Crockpotting Pasketti…

I’ve been sitting here for 12 minutes trying to figure out what the guy was thinking who invented a crockpot.  See here… let’s stick a cow, hide and all, in this here candle warmer, go to work, and when we get home dinner is served!  It slices, dices, diapers your baby, and slaps your grandma.  What an invention!  I want to invent some contraption that does the dishes for me.  I NEED one.  Dishes after cooking are my worst enemy… that and the Ebola virus.  Here are some pictures/ideas from last week’s menu:

Breakfast is the most important meal of the day… don’t you forget that!  This here was a piece of whole wheat toast with a slice of cheese , an apple straight from the orchard (the crunchier the better for Whitney), and greek yogurt with 2 Tblsp. of granola stirred in.  Pretty tastee!

Oh boy… I had issues with this sucker.  Mexican Rice and Bean Casserole…  My issue stemmed from the fact that I REALLY think that there recipe gave me the wrong instruction as to how much water to add so that the rice would cook all the way and not be crunchified.  It told me to put in 1/2 cup of water for 3/4 cup of rice… granted there was also a can of diced tomatoes in juice thrown in there, but seriously… still not enough water for that much rice.  I had to keep adding water.  It finally cooked, but it turned out mushier than I would have wanted it because I had to cook it for so long.  It was still tastee… if you get the water/rice issue sorted out first!

This here is my version of a relish tray!  I always love those little Tupperware things… the relish trays with the little compartments for the different foods and then you slap some dip in the middle (I meant like Ranch, not my sister… bwahahahahaha!).  Also, Rold Gold honey wheat pretzel rods are yummified!

This would be my Crockpot Marinara Pasketti Sauce!  I adapted the recipe to what I had on hand… but this stuff is packed with vegetables… green peppers, celery, carrots, onions, tomatoes… and I almost added mushrooms but then I didn’t have any… so scratch the “almost” comment.  What’s easier than dumping everything into a crockpot and turning it on for 10 hours?  Nothing!  On account of there was some vegetable dicing, this did take some prep work, but once that was done I didn’t have to babysit it… which is always a good thing… especially when it dirties it’s diaper!   Ew… INAPPROPRIATE FOR A FOOD POST, DISGUSTINGTON!

Question of the Day:  Do you have a favorite store-bought brand/recipe for marinara sauce?  

Food… Such a Dumb Word For Such a Glorious Invention…

I get into these lame-bot cycles where I get a word in my head that I analyze to death until I want to poke one or more eyeballs out in frustration… but that’s nothing like the times where I narrate every move I make in my head like I’m writing a mystery novel.  I carefully made my way out of the shower and carefully dried myself off with my yellow fluffy towel.  Carefully seems to be my favorite adjective in these head-space novels of mine.  I didn’t say anyone would want to read this mystery novel.  I might want to read it, though, after I’ve finished poking my eyeballs out and roasting them amidst the embers of above-mentioned mystery novel.

This week’s word has been food (unlike every other week where it’s usually foooooooodddd) …  say it outloud?  Food.  What a dumb word.  It doesn’t sound at all appetizing and it rhymes with words I’d rather not think about when I’m eating.  Food food food food food… EW.  I prefer the Spanish equivalent… comida.  That sounds much more romantic and not as dumb… and I’ve yet to rhyme it with anything gross.  The only bad part of this situation is the extent of my Spanish language knowledge (even after 3 years of Spanish in school) is pretty much counting, hello, goodbye, and comida.  My conversational skillz would be only beneficial if I happened to be an elevator operator… I’d have to learn how to say which floor… but after that… total cake walk!

Whitney… carefully shut up and carefully display this week’s 1500-calorie food menu, pictures, and calories… but carefully:

Breakfast (Peachy oatmeal muffin, egg beaters, reduced fat cheese, salsa, and bing cherries… Total calories:  267)

The egg beater people came out with a brand spanking new flavor of flavored egg whites… holy laws, hold me back Lucretia!!  It’s three-cheese Egg Beaters… 25 calories for 3 Tblsp… I doubled it and went for 6 Tblsp. because I totes live on the edge of life… but carefully.  Recipe for peach-oatmeal muffins, which are major tastee… and I substituted the 1 cup of milk for 1 cup of almond milk because almond milk has a naturally sweet flavor and has less calories!   Oh, and I totally skipped the cooking the peaches in sugar and butter portion because heck if I’m calorizing… I just threw the plain peaches on the top of the muffins before cooking… voila.  You can also wrap these babies up and freeze them… take them out one at a time and micro-oven them fore a few seconds.  They last longer that way!

Meal #2: (Moo Shu Vegetables, flour tortillas, and grape tomaters… Total Calories:  392)

My pal (what up, Alena) tipped me off to Moo Shu vegetables at Mandarin Gardens (a restaurant here in town)… I’d never eaten them before and I do enjoy them heartily.  So, I thought I’d attempt my own version… but using broccoli slaw, mung bean sprouts, scallions, and eggs.  Hoisin sauce, rice vinegar, garlic, and soy sauce give it the flavor of China… except not really the sewer flavor.  Oh boy… I’m really talking these up with all this Chinese sewer talk.  They are good… moving on.  Recipe for Moo Shu veggies …

Meal #3: (Veggie & Cheese Bagel… Total Calories:  304)

I modified this recipe from Pioneer Woman for the Veggie and Cheese bagel… because… again… calorizing.  Instead of cream cheese, I used spreadable laughing cow cheese and instead of a real bagel I used one of those 110-calorie Thomas bagel thins.  I used the meunster and cheddar cheese, but had to half the slices.  Tastee… refreshing… summery… make me another one!

Dinner:  (Easy Veggie Pizza Roll… Total Calories:  334)

Mine turned out to be less of a ring and more of an oblongato shape… when you use a rectangular pan there is no way to make it circular shaped… just deal!  This was mightee tastee too and easy as peas in two pods of vinegar.  Obviously, this is not a serving size… This is:

Recipe for easy veggie pizza oblongato-shape…  Of course hers is prettier… who do you think I am?  Martha Stewart!?!?!?!?

Dessert:  (1 cup sugar-free black cherry Jell-O, 3 ounces strawberries, and 4 Tblsp. lite Cool Whip… Total Calories:  87)

Stop with your Jell-O is made of horse hooves talk.  It’s the official comida of Utah and don’t you forget it.  We consume it by the barrel full… my gram got real creative-like with hers… she put anything she had leftover in the vegetable crisper in a batch of Jell-O and called it a smorgasbord fit for a king!  This really hit the spot for me… and I couldn’t even tell it was sugar-free with the strawberries and the cool whip masking it.

TOTAL CALORIES FOR THE DAY:  1384

I really liked all of these meals individually and I’d make them all again in a heart beat.  I’d probably not do them all together on the same day again in the future because all together, I was over my sodium for the day… and I be trying to watch that.  I blame the soy sauce and hoisin sauce… sodium hoggers!  If you could care less about coming in under sodium, which is pretty much everyone I know… go hog wild and eat 2 of each meal… but only if you’re aiming for 2800 calories per day… my lucky metabolism kings!   Still a lot of food for very few calories.  I was totally not wanting for anything extra… but carefully!

Question of the Day:  Do you like sugar-free Jell-O?  What do you eat with yours?  

Oh My Laws… Chocolate Chili!!!!!

Hammer time.  You all remember MC Hammer… named after a hammer, I presume.  I always wondered if MC meant marginally creepy.  No?  Okay… moving on.  It’s this week’s menu picture time.  This menu, I’ll have you know, is under the calorie goal, carbohydrate goal, fat goal, and sodium goal… and it’s above the fiber goal (a good thing that fiber) and protein goal (another good thing that protein).  It’s a teensy bit high in sugar, but that’s only from the natural sugars in the fruit I ate.  MFP’s sugar goal will never be met if I continue to eat fruit… which is stupid because fruit is not a bad thing… unless you triple deep fry it and then dip it in a lard sauce.

Once again, I made most everything in the following photos on Sunday night and stored it in the refrigeration system… I love stuff I can just grab and go.  It really helps out when you work all day too.

Breakfast: (2 breakfast burritos, 1 tbsp Natural Directions salsa, and a medium-sized peach) TOTAL CALORIES:  426

I bet you were expecting to see protein pancakes!  Nice try… not this time, senor and senoritas!  Instead, I found this great idea to make like 8 billion breakfast tortillas… ones that you can freeze and then get out and warm up in the micro oven in a matter of seconds.  I’m all about easy!!  I modified the recipe from this site…  The trick because I’m all about maximum quantity for minimum calories was in finding the correct tortillas.  These may look like plain ole white flour tortillas… but they’re not.  They’re called Maya’s Tortillas and they have fiberous stuff in them and ring in at 80 calories per tortilla!

Meal #2:  (5.3-oz microwaved potato with 1 cup broccoli, reduced fat cheese, grape tomatoes, and greek yogurt, lemon, dill cucumbers) TOTAL CALORIES:  314

Did I mention I am addicted to baby tomatoes yet?  Oh my glorious invention, batgirl!  I like to go to Sam’s Club and buy the gargantuan package of Nature Sweet Cherubs… I usually finish it off in a week.  Sue me… at least I don’t by the gargantuan bag of tortilla chips and finish that off in a day.  I was not a fan of the greek yogurt/lemon/dill cucumber mix.  I think it was because when I stored it in the refrigeration system overnight, the cucumbers got wilty… and then there was wayyyyyy too much lemon on it.  Next time I’ll try it with just the dill and greek yogurt.

Meal #3:  (2.5 ounces of Ranier cherries and macaroni salad) TOTAL CALORIES:  282

This is seriously my favorite macaroni salad recipe in a long time.  I guess you wouldn’t like it if you don’t like the flavor of mustard… but seriously, get a taste bud transplant then!  I once again modified the recipe from this site… and by modified I mean I made it more calorizing friendly… like by a lot…  It’s so tastee though… grated carrots, cucumbers, celery, grape tomatoes (stop it) and cheese… with a nice tangy dressing!  Since the salad seems to dry out if I put the dressing on it before I eat it, I make the pasta part and store it separately in the frig.  Then, I just measure out a serving.  I freaking love my food scale for these kinds of things.  So much more accurate!

Dinner: (Rich and Spicy Chocolate Chili and mozzarella cheese toast) TOTAL CALORIES:  508

I came upon this recipe by accident when I was looking up how many fresh tomatoes I could substitute for canned tomatoes in chili.  Goodness knows the salt in the canned tomatoes is enough to bloat my head to Good Year Blimp status.  I came across this recipe that used 1 square of unsweetened baking chocolate and I flipped my lid… I don’t know exactly where my lid is, but I done flipped the thing.  CHOCOLATE!!!!!!!!  I had to try it… Period… end of story… slap a stamp on that sucker and call it a slam dunk.  The mozzarella cheese toast, all I did was grab a 100-calorie slice of Spelt bread (all the nuts and grainy stuff in that there bread), put some shredded mozzarella on that and then put it under the broiler until the cheese melted… then I topped it with tomato slices and white onion slices.  For the life of me, I cannot find the dagblasted chili recipe on the Internet… but I modified it so much it won’t matter if I give credit… recipe for chocolate chili is as follows:

Rich and Spicy Kidney Bean Chili

- 1 large raw onion
- 6 medium garlic cloves
- 1 medium green bell pepper
- 1 medium carrot
- 1 large stalk of celery

Dice all those things up and throw them in a pot.  It said to sautee them in 2 tblsp of olive oil, but I am not a fan of empty calories when I can do it for zero calories.  What I do is spray down the pot with Pam before I put the veggies in and then throw in 1/8 cup of water with the veggies… plus, the veggies will sweat off their own liquid, so if you keep them moving it shouldn’t stick to the pan or burn.   It says to sautee them until they’re tender… but I like my veggies more crunchy… so decide how long you want to do that for and leave me alone!  :P  Then, add in:

- 2 Tblsp. chili powder… NOT cayenne pepper… chili powder
- 1-1/2 tsp. paprika
- 1/2 tsp. onion powder
- 1/2 tsp. garlic powder
- 1/2 tsp. oregano

Stir that until the veggies are coated in the spices.  Then add in the following:

- 8 medium tomatoes coarsely chopped
- 1 bay leaf
- half of a chipotle pepper in adobo sauce, chopped (If you add more than half a pepper, say goodbye to your tongue)
- 2 Tblsp. brown sugar
- 1 square unsweetened Baker’s chocolate
- Salt and Pepper to taste… I used my favorite salt substitute to lessen the sodium.  

Simmer all of that together for approximately 20 to 30 minutes.  Then add:

- 1 can of reduced sodium Kidney Beans (rinsed and drained)
- 3/4 cup frozen corn

Cook for a few more minutes to warm those up and voila.  You’re done.  Of course, it tastes better when it sits in the frig overnight, so that all the flavors have time to make friends and par-tay it up in the adobo sauce.  It seriously was so good… rich, spicy, crunchy because of all of the vegetables… and I will never use canned tomatoes to make chili again.  Fresh tomatoes give it such a lovely texture!  For sure.

TOTAL CALORIES FOR THE ENTIRE DAY:  1530

Now that I’m done courting my food menu… have a great day y’all and to all a good night!

Question of the Day:  Do you have a favorite chili recipe?  What makes it awesome?