From the monthly archives:

December 2008

New Year’s Eve 2008

by Jenn (j3nn.net) on December 31, 2008

Hello, hello, hello!! I wanted to get in one last update before the year is over and wow, I sure am getting down to the nitty gritty here! It’s 11:01PM EST — 2009 is almost here on the East coast!! We were planning on going to our apartment in PA but the weather was crappy when we woke up! We had 6 inches of snow overnight and then we were running late, so by 6:00PM we decided to just wait until tomorrow or Friday and head there for the weekend. So tonight we’re staying in, watching the ball drop and sipping on some cocktails and beer. This is the cranberry juice and vodka hubby made for me:

He said it’s like 12 parts juice and 1 part vodka — PERFECT! I love vodka and cranberry juice because you can’t taste the vodka at all, which is great because I cannot stand the smell/taste of alcohol — Blek!! and then we’re cracking open a bottle of champagne in a little while, but first, a quick update!

We tried the ravioli and white wine sauce that was part of the gift basket my cousin gave us last night. OMG, sooo good! I wasn’t counting calories, of course, but I had 2 servings (440 cal) with just a very little bit of the white wine sauce being the first ingredient was fresh heavy cream. I also made a side salad with whatever I could find in the fridge; shrimp, Jarlsberg swiss cheese, avocado, Bolthouse Farms blue cheese yogurt dressing — it was ok. I think because the shrimp and avocado were past their prime. The ravioli made up for it though!

We had a little red grape juice to go along with our meal. Classy, huh? LOL Welch’s 2008, a good year, indeed!!

These were delivered to me today from my mommy:

Love the color!! They are HUGE! I can’t wait to use them. They are so pretty and cool looking. I <3 dishes! Thanks, ma. My set of Calphalon pots and pans that she ordered for me came a couple days ago, too. I haven’t even taken them out of the box yet but I know they are awesome. I’m so excited! I’ll try to do all these neat kitchen supplies justice by filling them with yummy foods in the near future!

I was picking up some last minute things at the store today thinking that we were heading to Penn and I came across these in the cereal/snack bar aisle:

Only 120 calories each and no fractionated or hydrogenated oils. The ingredients list actually looks very wholesome, which you have to be careful with even though they are made by Kashi. Even Kashi sneaks in a few bad things like fractionated oil, but not these, YAY! The answer to my Luna bar prayers. Luna bars have palm kernel oil in them, which isn’t very good for you, but I’ll tolerate a little in moderation. I was psyched when I saw these and the flavor sounds YUMMMMMMMY! Can’t wait to bite them. hehe

Ok, it’s almost midnight! I hope everyone is having a fun and SAFE New Year’s Eve! My next update won’t be until next year. *giggles*

I’ll be back sooooooooon~! I’m going to have some champagne now. WOO HOO!

Like this post? Share it, e-mail it or print it:

{ 8 comments }

Merry Christmas!!

by Jenn (j3nn.net) on December 25, 2008

Merry Christmas, everyone! I hope all of you had a holly, jolly Christmas, we sure did!! I’m doing this update ~~VERY~~ a little late, so I’m catching up with a whole bunch of pics all at once. Warning: Lots of (yummy!) food pics ahead !!

On Christmas Eve my family does the “7 fish” Italian dinner. We don’t really do it with traditional fish dishes, we usually have different ones every year. Calamari, shrimp and clams usually always make an appearance, but everything else is varied. On our Christmas Eve dinner menu this year:

Shrimp cocktail

Linguine with clam, lobster, diced tomato, red onion and garlic sauce

Turbot fish with spinach and garlic

Squid salad with olive oil, red wine vinegar and parsley

Mussels and clams cooked in chicken broth, white wine, garlic and red onion

Fresh mozzarella with sun dried tomatoes, green olives stuffed with blue cheese, provolone cheese, and fennel platter

Italian breads

The table setting before the food:

I love candlelight We picked up a beautiful floral centerpiece from the florist. Love the pine cones and fresh pine!

This is my favorite Christmas plate… so cute!!

Food fills the table!

Shrimp cocktail…

Fennel, mozzarella, olive and provolone platter…

Mussels and clams. I overcooked them Oops! I still liked them. I like chewy seafood lol.

Turbot fish dredged in flour, then cooked in EV olive oil and butter along side fresh spinach sauteed in EV olive oil and garlic…

Mmmmmm! I LOVE squid salad! I don’t know why I don’t eat it more often, it’s sooo gooood. I like it well-done and chewy, so some people might have an issue with the texture. I can’t get enough of it though. I think I ate 75% of it myself lol.

The bread plate is always strategically placed beside me

The star of the show: Linguine with clam, lobster, tomato, onion and garlic sauce. WOW! It was AMAZING!! I made the sauce with a generous coating of EV olive oil in a large skillet, then added in chopped red onion, 4 cloves of minced garlic, 1 can no salt added diced tomatoes, 1 can Cento shelled baby clams with the juice, 1 lobster tail chopped into pieces (at the very end), and fresh parsley, basil and dried oregano. Everybody LOVED it. It’s actually very healthy, despite looking like a calorie bomb. I made 8oz of pasta, but we didn’t even eat 4oz between 3 of us at this dinner because there was more than half leftover when we were done.

Christmas Eve dinner was perfect. I loved every bit of it, even though we didn’t get home until 6:00PM from last minute shopping and picking up things at the bakery and grocery store. We didn’t make it to Whole Foods like I had planned, time wasn’t on our side at all , but everything was just lovely anyway.

Dustin and I are the king and queen of last minute rushing around, so we spent most of Christmas Eve shopping, cooking, wrapping gifts, eating and by the end of the night, we were just exhausted! Santa had no problem verifying that we were tucked in bed with visions of sugarplums dancing in our heads LOL. I think I walked for a minimum of 6-8 hours each and every day for the past week, well, except for Christmas day until now lol. Before that though, I was on the go from the minute we woke up until we went to sleep. So, I haven’t done any planned exercise in quite awhile, but I think all the walking I have done has helped a lot.

~Christmas Day~ Before we opened presents, hubby and I had Christmas breakfast. My mom isn’t a breakfast person, she’s just into coffee until noon! lol So, hubs and I had French toast made with Panettone bread, fruit salad, and coffee:

I heard Giada from Everyday Italian on the Food Network say that Panettone bread makes an excellent French toast, so we gave it a try and she was right! It was FANTASTIC! Very, very rich. So I just drizzled a little bit of fructose maple syrup on it.

Coffee in my nutcracker cup from the Radio City Christmas Spectacular:

I bought a huge bowl of mixed fruit salad on Christmas Eve, so yummy!

Panettone bread French toast is the perfect Christmas morning breakfast food. It tasted as festive as it looks.

After breakfast, we opened presents!!! WOO HOO! It was like my birthday all over again lol. I feel so incredibly fortunate, and SPOILED! I love everything that I got, but I have a few favorites. hehe

This is definitely one of my favorites! A food gift basket from my cousin. Everything in it looks YUUUUMMMMMMY!

It had a huge piece of pistachio cheddar cheese in it WOW! It looks awesome! I can’t wait to try it. This basket totally rocked!

Hubby got me not 1, not 2 but 5 boxes of Godiva chocolates AND 2 bags of Lindt truffles!!! OMG LOL Good thing he got me all of that exercise equipment — I’m going to need it BIG TIME!

He added to my fitness collection with a new pedometer, a heart rate monitor with GPS, an iPod dock and an Iron Gym (I actually wanted that when I saw it on TV lol, it looks kinda fun!!)

This is just AWESOME!

He went too far with these; a Burberry purse and matching scarf!! LOVE THEM!!!

He also got me a sauna suit that I can REALLY use! As much water as I retain, I could definitely use a sauna experience to my advantage. He also gave me another AeroGarden (small, white one), a Hello Kitty digital camera, and the Calvin Klein perfume set is from my mom. Calvin Klein perfumes are my favorites!

I can’t wait to sweat out a few pounds in the sauna suit. I’m SO PUFFY! Aaah! lol My skin is so dry right now too, maybe I will naturally lubricate my itchy skin in the process. I actually woke up in the middle of the night scratching last night. Ugh!

From hubby: Lancome makeup kit, hair dryer and Twilight Zone series on DVD (I loooooove black and white classic TV!!!) and from mommy: an engraved jewelry box…

It even plays music! SO COOL! Love it !!

I also got a diamond ring, heart locket, gold bracelet, Reebok step board and a Krups espresso machine from hubby and a robe, soaps, and assorted liquors from other family members, but I didn’t bring them upstairs for pics. lol Once again, I made out like a bandit!! And we’re not even done yet! We’re still in the process of meeting with everyone and exchanging gifts lol. OMG, it REALLY is the 12 days of Christmas. At this rate it will be the 12 months of Christmas. lol I love all of my presents and I’m happy that we got to buy things for everyone else, too. I think giving gifts makes me even more excited than opening my own. I couldn’t wait for hubby to open the things I got him!! He needs a blog to show his loot, too! haha I got him a mini laptop, a cash counter, a bunch of Invader Zim stuff, home security stuff, a gun (we like guns ), Calvin Klein cologne, engraved beer mugs, a name plate for his desk, computer games, coin counter, a mini fridge for the bar, oh and a vacation home. Well, it’s not really a house or anything that extravagant; it’s a small apartment in the Poconos!! We’re so close by and have been talking about getting away on weekends and whenever we feel like getting away from it all, sooo I got us a cute little place that was REALLY hard to keep a secret for the past month LOL. He loves it! I was plotting so hard with my mother for the past month, lol. I am so happy that my secret is revealed LOL. Phew, that was tough to keep quiet. So, you guys might see me making posts from our little “get-away retreat” once in awhile. We can’t wait to go there and spend some time away from the office and phones. There’s no phone there, just our cell phones. YAY!!!!!! I did have cable TV and internet installed though. Gotta stay online, I have lots of blogging to do!

We skipped lunch on Christmas Day and went straight to our dinner. It was much simpler than the Christmas Eve feast, but still fabulous. Prime rib, mashed potatoes, string beans drowning in butter, French rolls and white wine:

Admittedly, I don’t know very much about wine and have recently discovered that I adore white wine, but in small quantities. Thankfully, because it’s so calorie dense! I don’t even know if this was a good one, we picked it up in the liquor store on Xmas Eve. It was $27.99, is that good? I don’t know if that’s considered a cheapy wine or what lol. Hubby and I plan to visit some local wineries and learn about different wines and hopefully learn how to enjoy them the way they are meant to be enjoyed without going into it blindly lol.

A very casual tablescape…

The prime rib looks well done but it was actually very rare. I couldn’t stop nibbling on it as I was slicing it. OMG, so, so, SO GOOOOD!

I think this meal was 75% fat lol. The meat was extremely fatty (delicious!!) and the mashed potatoes and string beans were oozing with butter. Mmmm, total decadence!

Then much later in the evening we had “lunch” of leftovers and sandwiches, followed by dessert!

Lunch was Italian deli meats on Italian bread with provolone cheese melted under the broiler with roasted red pepper and squid salad, shrimp and linguine with clam, lobster and tomato sauce:

A little pecorino romano sprinkled on the linguine. Most of the lobster and clams were gone by this point…

Oh yeah!!!! Salt city! lol

The bread alone had 280mg sodium, per slice!! ! Is it any wonder why I am sooo puffy?! lol I went easy on the deli meat; just 3 very thin slices.

Such a lovely little sandwich, just too much sodium. I wish I could eat things like this more often, but they taste even better on special occasions.

Then we finally had dessert!! Italian pastries and assorted Christmas cookies from the bakery with coffee made with several teaspoons of sugar and eggnog! I used about 1/4 cup eggnog, which is incredibly calorie-dense; 200 calories per 1/2 cup!! That’s 400 calories per cup, geeeeeez! But again, it’s a once-a-year thing, so why not?

We actually had 2 cookie trays like this from the local bakery. I must have eaten at least 30 cookies over the past few days. They are delicious. So buttery, so sugary! YUM! We didn’t have time to make any of our own, but these were excellent stand-ins. We love going to the local Italian bakery, the aroma as you walk in is heavenly. *sniffs in memory*

We have been home all day since Christmas Eve and it feels GREAT! The day after Christmas we munched on leftovers and I came up with this quick and easy sandwich for dinner: Shrimp salad on ciabatta with a thin layer of Jarlsberg part-skim swiss cheese on both sides of the bread that I melted under the broiled for 1 or 2 minutes, plus avocado and tomato. I made the shrimp salad with 5 shrimp, Hellmann’s olive oil mayo, a splash of white wine, a drop of yellow mustard and black pepper.

I accidentally picked up raspberry seltzer in Shop Rite the other night thinking it was plain and it’s surprisingly very good! It tastes sweet, not bitter like I expected but it’s calorie and sweetener free. I like it a lot, so I’ll definitely buy it again.

Isn’t it gorgeous? The colors are very Christmas-y, too. It tasted like egg salad, I’m not sure why, but I LOVED it!! It was a little messy, so I probably should have used a wee bit less mayo, but other than that, the swiss cheese with subtle white wine flavor was superb. And the avocado just added another layer of creamy goodness. YUMMY!!

My grandmother and cousin came over this afternoon. We had a bonus Christmas pizza and sub party that was a lot of fun!! We ordered a meat-za pizza, a white pizza, a chicken parm pizza, Italian combo subs, roast beef sub, and an eggplant parm sub, plus onion rings and fries.

My plate: 1 slice white pizza (it was a 10″ pie), 1/4 piece of roast beef sub, a few onion rings and fries, and a diet soda…

The roast beef from our local pizza place is awesome! It’s home cooked, not like the overly processed plastic-like stuff you get at the deli counter. DEEELISH!!!

My cousin is moving back home from the city next week after she graduates college, so her and I decided to start working out together starting on January 2nd (how cliche LOL). She’s going to come over a few times a week to be my workout buddy and she’ll have breakfast, lunch or dinner with us depending on what time we workout that day. She wants me to help her with all of it being I’m an “expert” now lol. She’s going to a wedding in Florida January 11th and wants me to help her with her arms ASAP because she’s wearing a sleeveless dress. *SIGH* I gave her the ole you can’t do anything that fast speech and you can’t spot reduce, etc., but she’s like, please just humor me and make me feel better lol. I’m like, “Sure, ok, whatever lol.” She’s 21, so I suppose at her age I was in the same mindset. Heck, I was in that mindset until just a year and a half ago, so I definitely know where she’s coming from. Once I show her the better way, she’ll catch on quickly, I’m sure.

Well, the holidays and celebrations aren’t quite over here. We still have New Year’s Eve, New Year’s Day, more visits to make, and other dates and things to attend in between. We’re past the biggest parts, but there’s still a ways to go. Things have definitely calmed down a lot though! I guess Christmas was like the summit of holiday mountain LOL.

The bad news: I’m still up 10 lbs from my NYC trip

The good news: I maintained the new weight through Christmas Better than adding on more, I guess! lol

Ok, I’m off to play with something. I’m not sure what yet. We’re addicted to playing Monopoly on Nintendo Wii. It’s so much fun (when I win)! lol I can’t wait to make the new workout plan for my cousin and me!! This is going to be awesome having an accountability partner and all the new fitness toys we have to play with. *excited*

I’ll have more updates before the year is over, too! I’m not done eating in 2008 yet LOL. Time to go relax, this blog post took me about 3 hours! So many pictures to sort through and I haven’t gotten to them all yet. I have a bunch of pics of hubby and me to post. I’m sure everyone is disappointed they aren’t in this update!! *sarcasm* Don’t fret, they are on their way in the next one. *giggles*

Speaking of disappointment, both my mother and I ordered things online that were guaranteed to be delivered by Christmas and they weren’t GRRRR! She got me a Calphalon cookware set (she told me what it was being it wasn’t delivered on time LOL) and I got something for hubby that was supposed to be sent 2 day air and arrive on Dec 23rd, but they sent it ground delivery instead, even though they advertised free 2nd day air. Thankfully that wasn’t the only present I got him or I would have felt so bad if it didn’t show up!

Anyway, I’m off for the night. What are you guys doing for New Year’s Eve? What are you drinking? Let me know! I’d like some ideas.

Note: I apologize if the font and/or layout of this post looks funky. WordPress has given me so many problems tonight! I have been writing in HTML for a decade, but what WordPress has done to my simple tags tonight is beyond ridiculous. It’s such a mess that I can’t even be bothered to fix it. It mutilated everything that I did and this update ended up taking twice as long as it should have because of REALLY CRAPPY coding on their behalf. lol Sighhhhhhh

Like this post? Share it, e-mail it or print it:

{ 23 comments }

Going BANANAS! before, in, and after the Big Apple

by Jenn (j3nn.net) on December 22, 2008

*exhales* Wow, it has been a long, crazy weekend and I’m sorry it has taken me so long to get this update published! I tried to do it earlier today, but just as I was uploading images, our electricity went out! The wind was blowing so hard that it must have knocked some wires down, but thankfully it came back on before we got home from Christmas shopping this evening. Mother Nature and Jack Frost have been teaming up to throw all kinds of obstacles at us since last Friday lol. Aunt Flo decided to join us on our trip to the city!!! She wasn’t invited! But she showed up anyway. *sigh* She’s so darn persistent! lol

Friday: We had hotel reservations at the Marriott Courtyard for Friday and Saturday, but a snow storm was on its way. We anticipated waking up to several inches of snow, but by 12:00PM it still hadn’t started. It was supposed to start very early in the morning and we thought we’d wait until the afternoon after roads were plowed, but Jack Frost had other plans for us.

It started coming down furiously around 1:30-2:00PM, so by the time we got on the road, they were awful. We were averaging 20MPH; it was very, very bad. So, we stopped 20 miles into the trip at the mall in Middletown, hoping that it would stop or that the roads would get better. We grabbed a bite to eat and I did a little bit of shopping while we were there. We were trying to waste time anyway, so why not right? lol

I went to the restroom in Macy’s and being the stores were completely empty and actually closing early due to the weather, I snapped a few iPhone pics in the restroom. We were bored lol. The employees were hanging out all over the store bored, too.

Me @ Macy’s:

Once we got closer to the city, the snow let up and the roads were much, much better. It still took it 2 or 3 times longer to get there, but we got there safely, thankfully! We checked in the hotel around 9:00PM, much later than we had originally planned, sooo what’s the first thing hubby and I did? Took pics, of course! lol I started taking pics…

Then hubby came to join me…

The hotel room wasn’t anything special. Just a below-average Marriott Courtyard single room. And I say below average because it didn’t have a mini fridge or other standard things that every other room of theirs we have stayed in has had. It was actually kind of dull and boring, it also could have used a little more cleaning, in my clean-freak opinion. I also don’t like how they come with you if you want to use a luggage cart. For $300 a night plus $45/day for valet parking, you’d think they’d have less rules like other Courtyards, but I guess Manhattan has different policies. They basically forced us to pay lots of tips that we normally aren’t subjected to.

At least the view from our room was cool:

New York is the city that never sleeps, for the most part. There’s still a lot of restaurants and stores that close by 9:00 to 11:00PM, like most other places in the country. So, we scoured the internet for restaurant recommendations for us night owls. We stumbled upon a recommendation from Rachael Ray’s Tasty Travels for Blue Ribbon Brasserie. So, after narrowing down our options, we decided to give it a try and got a taxi, then arrived there around 12:30AM.

The place was much smaller than we expected. We were seated right in the middle of a crowded place at a tony table. Our neighbors were… interesting and we felt very awkward, but nothing that a few glasses of wine and some scotch couldn’t take care of lol. We started with the fondue for an appetizer. The cheese sauce was very good, but food samples weren’t that impressive; 4 pieces of Granny Smith apple (not even a whole apple!), 3 bread sticks, 1 potato skin and bread cubes after they already brought us the same loaf of bread with butter lol. I still ate a good amount of it because we were soo hungry.

I tried to keep my pics to a minimum as to not draw attention to us with the flash of my camera lol. Others were taking flash pics though, so I didn’t feel that shy about it but I didn’t want to annoy our neighbors, so I didn’t get that many pics of our food. Not that your missing much with the fondue LOL. What you see is what we got!

We decided to give their recommended wines a try, so they brought us each a glass of red and white. I loved the white wine; I had 2 glasses of it but I didn’t care for the red wine. The white wine went beautifully with the fondue. For my entree I ordered the salmon that came with mustard sauce, mashed potatoes, asparagus, and crispy potatoes (potato chips):

It was FANTASTIC! I loved it but I was pretty full from the bread and butter, fondue, wine and bottle of water, so I didn’t eat very much of it, even though I wanted to. Hubby ordered the NY Strip steak and also didn’t eat very much of his plate. When they took our plates away, one of the other guys that worked there came over to us to ask us if everything was alright because he noticed that we didn’t eat very much of our entrees lol. We assured him that it was great but we were just full. The service and food was excellent, plus it’s reasonably priced, especially for NYC. Other than our awkward seating arrangement, we liked it a lot and plan to go there again the next time we’re in the city. I’m very proud of us for being brave enough to try new places, despite our shy, nerdy nature.

We took a taxi back to our hotel room for a much needed night of rest. We didn’t wake up until very late in the afternoon and we were supposed to meet up with my cousin Tricia and her boyfriend at around 6:30PM for dinner and then be at the show by 9:00PM because it started at 10:00PM and we wanted to get there early. But my cousin’s boyfriend got into the city late, so they didn’t get to our hotel until around 7:30PM, so we decided to just grab a quick bite before the show and then go out for a real dinner afterward because we didn’t have much time at that point. We walked a few blocks down from the hotel, trying to look for a snack of sorts and decided on Chipolte, which ended up being an all out meal. It was FREEZING out and it felt so good to be inside a warm place, even if it was fast food lol.

I’ve never been to Chipolte, so I wasn’t familiar with their food or how to order. I ended up getting the biggest burrito I have ever seen:

They just kept stuffing more and more into it, I can’t believe they even got it to close lol. All I wanted was rice, beans, cheese and guacamole, but I ended up getting sour cream and salsa to. I also wish I read the back of their napkins first for instructions on how to eat the burrito — Oops! lol I could only eat half of it; I was STUFFED! Sooo much food.

After eating more than just a “snack”, but hopped, full-bellied, into a taxi and headed to Radio City Music Hall for the show. We had to stand outside for at least a half hour waiting for them to let us in. It was SOOOOOOO cold, BRRRRRRRR! There was another wait to be seated once they let us in the doors, so we took some pictures…

Me @ Radio City

Dustin and me @ Radio City

My cousin Tricia and me in our seats

The show was GREAT!! We loved it! I have been to it 2 other times, but not since I was a kid, so it was like seeing it for the first time. It was the first time hubby and Tricia’s boyfriend saw it, so that was cool for them. The show was excellent, even better than I remember. We’re probably going to go again next year.

Then we headed over to Rockefeller Center in hopes of taking pics by the tree, but they had the lights off! How disappointing!! We took a few pics anyway, but they weren’t as much fun without the tree lights on!

Hubby @ Rockefeller Center

We were still full from Chipolte, so none of us wanted to eat again at the time, so we decided to get a cup of coffee and we headed back to our hotel and Tricia and her boyfriend headed home. Later on hubby and I got hungry around 2:30AM, so we asked the front desk to recommend some place that was open. They recommended an all night diner that was a few blocks away, so we walked there in the brutal cold lol. It only took a few minutes, but that can feel like forever in chilly weather.

I don’t know what possessed me to order meatloaf, but it sounded good. I’ve actually been craving it for awhile now, so I figured, hey, why the heck not? hehe

It came with a salad…

Good stuff! I ate all of the salad with just a little of the blue cheese dressing, all of the veggies with the meatloaf, half of the mashed potatoes and half of the meatloaf, but very little of the gravy and mushrooms. It was yummmmmmy! Total comfort food, it hit the spot.

The next morning we checked out and headed back upstate, but yet another snow storm was coming down! My mother said they got about 6 inches upstate before we even left the hotel, which wasn’t getting the same weather. The further north we went, the worse the weather and roads got, but it didn’t take us as long to get home as it did to get there. It was still very dangerous. We were so relieved to be home!

The roads were cleared a few hours later, so we went out to dinner at Brother Bruno. I got the Chicken Sorrento and hubby got slices of pizza:

The Chicken Sorrento was awesome! It was chicken breast layered with eggplant, mozzarella and a wine sauce. I LOVED IT! It came with pasta that had the same buttery sauce on it. YUMMY! I ate half of it and took the rest home to mom.

Between all the sodium, Aunt Flo and all the drinking I did, I gained 10 lbs this weekend!! !!!! !! Yes, really! I know that it’s mainly water weight, but geez, that’s crazy. I feel like a total slug! I didn’t want to take my water pills like I usually do because I didn’t know when they’d take effect and didn’t want to have to go potty every 5 minutes in the city, which wouldn’t have been an easy thing to do lol. So, I paid dearly on the scale for this weekend, but it was definitely worth it. We had lots of fun despite the bad weather and cruel arrival of Aunt Flo.

We just got back from Christmas shopping at Woodbury Commons and the mall in Middletown. We’re STILL not done yet!! I’m going out with my mother tomorrow morning, then hubby and I are going to finish up Christmas shopping in the afternoon and then go to Whole Foods in White Plains in the evening. OMG, we have so much going on. I haven’t had a full night’s sleep in WEEKS!! I did a ton of walking today and was actually 5 lbs less on the scale this morning, but I’m sure I cancelled that out with my poor food choices today. *sigh* That’s ok though. Once New Year’s is over, I know that everything will be as back to normal as possible. I guess this year is more hectic than last year because we’re back in NY by family and familiar places to go, unlike being in Georgia at this time last year. So, I’ve gained a lot of weight but I know that it’s a lot of water weight and I also know that what goes up, must come down!!

I’m looking forward to getting back to basics after New Year’s, but for now, I am LOVING this Christmas season, even though it’s very stressful at times, it’s still lots of fun! I’ll have an update tomorrow after we get back from Whole Foods with all of our foodie looties! I need some sleep… I’m EXHAUSTED and have to be up in 5 or 6 hours. Aaaaaaaah! Oh, I have sooo many presents to wrap, too. Geez, nothing like waiting until the last minute!! Oh well, what can ya do? lol One day I’ll learn my lesson. hehe

Nite nite

Like this post? Share it, e-mail it or print it:

{ 9 comments }

Update from Manhattan coming soon!

by Jenn (j3nn.net) on December 20, 2008

Extreeeeeeeeeeeeemely tired at the moment, but I’ll have an update in the morning!

ZzZzZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Like this post? Share it, e-mail it or print it:

{ 3 comments }

The speed round has begun!

by Jenn (j3nn.net) on December 17, 2008

I’m way, way, waaaaaaaay behind on updates, we are just incredibly busy to the point that I just got done with my 4 hours power nap that is supposed to be the equivalent of a good night’s sleep. We have so many things going on in the next week, my head is spinning! We have a ton of work to do, Christmas shopping, dinners to plan, grocery shopping, cookies to bake, presents to wrap — all before Christmas, but we also have to be in Manhattan on Friday. We’re checking into our hotel the day before, then seeing the Radio City Christmas show with my cousin and her boyfriend on Saturday night. So, we’re going to be in the city most of the weekend, which sort of breaks up our schedule for the whole week because it’s like; work, shop, clean, (insert a thousand other things), go on weekend getaway, come home Sunday and resume madness. LOL

My mother made a huge bowl of hard boiled eggs the other day, so they have been making an appearance in my diet several times a day! They’re so delicious and convenient. That was such a good idea and way better for you than sliced deli meat. Contrary to popular myth, dietary cholesterol plays a very small role in our overall cholesterol level. Eggs are good eats! Eat the yolk, it’s where the nutrients are!

I’ve been chomping down on hard boiled eggs first thing in the morning. My favorite way has been with toast or on Martin’s whole wheat buns, as seen in these upcoming pics:

1 Fage Total 2% with side strawberries (130 cal), 1 slice Alvarado Street No Salt! bread (90 cal), 1 large hard boiled cage free egg (75 cal), 1 cup tea with Truvia (4 cal) = 299 calories

2 Martin’s 100% whole wheat potato rolls (160 cal) with 2 large cage free hard boiled eggs (150 cal) and 1 small apple that was 112g with the core so I figured I’d eat around 106g or less (55 cal) = JUST 365 calories for ALL of that!! Wow. Move over Egg McMuffin; you’ve been replaced TWICE! Yummmmm

I don’t know how I came up with this pasta combo. I guess I was just throwing in everything that I saw, but it came out fantastic!

- 2oz Dreamfields pasta (190 cal)
- ½ cup Friendship no salt added cottage cheese (90 cal)
- 4oz Trader Joe’s no salt added Alaskan salmon (60 cal)
- 2 cups string beans (50 cal)
- 1 plum tomato (15 cal)
- 30g red onion (15 cal)
- 1oz reduced fat blue cheese crumbles (80 cal)
- Side salad (~120 cal)

I boiled the pasta; drained it and then mixed it with the cottage cheese, salmon, string beans that I cooked in the microwave, diced plum tomato, diced onion and mixed it with garlic powder. I plated it and topped it with the blue cheese crumbles. I felt like having a crunchy iceberg lettuce salad that I estimated to be around 120 cals with 2 teaspoons EV olive oil and red wine vinegar. All together it comes to 680 calories or 560 just for the GIANT plate of pasta. I could barely finish it, but I did. Definitely enough for 2 or 3 servings, but low enough in calories for one nice dinner!

Another thing I can’t seem to get enough of: Naturally More peanut butter in my cereal. YUMMMMMMMY! I’m into convenience foods this week and this is one of my favorite snacks… 1 serving Kashi Heart to Heart cereal (110 cal), ½ cup skim milk (45 cal), ½ medium banana (55 cal) and 1 TBSP Naturally More peanut butter (85 cal) = 295 calories and sooo gooooooooooood!

I’m sure you guys know by now that turkey burgers are another one of my favorite foods. I just love them! I could seriously eat them 3 or 4 times a day and never get tired of them. The first one in this week’s collection was 4oz ground turkey breast (120 cal) on 1 Ezekiel 4:9 sprouted grain bun (170 cal) topped with 1 cup mixed lettuce (5 cal), 1 plum tomato (15 cal), 30g red onion (15 cal), ½ TBSP Heinz no salt added ketchup (10 cal), 1 cup string beans on the side (25 cal) and 130g (before bake) sweet potato (99 cal):

Hubby had filet mignon, but I wasn’t jealous at all! I would probably choose this turkey burger anyway. hehe

All of that? Only 459 calories!! I looooooooove big burgers! Nothing like turning an ordinary burger into a mouthful of plumpness.

Then last night I made another turkey burger. This time it was Italian style: 4oz ground turkey breast (120 cal) on 1 Ezekiel 4:9 sprouted grain bun (170 cal) topped with 1 oz Price Chopper low fat mozzarella (60 cal) and 1 plum tomato (15 cal). Along with 1 cup string beans on the side (25 cal) and 259g (before bake) sweet potato (198 cal). I wanted to add spinach to this burger, but when I went to make the spinach, it was all wilted and yucky in the bag, even though it wasn’t due to expire for a few days. I was sad! I <3 spinach so much!

My frozen string beans said French cut on the bag. Nothing unusual, but then I noticed it said “Product of France” on the bag! Geesh lol. They were probably $5 a bag and I didn’t even notice. Really good, even though they traveled a long, long way to land on my Snoopy plate LOL.

The turkey burger with the mozzarella and tomato was AWESOME! A little dry, but honestly, I LOVE it that way. If I had added the spinach like I wanted to, it would have been a little moister, but it was great as-is for just 588 calories.

Ok, I’m busy, busy, busy! Gotta go for now. I’ll have more updates later tonight as I’m sure I won’t be sleeping much! Ugh! Someone send me a cloning machine, pleaseeeeeeeeee? lol Share your holiday madness stories with me. Make me feel like I’m not the only nut! *crosses fingers*

Like this post? Share it, e-mail it or print it:

{ 6 comments }

My 29th birthday

December 12, 2008

Sorry for the delay in my birthday update, I’ve been so busy! I had the most wonderful birthday EVER! I used to think birthdays would get worse and worse with age, but they just keep getting funner!! Ya know, once you pass 21, there’s not much to look forward to on birthdays other [...]

Like this post? Share it, e-mail it or print it:

Continue reading →

Birthday morning

December 12, 2008

The day I’ve been waiting for and dreading is here; today is my birthday! YAY! I’m 29 YIKES! 30 next year lol. This is going to be a short update because we have to pick up my cake and we’re having lunch out, BUT I will have a super big update [...]

Like this post? Share it, e-mail it or print it:

Continue reading →

Homeward bound

December 10, 2008

Our kitty Clyde came back home! Now we just need Tigger to come home safely!! We called the local animal shelter, but they didn’t have any that matched Tigger’s description. Thanks to everyone for the kitty wishes. They helped so far! Just one more to go.
Speaking of coming home, [...]

Like this post? Share it, e-mail it or print it:

Continue reading →

Freeeeeezzzing!

December 7, 2008

It. is. SO! COOOOOLD! Brrrrrr! I’ve been so busy all weekend and 2 of our kitties are missing. I’m really, really stressed out and sad and ugh, the coldness is making me want to sleep. This has been a crazy month so far. I would trade all my birthday cake and Christmas presents [...]

Like this post? Share it, e-mail it or print it:

Continue reading →

Q: How much food can I fit in a 2200 cal menu?

December 5, 2008

A: Quite a bit!
I decided to make yesterday a “grazing day” theme to see how much food I could fit in 2200 cals. I ended up with 10 mini meals and snacks; not bad, huh?
Some highlights from the menu…
Rice, bean and cheese burrito with a side salad:

1 Tumaro’s low sodium wrap (90 cal) [...]

Like this post? Share it, e-mail it or print it:

Continue reading →

← Previous Entries

December 2008

New Year’s Eve 2008

Merry Christmas!!

Going BANANAS! before, in, and after the Big Apple

Update from Manhattan coming soon!

The speed round has begun!

My 29th birthday

Birthday morning

Homeward bound

Freeeeeezzzing!

Q: How much food can I fit in a 2200 cal menu?

Archives

Search

Recent Comments

Blog Roll

Navigation

December 2008
S	M	T	W	T	F	S
« Nov				Jan »
	1	2	3	4	5	6
7	8	9	10	11	12	13
14	15	16	17	18	19	20
21	22	23	24	25	26	27
28	29	30	31