favorite was the spicey Italian flavor flatbread! It filled the pizza with a lot of spicy-pepper flavor! Both are worth it!

You can find Flat Out products at Shop N Save by the deli.

Sunday Night Breakfast: Eggs in the new Orgreenic Skillet

So we have been watching infomercials for the new Orgreenic pans that say NOTHING sticks to them. This isn't a huge review but we have a couple samples of what we tried with the pan- eggs & cheese.
Long story short, the eggs did lift right off the surface if the pan and left no residue what so ever.
The cheese DID stick to the pan, but probably not as bad as it would to any other pan. My husband did have the stove on HIGH so maybe that is why? It didn't roll right off the surface like in the infomercials.
Still a great pan!
Here are our silly little videos.. Ignore the 4-year-old, the chihuahua and the border terrier ;) And my husband was mad after the cheese wouldn't roll so he was done making videos! For now.
Eggs:
http://youtu.be/EOvoV01YBqE
Cheese:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cvodumzcMNg

7 year itch/Heading over the hill

So I've been having some realizations lately what it really means to be 30 years old. My 20's are gone forever... and they are not coming back. The funny part is, I was excited to celebrate my 30th birthday back in October 2012. It hadn't sunk in just what that really means.
Life is going faster. A year seems like a few months to me now. My daughter is already 4 and we had originally planned to have "our children" be a couple years apart.
I need to get my health in check. With 30's comes health problems and it's harder to lose weight.
And Gus and I have been thinking about how we want to raise our "kids" for the rest of her/their childhood and where we want to settle down for the rest of our lives. Call it the 7 year itch if you want, but we have ideas popping up. We will see what happens out of that.
I've suddenly realized that life is short. Really. It's too short and it's too fast. If there is something you want to do, goals you want to accomplish, do it now. You must take that first step and get started. We don't have forever.

Pork Tenderloin with Salsa & Apricot preserves

Another easy and Yummy recipe!
3oz of pork tenderloin - 3 WW points
Crock pot 8 hours

1 extra lean pork tenderloin (pictured)
1 jar of salsa (pictured)
1 sugar- free apricot preserves (pictured)

Put pork tenderloin in crock pot
Pour all salsa & full jar of apricot preserves over pork tenderloin.
I added 1 cup of water but I don't think I needed that. Add 1/2 cup or less.

Cook on low for 8 hours.

We added fresh green beans that you can steam in microwave (pictured). Shop N Save has these bags of fresh green beans in the produce section. I add garlic powder and salt.

Chicken Alfredo with Broccoli over Brown Rice

Chicken Alfredo with Broccoli serves 6
6 weight watchers power points (ww ppts)
Brown rice (optional) 1/2 cup 3 ww ppts
30 min

1.5 lb boneless skinless chicken breast
(I used Tyson brand pre-cooked, grilled chicken breasts in a bag - 6 breasts - pictured)
1 jar Ragu white sauce (pictured)
4 cups frozen or fresh broccoli
Pepper to taste

Preheat oven 375.
Put chicken breast in a baking pan. Sprinkle broccoli on chicken. Pour the jar of sauce over the broccoli & chicken.
Bake 30 min.

Brown rice is optional. Serving size 1/2 cup per person. Once cooked, pour over your chicken.
May replace with a serving size of wheat pasta as well. Not sure how many points that would be.

My family loved this incredibly easy meal! The rice makes the meal very filling. This made 2 meals for the 3 of us. Ayla just eats 1/2 a breast. Gus gets 1.5, and I eat 1.

Dessert: 1 serving of angel food cake, fat-free whipped cream, strawberries & raspberries. YUM

New Year, New Me!

Here we go, 2013! I created this blog last year and only posted twice. This year I plan to make big changes in my life, and I would like to document it along the way. I just created a great new facebook group for those of us who are getting healthy and I plan to share my blog there occasionally with recipes and great new tips and motivators that I learn along my journey. I hope we all have a great successful year! Today was my first WW meeting since last year and I feel great despite being the heaviest I've ever been. I'm excited to be a healthier me for ME, my daughter and my husband. Plus we want to try to add an addition to our family this year! Ayla is 4 now and we feel we've waited longer than we really wanted to. Life get's away from you and it goes so fast.
CHEERS to 2013!