I’ve been doing so much sleeping since Thursday. My sinuses are acting up and the pressure always makes me drowsy. I’m feeling a lot more energetic today, so I think the pressure is subsiding. The low, freezzzzzzzing temperatures have probably contributed to our sleepiness, too. Needless to say, we didn’t have a terribly exciting weekend. 
After a long slumber, I woke up on Saturday morning wanting just cottage cheese and coffee. This ended up being my wake-up snack, pre-cardio snack and my breakfast.
1 cup coffee (5 cal) with 2 TBSP Starbucks hazelnut syrup (80 cal) and 2oz skim milk (25 cal); leftover canned peaches in 100% fruit juice (~60 cal) and 1/2 cup Friendship California-style cottage cheese (120 cal). Then I did an hour of my obstacle course. This kept me pretty content for about 3 or 4 hours, then I made a quick semi-homemade lunch with Trader Joe’s low sodium creamy tomato soup:
Love this stuff! It’s only 90 calories per cup and 140mg sodium. In a small saucepan, I heated up:
- 1 cup TJ’s low sodium tomato soup (90 cal)
- 1/2 link Field Roast meatless Italian sausage (120 cal)
- 89g frozen green peas (70 cal)
1 serving, 280 calories
Along with 6 Nature’s Pantry organic Golden Round crackers (90 cal), it came to just 370 calories.
This was such an awesome combination!! I thought about adding a little grated parmesan or pecorino romano to it, but it honestly didn’t need it. This was nice and filling, easy to make and SOUPer tasty. 
I highly recommend trying to combo. Oh, and the Field Roast meatless sausage is fantastic. Loved the texture and flavor, it definitely rivals the real deal. I’ll definitely buy this again.
For dinner I made a meatloaf because my mom defrosted chopped meat from the freezer and I wanted to try these news seasoning packets I bought at Mother Earth’s:
I mixed half of the French onion dip with about a pound of chopped beef, 1 medium chopped red onion, and 1 large egg. Then baked the loaf in the oven on 425F for about 35 minutes, along with sweet potatoes.
The meatloaf came out perfectly! I drizzled 1/2 TBSP Heinz no salt added ketchup (15 cal) on mine and split a biggish sweet potato with Dustin that I topped with 4g real buttah (33 cal) and 1 TBSP Fifty50 fructose maple syrup (20 cal) that rolled right off of it. lol
Plus a huge salad with mixed leafy greens, plum tomatoes, red onions and blue cheese crumbles tossed in EVOO + red wine vinegar that I served family-style to reluctantly share with the others members of the familia. <3 Salad!
I gave the sweet potatoes a head start on cooking by zapping them in the microwave for a few minutes before putting them in the oven. I probably didn’t need to do that but I wasn’t sure how long meatloaf takes to cook, I don’t make them very often. hehe Everything was absolutely delish! 
I love when the sides of meatloaf gets a little cripsy, aka burnt. LOL The prospect of medium-rare meatloaf grosses me out though. 
Has to be well done!
Sunday dinner wasn’t that glamorous, but it sure was yummy! My mom was in charge of it this week, so I just let her do her things with minimal input (Ok, I gave a bunch of instructions LOL, but she did all the shopping).
Homemade salmon burgers with sweet potato wedges and steamed cauliflower
I wanted her to pick up Trident salmon burgers from the store, but Shop Rite doesn’t carry them, so we ended up making our own with:
- 2 cans Trader Joe’s no salt added wild Alaska salmon
- 2 teaspoons flour
- 1 large egg
- A splash of liquid smoke
Makes 3 large, thin patties (or 4 smaller ones) baked on 425F for about 15-20 minutes on a baking sheet
Sweet potato wedges roasted on 425F. I don’t think she coated them in EVOO, I think she just drizzled it over them because they were really dry in some spots, but yummy anyway.
Yes, that is iceberg lettuce, get over it. 
It’s crunchy and delicious, and 3 or 4 leaves is not going to kill you. LOL I know a lot of people in their 70s and 80s that pretty much eat iceberg as their only lettuce, so it’s definitely not the worst thing you can eat as long as you’re getting fiber and nutrients from other things. The salmon burger ended up tasting JUST like the Trident burgers that we buy, but the texture was different. My mom mixed ours in the food processor before forming the patties, so it made the texture really smooth. I really like them though, YUM!
It’s a sunny day out, but COLD! We’re heading out shopping in a few hours, so I better go exercise, eat and shower before it gets too late. I jotted down my whole menu for the week yesterday, so now I need to gather some of the stuff I need for the recipes and some fresh produce. Oh, and I have to set my Valentine’s Day tablescape!! It will be in my next update, along with my Valentine’s Day plates. 
What are you cooking and/or baking for Valentine’s Day? Anything special? Going out to eat? Tell me about it! Links to recipes if you have them, please.
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