Trepidation on Tuesday

Weigh in is imminent... and I am getting my normal case of nerves. Why do I always feel so anxious about this? I have no idea. I've been good on my plan with very few splurges. I have been exercising...okay, not as much as I should be, I know. I am very naturally active, I walk a lot and I'm always running around, up and down the stairs, performing intense medical procedures like wound care--so I get a workout that way. I've been taking the stairs all the time now and that's something I never did before. Baby steps? I know, I know.

Today was crazy, I had to be at work by 6am...and I worked until 6pm. So now I'm home and I'm exhausted. Tomorrow is supposed to be my day off...but I'm working in the morning (...damn it). I've already told my boss I need to be finished by my weigh in at 9:15 so that means I'm going to be out at 6am again. AND I'm on call this weekend. The only good thing is that I haven't even had a second to be hungry. I don't think about needing to eat because my mind is occupied.

Delicious Dinner!

Although the second I walked in, I went straight to work sauteing onion, pepper and mushroom to volumize my spaghetti and meatballs. I also served it with a side salad with light Italian that I saved from lunch. And I put 2 teaspoons of kraft parmesean onto it, its 20 calories; so I counted that as using all of my limited frees. Very delicious!

Now I'm going to just try and relax and not get overly anxious about weigh in...or get annoyed at having to work on my "day off". I'm also having a small party, more on that tomorrow!

Hope everyone is having a great day!

Volumizing!

Err...please ignore the ugly dirty dishes. Pretty please?

JC food is definitely filling but I struggle with being hungry in the evening. And I often get 'eyes bigger than my stomach' syndrome. Which means I see my tray of delicious food and thing: THAT is supposed to fill me up? Yeah right!

Well I have been finding ways to volumize my food. Putting in ingredients that are free on the plan that make my dinner bigger and better!! Tonight I used a JC chicken fettucini, half a bag of steamfresh broccoli and half a pound of baby bella mushrooms that I cooked in Frank's Hot Sauce!! Then I used fresh cracked black pepper over the top and WOW! I felt like I had ordered dinner from a restaurant!!!

Yummm...sorry for the poor picture quality on my phone!!

Some other things I like to volumize are the broccoli and cheese stuffed potato--I add extra broccoli to it! I also like to put extra veg on my rising crust pizza.

What are some of YOUR favorite ways to volumize your JC food or your healthy dishes? I'd love some suggestions!

CARROT FRIES!!!!

HOLY MOLEY WITH FRIES ON TOP!

I was reading around the JC forums and I found out about something absolutely fantastic: CARROT FRIES!!!!!!!!

After much searching for the perfect recipe I found…there wasn’t one. I combined a bunch and made my own! So here it is. JC exchange = FREEEEEEEE!

Kitchen Tools Necessary:

Cookie Sheet (with a lip) – Like this one :

Spatula –to move the carrots around

Knife – A SHARP one!

Cutting Board

Aluminum Foil (optional)

Ingredients:

1 ½ pounds of Carrots – I used whole organic carrots…yum. I’ve heard people like to use baby carrots and cut them in fours, that would probably be easier! 

PAM – no calorie cooking spray.

Crazy Salt- My own blend! Recipe follows!

Instructions:

1)     Preheat oven to 425. Cover cookie sheet with aluminum foil and spray liberally with PAM.

2)     Cut carrots into sticks, about the size you see in the final product above. The thinner they are, the crispier they get!

3)     Spread the carrot sticks out on the sheet, spread out as much as possible.

4)     Spray the carrot sticks with PAM and then apply a sprinkling of crazy salt. As much or as little as you like!

5)     Bake for 15 minutes. Leave them alone, don’t peek!

6)     After they’ve baked for 15 minutes, take them out and stir them around. Spray with a little bit more PAM and then put them back in the oven.

7)     Bake for another 15 minutes. Check the fries again, I baked mine for another 10 minutes to get them really crisp.

8)     EAT THEM!

They are so. GOOD. SO GOOD! And I am not embarrassed to say that I ate the whole batch. By myself.

Crazy Salt:

1/4 cup kosher salt

1 teaspoon dried dill weed

1 teaspoon black pepper

1 teaspoon minced onion flakes

1 teaspoon garlic powder

1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper

1/4 teaspoon chili powder

1/4 teaspoon paprika

1/4 teaspoon sage

1/4 teaspoon oregano

1/4 teaspoon marjoram

1/4 teaspoon parsley

2 teaspoons orange zest

Instructions:

1)     Put all the ingredients into a food processor, blender, or coffee grinder. I used a blender.

2)     Pulse until blended into a fine powder

3)     Viola!