Okay, I may have had a Hannah night last night – I could not stop cleaning in anticipation of our exchange student Maxime coming today!  Think spring cleaning X 10!  Now, we keep things pretty orderly on a regular basis – I have Tony to thank for that because left to my own accord, things tend to pile up around me – but he keeps me in check.  Okay, he still thinks I have a food magazine/cookbook obsession but I don’t think there is a cure out there for me with that! 😀

At one point I was actually cleaning the inside of the dishwasher!  Really?!  But I am happy to report that our bathroom is done – huge thank you to Tony who nearly broke his back getting everything done I wanted and for Hannah making up her room for Max with new sheets and comforter.

I started out yesterday fixing dinner – gotta love the crock pot for corned beef.  That’s the only way Tony and I have ever had corned beef – does anyone else prepare it differently?  I actually saw directions for grilling it on the outside of the package I got!

All I did was put the corned beef on the bottom of the crock pot, added the seasoning packet it came with, then sliced potatoes and carrots on top, then poured beef broth about 1/2 way up my crock pot.  Even though I have a crock pot that goes to 10 hours, it still ends up cooking at a higher temperature – I started it in the morning – Tony usually turns it off in the early afternoon then puts it back on about 5:00.

Since we went bowling the night before and I was still on cleaning detail, I never got around to making Katie’s Jalapeno Popper Soup that I wanted for lunch – doesn’t that sound amazing though?!  So I just started throwing things into a bag and figured it out once I got to work!

Breakfast?  Bagel Thin, 1/2 cup egg white, 1 teaspoon light vegetable cream cheese, 1 ounce ham and 1 cup cantaloupe.    I actually thought I brought cheese, but left it on the counter at home.  Someone brought in bagels for St. Patty’s Day, so I schmeared 1 teaspoon light veggie cream cheese on one side of the bagel – loved it!

breakfast: 285 calories, 30 carbs, 23 protein, 4.5 fat, 4.8 fiber

I absolutely love these bagel thins!  They are everything flavor, which is my favorite!

And the cantaloupe was perfectly sweet 😀

I checked my blood sugar before me and my friend walked – it was 135, so I needed a little boost with two of these!

That did the trick!  When I got back my blood sugar was 79 – nice! 😀  I asked my friend what she brought for lunch and she said “eggs.”  I asked her if she wanted a spinach and strawberry salad and she quickly replied yes!  She chopped the strawberries while I chopped the carrots.

While we had to resort to store bought greens and vegetables (I cannot wait for the farmers market to come back!) the winner of this salad was my homemade dressing.  I don’t know if I told my friend it was homemade because I keep it in an actual salad dressing bottle!

Biz’s Balsamic Dressing

  • 3 cloves of garlic
  • 1/4 cup fresh basil leaves (tightly packed)
  • 2 tsp dry basil
  • 2/3 cup rice vinegar
  • 1/2 cup balsamic vinegar 
  • 1/2 cup water
  • 1/4 cup coarse prepared mustard
  • 1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil

Just throw everything into the food processor and store up to two weeks.  Each 1/8 cup serving is:  110 calories, 10.8 fat, .4 carbs. 0 fiber and .1 protein.

So colorful!! It had baby spinach, carrots, 5 almonds, cucumbers, croutons, a tiny bit of blue cheese and the dressing

As you can tell, I didn’t like it at all! 😀  I knew the salad wouldn’t be enough, so I broke into one of the Progressive soups that I won from Lisa – thanks again Lisa!

So the whole can is 3 WW points.  The verdict? Of course – salty – 75% of my sodium intake was in my bowl of soup!  I ended up adding cracked pepper to balance the salt and then added Tabasco sauce to the broth which helped.  It’s very brothy, not a lot of meat or veggies – that’s why its so low in calories.

In the afternoon I had another snack – 1/2 package of smoked almonds – it’s really hard not to eat the whole thing!

Since I still had a lot of cleaning to do last night, I was so happy that dinner was all set!  My blood sugar was low – so no pictures of my actual plate, but I had 4 oz. of corned beef, 1 cup potatoes, 1 cup carrots and 1 cup sauerkraut – yum!

what it looked like right before serving
It was so tender! I see corned beef hash in my future this weekend!

I also dipped my corned beef into this mustard – love it!

Stats for Wednesday:  45 minute walk at lunch

We are celebrating March birthdays in my office, so we are having breakfast at work and I plan on picking up Jimmy John’s for our lunch before heading out to O’Hare.   Oh, and did I mention its my birthday tomorrow and I might be having a giveaway??!!

Have a great Thursday!