Green Smoothie Challenge...Day 10

Due to certain circumstances, I have had a horrible schedule the last week and a half. As I mentioned in a previous post, it was fun for a while but now it's old but hard to get out of the routine. So, again, I didn't make my smoothies until very late in the evening. I did not want to go another day without drinking one, so I had about 16oz. I bottled up the rest for tomorrow.

Hopefully, if I can get on a routine of making my batch at night for the next day, I will be more apt to drink all through the day instead of cramming what I can late at night.

I also decided to have the kids take a swallow of it everyday and work their way up to 8oz and so on. The boys are not gaggging or putting a fight when I ask them to take a swallow, so that is a good sign!

The boys are also interested in "good" RAW and bad raw. They know the "good" RAW is healthy while bad raw, i.e., raw chicken, is will make you sick. They weren't too keen on the RAW brownies but I think they would like the mint chocolate melt-aways they had the class. I liked them!

I have talked at length with Jason about this whole RAW thing and he seems very supportive of the family eating better. I don't think he could enjoy the different RAW things but he all for the family eating more fruits and vegetables not just as snacks but as a mainstay at meals. I know that sounds like a "duh" thing but remember, I didn't grow up on fruits and vegetables, so it's a big leap for me. I am slowly learning that the kids will eat what I have and if I have baby carrots and no cookies, they will happily eat baby carrots. Again, a "duh" kind of thing but I don't like carrots, unless they are in a smoothie and I can't taste them. So I get other things to snack on and therefore the kids snack on the junk I bring home. Maybe now with me having a large bag of baby carrots on hand for my smoothies, I will be less likely to bring home cookies. I guess that can be one of my goals.

As I end this post, I am happy to say that I didn't skip today and I am fully prepared with 55oz of green smoothies for tomorrow!

Green Smoothie Challenge...Day 7,8 & 9

Saturday went well. I had my 16oz ready for the morning and that was nice. Later in the day, I made my regular batch and again saved 16oz for the next morning.

Sunday, I only drank the one bottle I had saved. But I didn't feel bad because I got my daily allowance at the RAW food class I went to Sunday afternoon! I happened to sit by a very nice lady who had been eating RAW for several years and comes to the the class every month to get the recipes. This was the best seat to have because she gave me helpful hints all through the class.

This class was all about appetizers for holiday parties. I thought this would be good for me because I would be the only one in my family trying to eat this way when I made RAW things (unless I can get some kids to try it) and they would be easy enough to make only half of a recipe to start out.

The teacher should us how to make "neatballs", chips and dip, chocolate, "ravioli" and a few other things that I was surprised that I like. The only thing I didn't care for was the ginger candy. I am not a fan of ginger and it was way ginger-y. But I still ate it. ;)

The ravioli was good and the "pasta" was made out of a thinly sliced turnip. I could not believe I was eating a turnip!

Most of the food that was made was mainly made out of chickpeas and nuts. I was so surprised at how good it was and how adding different herbs, spices and other vegetables or fruit changed the taste.

My diet has been so limited my whole life. I was embarrassed at the fact that I did not know the names of some of the food or herbs or spices.

I have to confess that after talking about how I have enjoyed my smoothies, the one I had taken with me didn't taste as good after the class as it did before the class.

I now have cashews soak in water so I can make the chips and dip tomorrow. I plan to purchase a food processor tomorrow!

Today, I did not have a smoothie or anything RAW. I was worrying myself to no end because I did not do anything today. Oh well, I will start again tomorrow.

Green Smoothe Challenge ... Day 4 & 5

Yesterday and today were better days even though I did not have the entire 70oz, I had 34oz. Still pretty good for a beginner!

Last night I found a RAW cafe online. So today I tried a little extra something for fun. The boys and I tried a traditional RAW pizza and RAW brownies. I really liked both but the boys, not so much. I was proud of them for even trying a bite.

Again, I am not trying to go 100% RAW but I am exploring RAW foods. I have still been eating what ever, though not as much. To be honest, in just a few short days, SAD items, especially fast food, just doesn't taste as good.

Spelly said she is surprised that I am not feeling better physically yet. Right now, I can attest to fact of me feeling better mentally. Maybe if I was on a better sleep cycle I would see a difference physically and that is something I will work on. But now, mental is fine with me.

I am also excited to make my smoothies for tomorrow. I had to get more fruit and vegatables this evening and while at the RAW cafe, I got RAW honey.

The cafe is also having a RAW help class this Sunday for a couple of hours. Hopefully they still have an opening.

Being very positive! :)

Green Smoothe Challenge ... Day 3

Today did not go as well as the first two, only because I was lazy. I had 17oz of smoothie left from yesterday, so that is all I "drank" today. I did have a 1/2 cup of steamed broccoli at dinner tonight. But, yes but, it is still more fruits and vegetables (F and V) than I had 4 days ago!

According to my age (36 and 11/12) and the fact that I am female, my goal should be 4 cups of F and V per day.

Day 1, I had a total of 5 and 3/4 cups of F and V. On day 2, I had a total of 4 and 1/4 cups. Today, day 3, I calculated that I had 2 cups.

Even though the amount I have taken in has decreased each day, I am still happy to report that I had F and V, fresh, all 3 days. On an even more positive note, I exceeded my daily allowance 2 out of the 3 days!

How am I feeling? Physically, no different. Mentally, I feel great because I know I am eating good.

I am still amazed that I don't mind drinking green smoothies. It actually quenches my thirst for water.

Being positive!

Green Smoothie Challenge

After getting on the scale the other day AND tired of feeling tired AND knowing that when I ate a low/good carb lean protein diet this summer made me feel good AND just having purchased my Montel (I named my new blender "Montel"), I decided to take the "Green Smoothie Challenge".

The challenge is just encouraging you to drink a green smoothie a day for 14 days. It is not saying you have to replace all your meals with a smoothie but you could "up" the challenge by replacing one meal with a green smoothie. I going to be very optimistic and ambitious. I am starting today with green smoothies all day long along with Medifast drinks as needed.

I enjoy Medifast as much as Slimfast. No, they don't taste quite the same but Medifast gives me the chocolate fix. It is only 90 calories and filled with vitamins and minerals. Medifast also works well with my PCOS and IR. I enjoyed supplementing my diet with it this past summer, especially when I needed something quick or a snack when I was just a little hungry, so I wouldn't go off the deep end.

I digress. I am going to be positive about my ambitious start because I think it will be harder to make a small smoothie once a day than to make a pitcher full of my daily allowance of fruits and veggies and drink on it all day. Today I made a full pitcher which included 1 small apple, 1 cup of rasberries, 3/4 cup of blueberries, 1/2 cup of baby carrots, 1 cup of celery, 2 handfuls of spinach and 2 leaves of kale, 32oz of water and a good squirt of honey. I had about 16oz right off the bat and then refilled the two 16oz water bottles with the smoothie and refilled a washed out bottle of wine about half way. This smoothie is well over my 1.5 cups of fruits and 2.5 cups of veggies for the day!

I have drank about half of it at this point in the day. It isn't the all time best tasting smoothie but it doesn't taste bad. It tastes fresh and healthy. #2 said it wasn't too bad and with it turning out a deep purple instead of green, that helped it go down.

I will let you know how tomorrow turns out. Be positive!

Another new adventure...

After reconnecting with a childhood friend from elementary and middle school, I learned she had gone from a SAD diet to a RAW diet. In reading her posts about how her health and outlook has dramatically improved since going RAW, she has convinced me to at least try to go partially RAW.

Maybe I shouldn't say partial RAW, as that may a little ambitious. My goal to begin with, is simply to add fruits and vegetables into my very SAD diet. I want to have the daily recommended amount of fruits and vegetables every day as opposed to one day's worth of fruits and vegetables spaced out through the week.

After deciding to try some type of RAW, I started saving up for a blender, oops, I mean an emulsifier. I don't have the money for a Vita-mix, so I did the next best thing, Montel Williams Healthmaster. I read several reviews and some of them were not that good. The main complaint was that it started leaking or broke after about 3 months. But I decided to get it anyway. It seemed that it started not working right for those who used it for heavy duty blending. I plan to start out using fruits and vegetables so I thought good or bad, at least I am starting a better diet. If I don't stick with it, at least I didn't waste $500.

But I am going to stay positive! There is no waste here regardless of the outcome! So tonight is the maiden smoothie with Montel. It will consist of blueberries, blackberries, bananas, pineapple, strawberries and a heaping helping of spinach.

Chick-fil-A

Yesterday, Chick-fil-A had a promotion that if you dressed up as a cow you would get a free meal. They even had a link to print out parts of a cow to use for your costume. I talked the kids into doing this so we could get our supper for free. They were a little apprehensive but went along with it. I even did it. Unfortunately, I did not read the very fine print where it stated that you had to dress from head to toe as a cow to get the free meal. So our print outs were considered only a partial costume. But we got an entree free for each person! That was just as good to me! I purchased some diet lemonade (oh my goodness, yum yum) and we headed back to Pappy's house.

Sliders, mini burgers...who cares, they were good!

Actually, I had never heard of sliders until a restaurant commercial in the last year or so. Any little burger to me was a Krystal burger. Even then, for it to be a good "little burger" it actually needed to be a Krystal. White Castle?? Umm, no. It was always Krystal's. Anyway...

My all time favorite food man, Alton Brown, did a show on "mini man burgers". It seemed easy enough and I had the required equipment (a griddle, plastic wrap, freezer paper and a cookie sheet). Tonight, on a whim, at 8:30 no less, I decided to try these mini burgers. We went to the grocery store for a pound of ground meat and a couple packs of dinner rolls. It took all of 5 minutes to roll out the meat and sprinkle salt, pepper, garlic powder and onion powder over it. Alton the folds the meat in half and cuts 8 equal squares. Well I had 6 people to feed so I did not do this step but I will next time. He does this so all the seasonings are in the middle of the burger. I do believe by me not doing this step I left something to be desired for seasoning. BUT, I made 20 little burgers and they were soooooooo good. On my second one I added a pickle and a squirt of mustard. Yum yum yum, it was the closet thing to a Krystal burger.

Maybe Billy Mays' slider maker is a neat little deal but doing it Alton's way = free. It went quick and they tasted great. Plus Alton's are square. A perfect shape for walking down memory lane about the dozens upon dozens of Krystal burgers I have eaten since I can remember.

Ethnic Reciepe #1

An Armenian friend made THE best pork ribs! I asked for the authentic Armenian reciepe: red pepper, black pepper, salt and chopped onion. That is all. I put the above in a gallon zip lock bag and pork chops, let it sit overnight and then grill. OMG, easy and soooo good. My kids licked their plates!!!

This is how easy it looks in the zip lock bag in the fridge. I didn't measure anything. I just shook in the peppers and salt and chopped a large onion. I can't wait until dinner tomorrow night.

Homemade chicken soft tacos!

My children LOVE Del Taco's chicken soft tacos, two children with no lettuce. The tacos are fairly inexpensive but now all four seem to require 3-4 tacos each in order to be full. So today I made it my mission to find out what the "secret white sauce" is that Del Taco puts on their chicken soft tacos. I googled and searched earlier this morning and found that you could mix mayo and sour cream to have a taste similar to the "secret white sauce". I am sure Del Taco does have a secret to their recipe but I was willing to try the mayo/sour cream mix.

So here is the recipe I used today to get a smile from my most discerning young palette:

flour tortillas
equal parts of mayo and sour cream
chicken that was cooked in the crock pot all day in green enchilada sauce
shredded cheese

Actually, all four said my chicken soft tacos were pretty darn close to those sold up the street.

*** Update December 18, 2009 ***

Last night I went through Del Tacos drive thru and before leaving, I asked if the "secret white sauce" was really secret. The workers laughed and said she didn't think so but she didn't know what was in it other than it was a mayonaise based product. Just thought I would share. If you find out more, please leave a message!

Our super deals

Yes, with thriftiness always in the forefront of our minds nowadays, we have made it a family outing to go our local Goodwill Superstores in the last couple of weeks looking for bargains. It seems the kids always grow out of their clothes two days after you buy them or they just plain wear them out.

So, this past week, I dragged #1 to one of the two Goodwill Superstores we have been frequenting after her doctor's appointment (since we were already on that side of town). Despite her being sick (two ear infections), she let me make a quick run through of the clothes for her. She was in need of more meeting clothes. I was able to get #3 several meeting outfits since we had stumbled into "50% off all clothes" a few Saturdays ago. This week, #1 and I stumbled into "25% all skirts". We walked out with brand-name items (many with the original tag still attached) that amounted to five meeting outfits for less than $20!!! (Pictures to come as they wear the clothes.)

Tonight, Jason wanted to go to his favorite GW Superstore, closer to our home, to check out what they had. Well let me tell you, somebody walked out with a super big smile on his face. I have to admit, I did too. We spotted a brand new gas dryer for $60 dollars. What manager's special did we stumble into tonight? It was 25% off everything in the store. So with that, Jason skipped up to the counter and put his name on it. Total spent for the dryer was $45!! There are no dents, scratches or chips on it. Frigidaire has a MRSP of $619, but looking online, it looks like it goes for about $500. He saved $455!! Jason ran a gas line to the dryer hook up a few years ago so that we could save on our electricity bill (which it has). Our friends were kind of enough to give us an old gas dryer they no longer needed but it has been on its last leg for months. It squeaked so bad, everyone on our street knew when we were drying clothes. For the price it would cost to fix it, Jason decided to start looking for another used dryer. Tonight he found on and he got an awesome deal. The following video is a few seconds of the new dryer doing its thing, quietly. That is how proud we are, we want to share with the WWW land how nice it is to dry clothes, quietly.



Still coming down from the high of our thrift store experience, I was craving more of Mama Rose's pizza. I ran into Food 4 Less and what did I find but my pizzas on sale for 50% off! These pizzas come in packs of two, so I came out with two packs at $2.29 per pack and a two four packs of snack pizzas for $2.79 per pack! Even though, for the last two weeks, I have cooked six regular pizzas and 10 snack pizzas for anyone in the house who wanted to partake I still felt the urge to make another one tonight. The crust is wonderful and the cheese is so creamy, almost liquid. Even when it gets cold, the cheese is still soft.

Now that I have totally rambled about a dryer, cheap clothes and pizza for several paragraphs, I can not end this post without sharing a picture of an item that I felt would never be a likely piece of decor in my house. But, when my eye caught I glimpse of this lamp, I knew in my heart that if Jason saw it, the lamp would be coming home with us. Well, he got a glimpse of it. Proudly,here on his side of the bed, stands his new $5 lamp. I am thankful it is not a leg lamp.

Spam...can't do it

Well maybe if it is in the form of Spam Musubi. A couple from the Kingdom Hall took me out to dinner at a little Hawaiian restaurant Friday night. As a treat, P ordered spam musubi. She had mentioned it last week and of course I turned my nose up at the thought but let me tell you, it was very good! It was as good as the sushi Spelly and Spam had introduced to me in Nashville. So now I have another pit stop to sneak too while I am out and about by myself. R and P sure do make me long to visit Hawaii (they are natives of the islands) with their stories and now I am longing for the food.

Another positive baking moment...

I have been trying so hard to make homemade biscuits for some time. I always end up with flat hockey pucks. Then I found Alton Brown. I tried his recipe but did not weigh my flour and again came up with hockey pucks. Then I tried weighing my flour (AB's way) like I did for my cookies, and wow, I had high fluffy lite biscuits.




They weren't the prettiest shape but they were good. We had a nice brunch of scrambled eggs, bacon and homemade biscuits today. Did you know, you eat much better when you cook?

Store bought cookies are out and homemade are in!!

Again, to save money, I have been forced to make homemade chocolate chip cookies. I think I have tried before years ago but have blocked it from my memory. But tonight after going a week with no real junk food in the house, Jason was more than eager to make a run to the grocery store for brown sugar and vanilla extract. Thus at 8:30pm I was pushed in the kitchen with Alton Brown's recipe for chewy chocolate chip cookies. I followed the recipe to the point of weighing the flour instead of using a measuring cup (Alton's way) and I think the cookies came out great.

That is saying something from me because I don't feel it is a great "home baked" CC cookie unless it comes from the Pillsbury Dough Dough Boy. With the log, I don't feel the need to even bake cookies, spoonfuls of dough do just fine. I have even been known to make a run to the grocery store in my pajamas to get a log of dough only to get back in the car and use my keys to poke a hole in the plastic and squeeze the dough directly in my mouth. Now before think of me binging behind a dumpster on cookie dough, the time this incident happened, I was with friends and we all had the intention of going back home to bake the cookies and we all passed the dough around. By the time we got back to the house, half the dough was gone and we were sick. I am sure my two faithful readers will remember this story.

Anyway..I digress...

The kids really liked the cookies and big Jason ate several with a smile and a tall glass of milk. So now I know for sure that I want, I mean need, a 5qt stand up mixer like Alton Brown. I don't have to have flames though. Oh wait, I am making cookies to save money. Shucks, I guess my $10 hand mixer will have to do for awhile.

See what you get when...

you take two 9 year old girls to Costco at dinner time when the store is passing out samples...leftovers. What makes this not so good is that it is leftovers no one wants. This is fair warning to those toting around kids when you and the kids are hungry. I had to make a quick trip to Costco this evening for one very specific item. I thought they closed at 6pm and we got there right at 5:30. A safe time frame, I thought. We got there and found out the store didn't close until 8:30. Boy, did that allow us to roam the store for deals and samples. My one item turned into many items, especially food for dinner tonight. The girls and I decided the teriyaki chicken would be a great main dish with the spinach cheese ravioli as a non-conventional but fun side dish. Oh if we could have only squeezed in a serving of Marie Calender's corn bread mix.

After eating samples for an hour, dinner wasn't as appetizing as we had hoped. Jason turned his nose up at the ravioli, but choked it down easily since his nose was stuffed up. #1 wasn't as hip on either of our delicious finds as she was at the store, #2 was wondering what we were thinking when we purchased our dinner fixings but surprisingly #3 and #4 really liked it all.

Jason and I laughed as we joked about which of my friends would be getting the other half of the ravioli. For those of you who know me well, I will be begrudgingly taking ravioli for lunch tomorrow.

New age milk

I had heard on the news that milk was going to be coming in new box like containers. The reason for this, I think, was to make it easier for shipping. But I had heard this a while back and had forgotten about it. Today, at Costco, I came upon the box milk! What ever the reason for putting it into these new containers, I like it. Packing it in my car was nice, as I could lay stuff on top of it with out it being a balancing act, it sits well in the fridge and seems to offer a little bit more room around it.

Thought I would share.

More of this as the kids get older???

Maybe I am grasping at straws here for a topic to blog about but I thought I would share a milestone my family has now reached. We are officially a two box per meal Hamburger Helper family. This is surprising because I totally never expected that food would be such an issue in our house. Growing up (mind you it was a two girl house hold), two boxes of any boxed dinner would have been too much and we would've had to have it two nights in a row. But with two boys and two girls and a hard working dad, we had little to none left over tonight from our two box dinner. I already had to cancel my Schwans delivery. #4 loved their broccoli and cheese and last week, I had to make a whole bag in order to feed the whole family for one dinner. There was a time when I could have made two to three meals on one bag. So now, we use fresh steamed broccoli with Velveeta or ranch dressing.

What happens in a couple of years when the are all teenagers?

Sloppy Dogs

I can't believe the triplets are 9 yrs old and I have never introduced sloppy joes. Well I did last week and it got a warm reception with all but little poot who seems to think all dinners in this house must tickle his fancy before his ever discerning stomach will let any food grace its presence.

#2 suggested that we put the sloppy joe onto hot dog buns for fun. So tonight I surprised the gang with "sloppy dogs" and it was a hit will all including little poot who gladly sucked a sloppy dog down! Who would have thought that all it would take would be a long skinny bun instead of a round stumpy bun? What would they do if they actually had to eat sloppy joes like their dad and I did in our youth; on plain white sandwich bread?

Food can be so fun!!

We're back and already missing the food of the south

Yes we are back in town. With Shirley and Jeannie as co-pilots and Pearl (my GPS) as our navigator, home was a puddle jump away from Arkansas. We pulled an all nighter and now can be called super-truckers. The kids and I put about 4600 miles on the van with this trip. We saw all four sets of grandparents and covered four states as far as visiting goes but we drove through a total of 11 states. We toured Jonesboro, GA (GWTW post), we visited and toured the Jack Daniels Distillery in Lynchburg, TN, visited a cemetery where a lot of Harpoles are buried in Arkansas, and wrote our name on a Cadillac in Amarillo, Tx. Though the driving was fun with the kids (really it was, we had a good time) the trip was great as we centered it around family, friends and food we can't get at home.

We ate at Cracker Barrel five times in the two and half weeks we were gone. One in Texas, one in Georgia, one in Tennessee twice and one in Oklahoma. And what did I get every time you ask? Grilled chicken tenderloins, fried okra, hash brown casserole and grits with butter and sugar!! Yes, all five times. Unfortunately, we were only able to eat at Waffle House once. But I did get my Chick-fil-A fix three times. I went through Birmingham too late to get a Milo's. I think this was my first time I have had to skip Milo's. In GA, Meme fixed us the best gravy and biscuits and even grilled us fish for dinner one night (our one truly healthy meal). Then we headed to TN and had the best grilled cheeses Pappy has ever made along with being introduced to chocolate covered sunflower seeds by Debbie and Dottie. We enjoyed BBQ in Lynchburg and Debbie and I shared a true BBQ pizza. All my kids enjoyed ordering sweet tea at every restaurant in the South. Other than the Milo's miss and forgetting to get my boiled peanuts down the road from Meme's, and missing out on Bill's fried pork chops and forgetting to get Kristie to make me some baked beans, I had an enjoyable culinary trip. It is a shame a I have to cram all that good food in only once or twice a year. Now as I write this and literally feel my blood sludging through my veins, I have resided myself to do Medifast for a couple of weeks to detox. But don't feel too sorry for me yet, with Jeannie's bacon grease loaded green beans (they are soooo good) and her mashed potatoes and Shirley's chicken enchiladas, my smorgasbord has lingered a few extra days.

Food of the South

Since the kids and I had already stopped at a Cracker Barrel a few states back, I opted to take the kids through Krystal. It was so good and #2 and #3 loved the Krystal Chicks and #1 and #4 enjoyed the Krystal Pups. I, of course, enjoyed my regular Krystal burgers and the old fashioned fried apple pies like McDonalds used to have before they tried to go all healthy on us.

After driving for days, I knew were in the south when I saw Krystal. White House has nothing on Krystal! Oh the stories I could tell about a few trips to Krystal in my younger days.