Fit in 40 days: Blog 11, The Cheese edition

First and foremost: THANK YOU to the two NEW people who are now subscribing to this blog. I made it to TWENTY followers. Not too shabby for a lunch lady!!

I love cheese. This is no new revelation, I have loved cheese my entire life. And really, any kind: stinky, salty, sweet, with herbs, with nuts, whatever. If it's cheese. I will eat it. However, it does not quite fall into the Fit in 40 days category. At least not to the degree I eat it!

I stumbled upon buzzfeed.com on Pinterest and it had a section of 31 grilled cheese that are better than a boyfriend. Ohh..I love grilled cheese so I looked thru her post and did one of her's (kind of) and then did two of my own.

And here's how it shaked out... My plan was to make the Buzzfeed jalapeno popper grilled cheese, then my own version of mozzarella, fresh tomato and basil, and a mexican grilled cheese.

Where to start? I think one of the keys, and the most wonderful thing I have ever made and eaten was a block of low fat cream cheese, at room temp, and add a bunch of finely chopped green onion and black pepper. Had I stopped there, I could have eaten the whole bowl. I used it in the jalapeno and mexican sandwich. And I will be eating it out of the bowl tomorrow!!

I went to Aldi with the intention of getting jarred jalapeno's for the popper sandwich(you are supposed to use fresh but I was trying to take a short cut). As luck had it, they were out and had no fresh ones. I bought a bag of the small, sweet ones, roasted those and used them. 

The same as a jalapeno popper sandwich? Nope, but still pretty good. I used sourdough for two of the three sandwiches and that made a nice difference. Smear the cream cheese mixture on the bottom, peppers in the middle and a slice or two of your other favorite cheese. I used my griddle for all of these.

Sandwich two was the mozzarella, fresh tomato and basil.

This was BY FAR my favorite. All I did was put a little salt on the tomatoes but the fresh basil was the star. Hands down, the best. Here's the two of them toasting together..

I was so full from these two, but had to keep on with my mexican version. I used corn tortillas, the cream cheese filling, some chipotle in adobo (this is my current obsession. Burns the heck out of my mouth and then I am back for more!), and some crumbled queso fresco.

 And a spritz of lime to cool it off. Not too bad, a lot lighter than the other sandwiches and would be good with beans or rice.

Overall, a very successful Night of Grilled Cheese.

I just got a call my son is headed to Urgent Care from baseball, so cutting this short. Thanks for reading!!

Cat

Fit in 40 days: Blog 9

Wow, I got a lot done today! Probably my most productive day YET of Summer Break.

Got the kids vision and dental/ortho appointments made, laundry put away, worked out and made lots of tasty things:

These little gems are peanut butter, choco chips, oatmeal, flax seed, honey and vanilla. So good and supposed to be good for you, though I did not calculate the nutritional information. Didn't want to ruin my morning!! One container of these is all ready gone.

For dinner I decided to roast every veggie I had in the veggie bin. That included a roma tomato, onion, carrots, broccoli, and some peppers. I have eaten almost the whole tray......the best was the tomato. Thinly sliced with veg oil and salt, about 20 mins in a 410 degree oven. Tasted like candy. Will definitely do many more of those!

I added some sunflower seeds on top and made it a meal.

Tonight I am going to go thru both of my freezers and my pantry to see how I can stretch what is in there. I have very small Kroger and Aldi lists and I would like to keep it that way.

Just thought I would add Bear's picture. He's so handsome. And really furry.

Have a good Tues evening. Keep your eyes to the skies as I hear severe weather is coming tomorrow. Take some stuff to the basement now, just in case.

Thanks for reading. Would love to get to two more subscribers to get up to TWENTY. I dream big people, real big.

Cat

Fit in 40 days: Blog 8

So sue me, I missed yesterday, Blog 7.

We had a really busy weekend of friends and family in town and blogging was the last thing from my mind. Which is good: sometimes I need to turn it off and tune in to what is going on around me.

We ate crappy all weekend and now I find I am faced with a house full of crap that I will eat and then nap. Chips being the primary evil and ice cream for the kids. I am going to make a HUGE effort to eat thru our pantry this week bcz Kroger has all kinds of yummy Mexican foods on sale: just the food I have been craving. But I won't load up a pantry that is all ready full, so it will be a week of weird foods. Which I love.

And for the record, I am 8 days straight in the 40 miles in 40 days challenge. At least a mile a day, usually more.

So this is what I was up to today:

I made blueberry muffins with apple sauce and flax seed added. Kids love them. The big pie thing was the extra batter I had!

 This was Jack's dinner: 

 I made orange juice marinated chicken thighs. They were ok, not very orange tasting and actually lacking any flavor. But the rest of us ate these for dinner with some edamame or apple slices.

 My folks were here Sunday and asked what Jack would like to do to keep busy over the summer:

We have a pool pass but this will keep him busy before we can go and on rainy days like today. Thanks Mom and Dad!

Back on track tomorrow with creative cooking and no more cookies and ice cream sandwiches for the kids (bcz they ate them all!!).

Hope you are all having a good start of summer.

Thanks for reading,

Cat

Fit in 40 days: Day 4

It was Jack's last day of school and his WHOLE school (along with every OTHER school in Ohio), went to the zoo. This was the first time we have seen the new Africa exhibit and it seemed quite impressive. Hard to tell  though really bcz we couldn't get close enough to any exhibits to see anything. But I am sure we will go again. Those are giraffes in the background. You can feed them. If you like to wait in line. Jack does not.

This is Jack on a giant mushroom. Reminds him of all the Mario games he plays. I think if he could live in Habitat Hollow, he would. 

Then we paid the small fee to pet the sting rays. Don't think for a MINUTE that I didn't think about Steve Irwin and Jack falling into the tank. Was minorly relieved to know the big ones don't have barbs on their tails but the 5 baby ones still do. So please don't touch. Jack did a great job of listening and really, really enjoyed this experience. Another place he could have spent all day.

 I totally timed our trip wrong and we were both starving by the time we left. I did hit McD but I did not get him the full meal he usually gets. When we got home he ate some fruit and we drank tons of water. Needless to say, he needs a shower tonight. Must wash Zoo smell off of him!

I did have enough energy to make pan seared pork chops with home made mushroom gravy. Made some potatoes and Brussel sprouts. The kids tried a little of all of it and some liked some of it more than other parts, but I take it as a victory that they tried all of it. But really, home made gravy? Anything is good with that!!

I also had enough energy to get my 3 miles in this afternoon. Now it is time to do the dishes, hose off Jack and relax for the evening. It is Friday eve after all.

Thanks for reading!

Cat

Fit in 40 days: day 3

I am thankful I can laugh at myself and the things I do! Today was Jack's last day of 4th grade. He has had such a rotten year and has done so well at his new school, that when he asked for a Pizza Party to celebrate, I was not going to say no.

You know he's the baby in the family, right??

So they boys had pizza for dinner (I had a buy one get one free coupon, so at least a small victory there!) and I had this:

Salad with light ranch and 3 oz of crispy chicken. You can almost imagine how fantastic that tasted up against a nice, gooey, greasy pizza....so I may have had a couple pieces of pizza. But not many.

Got my run in today, too. Hitting Aldi tomorrow and Kroger on Friday. Busy weekend of friends and family coming to visit. Should be another good weekend to kick off Summer!

Speaking of grocery shopping: I watched the Rachael Ray show on Tues and they did a grocery budget swap with two families: One family used to be on food stamps and now sticks to a strict $60/week budget for a family of 4. The other family has no budget and can spend close to $600 (HUNDRED) a week in groceries. The guy is a chef and buys only the highest quality ingredients. So she had them swap. The $60/week gal didn't know what to spend her money on so she bought a lot of meat/poultry. She said that after just a couple days of eating such rich food, they felt horrible. She said they felt better when they had beans or rice or pasta a couple times a week. The $600/week family lasted about two days and then resorted to take out. The guy could not stand cooking just regular ground beef for a meal.

How much do you spend on groceries a week for your family? What will you splurge on? Our family of 5 spends about $110/week. That does NOT include the $100 we spend at our meat market every 6-8 weeks. I am pretty good at making the good stuff stretch but really want the kids to eat more meat/poultry/fish than processed stuff. So that meat bill will be going up this summer. And that's ok if it helps them develop better habits.

Would love your feedback on your grocery bills and where you scrimp and where you splurge.

Thanks for reading!

Cat

Fit in 40 days: Day 2

I am happy to report, so far so good. I managed to get my act together enough this morning to include apple slices with the kids waffles. They had carrots and orange pepper strips with their grilled cheese tonight (not a very adventurous meal for the kids but we have baseball tonight). I, however, made some delicious Chinese turkey meatballs.

Started with about a pound and a half of ground white meat turkey, grated in a couple carrots, some ginger and some onion. I love to grate the onion  bcz you get the juice and no big chunks of onion. Added some hoisin and siracha and lots of black pepper. Baked them at 375 degrees for about 35-40 minutes. They went great with the broccoli slaw I made yesterday. Always looking for ways to spruce up some ground turkey!!

I didn't add any salt and should have. But other than that, they are really moist and pretty tasty. I can eat them all week and not feel bad about it.

Got my run in today and though my time was pathetic, I was just glad I didn't die of heat stroke. 4pm on an 85 degree day may NOT have been the best time to run. But I am 2 for 2 so far in this challenge.

This was my official last day of work for the summer. YAY! I truly love my job and my co workers are the greatest group of people you could hope to work with. Just nice to take some time away from the kids and cooking for 6 hours and just relax.

Have a great Tuesday!!

Cat

Fit in 40 days: Day 1

I am often a hypocrite in that I talk a BIG game about nutrition and exercise and though I may follow my own advice, I do not do the same for my family. There have been lots of Donut parties of late as a way to keep Jack plugging thru school. On the weekends and during the week, there are often trips to the drive thru's because we are on the run constantly.

I hate what I am feeding my family. I hate that they don't know what portion control is. I hate that it can be DAYS in between having a fruit or veggie.

And that is too much hate to be carrying around.

My neighbor/friend invited me to join Runners World 40 miles in 40 days challenge which starts today and ends July 4th. I have just gotten back into running, am doing a 5k in the Fall with some friends, and I usually put on a good 7lbs over the summer. This is a terrific incentive for me to get off the couch/lounge chair and keep moving.

Then I thought: If I am going to endure this torture, er I mean, healthy lifestyle, my family should, too!!! More water, more fruits, more veggies, more fresh food. This doesn't mean there won't be a frozen pizza, mac and cheese, or grilled cheese days, it just means I am taking a very active role in getting my family to eat better in the next 40 days.

And to make sure I am accountable for it, I will blog about it every day. It is hard to not get sucked into the lure of the drive thru, but it is so expensive and just so bad for them. And knowing I would have to blog about it may be enough to keep me away!

So join me on this 40 days of lots of miles, healthy eating, and happier family members!!

Thanks for reading,

Cat