Sophie, my 17-year old granddaughter, came over last week and showed me how to make her Famous Chocolate Chip Cookies. Here’s our video about them. And it is truly NO exaggeration when I say that those cookies are AMAZING!
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I saw an ad online for Lakanto Drinking Chocolate. Since I like the Lakanto Monkfruit sweetener, I decided to give it a try. I found it on Amazon and ordered a package. It was delivered this morning. Instead of brewing a cup of herbal tea, I decided to try the drinking chocolate. I made it using boiling water. Made with water, it is 0 points (WW Blue). It is sweet and chocolatey. Too sweet, actually. So I poured it out and decided to try it with unsweetened almond milk instead.
I heated a cup of unsweetened almond milk (1 point per cup – WW Blue) and it was much better. Still super-sweet, though.
I give Lakanto Drinking Chocolate 6 out of 10 stars. It’s good – a little too sweet for me, though. However, for those times I want something chocolatey and sweet, it might just hit the spot.
Now I’m trying to decide if I want to finish my cup of drinking chocolate made with almond milk or brew a cup of herbal tea.
I made a WW-friendly vegetable beef soup today, and it is delicious! The video will walk you through how to make it. The recipe is below.
The soup base is:
1 lb. 96% lean ground beef (10 WW Blue points)
2-3 can diced tomatoes (0 points)
1 can tomato sauce (0 points)
1 quart beef broth (0 point)*
approx. 1 cup chopped onion, 1/2 cup chopped celery (0 points)
Salt and pepper, to taste (0 points)
Directions: Brown the ground beef in a large soup pot. Add the diced tomatoes, tomato sauce, and beef broth. Salt and pepper, to taste.
Now add your vegetables – I usually buy a bag of frozen soup vegetables. However, you can use fresh, frozen, or canned (drain canned vegetables) – corn, carrots, peas, beans, garlic, peppers, potatoes (count the points for potatoes).
Bring to a boil. You can add more beef broth if the soup is too thick. Let the soup simmer for a couple hours to thoroughly meld all the flavors.
This soup will keep in the refrigerator for several days, and it freezes well.
POINTS: I add additional beef broth, if needed, to bring my total amount to 18 cups – which equals 18 servings.
10 total points divided by 18 servings – .555 points (which rounds of to 1 point.
*Some beef broths scan as 0 points for a quart, and some scan as 1 or 2 points for a quart. It depends on the fat content of the particular broth you buy. Scan the broth you use to figure your points. However, even at 2 points a quart, the total still equals less than 1 point per cup/serving.
I wanted a hot dog – particularly a pig-in-a-blanket. And I knew I needed two things to make them: bread dough and hog dogs. First, the dough.
My Bizzy Kitchen has a pizza dough that can be used in many ways, and I like it much better than the 2-ingredient dough because it doesn’t have the strong tangy taste of the Greek Yogurt. You can find the recipe here. It’s quick and easy to put together. Make a batch of the dough, divide it into four equal portions. Put three of the portions into individual zip-lock bags. You can use those portions for individual pizzas or bagels or whatever bread product you’d like. The dough will be good in your refrigerator for at least a few days.
You will use the other portion (1/4 of the recipe) for these pigs-in-a-blanket.
Next, the hots dogs. Hebrew National has great hog dogs, and they have two that can be confusing – a “reduced fat” and a “97% Fat Free” version.
Get the HEBREW NATIONAL 97% FAT FREE BEEF FRANKS. They are only 1 WW Blue point each – and they taste really good!
Take four hot dogs out of the package. Take your dough (which is 1/4 of the recipe) and divide it into four equal portions. Take one portion and roll it into a long snake-like shape and wrap it around one of the hot dogs. The dough might be sticky – use just a little extra flour to make it workable
Sorry, but I forgot to take photos of the four pigs-in-a-blanket ready to go into the oven. However the other three looked just like the one shown above.
Note: I THINK that you could probably get away with dividing the dough into six portions and making six Pigs-in-a-blanket instead of four. It would bring down the number of points each, too. I intend to do that next time.
Bake at 400 degrees for about 15-20 minutes – until bread is nicely browned. The hot dogs are already fully cooked, and so you have to worry about whether they are done. As long as they’re hot, they’re good to go.
POINTS (WW Blue Plan)
1 Pig-in-a-blanket = 2 points (hotdog-1, dough-1)
2 Pigs-in-a-blanket = 5 points (hotdogs-2, dough-3)
3 Pigs-in-a-blanket = 7 points (hotdogs-3, dough-4)
4 Pigs-in-a-blanket = 9 points (hotdogs-4, dough-5)
I love meatloaf, and so I made it this afternoon. We had it for dinner tonight. It is 3 points per serving (WW Blue Plan). Here’s the recipe:
Carol’s Meatloaf
2 lb. ground beef, 96% lean (20 points)
6 slices light bread (1 point per slice = 6 points total)
4 eggs (0 points)
1/2 cup finely chopped onion (0 points)
1/2 cup finely chopped bell pepper (0 points)
Salt/pepper/garlic salt – to taste (0 points)
Points: 26 points total for 8 servings. That equals to 3.25 points per serving. So if you have two servings, that would be 6.5 points which would round off to 7.
Tomato Topping For Meatloaf
1 can diced tomatoes
1 can tomato sauce
1/2 cup finely chopped onion
1/2 cup finely chopped bell pepper
salt/pepper – to taste
Instructions: Combine ingredients in a saucepan. Bring to a boil and simmer for about 15 minutes. You can cook longer if you want the onion and pepper to be softer. Spoon over meatloaf when served. Points – 0 points for each 1/2 cup serving
So here is the revised recipe:
Make the dough first. This makes four servings.
Toppings: Here is a photo of my toppings – chopped tomatoes, grated Cabot 75% reduced fat cheddar cheese, a slice of Canadian bacon, finely chopped onion, chopped spinach leaves.
(Photo below) It’s ready to go in the oven! I’ve piled on so many toppings that you can’t even see the egg except for where part of the white overflowed at the top of the photo. You will see in the next photo that after it has cooked, the white overflowing doesn’t make any difference – still delicious!
And here it is – ready to eat. Absolutely delicious!
Counting the points: Each biscuit (4 biscuits per recipe) is 3 points. Add the points for any toppings you add.
1 1/2 cups Self-rising flour (16 points)
1 cup monkfruit granuated sweetener (0 points)
1 egg (0 points)
1/4 cup unsweetened applesauce (0 points)
3 medium bananas, mashed (0 points)
Put all ingredients in a large mixing bowl. Mix well.
Pour into a loaf pan (5″ x 10″)
Bake at 350 degrees for approximately 45-55 minutes (depending on your oven) or until an inserted toothpick comes out clean.
Cut into 8 equal slices. Each slice is 2 points.
My verdict: It is very moist. It took longer to bake than I thought it would. Let it cool before slicing it. Next time I will decrease the monkfruit sweetener. For me, it was a little too sweet. The bananas and applesauce have natural sweetness. So a full cup of additional sweetener is too much. If I wanted to go all natural and add regular sugar to this recipe instead of the monkfruit sweetener, it would add 3 points to each slice (1/2 cup sugar = 24 points).
The dictionary defines momentum as “strength or force gained by motion or by a series of events.” After two weeks of gaining weight while completely sticking to my WW plan, I realized my enthusiasm for sticking with my commitment was compromised – and I yielded to that lack of enthusiasm over the weekend. It’s almost humorous to think of the things that I eat when I’m feeling defeated. It varies. This time it was Rice Krispies Treats. I actually lost count of how many I ate. I logged it as 8, and I think that’s accurate . . . but I’m not 100% sure.
I was starting down a familiar path – that of thinking about what a loser I am – except for weight – can’t seem to lose that. How I start things and don’t finish them. How I have never successfully lost weight and kept it off long term. Those voices in my head were gaining strength.
I stopped, though. Did I want those voices to gain momentum like they have in the past, or did I want to change direction and gain momentum in a positive direction?
You know what stopped me? Last week in one of the Facebook WW groups that I’m in, someone wrote something about how we should stand naked in front of mirror and name ten positive things about our bodies. I did that a few days ago – and I couldn’t come up with ten. I could only see the negatives – the extra weight, the scars, the blemishes. I wondered if maybe in my heart I feel I don’t “deserve” to be at a healthy weight. I also wondered what made me become so hard on myself – so critical and unforgiving. Why is self-judgment my go-to response?
This morning when I woke up, I knew I had to stop, change course, and build some momentum away from Rice Krispies Treats and towards success. One success builds momentum towards another success. It all goes back to the Atomic Habits I’ve written about several times before.
So I logged my breakfast, and then left to run a bunch of errands – first I had a dentist appointment, then to the post office and UPS office to mail packages. I picked up some papers at my husband’s office and made a quick grocery store stop for fish and some herbal teas. Except for the dentist office, those were errands I’d been putting off since last week. I got it all done. I felt good about handling so many little nagging errands. I stopped by Chick Fil A and had their grilled chicken nuggets for lunch. I got only the nuggets. No, I assured them, I didn’t want to “make it a meal” with fries and a coke.
I came home and felt good. I did some work around the house, took a 20-minute nap and, with my husband, planned our dinner.
Today was my STOP-REASSESS-CHANGE COURSE day. I started with a small act (handing errands I had been procrastinating on since last week). I continued to build momentum by sticking to only grilled chicken for lunch. And then I had fish and vegetables for dinner. Snacks were all low point and moderate-sized servings. I’m ending the day having used only 19 of my 23 daily points. The extra points will roll over into my weekly points, which is good since I used so many weekly points yesterday.
Momentum. I learned I can get it back or shift its direction simply by stopping and deliberately doing something in the direction I want to go. That success moves me to another success, and so it goes.
And one day soon, I intend to do the naked-in-front-of-the-mirror thing again. This time I will come up with ten positive things. After all, this body has seen me through 71+ years of life, it grew two amazing babies, rocked children and later grandchildren to sleep. I like my green eyes and the fact that my hair has just a little natural curl to it. That’s a good start.
Being overweight is hard. Losing weight is hard. I have to choose my hard, and I choose losing weight.
Sigh. So here’s today’s weigh-in numbers. Notice the +. I have tracked every single bite I’ve put into my mouth since July 19th. I have not gone over my points a single week.
I’m probably eating too much fruit – lots of watermelon and grapes the past week. Seriously, though, would watermelon and grapes cause two weeks of weight gain?
Ten weeks – that makes an average of .68 lbs. per week. STILL over 1/2 pound a week. But . . . that’s so slow . . . . Sigh.
So I will repeat the usual self-reassurances: It’s a marathon, not a sprint. It’s a lifestyle change, not a diet. Look at the big picture. Back in July, you would have been thrilled to weigh what you weigh now. And repeat. Repeat. Repeat.
What can I do differently so that next Friday I will be happy with the number on the scale? Three things:
I was doing my usual morning scroll through Facebook this morning when I came across a post from Vanderbilt Children’s Hospital (officially Monroe Carell Jr. Children’s Hospital at Vanderbilt University). In the post, they asked that people who were caretakers of children who received treatment at Vandy to post a photo of their child and tell a little about their story.
It was both heartbreaking and heartwarming to read the comments – over a hundred. Then I came across one comment that has stuck with me.
Morgan Fuller died at the age of 17 from cancer. She was treated at Vandy. Until I read her father’s post this morning, I had never heard of her. However, she seemed wise beyond her years – which is common among childhood cancer fighters. Once, while speaking to a crowd at a Relay for Life event in 2016, Morgan said, ”What if you woke up tomorrow with only the things you thanked God for today?” Read that again:
“What if you woke up tomorrow with only the things you thanked God for today?”
What a perspective! God/Jesus/the Holy Spirit, family, friends, a home, food on the table, freedom, so, so many things to thank God for each day!
Right now my nightly routine after I get into bed each night is to recite to myself The Lord’s Prayer, and then Psalm 4:8. That’s one of my Atomic Habits. I will add thanking God for all my blessings. What a wonderful and peaceful way to end each day!
Living Real With Carol 