Flat Tummy Smoothie

I like this title, aren't we all looking for a flat tummy? I know I am so when I saw this on pinterest.com I wanted to try it out.

I remember as a little child my PawPaw McCleskey had a bottle of papaya vitamins and we used to get into them and eat them like candy they were so good. Now looking back we probably should have stayed on them. He was into juicing, drinking hot water for breakfast (to get things moving), eating honey instead of sugar, vitamins and jumping on the trampoline or walking. There were a lot of great things he did to keep healthy that we should have taken better notice of while he was alive. I think we would have been a lot healthier if they we took advantage of that knowledge he had. But hind sight is always 20/20, and sometimes you have to learn from your own mistakes to really understand why things are good for your body.

Anyway, so peeling a papaya is the same as peeling a cantaloupe. Its slimy and full of gross looking seeds you have to scoop out, but it is a tasty fruit. They are good for digestion so I guess that helps flatten the tummy when things are moving well. So here is the recipe...

Flat Tummy

Rich in digestion supporting ingredients, this smoothie will help prevent bloating and digestive stress that can sabotage your tummy flattening efforts.

3/4 c. papaya
3/4c. sliced peaches
1/2 pear, sliced
1 tsp fresh ginger
2 mint leaves
Water to thin

I might have messed up this recipe while I made it, thought it was 1/2 cups. Anyway mine tasted smooth and it was yummy. I have enough fruit left over for another one either this afternoon or tomorrow. Enjoy!

Taking a "Juice Day"

I don't have any pictures to share today, just some recipes. I had a "free" day yesterday so I have felt the need to drink only juice today to "reboot" my system, I may extend this for the next few days if I survive today. I added 1/2 an avocado to the juice, and cut the milk and yogurt to 1/2 a cup each. It really doesn't taste any different and the avocado will add fat and creaminess to the smoothie. I am building up the nerve to go strait juice, with no milk or yogurt. So here is the recipe and calories for the avocado smoothie.

1/2 cup skim milk
1/2 cup Dannon light and fit vanilla yogurt
1/2 medium banana
1 whole granny smith apple
1/2 cup of strawberries
1/2 avocado
2 cups kale
2 cups spinach
3+ ice cubes
1 cup or more of water to thin

Makes almost 5 cups for a total of 525 calories
Meal portion would be 210 calories (16 oz)

Here's to a better day tomorrow.

What to do with left over chicken?

Earlier in the week I had pan fried (with Pam) a pack of chicken tenders and made me a salad. Well I had portioned the others out and stuck them in the fridge.

Today I was hungry not for a salad but something more. Well I didn't want chicken salad either, I wanted a sandwich with buffalo wing sauce. So I pulled out a flour tortilla, some cream cheese with onion and chives, the buffalo sauce, and lite ranch. Put it all together and came up with this.

So that is 2 chicken tenders pre cooked 120
1 flour tortilla we need wheat 140
1 tbsp of the cream cheese 35
1 tbsp of buffalo wing sauce 0
1 tbsp of ken's lite rance 40
Total 335

Looking back I don't think that I had to put the cream cheese in there with the ranch. I plan on getting some lower calorie tortilla's too, to get even less.

I was suppose to go to the gym this morning, but with Stinker getting up like she did, and worrying over something I shouldn't have, I lost sleep. So I decided to just sleep through my gym time. Anyway I have been busy this morning anyway, giving all the kids a bath for revival tonight, ironing our clothes, and doing a load of laundry. So on my iPhone app I was looking up exercises last night, it was amusing but I decided to use them today. I have not been going over my calories since Sunday, so I want to keep that up for sure. Any exercise is better than none at all.

Ironing 15 minutes -71 calories burned, haha
Bathing 15 minutes -66 calories burned, this is for bathing 3 kids, vigorously scrubbing scalps, pulling on them to stand up to wash, and then running all over the tub trying to rinse them off, I feel like this one should be more.

Anyway, its hard to get everything into one post and so I might have a couple or none everyday, just keep checkin. Hope to keep inspiring!!

Easier Way For Busier Mom's to Juice!

I wanted to share an easy alternative for those that don't want to deal with the measuring of your fruits and yogurt.

This is great! It only has 70 cal per serving. Just add your milk (skim has 40 per serving) spinach, kale and broccoli. You'll need to add water to thin it out, it was thick.

This was easy, less messy, and quicker. Plus you don't have to cut and freeze it yourself, less prep time. Also you can find coupons for these, and Publix runs BOGO free sales on these from time to time.

Since I had such a bad day yesterday. This juice first thing in the morning, made me feel good, like I'm doing something great for myself.

"Glowing Sunshine Juice"

Whew, ok this one is going to take some serious mind over matter to get down.
After my workout this morning I went to Publix and got some ginger root for a few of the recipes I want to try.
Well tonight we made the "juice" with the above title. David and I both are going to have to make ourselves drink it. We used a blender and it left lots of pulp behind I added water to thin it but it was still hard to drink. But my attitude on my journey is I can do anything and if that means drinking pulpy carrot juice then that's what I will do.
The original recipe says to juice the ingredients and if you have a juicer please use it.

1 grapefruit peeled
4 medium carrots peeled and chopped
1 inch of ginger root
1 navel orange

I want to try the glowing detox juice soon I will post when I make it.

My daily meals

I wanted to share some low calorie meals I had today. I am starting to really enjoy seeing what's left of my calories by the end of the day. I was scrambling for an after dinner snack.
But anyway, I had a salad with a cup of diced chicken with bacon pieces, croutons and dressing for about 396 calories. For dinner I baked a pre-marinated pork tenderloin, baked potatoes that had butter, sour cream and bacon pieces and a cup of vegetable steamer medley it was 596 calories. So there you have two balanced meal ideas that didn't take long to put together. Happy eating

My juicing endeavor

Recently I have discovered an exciting thing that has been around for a while. I have been encouraging others to start doing it too and wanted to start posting some of the recipes I have tried. This morning my third attempt at making the Green Monster smoothie I wanted to post it so that others would have something to go by. I added and devided all the calories for you all and you can make it in a blender with whatever fruit you have just add spinach to it or kale or a green leafy vegetable. You can make it with water or skim milk and yogurt or green tea that is unsweetened or sweetened with Splenda. If you absolutely cannot handle the pulp (which has all the nutrients btw) you could stain it through a coffee filter on a strainer. Anyway the whole idea is to diet with it as a way of making sure you get nutrients in.
My personal regimen is counting calories and exercising. That is really the easiest way to do it. No points no meat heavy, fat heavy diet. Just counting whatever goes into your mouth, drinking your water and exercising. I started Friday with mine and hope you will be inspired to join along with me.
Green Monster Smoothie
Makes about 4 cups
16 oz per serving 228 calories

1 cup Skim milk
1 6oz vanilla low fat yogurt
1 whole banana (large)
1/2 Granny smith apple (cores)
1/2 cup strawberries
1/2 cup pineapple
1/4 cup blueberries
4 cups spinach
Use water if needed or add ice if you want.
Make this and have 2 or more servings throughout the day.

Queso for dinner

This recipe was given from my Dad in 2002. He was around for the holidays and was making us dinner. I stole his recipe and changed the meat to ground turkey to see if we could lighten it up a bit. It's still a little heavy so you could call it dinner. I also made some chips from an over abundant tortilla supply. I enjoyed it and thought it was yummy, my husband didn't care for it, but here you go.

I started with a skillet and some canola oil, about a 1 1/2 cups or so. Warmed over medium- medium high heat. I had normal size tortillas and I cut them in 8 pieces. Lightly fried then put in the oven for a little longer to brown and to bake off leftover oil then sprinkled some salt over them.

For the dip, I browned 1 lb of ground turkey. When it's cooked through I added 1can of black beans, 1 can of rotel, and 1 lb of velveeta cheese I had cubed to help it melt faster. Let it melt stirring as you go.

I plated it like nachos. And served. Enjoy!

My late St. Patrick's Day dinner

I have a fond memory of Corned Beef and Cabbage. Although I forgot what it tastes like since it was over 12 years ago. My Aunt Beth made a corned beef brisket with cabbage, the only problem was I didn't remember how she made it. So I just winged it.

We had almost 3 lb's of meat, and after looking online I decided to just do a crock pot meal...but I actually looked at videos AFTER I had already had it in the crock pot or 3 hours. I had it on high, with only the meat and the spice packet and 2 qt's of water for about 5 hours...



Looks pretty gross...Anyway at this point I added:

1 medium onion(quartered)
6 carrots (peeled and cut in 1/4in slices)
5 small to med. russett potatoes (slice 1/2in thick)
1 med head of cabbage (quartered)

After putting it all in I realized I couldn't get anymore water in it; so I think I need a bigger crockpot...I let it cook on high for another 1 1/2 hours.



So after letting it cook for 1 1/2 hours on high...I thought it was cooked to perfection.




Needless to say the vegetables were not fork tender, and I for one do NOT like my veggies with a bite, so I boiled them on the stove for about 45 minutes...but when I was putting it into the pot to boil I got all the liquid in over the stuff and put the lid on it, it came out of the pot and poured out all over my counter and onto the floor, and I was SOOO careful.

So it turned out alright since it was the first time I have ever made it. I should have looked a little harder before I made it, then I would have realized I should have put the carrots in when I put the meat in, and then maybe 2 hours before it was done, added the cabbage and potatoes...plus added more seasoning.

Here is the finished results, it turned out alright, but not as easy as I thought it would have been.

Time for a change

I have decided to update my long drought by changing the direction that it is going. Through the economical downward spiral, and the birth of our sweet little twins; we no longer eat out the way we used to. This has forced me to start getting creative and make dinner for my family imitating the stuff we would normally eat when we went out.

So from Beauregards, buffalo chicken tenders and cheese fries, to Olive Garden's chicken alfredo, which I will post as I remake these wonderful dishes, not sparing any calories... So the next time I update it will be with pictures and recipes...