Clean Eating magazine

John picked up a new (to us) magazine this week called Clean Eating. It has a bunch of good articles about health, kitchen stuff, eating non-processed foods and lots of recipes. Tonight we tried out one of their recipes for pasta alfredo with shrimp & veggies. It was really good, and healthy too. I've added it to my rotation of recipes. I'll also be making one of the desserts this weekend for Thanksgiving, a layered lemon cream tart. I'll post about that after we try it.

Here's the recipe for the Alfredo Cream Sauce

1 cup 2% milk
2 1/2 tsp arrowroot (we didn't have any so we used tapioca instead, you can also use cornstarch)
2/3 cup grated parmesan cheese
3/4 cup low-fat plain yogurt
1/4 tsp ground nutmeg
salt & pepper to taste

In a medium saucepan, whisk together milk & arrowroot. Place over medium heat and cook, stirring, until mixture comes to a simmer and thickens, about 5 minutes. Remove from heat and add cheese, whisking until melted. Whisk in yogurt, nutmeg, salt, pepper. Cover and set side. If necessary, re-warm over low heat before serving.

This recipe was tasty, really easy, and fast to make. I prepped my veggies first, then started making the sauce. While I was making the sauce, I started to boil the water for pasta. By the time the water was boiling the sauce was done.Then I started sautéeing my veggies and shrimp and started the pasta. By the time the pasta was done, the veggies & shrimp were done too.

For the veggie/shrimp mixture, I sautéed 2 shallots, 1 package (thawed) frozen cooked shrimp, snap peas (lots), and asparagus (lots) for about 7 minutes while the pasta was cooking.

This made enough for 3 dinners tonight (Holden eats adult portions when he likes what I've made and this recipe had 2 thumbs up from him!) and 2 leftover lunches tomorrow.

McDonald's: 0 — Stephanie: 1

We've had a stressful busy week at work this week, and I managed to make good choices with food*, which many people know is super hard to do when you're stressed and busy. So for that I'm really happy.

Today was the real showdown though. John just couldn't take it and wanted McDonald's for lunch. He wanted it bad. So, ya know, I encouraged him not to, but there's only so much I can do. I'm his wife, not his mom. So John had McDonald's and I had a big salad. I turned down McDonald's when I had a super easy out on it. I'm really proud of myself! AND it was a delicious salad. I've had this salad everyday this week. It's so damn good.

Here's the recipe to my oh-so-delicious salad:

Vinaigrette (this makes enough for a week's worth of salads)

• 1 small shallot finely chopped or minced
• 4 tbsp red wine vinegar
• 3 tsp dijon mustard

Mix those 3 ingredients together.
Whisk in slowly:

• 10 tbsp olive oil

These are the veggies I put in my salad:
Lettuce (d-uh)
Grape tomatoes
Cucumber
Green beans (I use LOTS, so good... steam for 3 minutes, submerge in cold water, add to salad)
Goat cheese (the secret delicious ingredient)

Tomorrow is Saturday. The weekend. I really hope I can pull it off and make healthy food choices!

*I had a take-out coffee every morning with sugar and cream. This was my "bad thing" of the week.

Motivation is here!

So today's post of my confession of my weight and sugar addiction got some encouraging emails and feedback on Facebook. It made me feel good and not quite so disgusting. I hate that I feel disgusting. Thanks to everyone for the kind words and encouragement.

I ended up going for an impromptu 20 minute power walk after dinner. I asked Holden if he wanted to go for a walk, he said he wanted to go to the park (as usual *ha*) so I took the long way, which is totally out of the way, but I got a tiny bit of exercise in, so that's good.

Today's food was only OK.

Breakfast was 2 slice whwh toast with no-sugar added jam (although it's jam, so it's still sweet, so not really a great choice).

Lunch was 2 hard boiled eggs, half of a sliced yellow pepper, and a few cucumber slices. Much better!!

Dinner was a homemade blackbean burrito. It was fan-frickin'-tastic. I added more veggies (chopped tomato, more peppers), but I found it was too much cream cheese. Next time I'll cut it in half. John and Holden loved it too!! I served it with salsa.

Here's the recipe:

Blackbean Burritos

Ingredients (serves 4)

• 4 (10 inch) flour tortillas
• 1/4 cup vegetable oil ( I used waaaaaay less than this, maybe 1 tbsp)
• 1 small onion, chopped
• 1 red bell pepper, chopped
• 2 teaspoons minced garlic
• 2 (15 ounce) cans black beans, rinsed and drained (I used 1 large can for the 3 of us)
• 2 teaspoons minced jalapeno peppers (skipped this, added fajita seasoning instead)
• 6 ounces cream cheese (this was too much for the 3 of us)
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 cup chopped fresh cilantro

Directions

1. Wrap tortillas in foil and place in oven heated to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Bake for 15 minutes or until heated through.
2. Heat oil in a 10-inch skillet over medium heat. Place onion, bell pepper, garlic and jalapenos in skillet, cook for 2 minutes stirring occasionally. Pour beans into skillet, cook 3 minutes stirring.
3. Cut cream cheese into cubes and add to skillet with salt. Cook for 2 minutes stirring occasionally. Stir cilantro into mixture.
4. Spoon mixture evenly down center of warmed tortilla and roll tortillas up. Serve immediately.

Week 4, Day 3 Summary

Here's what I ate today:
water: 4 glasses

Breakfast:
1 egg + 1 egg white, 4 slices tomato, coffee (no sugar!)

Lunch:
Black bean & veggie soup, 1 slice whwh bread (no butter!)

Dinner:
Steamed salmon; spinach & rice casserole, steamed green beans.

Dessert:
1/2 of a large orange

Total calorie intake: 1,025 calories. Well under my goal, but I wasn't really hungry for much else. I definitely should have snuck in a handful of almonds or something similar between breakfast and lunch.

Exercise:
1 hour in the pool with Theresa. We did lots of laps, but admittedly they were only moderate intensity, but we did continuously move for the whole hour!

So I feel I did really well. Yippee!!

By the way, the spinach and rice casserole was a huge hit with John, Holden and myself. Here's the recipe if you're interested:

Spinach & Rice Casserole
Makes 8 servings

• 1 cup chopped onion
• 2 cloves minced garlic
  
• 1 teaspoon olive or canola oil
• 1 1/2 cups uncooked long grain rice
• 4 cups reduced sodium chicken broth
• 1 (10 ounce) package fresh spinach, torn
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/8 teaspoon pepper
• 1/4 cup shredded Parmesan cheese

Directions:

1. In a large saucepan, saute onion & garlic in oil until tender. Add rice; cook and stir for 2 minutes. Add broth; bring to a boil. Reduce heat; cover and simmer for 15 minutes. Stir in the spinach, salt and pepper; cook until spinach is wilted.
   
   
2. Transfer to a 2-qt. baking dish coated with nonstick cooking spray. Sprinkle with Parmesan cheese. Cover and bake at 375 degrees F for 20-25 minutes or until rice is tender.

Nutritional Analysis: One serving (3/4 cup) equals 174 calories, 2 g fat (1 g saturated fat), 2 mg cholesterol, 386 mg sodium, 33 g carbohydrate, 1 g fiber, 6 g protein. Diabetic Exchanges: 2 starch.