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More Soup and Yoghurt

8 Aug

That’s riiiiiight, more Progresso Soup and Yoplait yoghurt reviews! I know, I know, you are just soooo excited! lol 😉

Today’s soup was Progresso Light Chicken & Cheese Enchilada, it is 2 Weight Watchers points on the Points Plus program, one serving is 1 cup and the can has two servings in it.

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Chicken & Cheese Enchilada

Close Up!

Close Up!

So, the same as with the soup from yesterday the chicken was not good, it was dry and chewy but at least it was in large chunks. I like the colour of the broth in this soup more than the one from yesterday, I realized after my second spoonful that the colour reminds me a bit of the artificial cheese colour of Kraft Dinner Macaroni & Cheese which is a tad odd but since this soup is supposed to have a cheese flavour in it I guess it makes sense the colour seems similar lol. There was a decent amount of veggies in the soup, the tomato pieces were a good size (I like veggies in my soup to be cut in big chunks so the soup seems more substantial) but the rest of the veggies were super small pieces, probably so they could fit better in the can but ya know, I’d still rather the pieces be a bit bigger, shrug. There was a bit of a zing to the broth, my first spoonful I was all “wow! spicy!” but then the next however many spoonfuls were not spicy. It was odd lol Every now and then I’d have a spoonful that was spicy and the rest were not, they weren’t bland exactly, just not super flavourful.

All in all I would recommend this soup, the flavour was good (despite being inconsistent) and the tomato pieces were large enough you had to actually chew lol

Today’s Yoplait yoghurt was Pina Colada! Mmm! It is another 25% less sugar yoghurt but not a Weight Watchers affiliated one, which means for that tiny yoghurt cup I used 4 Weight Watchers Points Plus points.

Pina Colada!

Pina Colada!

Those 4 points were totally worth it my friend! All this yoghurt needs is a little splash of alcohol and it’d be perfect! lol 😉 I really enjoyed this one, just the right combo of flavours, nice smooth, thick texture, everything a yoghurt should be, imo.

So yay! This puts me at 2 yoghurts being good, 1 soup being good and 1 soup being not good – that’s pretty decent I’d say. Only 2 more soups to go and ummm…7 yoghurts? Yeah, 7 yoghurts! 🙂

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Soup and Yoghurt

7 Aug

I figured since I bought all that soup and yoghurt yesterday when in the States I might as well start eating it! 🙂

Today I chose the Progresso Light Zesty Santa Fe Style Chicken soup, it is 2 Weight Watchers Plus Points per serving (which is 1 cup) and there are 2 servings in a can.

Santa Fe Style Chicken

Zesty Santa Fe Style Chicken

Here is a close up of it…

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It is not a pretty looking soup, the broth is kind of a sludge type colour, not appetizing looking in person at all. The chicken pieces were nicely sized, I’d go as far as to call them chunks or cubes of chicken rather than pieces buuuuut the chicken was dry and chewy, sigh. There was one cube of chicken that was soft and tender and it was such an oddity compared to the other pieces I actually wondered what went wrong with that particular piece of chicken lol The rice, veggies and beans were excellent, Mmm! The first spoonful was a tad spicy but I like spicy food so I quickly adjusted and was fine with it.

For an overall review I would not recommend this soup, mostly because of the chicken being so dry and chewy. I feel that if a company is going to put meat of any form in to a can of soup they should make sure the meat is tender and tasty. Just sayin.

For the yoghurt I enjoyed a Yoplait Cherry Yoghurt that apparently has 25% Less Sugar.

Cherry!

Cherry!

It is 4 Weight Watchers Plus Points which seems a tad high considering it is just a yoghurt cup, shrug, but it did taste good! There were actual pieces of cherries in there which is always nice. 🙂

So far I am batting 50/50, one yah and one nay, and that’s alright, I mean I can’t expect everything I choose to taste good lol I expect most of the yoghurts to taste good but the soup is a total guessing game, shrug.

I’m picking randomly which soup and which yoghurt to eat so who knows which ones I’ll write about next! 😛

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Hello America!

6 Aug

Today I had a little jaunt in to the States, and when I say little I mean little, I was only there a couple of hours. Thank goodness the border is so close! 🙂

Why bother going for such a short visit? Simple, I had to ship my dragon boat paddle back to the company that made it (Burn Water) for repairs.

Why did I have to go across the border to ship my paddle you wonder? Simple, Canada and the States are weird and like to have random rules in play in regards to what can be shipped where and my paddle was a big no-no for going across the border in a box.

Makes no sense? Lemme explain!

I went to FedEx on the Canada side of the border to find out how much it would cost to ship my paddle, it had to go to Northern California. The guy took one look at it and said they can’t ship it, there are rules that prohibit them from shipping my paddle. I asked for clarification and his explanation was this:

The States has a policy that we can’t ship used personal items across the border in to the States. Apparently the American government is worried people will ship over all their personal items then drive or fly over as if on vacation and then be all “haha, I claim squatters rights! my stuff is all here and I’m not leaving!” Basically they are afraid Canadians are going to try to sneak move-in to the States.

*rolls eyes*

Listen, I may be happy you have ObamaCare now but don’t think it sounds good enough for me to leave my healthcare system behind…even if I do desperately want to live in LA and pursue my acting career there *big epic sigh*

Oh, and on top of all that, if they could legally ship it, it would have cost me in the high $200’s! That’s just crazy!

It is cheaper to drive the paddle over the border and ship it from within the country, which is exactly what I did. 🙂

The wait at the border crossing looked like this…

And I didn't bring a book, sigh.

And I didn’t bring a book, sigh.

I thought mid-day on a Thursday would be nice and quiet, don’t any of these people work?? Eesh. 😛

While sitting in the traffic that closely resembled a parking lot two border guards started walking down between the cars, I did my best to look innocent but I guess it didn’t work because they stopped at my suv and said they were doing a “spot check”.

Those are never good words to hear from someone with a badge and a gun.

While I sat super still in my vehicle, with the engine turned off, they searched and questioned, and searched a bit more. When the one guard asked the reason for my trip today I explained about the paddle and having to take it to FedEx on the American side of the border and they both looked at me like I was crazy. I wanted to point out that if I was up to something I would have come up with a far less odd sounding story but figured they wouldn’t appreciate hearing that, shrug.

Eventually they left me and my vehicle alone and I continued to slowly inch my way up to that little booth thing the border guards chill in while asking questions of those of us trying to pass through. The guard in the little booth asked a lot of similar questions, to which I provided the same answers and he also looked suspicious and unimpressed.

I should have just said I was going shopping, sigh.

The guard in the booth let me go and zoom! Off I went, in to America!

I am navigationally challenged and seriously doubted my ability to find the FedEx without getting lost but my directions were perfect and I got there quite quickly.

The poor guy at the FedEx though, I made his day harder, not intentionally though! Apparently if I had an American PO Box the amount of effort he would have to do is diminished by quite a bit but I don’t have one so he had to get me to fill out a form and he had to manually enter information in to his computer – oh the horrors! 😉 Luckily FedEx has a box that is perfectly sized to fit a dragon boat paddle, so yay! But the FedEx guy didn’t let me put packing peanuts or bubble wrap or anything in there so I am now paranoid about my paddle and how well it will endure transit. I got insurance for it though soooooo if they mess it up even more than it already is I guess I can file a claim, now doesn’t that sound like fun? lol

I finished at FedEx way sooner than expected so I went to Fred Meyer (that is a grocery store) and bought some super delish, Weight Watcher friendly, yoghurt that we don’t get in Canada. I have bought them twice before, once on a trip to the States for shopping and once when I was visiting a friend in LA and both times my taste buds have been super happy. 🙂 I didn’t only buy the ones marked with the Weight Watcher symbol because they didn’t have that large of a selection so I branched out to some of the non-Weight Watcher ones, they are all low sugar options though.

Why oh why can't you be in Canada?

Why oh why can’t you be in Canada?

Ok, fine, I lied, I bought one that is not low sugar, non aspartame, Weight Watcher approved, heck, it isn’t even a yoghurt lol

Chocolate Whip? Yes please!

Chocolate Whip? Yes please!

The yoghurts were on sale, 10 for $5 and I was trying to not duplicate flavours so I was forced to pick up a Chocolate Whip, it is such a hard life, teehee. 😉 I ate it this evening and it was…ok…not as good as say a chocolate pudding but hey, it could be worse.

I also took a look at these soups I always see ads for that I’ve never been able to find over here either, yup, they are Weight Watchers also, well, affiliated with WW.

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The ads make these soups seem like the most delicious healthy option ever, they are only 4 points for the entire can! Not every Progresso soup is a Weight Watcher friendly one but I took one of each of the flavours that don’t contain pork so I could give them a try.

After the grocery store, which fyi, uses paper bags! That was different…Anyways! After the grocery store I hit up a frozen yoghurt place, mostly it was because I needed a washroom and if I was going to have to buy something in order to use a washroom they were the best option out of what was around lol

The place is called Menchie’s and it was cute. 🙂 It is a serve yourself type of place and you are charged 0.51 cents per kg. Seems a weird amount to me, I mean, why not fifty cents? You pick up a bowl, walk through a selection of soft serve machines that have all sorts of flavours and then choose your toppings.

I swear I wasn't the only one there!

I swear I wasn’t the only one there!

You can combine any amount of flavours you want as well as sample as many flavours as you want before you commit to what you buy. I ended up with peach and red velvet cake, Mmm! I topped the peach with sliced banana and the red velvet cake with broken up pieces of waffle bowl.

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Ok, so obviously making frozen yoghurt look pretty is not something I excel at but hey, it tasted good and that’s all that really matters!

So after all of that I came back to my side of the border, the line was way shorter on the way home and the guard was less suspicious lol When I told them why I went over (the FedEx issue) he just shook his head a little, gave a small smile and waved me through. He was a cutie so I wouldn’t have minded being questioned more by him! 😉

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Big Boned

10 Jul

Here is a conversation that happened this evening at work:

Him: Yeah, I’m from around here, well, now I live in Sechelt but I grew up in this area, went to such-n-such school, blah blah blah

Me: Oh, hmm, that’s nice.

Him: So are you from this area? Where did you go to school?

Me: No, I moved here from Edmonton.

Him: Oooooh! An Albertan girl! I could tell you are from Alberta because you’re so big boned. Yup, a big boned girl from Alberta.

Me: *stares in shock* What?

Lady who over heard convo: You should stomp on his foot, while wearing heels.

you said what

I excuse myself from the situation and go do something else. He follows about 5 minutes later and laughingly apologizes, but the kind of apology that means diddly squat because you know he doesn’t actually mean it, he doesn’t think he did anything wrong and while pretending to apologize he infringes on my personal space by trying to put his arm around me and be all chummy.

What. The. Hell?!?!?!

youre mean

I’d like to say I responded with a scathing remark but I was at work and had to stay professional so I had to appear to shrug it off and go about my business. I’d also like to say I promptly forgot about the insensitive jerky comment and it didn’t bother me but that’d be a big fat lie. It is still bothering me now and it has been hours, not a couple of hours, more like 9 hours. *sigh*.

I know that only I can give permission for other people to affect me but ya know what, what he said affected me and I don’t care if it is me giving him permission to affect me, or low self-esteem, or deeply buried anger because I couldn’t respond, or years of learned responses to how men treat me but whatever it is, it is affecting me, and I don’t like it.

What gives this guy, this guy that I met for the first time this evening the right to not only comment on what I look like but to comment in a negative way? Since when do our social norms allow anybody to do that without some sort of consequence? Oh wait, it’s been ok for, well…as long as I have been alive. *double sigh*

What the hell does “big boned” even mean? Is that another way of saying “fat”? Or is it a specialized way of saying “fat”, is it supposed to be more politically correct? Maybe it is the female version of “husky”, I’ve heard guys described like that, “oh he has a husky build” like he is a breed of dog or something!

I just don’t get it.

The whole situation makes me so angry. Angry that this guy seemed to think what he did was perfectly ok, angry at myself for not responding in a stronger way, angry at men in general because I can only aim so much anger at myself before I have to deflect it elsewhere and well, men in general are an easy target if I pretend they are all like this guy.

Ok, calming down now…

After work I was restless, I wanted to do something to work off my annoyance but on my drive home I found myself a bit teary eyed which is so not like me. That stupid little man had made one comment and it had me questioning all kinds of things about myself, what I look like, how I was dressed, what I ate today, how active I have been, am I bigger than I thought, am I big boned? Even though I don’t really know what big boned is supposed to mean I couldn’t stop wondering if I am that, is that what people see when they look at me, someone big boned? A big boned Albertan girl?

Since I finished work at 9:30pm and there really wasn’t much to do I came home, cuddled with the cat and made the conscious decision to not let how I was feeling affect my eating plan. I am doing Weight Watchers and the last thing I want is for some bump in the road to derail my weight loss. Normally when I am upset I either (1) eat everything! or (2) eat absolutely nothing, even if I am legit hungry. What can I say, I go to extremes. If I didn’t eat anything when I got home I’d be under eating for the day, if I ate the entire tub of Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream that was calling my name I’d be waaaaay over my food budget for the day so I stuck to the plan, I made a healthy-ish snack, ate my points for the day (that is a Weight Watchers thing, if you count calories it would be like me saying I ate my calories for the day) and well, that was it. I didn’t let my emotions control my eating (or not eating), I didn’t derail my weight loss plan thereby making myself feel even worse about myself because of this comment and I will hopefully wake up tomorrow feeling better about things, cause time is supposed to heal wounds right?

Does time also heal anger because I still want to punch that guy in the face, or put on a pair of pointy heels and stomp on his foot, better yet steel toed boots!

kill you

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Brownie Strawberry Trifle

3 Jul

This my friends is not a healthy living friendly desert…consider this a fair warning! 😉 It is however quite tasty sooooo if you’re willing to eat outside the boundaries of whatever diet, or healthy living plan, or life change you are currently following than read on!

You will need:

– brownies (yeah, you’ve gotta make those)

– 1L (12oz) Cool Whip (I used Light Cool Whip)

– 1 135g (5oz) package of Vanilla Instant Pudding

– 2lbs fresh strawberries

Instructions:

Bake brownies. You can use your own recipe or a brownie mix, whatever floats your boat.

Slice the strawberries, seems fairly obvious and yet it is mentioned in the original recipe so I thought I’d tack it on here also.

Make the pudding, once it is set fold in the Cool Whip. You’ll need a large bowl for this. It makes what the original recipe refers to as a custard. This is not technically a custard, duh, but who am I to judge the original recipe person? Well, ok, I am judging a little bit lol

Once the brownies are completely cooled cut them in to small pieces, I tore the brownies in to small pieces instead of cutting them because that’s how I roll over here. I’m sure Martha Stewart would not approve. 😛

Put half the cut brownies in the bottom of your trifle bowl, pour half the custard on top of the brownies and spread it around so all the brownies are covered. Layer half the strawberries on top of the custard. You can stand up some of the cut strawberries around the edge of the dish so it looks prettier, ya know, if you want, no pressure to make this presentable or anything…

Repeat the layering. Brownies, custard than strawberries.

The original recipe also wanted you to melt chocolate chips and drizzle it on top, I chose not to do that because I thought it would be sweet enough and I was right. Not saying it wouldn’t be an extra level of delish with the melted chocolate, and I’m sure it would look even more impressive but I liked how it looked with the fruit on top, easily seen, not covered by anything and hey, I’m making it so I get to make these oh so important decisions. Ooooooh the power of me!

Here is how it turned out…

Chocolate Brownie and Strawberry Trifle

Chocolate Brownie and Strawberry Trifle

I added some raspberries to the strawberry topping because who doesn't like raspberries?

I added some raspberries to the strawberry topping because who doesn’t like raspberries?

Side view!

Side view!

A couple side notes:

– Keep the trifle in the fridge until it is time to serve it, otherwise the custard melts and stops looking so pretty.

– I doubled the amount of brownies I made, so two batches instead of one, which turned out to be a good thing because it took one entire batch for each brownie layer. Depending on the size of your trifle bowl you may also need to make two batches of brownies.

– I did not double the amount of Cool Whip or Vanilla Pudding used. I realized once it was too late I probably should have, especially when I had poured half of it on for the first layer and I was struggling to get all the brownie covered. You’d never know it from the picture though, shrug. When eating the trifle the ratio of chocolate to custard was a good one so flavour wise it turned out I didn’t need to double the Cool Whip and Vanilla Pudding, just be prepared to use slices of strawberries to help cover thin custard coverage areas.

– I did not use the entire 2 pounds of strawberries, despite my going to all the effort to clean, and destem, and slice them. I used a good chunk of them, as you can see. The way the hidden layer is placed is identical to the top layer, only minus the raspberries so not like I skimped in the middle with my strawberry usage. But hey, rejoice, this just means extra strawberries for you!

– I added the raspberries on a whim because they were on sale and because they are a personal favourite. I had originally intended to make a little design with them but I was running late so I just popped some on where there was space between strawberry slices. I didn’t get to use them all so oh gee, I have leftovers of those also, what a shame! 😉

– The original recipe is from an American site so the quantity of everything was a little off to the size of things here, except for the strawberries because, well, I don’t know why to be honest. Normally I do all the conversions before I go shopping so I know what size packaging to look for in my grocery store but I didn’t this time so I winged it. It turned out ok.

– I would recommend making the brownies the night before, I made them the morning of and it seriously cramped my style. I had everything else all ready to go and I was stuck waiting for the stupid brownies to cool completely, it took forever and that’s with me living in a basement suite apartment!…In case you don’t get the significance of that, my place is always cold, it will be 29C (84.2F) outside and I will be inside wearing a sweater and sweat pants with a little throw over my feet. It’s like I live in the place that summer forgot.

I calculated the Weight Watchers Points Plus points for the trifle, a portion of my trifle comes out to 12 points. If you make it I would recommend calculating your own points because you will be using your own brownie recipe, and may be using only one batch of brownies, or maybe you doubled the amount of custard, or perhaps you decided to drizzle the melted chocolate, who knows!  Then there is always the trifle bowl size to take in to account…The point is this strikes me as a desert where every person’s version will be slightly different which means so will the nutritional information be. But that’s ok! This is a super easy recipe that is also super easy to personalize, which makes it great for everyone, enjoy! 🙂

Oh, the original recipe can be found here

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My Own Recipe

17 Jun

Normally when I cook I use a recipe, I tend to follow the recipe quite diligently because I suck at cooking and I am not good at winging it, at least not when it comes to cooking.

Well for some reason I decided to create my own dish, mostly because I was sick of googling recipes lol but also because I had some random things in the fridge I wanted to use up.

When I was growing up my mom would make this thing called Mom’s Amazing Mixed Up Mess…basically it was her version of what I did, or I should say what I did was my version of what she perfected. My mom can look at a bunch of random ingredients and somehow make something that tastes good. I look at a bunch of ingredients and see nothing except the individual ingredients, sigh.

The only thing I bought was some ground turkey, which I proceeded to brown in a frying pan along with some garlic and chopped up white onion. I then added a whole lot of mixed frozen veggies, they are from a stir fry blend that I have had in my freezer for over a year, yes, I know that is ridiculous. They were starting to not taste as good as they used to, I’m thinking because of the freezer burn, so I wanted a way to cook a lot of them at one time. I then moved everything in to a large pot, added 1 cup of pasta sauce (it was how much I had left over in the jar), 1/2 cup of salsa (it was how much I had left over in the jar), 1/2 a jalapeno chopped up (because it was how much I had left…detecting a theme yet? lol). Once it was all mixed together and cooked I put it in to a casserole dish, spread it out, sprinkled some shredded cheese on top and tossed it in the oven until the cheese melted.

It was originally meant to be a sort of stew/casserole type of thing but there wasn’t that much liquid in it so I don’t know what I should label it as, not a stew though…

Whatever it is called, I liked it! It was a good ratio of meat to veggie, it was just spicy enough, the veggies cooked up well and bonus points because it is healthy! Woohoo!

When it was still in the pot

When it was still in the pot

Just out of the oven with the cheese melted on top.

Just out of the oven with the cheese melted on top.

My first bowlful.

My first bowlful.

In the land of Weight Watchers Points Plus, if you split the entire dish in to 8 portions each portion is 3 points, if you split it in to 6 portions each portion is 4 points.

Even if I wanted to I don’t think I’d be able to recreate it perfectly since it was basically a dish I created specifically to use up what I had in the fridge and freezer lol Oh! I forgot! I put in a bunch of Mrs. Dash Seasoning as well, I didn’t measure it though, just shook the shaker thing until what came out looked about right…something else I won’t be able to duplicate.

I know it is a ridiculously easy meal to make, not fancy, not all that inspired or impressive, but I am proud of it anyways. It is the first time I cooked without either following a recipe or the instructions on the packaging my food came in. This is, weirdly enough, a big step for me cooking wise. 🙂

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Nachos!

16 Jun

I looooove nachos! Haven’t had them in ages though. I generally think of nachos as a great pub food, something you order when you’re out with friends because you can share them. But when you’re actively trying to lose weight eating nachos is not exactly a great idea.

Well, a couple weeks ago I made a dish that used black olives and corn (among other things) and I had left overs of both those items. I immediately thought “oh those would be perfect to put on some nachos” but of course I didn’t have any of the other ingredients needed for nachos, except for salsa because I always have salsa lol

Not wanting to put those leftover items to waste I bought other necessary items to make nachos the following week and voila! Healthy nachos! Well, healthy-ish lol 😉

Before they went in to the oven...

Before they went in to the oven…

Fresh from the oven, Mmm! Melted cheese!

Fresh from the oven, Mmm! Melted cheese!

I had some light sour cream and some salsa in little dishes for dipping but I figured you don’t really need to see pictures of that lol

I can claim they are “healthy-ish” only due to the portion size I made lol

There are 16 chips, I used the Compliments brand bite size rounds. For toppings I used Cheddar & Part Skim Mozzarella cheese (1/3 Cup), black olives, jalapeno and corn. You can use whatever measurements of olives, jalapenos and corn you would like. I used less that 1/4 Cup of corn because that is how much I had, I used 18 black olive slices (again because that is how much I had) and the quantity of cheese used was because I was wary of using too much and making the nachos ridiculously high in Weight Watchers points.

All in all the entire thing (including the sour cream) was 8 Weight Watchers Points Plus points. Which is a lot considering the portion size wasn’t large enough to be a stand alone meal. But meh, I made and ate it on a day I had exercised so I had the extra points available to me and I’d been craving nachos for weeks so I feel the points were well worth it. 🙂

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Hawaiian Turkey Loaf

15 Jun

No. Just…no. This did not turn out well at all! Partly because I made mistakes, partly because the recipe calls for too much ginger and partly because, well, I dunno, it just isn’t good. 😛

I like meatloaf, no, scratch that, I love meatloaf, my mom’s meatloaf anyways. Nobody makes it better! I always intend to try duplicating it but haven’t gotten around to trying. Well, in my hunt for healthy recipes that I can make on Thursdays so I have food to last me through my working days (Fridays through Mondays) I came across a Weight Watchers recipe that looked easy and interesting so I thought I would give it a try.

It is called Hawaiian Turkey Loaf but in reality it is a turkey meatloaf with a pineapple chutney for topping. The original recipe can be found here.

In theory the recipe is an easy one, you make a puree using orange juice, soy sauce, onions, peppers and ginger. You then pour the puree in to a bowl, add ground turkey, bread crumbs and an egg. Once it is all mixed together put it in a loaf pan that you have liberally coated with non-stick spray, toss that sucker in to an oven that has been heated to 350F and about 45 minutes later you have turkey meatloaf. While it is cooking you combine crushed pineapple (and the juice), sugar, vinegar, onions, peppers, ginger and pepper flakes in a microwave safe bowl. Microwave for 3-5 minutes, add raisins, microwave for a couple more minutes then let stand for a couple minutes. You can use the chutney when it is warm or cold, serving it on the side or on top of your turkey meatloaf.

See how easy all that sounds?

Well…things did not go according to plan when I was cooking that night, sigh.

Thinking how smart I was being I chopped the onion and pepper needed for the puree in advance and left it in the fridge. Well, I didn’t chop the correct amount, somehow I read the 3/4 red pepper as 3 tablespoons red pepper and well yeah, those two quantities are so not the same. Oops!

Then the big screw up! When I was shopping for the ground turkey I was so worried about buying the correct quantity, because once again the recipe is american so it told me I wanted 18 ounces of meat and I was translating that in to kg and trying to find something close. And yeah I know that doesn’t seem too hard but I suck at math and I don’t really care for being surrounded by raw meat so I wanted in and out of the meat section as fast as humanly possible lol Once I’d found the package of ground turkey that was as close to 18 ounces as I could get I tossed it in the cart without double checking the label. Stupid move. It turns out that I bought turkey cutlets, not ground turkey. In my defence it kinda looked the same and it was in the ground turkey section so I just assumed it was what I needed.

So there I am with my puree in a bowl, trying to open a package of raw turkey without touching any turkey liquid or meat and then putting it in to the bowl with the puree only to realize the meat is not ground, it is solid. Aww shit. I tried mixing it up with a spoon, thinking it might break in to pieces. It didn’t. I tried hacking at it with two knives, hoping I could chop it in to small pieces. I couldn’t. So I did the only logical thing I could think of…I poured the entire concoction in to the blender.

FYI, don’t put turkey cutlets in to a blender…

My blender is now dead. 😦

It blended a teeny tiny bit but all of a sudden the blender stopped. Didn’t make any scary warning noises, it just stopped. I think maybe it blew a fuse or something, not an apartment fuse but a fuse inside the blender, if that is possible…is that possible? I now think that is possible…

I was so incredibly mad at this point, mostly at myself since it was my fault but a little bit with the universe cause well, I can only yell at myself so much before I stop listening to myself lol 😛

I took the meat out of the bowl I had poured it back in to, plopped it on to a cutting board and proceeded to cut it up in to itty bitty pieces…I also took this opportunity to remove some ribbons of fat that were running through the meat cause yuch! Once it was as chopped up as I could manage I put it back in the bowl with the puree, mixed, added the egg and oatmeal (I used oatmeal instead of bread crumbs because 1. it is a healthier option, 2. I already owned it and 3. I checked with my mom and she said it would be ok), threw it in to the oven then proceeded to clean and then bleach everything in the kitchen because I was paranoid due to the raw turkey.

I made the chutney according to the recipe, well, almost according to the recipe lol I didn’t add the raisins because I don’t like raisins, shrug, why add something I know I don’t like? Oh and I couldn’t find crushed red pepper flakes so I bought red jalapenos flakes and used that. The chutney was meh, nothing amazing and I won’t make it again cause it made a huuuuge batch that for the most part ended up in the garbage.

This is what it looked like in the end…

2015-06-05 00.09.52

2015-06-05 00.13.18

I’m sure it would have had a better texture if I hadn’t screwed up and bought the cutlets instead of the ground turkey but even if I hadn’t messed that up I still wouldn’t have liked it. There was too much ginger in it and the overall flavour was one that was kind of musky, it was gross.

Despite my not liking it I had to eat it, I can’t afford to throw food out. I tried eating it with light sour cream, ketchup, brown sauce, anything I could think of really. I did discover one thing that made it ok, I put it in a sandwich and disguised the flavour with cheese and pickles and mustard which sounds gross but I really enjoyed lol

So yeah, I wouldn’t recommend this recipe, it didn’t taste good, in my opinion anyways.

If you are following Weight Watchers Points Plus I cut the loaf in to 6 slices, each slice is 4.192 points, so 4 points. At 6 slices per loaf each slice is quite thick so don’t worry that it isn’t filling.

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Pineapple Upside Down Cake

4 Jun

A friend from my Dragon Boat Team got a job offer in Switzerland and since she’s no dummy she said yes. This past Sunday there was a going away bbq being held in her honour and lucky for me it started mid afternoon and didn’t end until well after I was done at work so I got to go. Yay!

The invite said everyone was to bring whatever they wanted to grill and drink, a variety of salads would be provided. Well, I didn’t know what to grill, I haven’t ever grilled so while I know I could take some chicken or a burger patty or a hot dog with me to pop over the fire I would have probably made it inedible while trying to cook it. Also, who carries around just one burger patty or one hot dog? That’s just awkward lol

Instead I took a Pineapple Upside Down cake and hoped that would be an awesome enough contribution that I could eat enough salad for it to be a meal. See how my sneakiness works? lol 😉

Well, the cake turned out to be a hit! Thank goodness!

I forgot to take a picture of it when at home so the best I have is this one, not great but at least you can see what it looked like…

2015-05-31 18.38.47

The pineapple slices weren’t placed very well, my bad, sigh. And in the above picture the end of the cake closest to the camera looks darker but it wasn’t burned, honest! It just looks like that in the picture, shrug.

People really liked it, or they were lying about liking it lol but I’m gonna lean towards being optimistic and say I think they were being honest and liked it. 🙂

It is a really basic recipe, there are some super complicated, have a billion steps versions online but that’s crazy, who has time for that? *rolls eyes*

So here is what I did…

Make a basic white cake.

Melt 1/4 Cup of butter in the baking pan by putting it in the oven while it is pre-heating to 350F.

Once the butter is melted take the pan out and spread the melted butter around, I used a silicone brush to not only spread the butter around the bottom of the pan but also up the sides.

Spread 1 Cup of brown sugar on the bottom of the pan, the butter will melt the sugar in to a dark gooey yummy mess.

Spread pineapple circles in the bottom of the pan, I bought the smallest can of pineapple circles so I had 8 slices, if you wanted more you could always buy a larger can, cut some of the slices in half and fit in more, up to you!

Put a maraschino cherry inside each pineapple circle as well as between them, try not to nibble too many of them because whoa! so addictive lol.

Pour the white cake batter on top of the whole shebang.

Pop in to the oven for 42-48 minutes.

Once the cake is done immediately run a knife around the edges, you’ll notice the cake comes away from the side super easily.

Place a heatproof serving plate upside down on to the pan and flip the plate and pan over together. Try to center it when you do that because the cake doesn’t like to be moved which is why mine is nowhere near centered on my cake platter, oops!

Leave the pan over the cake for 5 minutes or so, allowing the brown sugar topping to drizzle on to the cake, Mmm!

Remove the pan, scrape any drizzle that didn’t drip on to the cake and put it on the cake, or eat it, whichever you prefer.;)

Quick Tip!

When making the white cake use the pineapple juice from the can, however much liquid your white cake recipe calls for, measure out the pineapple juice first then top it up with water, or milk or oil or whatever your recipe uses. You’ll infuse the cake with pineapple flavour, making the whole thing just that much better.

Baking info:

If you are using a glass pan heat oven to 350F and bake for 42-48 minutes. If you are using a dark or nonstick pan heat oven to 325F and bake for 44-53 minutes.

The cake serves 12, if you cut it to serve 12, I’m certainly not going to judge if you choose to cut it in to larger pieces lol 😉

Having said that, if you are following Weight Watchers Points Plus and cut the cake in to 12 pieces each piece will be 11 points. So yeah, not a healthy cake lol but sure is tasty! (fyi, that is the points for my version of the cake, depending on your white cake recipe the points might be different, shrug)

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Southwest Vegetarian Bake

31 May

I cooked! Again! This is becoming a habit that I am not sure I am comfortable with lol

Since I had success last week with making the Vegetarian Lasagna, mostly to be used as meals for work, I thought I would try again. I don’t mean try the lasagna again, I mean try making something in a large quantity that I could use for meals at work again and voila! I did it! 🙂

I found a recipe on food.com called Southwest Vegetarian Bake that looked like it might be good. I then read a variation on the recipe and liked parts of that version also. So, I combined the parts of both that I liked and made my own version – always good to customize!

My biggest problem is that the recipe is from the States so measurements sucked. It was all “use a 15 ounce can of black beans” and I’m all “canned goods in Canada are in milliliters!” sigh. Even when I converted the can sizes used in the recipe I was still screwed because apparently the size of cans used in the States is different than in Canada, lovely. double sigh.

If you want to see the original recipes I stole from click here.

I did attempt to get the correct amount, which involved way too much math in my opinion and in the end I’m pretty sure I ended up using wrong numbers according to the recipe, but right numbers for me since it turned out ok. 🙂

My Ingredients:

2 Cups Black Beans (canned)

1 Cup Corn (canned)

3 Cups Diced Tomatoes (canned)

1 Cup Salsa

1 Cup Shredded Cheese (I used Cheddar and Part Skim Mozzarella)

1 Cup Light Sour Cream

1 Can (114ml) Green Chilies

5 tbls Black Olives

1/2 Cup Red Onion (diced)

1 microwaveable Minute Rice – Whole Grain Brown (125g)

Mix everything except the black olives and the brown rice in a large bowl. Cook the rice, once cooked add it in to the bowl. Mix well. Pour in to a 3 Quart baking dish. Sprinkle the black olives on top. Bake at 350F for 30 minutes. Sprinkle extra shredded cheese on top (if you want), put back in to oven for 10 additional minutes. Take out of oven and let sit for 10 minutes before serving.

Easy peasy!

It looks a funny colour in the middle but that is because of lighting, in person the middle looked the same as the edges.

It looks a funny colour in the middle but that is because of lighting, in person the middle looked the same as the edges.

Fairly runny looking here...

Fairly runny looking here…

Mmm, dinner!

Mmm, dinner!

Some explanations though…

The original recipes said to use 3/4 Cup uncooked brown rice. I only buy the single serving brown rice cups from Minute Rice, the ones you stick in the microwave for, you guessed it, a minute. I wasn’t about to go buy more rice just so I could measure out 3/4 of a Cup and cook it. Instead I cooked one of my rice cups (each serving is 125g), added it to the rest of the ingredients and gauged how I felt the rice to other ingredients ratio was. See, I didn’t want to use a lot of rice because I am on Weight Watchers and rice is high in points, I would rather have less rice and more veggies, heck, even more beans since they have protein. I tend to view rice as nice but a waste of food, which is too bad because I actually really like rice. Ah well, the sacrifices a girl makes to get thin! lol

This recipe is a vegetarian recipe but I had intended to brown some ground turkey and throw that in there, however, my memory failed me when I was at the store and I forgot to buy any, oops! I think some ground meat would be a nice addition to the dish, especially since it would soak up all the flavours but I am still happy with it being vegetarian.

The original recipes wanted me to use Mexican Blend Cheese. When I went cheese shopping (which fyi, the cheese was the most expensive ingredient! What’s with that??) there was no Mexican Blend, or anything similar sounding so I opted for a Cheddar & Mozzarella Blend. Why did I pick that blend? Because it was on sale. 🙂

The final result ended up a bit runnier than I anticipated, I think because my ingredient ratios were all wonky. I wish I had put in the kidney beans I had bought, they would have tasted great in the dish, added protein and helped make it a little less runny. I suppose I could have also added more rice but we all know how I feel about that lol. 😛

This was a ridiculously easy dish to make since it mostly consisted of opening cans, dumping everything in to a bowl, mixing and cooking lol I did measure everything as I poured it out of the can so I would know exactly how much I was putting in, I did this mostly because I needed to be able to calculate the points per serving for Weight Watchers but I think its a good idea in general, otherwise you might put in more of a higher calorie ingredient than you realized and inadvertently make the dish not as healthy as you wanted.

I was super upset about the Light Sour Cream, even with it being Light it was crazy high in points for the quantity used, not cool! It tastes good, obviously, I mean c’mon, it is Sour Cream, of course it tastes good lol but I think I’d have rather saved some of it and used it as a topping, you’d taste it more and would have the option of saying no and saving the points (or calories, or whatever you track).

If you are following the Weight Watchers Points Plus Program your point information is as follows:

If you divide it up in to 8 portions, each portion is 8.125 points (so 8 points)

If you divide it up in to 6 portions, each portion is 10.833 points (so 11 points)

I chose to divvy it up in to 8 portions. Each portion is a fairly decent size, I find it is not quite enough to be a stand alone meal so I add some toast on the side or have some fruit for dessert afterwards, just a little something to help top me up. 🙂

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