Grilled Chicken

http://www.recipetips.com/kitchen-tips/t--911/chicken-cooking-times.asp

Tonight I made some really good grilled chicken!  I used the chart on this website to help me figure out how long to cook it on each side.  I put my boneless skinless chicken breasts in a Ziploc bag and sprinkled them on each side with grill seasoning and then poured in some honey teriyaki sauce.  I let that marinade for maybe 30 minutes or so.  Mine were about 6 oz each, so I grilled them for 10 minutes on each side and they turned out great!  Chicken is 3pp for 4 oz.  I made some roasted potatoes, which I have already given the recipe for on an earlier post, and some broccoli in a microwave steamer bag.  It was very quick and simple to make!  You could also serve these with rice, any veggie or salad.

This morning I did cardio and weights at the Y.

Cinderella's Closet

http://www.christmethodist.org/article/cinderellas-closet-its-not-just-about-the-dress/

Since I've been losing weight, I've kind of lost count of how many times I've had to clean out my closet.  I believe it has been 4 times, but I'm not completely sure.  We are also trying to get our house ready to put on the market, so yesterday I made one more round.  In an earlier post, I said that I donated some clothes to Interact and I did that again yesterday.  I also had some beautiful bridesmaids dresses that are too big for me now, but I couldn't just give them to Goodwill.  I felt like I really wanted them to go to a good cause.  I searched online around January or February to try to find a place before prom season when I knew that girls would be looking.  But I couldn't find anything that was even in NC.  So, when I was dropping off my stuff at Interact, I just happened to ask the girl taking my stuff and she told me about Cinderella's closet.  It is a non-profit organization run through Christ Methodist Church in Chapel Hill that searches for donations of dresses to be worn to proms.  They give the dresses to underprivileged girls who otherwise wouldn't be able to go to prom much less afford a dress.  So, this seemed like an amazing cause to me, and I felt great about donating my dresses to them.  If you have any that you would like to donate, please do! 

Stock Velveting

http://www.glamour.com/health-fitness/blogs/vitamin-g/2009/03/slim-by-summer-this-tip-will-m.html

I know this sounds like a pretty strange thing to put on my blog, but check out this article.  My husband, Justin, went to lunch with his friend, Mark to Pei Wei, which is a chain near us that is owned by P.F. Chang's, and they serve basically the same food, it is just kind of a fast food version.  Mark is a fellow Weight Watcher, and he told Justin to ask for his meal to be stock velveted.  Justin asked what he was talking about and he explained that he had read this article.  So, they both ordered their food this way, and not only did the people at the restaurant know what they were talking about, they honestly couldn't tell the difference in their food.  Justin LOVES Chinese food, and eats it a lot, so for him to say that it was good is a great testament to the fact that it won't change the flavor.  Try it out, and hopefully it'll help you out at your next restaurant visit!

Beef Fajitas

http://www.kraftrecipes.com/recipes/beef-fajitas-69080.aspx

I made these last night and they are awesome!  I used the eye round steak that I used to make the grilled steaks and I had frozen the ones I didn't use to grill.  I only used 1/4 cup of the dressing, and I used fat free instead of light because I already had it from another recipe I recently made.  I used 8 Ole' High Fiber Low Carb Wheat Tortillas instead of 16 small flour because the wheat ones I get are only 1pp and I figured you could fit more into the bigger ones the less you used.  When I calculated the pp using the online recipe builder, I left out the cheese, sour cream and salsa because they can be considered optional.  If you add some to yours just count them separately.  I didn't marinate the steak as long as they said in the recipe and it was still good.  I just put the meat and the dressing in a Ziploc bag to marinate it.  I didn't discard the marinade, I just poured it all into the pan to cook.  Once the steak was done, I took it out and put it in a bowl, but I left the dressing in the pan and put the peppers and onions in to cook, then added the steak back in to heat up.  I warmed the tortillas a little in the microwave and put 1/2 cup of steak mixture into each tortilla.  I did top each of mine with a little cheese, light sour cream and salsa.  These are 7pp for 2.

Angel Lush Cupcakes

http://www.kraftrecipes.com/recipes/angel-lush-cupcakes-115431.aspx

I made these to take to my parent's house today, and we tried some last night, they are so good!  It is like strawberry shortcake already made only better!  I used sugar free fat free pudding mix and fat free cool whip.  I only used strawberries, but since all fruit is free, it doesn't really matter as far as the pp goes.  I tried to just do 24 cupcakes since I only have two 12 cup muffin tins instead of making 30 like the recipe says.  It turned out fine, but the cupcakes just have really big tops!  The best part about this dessert is that 1 cupcake is only 2pp!!!

Grilled Pork Chops

http://allrecipes.com/HowTo/grilling-times-for-pork/Detail.aspx

http://www.recipetips.com/kitchen-tips/t--907/pork-cooking-times.asp

I kind of used both of these sites together to figure out how to grill the perfect pork chop!  I use the really small, thin pork chops for a lot of things, but when I want I grilled pork chop, I want the really big fat ones!  The technical term for them is thick cut, however.  I did actually measure the thickness of the ones I got and they were 1 in. in thickness.  I trimmed off the fat around the edges, sprinkled them with grill seasoning, put them in a Ziploc bag and poured in a little KC Masterpiece Hot & Spicy BBQ sauce, which isn't too spicy, but it does have a little kick.  You can use your favorite sauce.  You can marinate them for as long as you like, but I didn't do it until maybe 30 minutes before I was about to grill them.  I always try to take my meat out of the refrigerator while the grill is heating up.  I have watched a lot of Food Network, and all the chefs tell you to do that so that the meat can come up to room temperature so that the meat will not seize up when you put it on the grill and become tough.  I grilled mine for 10 minutes on each side and they were tender, juicy and grilled to perfection!  Check the nutritional information on the chops you get, but the ones I got were 6pp for 4oz.  The one I ate was about 6 oz., so it was 8pp.

I have been using the frozen steamer bags of vegetables that steam in the bag in the microwave even before I started WW.  And, I have been seeing in the grocery store all these ones with sauce in them.  I have been completely overlooking them because I assumed that with the sauce it would be too many pp.  But, I checked a few of them out at the store, and they actually aren't that bad!  So, last night we had Green Giant Roasted Potatoes with Broccoli and Cheese Sauce, yum!!!  It's your starch and veggie all in one and you don't even have to do anything but throw it in the microwave!  There were 4 servings in the bag, so my husband and I each had 2.  It was 3pp for 1 serving and 6pp for the 2 servings that we had.  Which, I didn't think was too bad for basically 2 side dishes in one!

This morning I walked outside to enjoy that the weather was finally a little cooler and not 90 degrees at 7am!

New Cracker Find

http://www.pepperidgefarm.com/bakednaturals.aspx

I found these today while doing some grocery shopping, and checked the nutritional info out.  They are 4pp for a serving, but the serving size is pretty big, 20- 27!  I usually only get snacks that are 3pp or below, but these looked too good not to try!  I tried the simply cheddar cracker chips with my lunch and they are really good!  When I pulled up the link to post, there are also some recipes on there that looked good.  So, I just thought I'd share this new product find!

I also have some exciting news....I have lost a total of 75 pounds as of my weigh in yesterday, yay!!!  I am so excited!  It took me 6 weeks at a plateau to get to this goal, which made it even sweeter.  Now for the rest, I'm just going to keep on trucking!

This morning I took a boot camp class at the Y that was really hard!  The instructor, Kyle, is my neighbor, friend, and fellow weight watcher.

Salsa-Cheddar Chicken

http://www.kraftrecipes.com/recipes/salsa-cheddar-chicken-106369.aspx

This recipe was awesome and super filling!

I bought fat free dressing instead of light, when I calculated the pp, light was 1 and free was 0 for 2 Tbsp, it's not a lot of difference, but the free option was there so I went with that.  I cut the chicken into cubes and cooked it, I felt like it was easier to it cook that way.  I also cut the pepper into pieces instead of strips.  I also added a large onion.  I reduced the amount of cheese to 3/4 of a cup.  It is 5pp per serving of the chicken mixture.  Just add the pp to that for the kind (white or brown) and the amount of rice you choose to eat.  So, if one time you make this you only have the pp to eat a half bag of rice, but the next time you have enough pp, or you're hungrier, use a full bag.  I ate a full bag of brown rice, which is 8pp.  A half bag is 4pp.

Foil-Pack Chicken Fajita Dinner

http://www.kraftrecipes.com/recipes/foil-pack-chicken-fajita-dinner-111262.aspx

I made this recipe last night and it was awesome!  It is 8pp for each foil-pack if you use brown rice instead of white, which I did.  I usually buy boil in bag rice, which makes a cup per bag, so I just used two bags, but the same amount of water.  I used 3 green peppers instead of two, and you could add in an onion or two if you wanted also.  It was really easy to make, and down in the Tips section, it says you could make it ahead, enjoy!

This morning at the Y I did weights and cardio.

Race car cupcakes

These are the cupcakes that I made for my son's third birthday party yesterday!  He asked for a race car cake and that's what I tried to give him!  I searched online and I couldn't find exactly what I wanted, so I used some things that I found, and came up with this.  I realize this has nothing to do with WW and eating these will definitely not help you lose weight, but I am pretty proud of how they turned out, so I wanted to share them!  I found red, yellow and blue paper liners at Party City.  I used a boxed chocolate cake mix, and iced the "track" with regular store bought chocolate icing.  I put regular vanilla icing in a Ziploc bag with a small tip to pipe on the track and the lines in the middle, and write start and finish.  My mom actually found the cars at a dollar store.  They are Cars, the movie, gummies.  When she told me she found them, I expected them to be regular gummy bear sized, but when I opened the box, they were the perfect size!  I found the flags at Party City, they were in with Cars, the movie, Lightnin' McQueen and Tow Mater.  I found the candles at Party City.  For the grass, I used regular store bought vanilla icing and dyed it green, put it in a Ziploc bag, snipped 1/8 in off the end and used a squeeze and pull motion to pipe on the grass.  I got this idea from the Hello, Cupcake! cookbook.  As you can see, they all look different, but that's OK, grass doesn't always look the same.  It actually is really easy to pipe the icing on, but to make it even easier, you could just put the green icing on just with a butter knife and it would probably look about the same.  These are for kids, so they don't care!

Morning Star

http://www.morningstarfarms.com/

I was over a fellow Weight Watcher's house yesterday, and for lunch she gave me a sandwich that was delicious!  She used a honey wheat sandwich thin (3pp), a Morning Star Chik pattie (4pp) and she put a few pickle slices and mayo on hers, I'm not a fan of mayo so I didn't have that on mine.  So 7pp total for the sandwich, and like I said it was awesome!  I had to go to the grocery store today, so I found them and got some.  They have a ton of other things like sausage patties for breakfast (2pp), mini corn dogs (4pp for 4), the list goes on!  It wasn't until later when I was talking to her about how good it was and how excited I was to have a new lunch idea that was so low in pp and that I had bought some, that I found out that it actually isn't chicken at all.  I thought it was just a lower pp version, like healthy choice or smart ones.  I felt really dumb that I didn't know it, but I'm glad I didn't because if I had known that it was made out of veggies/soy, I would never have tried it.  She didn't deceive me, I just didn't ask.  I knew she had been on WW for a long time and she actually works there, so I knew that if she ate it, it would be good.  So, long story short, I found something great that I wanted to share.  I am very weird about meat and the fact that I am personally telling you that it tastes good and I am going to continue to eat it even though I now know what it is, is proof enough that you should give it a try!

I took a cardio muscle class this morning at the Y.

Grilled Steak

http://www.recipetips.com/kitchen-tips/t--906/beef-cooking-times.asp

Tonight, we had steak on the grill, my favorite!  We are definitely in the summer season here, where I live in Raleigh, NC, it was a scorching 97 degrees today!  I always think of grilling when the weather is like this.  My husband thinks I'm crazy because it is so hot, and wonders why I would want to be outside to cook, but I love it!

I found this article because I was looking for the amount of time I needed to cook the steak on each side.  I buy most of my grilling meat at BJ's because I think their meat is really good and reasonably priced.  The packages are big and have a lot of pieces in them, but I will use it to make two different meals and freeze the rest for later.  But it is perfect if you are having friends over for a summer party.  The cut that I got is called beef eye round.  It did not have nutritional information on the package, but I did a search on the WW site and was able to find one that went by ounces, and the one I had was 5 oz and it was 5pp.  It is basically 1pp per oz.

I put the pieces that we were going to eat in a Ziploc bag, sprinkled them on both sides with grill seasoning, and poured a little Dale's Steak Seasoning into the bag for the amount of time it took to heat up the grill, like 10 minutes or so.  The chart on this article for beef grilled on medium-high heat says for all other types of steak (mine was 1 in. thick, and we like ours cooked medium well) to cook it for 8-10 minutes on each side.  I cooked it for 8 minutes on each side and it was absolutely perfect!

The obvious sides for this meal would be baked potatoes, roasted potatoes, veggies, a salad, etc.  I cooked potatoes in the microwave by poking holes in them and just putting them in for 5 minutes.  The potatoes I used were really small, that's why 5 minutes was long enough.  It is 2pp for a small potato, 4pp for a medium and 5pp for a large. 

Today I did cardio and weights at the Y.