Fun Saturday / Weekly Recap

Hi Everyone!!

Today I thought I would share with you some things I found on the Internet that I found interesting.  The first thing I have is a fabulous Cauliflower Crust Pizza that was linked up to last weekends #SundaySupper.   This recipe comes from Kim from Cravings of a Lunatic.  As part of #SundaySupper we had to make a skinny dish.  Well Kim made a cauliflower pizza crust.  I was intrigued by the idea and thought, I’m going to give this a try on one of my fend for yourself nights.  I sure did and I thought it was delish!!!  Here is a picture of it before it went into the oven.

This recipe was pretty easy to make.  I just microwaved my cauliflower than, squeezed out the liquid from the cauliflower, than mashed it with a little goat cheese and egg.  Formed it into a pizza crust, topped it with pizza sauce, sweet bell peppers, onions, spinach, sundried tomatoes, banana peppers and mozzarella cheese.  Baked it at 400 degrees for 12 minutes.  Did it taste like pizza?  No, not really, but if you’re a cauliflower fan you will like it.  To me it tasted like a roasted pizza without the crust!  Will I eat it again?  You bet I will.  I ate the whole thing and the calories for this comes in with toppings and cheese, just under 300 calories.  Not to mention it’s high in fiber, nutrients and  very filling.  Here is the picture after it was done.  Sorry I wasn’t planning on taking pictures, so it’s a quick shot.

Here is a fun link!  My Husband and I were watching Guy vs Food on the Travel Channel and he went to Sacramento, CA to take down a large pancake.  You have to see how large this pancake is.  It’s crazy!  You know I love this, since I’m a pancake fanatic!  I’d love to try it, but its way to much food for me and I would be terrified that I would eat it all.  Here is the video  Man Vs. Food  and here is one of my personal favorite pancakes, Apples and Cinnamon!  

Also on the same episode of Man Vs Food he went to Parker Hot Dogs Diner in Sacramento and he took on the Knucklehead Hot Dog.  You ready for this?  A 16″ bun, stuffed with 5 quarter pound hot dogs, drowned in 4 pounds of chili, nacho cheese, vegetables, and fries.  To beat the challenge you have to eat it all in 20 minutes!  Oh My Gosh!!!  Friggen Crazy!  I told my Husband the hot dog freak, that he has to try it!  He said he could do it, but he can’t  eat the fries.  Needless to say, I think this weekends road trip is going to be a 70 mile drive to Parker Hot Dogs.  He is not doing the challenge but he saw three hot dogs he wants to try.  Crazy Man!  This is what you have to eat in 20 minutes!  Can you eat this?  This is not healthy what so ever!!!  I couldn’t even imagine eating it!

I know this is a healthy food blog, but I love food and as you can see from my Husbands 1 pound Ricotta Cheese Meatball that I made for him last week, I love to make crazy, oh my gosh, I can’t eat that kind of thing!!  It’s fun to shock people, especially when it comes from me!  🙂

By the way, I posted this recipe for the meatball on my Facebook page and Dewey from Firehouse Dew made this meatball for his crew at the Firehouse.  His looks fantastic!!  He said it was a hit!  Yah!  See this may be high calories, but it’s great for firemen   Lots of protein in the meatball!!  🙂  Looking for a good excuse to eat such massive balls!  Here is what Dewey’s meatballs looked like.

Ok, now on to healthy stuff!  I got an ad from Health Magazine to try Allie’s website for “Let’s Fight Fat“.  Ok, please note:  I PERSONALLY DO NOT RECOMMEND ANY DIET PILL, NOR WOULD I EVER TAKE ANY!!!  To lose weight it comes to two things, eating healthy and exercise,  plain and simple (unless doctor subscribed).  Ok, now that I told you I would never recommend, nor take Allie or any other diet pill, I did find there website pretty cool.  For one, they don’t push any products, it’s a website that helps you set up your weight loss goals.  You put in your weight, height and goal; how much you exercise and it tells you how many calories you should eat.  For me at sedentary it 1520 calories.  Then they have a calendar set-up so you know what you need to do that day.  They even have exercise videos that are the full 30 minutes, so no excuses not to exercise.  Like today I have a 30 minute AB workout.  They actually do the whole video, but I found the video boring, so I would mute it and just watch the video with some music on.  I thought it was pretty cool, plus they have recipes too.  They also have a community, a journal, calorie counting and more.  I think it’s a pretty nice site and easy to set-up.  However I only did this for two days, so I can’t say too much more about it.  If your curious about exercise goals and what they recommend you should do, you should check it out.  Really, please note, I wouldn’t take Allie, I heard it’s pooping machine!

Now I have for you a site that my friend sent me.  This is a healthy food substitute list. It shows you substitutes for cooking, baking, snacks, drinks and more.  I found it very interesting!  Here is the link.

I thought this was kind of neat, I found this on HuffPost Taste.  These are the foods that are really Trader Joe’s.  I knew someone them were pretty obvious!  I thought if your a Trader Joe’s fan like me, you would be curious to what brands you were really eating from TJ’s.   Here is the link.

See the two last pictures above, I took those in my photo class from this past fall.  I forgot I had these!  🙂  Now for this weeks weekly recap:

Sunday:  Polynesian Salad – #SundaySupper – This salad is amazing!  I made it twice this week for lunches and the pineapple vinaigrette is amazing!  I love that there is no oil added to it, pure wonderful pineapple flavor.  It was pinned a ton of times this week on Pintrest.

Monday:  Your going to think I’m crazy Chocolate Chip Cookies – These are my avocado chocolate chip cookies.  These cookies are best frozen.  I’m not kidding you, they taste like cookie dough when they are in the freezer.  I have to say I made these and took them to work and everyone was terrified of them.   Normally my cookies are gone first thing in the morning but after lunch they still stayed in our freezer.  I took one out, split it with a friend and she said these are good and do taste like cookie dough.  Next thing you know, everyone was in the kitchen eating them.  They got rave reviews!   They were shocked it was avocado.  See you just never know until you try them!  I like these cookies and will make them again!  But again, they are best fresh out of the oven or in the freezer.

Tuesday:  Fruit Salad – This salad is so refreshing and wonderful for breakfast!  I had this almost every morning this week, until I ran out of fruit.  The lime and honey give it just the perfect added touch.

Wednesday:  Pork Medallion with Caramelized Onions and Fennel – This is a wonderful quick meal and you know what?  It tastes even better the next day!  The apple juice gives it so much flavor and ohhhhh, the onions and fennel, yum!!  I love this dish and my Husband did too!!

Thursday:  Apple and Cinnamon Walnut Bread – This bread is so healthy, that no one would even know it.  It’s full of fresh apple, walnuts, flax meal, wheat germ and yogurt.  My boss ate a few slices of it and said he loved the bread, what was in it?  I told him whole wheat pastry flour and he said, never mind I don’t want to know.  He doesn’t like healthy.  Hey I didn’t tell him flax seed was in it.  lol  This bread is quite amazing!  It’s unbelievably moist.  One of my readers on Facebook said they would toast it and add peanut butter.  Great idea!!

Friday:  Chicken with Pesto Spinach, Artichokes and Tomatoes –   This dish is another weeknight quick meal.  It’s full of flavor and would be perfect on pasta or on a sandwich.  I took it to work and had it for lunch!  Yummy!  I topped it with crushed red peppers and a pinch of balsamic glaze.  So good!!

Now let’s talk exercise!  I have been doing really good at working out 5 times a week.  I have been rotating between my treadmill and strength training.  I don’t know if I lost weight, but I feel good!  But that’s not wanted to tell you.  I have tell you I now have a new personal trainer!  His name is Sampson and he is short, stalky with white hair.  He lays on the couch in a little ball and waits for me to finish my workouts.  Everyday at 36 minutes of working out, he barks orders at me and tells me I am done!  If I don’t stop he goes to the kitchen and tries to find food to eat!  I can’t have that happen, so I stop working.  It’s like this everyday!  I’m not kidding!  36 minutes and bam, I’m done otherwise trouble starts.  See my personal trainer below.  Isn’t he kind of cute?  I think he has a thing for me, since he follows me everywhere!

Well that’s it for me!  I think I chewed your ear off long enough.  I think this is my longest post I have written!  Sorry for being so wordy!

Have a great Saturday!

Toodles,

Jennifer

This weeks craving is Wally’s Beef Chili.  Since I heard my sister loved this recipe, I have been thinking about it!  It’s so good and pretty darn healthy too!!