November 2008

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!!!! I woke up about an hour ago and I’m about to get in some HIIT and some stretching before breakfast. After breakfast hubby and I are going to go on a driveway turkey trot! hehe

My mother made a big pot of sauce and brasciole last night. If you’ve never had or heard of brasciole, it’s an Italian meat dish; usually beef or pork stuffed with herbs, spices, and whatever else you can think of. My family used to do raisins, spinach, etc. It’s SO delicious. She made pork this time and let it cook slowly in the sauce all day. DELISH! So, late last night I made Rigatoni pasta to have with the sauce and brasciole, plus a side salad:

I have no idea how many calories are in any of it because I didn’t measure anything.

But if I had to guess, I’d say about 300 for the pasta, 300 for the brasciole, 100 for the sauce and 150 for the salad. Maybe more, maybe less; I dunno!!

The clock just struck noon and the turkey is in the oven:

And the kitten (Casper) is in the shelf guarding my winter nut supply!! LOL

Ok, time for some movements before I become a human paperweight. Much bigger and better update later tonight after turkey and PUMPKIN PIE!! Oh, and French apple pie… *drools*

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!! Be safe and enjoy yourself!

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We have been SO busy today! It’s 10:00PM and I’m just getting around to yesterday’s update! Holidays are so much work, but so much fun! Our kitchen is overflowing with food and the intoxicating aroma of pumpkin pie, French apple pie, and corn bread. It smells heavenly! My mother is the baker, so she made the pies and the bread for the stuffing, then I’m working on the fresh cranberry sauce and appetizers. *drools* I cannot wait!

Hubby had an appointment at the ear doctor this afternoon. Sooo, not waking up until after around 1:00PM meant a lot of rushing to get there on time. His ears are fine and everything else is good, too. Then we went to *gasp* Wendy’s! We were starving and wanted something quick. I had one of their mushroom swiss burgers that I took the bacon off of, a diet Coke and half of my fries. I know I could have gotten a side salad and a baked potato but the picture of the mushroom swiss burger was too tempting. Unfortunately, it pretty much sucked and I would have been more satisfied with the baked potato lol. I still ate all of it though.

So, we finally made it to Paramus, NJ last night to go to Whole Foods and Trader Joe’s, but it was kind of disappointing. First we had dinner at a restaurant called Legal Seafoods — weird name, I know! I heard about it on TDP the other day, so when hubby was scouting out seafood restaurants in the area to go to, we decided to give it a try being it had very good reviews.

When we got there around 6:00PM, there was hardly anyone in the place even though it was right in the Paramus mall. I thought it would be packed based on the parking lot. I thought it was going to be a much nicer place, but that wasn’t the case. It was basically just like Red Lobster, only more expensive. I guess I should have known that a chain wasn’t going to be that great, but I gave it the benefit of the doubt based on the online reviews.

The dinner rolls, which were hard but I ate 2 of them anyway lol.

Then we ordered an appetizer called “The Legal Experience”

$25 for that and it wasn’t even that good. It was 2 shrimp, 2 dumplings, 2 crab cakes and a few small pieces of tuna. I had 1 piece of each.

Then our meals came. Hubby ordered a 1.5 lb lobster:

And I ordered the lobster roll:

I ate half of the lobster roll, half of the fries and a few bites of the cole slaw. It was ok, the lobster salad was kind of watery and VERY salty. Hubby didn’t eat much of his lobster, he felt bad the entire time. He said he didn’t want to eat a whole lobster ever again. I guess it didn’t help that I was saying, “Ya know, he was alive 20 minutes ago. ” lol He said that it didn’t have much flavor, so he left most of it there and vowed to be a vegetarian until Thanksgiving lol.

Then we went to Trader Joe’s which was just a few minutes down the road. It was super busy and much bigger than the other 2 I have been to, but they didn’t have nearly as many “Wow finds.” So, I didn’t get that much there and hoped to redeem our trip at Whole Foods. But again, we were disappointed there, too. We’ve been to that particular Whole Foods before, but after going to the one in White Plains, the one in NJ wasn’t nearly as nice to us. Their seafood counter was really wimpy and so much of their inventory was farm raised! Not cool, especially because NJ is so close to the ocean. Very disappointing!

Here are the highlights from Trader Joe’s and Whole Foods:

Note: I actually got the sugar free VitaMuffins in Shop Rite the night before but forgot to post the pics of them! Ooops!

I LOVE Stonyfield Farm frozen yogurt! The white chocolate raspberry is only 120 cal per serving and the caramel is just 130 cal per serving. Check out the wholesome “Cheetos” knockoff lol! They’re baked and just 150 cals per serving:

When I was craving vanilla milk last week, someone emailed me and suggested I try hemp milk. I’ve never heard of it, so when I saw it in Whole Foods by the soy and rice milk, I decided to give it a try. It’s 130 cals for a 1 cup serving:

I picked up a block of Lifetime fat free cheddar cheese. They have a huge selection of it at Whole Foods, so after someone mentioned it on TDP the other day, I decided to give it a try. Hopefully it’s not as gross as other fat free cheeses! I also got 2 boxes of Barbara’s cereals that were 90 and 100 calories per serving. Salad dressings, another “zero calorie” sweetener, creamed honey, cashews, a cage free organic turkey, shrimp, yogurt, and a bunch of other stuff but not as much as last week.

I love muffins! For just 80 or 90 calories per muffin, these will make a great morning snack. I <3 VitaMuffins!

It was late by the time we got home; around 11:00PM. By the time we put everything away (good thing we took a cooler with ice packs or my fro yo would have melted!), it was after 1:00AM and we were hungry. So, I made a sandwich with some of the Applegate Farm cold cuts that I bought and had a few bites of cooked sushi from Whole Foods:

We bought some Annie’s “Loops” for hubby. They are a more wholesome Spaghetti-O’s knockoff, but still lots of sodium. When we were picking them out, hubby was like, “Do they have any with meatballs?” I jokingly responded with: “I don’t think so; they’d probably be made with soy meatballs anyway.” And sure enough, we came across a can of Loops with SOY MEATBALLS!! ROFL We cracked up! He ate them when I had a sandwich. He said they tasted gritty and light, as if there’s nothing to them. I had 2 bites; they tasted just like Spaghetti-O’s to me, but hubby is a junk food expert, so he would know better I guess! lol

We bought 2 sushi rolls at Whole Foods: 1 with grilled salmon, brown rice and avocado and the other with shrimp and avocado. I had 1 piece of each:

My sandwich was made with: 1 slice Applegate Farm roast beef, 1 slice Applegate Farm turkey, 1 slice Sargento reduced fat swiss cheese, 1 TBSP Hellmann’s olive oil mayo, butterhead lettuce and 1 plum tomato on Trader Joe’s sodium free bread with a 14g side of Barbara’s cheesy poof thingies:

Oh, and a can of carbonated aspartame to drink. At least it was sodium free! haha That fishy place made me thirsty!

I have a million and one things going on at the moment, so I’m going to go finish up before I get too tired. I’m also really hungry! I’m probably going to do one more update before I go to sleep and then the big turkey and pie update tomorrow!!!

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So, just before we were getting ready to leave for NJ yesterday afternoon, my mom comes in the house and said that it feels like it’s going to snow out. We totally forgot to check the forecast before making our plans and sure enough, there was a winter weather advisory for our area. We were supposed to get 3-6 inches of snow starting late in the afternoon, which would mean bad driving conditions on our way home. So, we decided not to take the chance and went to Shop Rite in Middletown instead. We ended up not getting very much bad weather; a little snow mixed with rain, but nothing too bad, so we could have still gone but oh well. We’re going to try to go today. I’m sure it’s going to be a mad house! Everyone is trying to get their Thanksgiving food as close to T-Day as possible so it stays fresh. Can’t blame them!

We got a free turkey from Shop Rite for spending $250 in the past month or so, something like that. But I wanted to get a fresher, more natural one from Whole Foods, just for a change. They are twice as much money, but Thanksgiving is only once a year.

We planned to go to a seafood restaurant last night, but when our plans changed, we went to Cosimo’s Brick Oven http://www.cosimosbrickoven.com

First, my biggest weakness: Bread basket with olive oil and a side of butter:

I had 2 pieces of the cheese bread and 1 piece of the crusty Italian bread underneath dipped in olive oil.

Then we got a 12″ margherita pizza for an appetizer:

Hubby and I had 1 slice each. It was yummy crust but I wasn’t crazy about the cheese/sauce. I wanted to try the shrimp and pesto pizza, hubby wanted pepperoni. Neither of us got what we wanted LOL.

Then our entrees came. Dustin had the baked cheese ravioli, which looked an awful lot like the pizza:

I ordered the spinach lasagna thinking it would have spinach in it, but it was spinach flavored noodles! I wasn’t overly impressed with it, even though it was good. It had a lot of meat and cheese in it and very little noodle. An Atkin’s lasagna? lol

I also ordered a side salad with mine because pasta just doesn’t feel right to me without a great big leafy green salad next to it:

Unfortunately the salad was drowning in the house vinaigrette, so I ate half of it. Again, I wasn’t overly impressed by it.

All in all, the meal was very good and we left feeling stuffed. We took at least half home to my mom. Oh, and while we were there my water pill that I took 4 hours earlier decided to kick in in full force! I had to go potty 3 times. Embarrassing lol. I actually left weighing less than I did before we ate haha. That’s a first!

Then we headed to Shop Rite. I picked up the free turkey, just in case we don’t get to NJ in the next 2 days. I didn’t get much from Shop Rite; it was sort of like a consolation shopping trip that I wasn’t into haha. I love their “organic and health food” section though. It’s much more impressive than all the other Shop Rites, Price Choppers and Hannafords in the area. This is some of the stuff I got:

The iced tea has only 30 calories per cup; it’s lightly sweetened with cane sugar. I thought the organic pancake batter was kinda neat! Only 112 calories per serving and 95mg sodium and made with wholesome ingredients. Maybe I’ll give it a try on Thanksgiving morning.

Then I saw they make an organic version of Naturally More peanut butter. It has the same nutritional facts, but only 9g protein instead of 10?? Where did the other gram go? lol Speaking of protein, check out the nutritional info on this container of Shop Rite fat free ricotta cheese:

60 calories per serving and 10g protein!! Polly-O makes an identical version. I can tell that they make it for Shop Rite with Shop Rite’s label. I also see that Sargento makes a store version for Shop Rite but it doesn’t have as much protein. How can I tell? Well, if you look at the containers, they are almost identical; the Polly-O lids have thick ridges, just like the Shop Rite brand with the same nutritional info and the Shop Rite brand with the smooth lid like Sargento fat free ricotta has the same nutritionals. Ok, that sounds really weird like I’m stalking the cheese section or something LOL, but I notice silly little things like that.

Oh, and the best part: It doesn’t expire until Feb 21st! So, I bought 4 containers of it being it’s not always easy to find. I LOVE it! It’s the only fat free cheese I can eat because it tastes so much like the full fat version. I love it with crushed pineapple on top; tastes like an Italian-style cheesecake. SO GOOD! It’s also great in smoothies and of course with pasta!

I’m supposed to be doing a Thanksgiving challenge; staying low on sodium and all that good stuff, but I’m failing miserable!! LOL! Ah well, I did do strength training and 20 mins of HIIT yesterday, plus we walked around Target and Shop Rite for at least an hour and a half. Such is life.

We’re going to attempt to go to Whole Foods and Trader Joe’s again today. Let’s hope we actually make it this time! *crosses fingers*

PS. I wanted to THANK YOU all for leaving comments! It’s so cool to get to talk to you guys. I’m going to reply to them as often as I can, so keep ‘em coming! Feel free to chat amongst yourselves too. And as always, if you don’t want to say something publicly, you can use my contact form to email me. *hugs*

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My husband was sweet enough to enable comments on my blog. I had them disabled since I started blogging last year, but I decided to open them up. Feel free to leave comments or ask any questions you might have from now on!! Don’t be shy! Oh, and if you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all please! And no spam, I’ll just delete it anyway.

Thanks! Happy commenting!!

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