Day Off!

I did a really good grocery shop over the weekend.  I only spent $61!  I am sure it was hard for Tony to be in the living room when I am cooking up a storm on a Sunday – but you guys – Tony doesn’t really like 75% of the food I make.  No joke.  I think he prefers Progresso over my homemade soups – and you know what a soup whore I am!  Just look at all the soups I’ve made!

So I made a batch of my buffalo chicken chili, four stuffed peppers (recipe below – and this is one dish Tony loves!), pumpkin and coconut soup with thai chili wontons, skinny reuben sandwiches with a potato/green bean pesto side dish, and a steak and sweet potato wrap with a spinach blue cheese sauce – don’t worry – recipes will follow this week.  I told my co-workers what was on the menu this week and they both loved what’s in store this week. 😀

For breakfast I just made a breakfast burrito – these whole grain burritos I found are 4 points but totally filling at 6 grams of fiber.  I sauteed some red peppers, deli ham, 1/2 ounce pepper jack cheese and baby spinach – 8 Points Plus total.

I knew I wanted to do a 5k at lunch, but with my blood sugar at 165, I knew I needed some more fuel, so I ate 3 points of peanut m&m’s – it did the trick.  It’s amazing how just not working out on Saturday and Sunday how hard it is to get back in the groove – I ended up running the 5k in 8/2 increments – 8 minutes running, 2 minutes walking and finished in 39:11.  Not bad!  When I got back to the office, my blood sugar was 85 – nice!

So I found these peppers on my $1 rack – I have no idea what kind they are, but they are sweet, but in the shape of a poblano pepper which are usually hot to me.

I threw all the veggies in the food processor for the chili:

I had a work obligation, so all I had time for was to heat my lunch and go – so imagine it looked like this, with 1 serving of tortilla chips on the side – lunch was 9 points:

I snacked on a delicious apple later in the afternoon:

Not only did I buy those red peppers on the $1 rack – I also bought the same amount of green and yellow peppers, so stuffed peppers definitely made the menu this week.  I played around with some cooked brown rice that I had, and decided to add spinach to the mix too.

Stuffed Peppers

• makes 4 servings – each pepper with 1/2 ounce of cheese of choice – 8 PointsPlus

Ingredients:

• 4 large green peppers, tops removed
• 8 ounces raw 85% lean ground beef
• 8 ounces cooked brown rice
• 3 cups fresh baby spinach
• 1 teaspoon crushed red pepper
• 2 cups marinara sauce
• salt and pepper to taste
• 2 ounces of cheese of choice (I used cheddar)

Direction:

1. Heat a pot of water to a boil.  Blanche the peppers for about 5 minutes, or until slightly tender, but still crispy.  Drain and set peppers aside.
2. In same pot, cook ground beef until cooked through – drain fat.  Add cooked brown rice, baby spinach and one cup of the marinara sauce and cook until spinach starts to wilt.
3. At this point, I weighed the filling and divided by 4, so each pepper got 6.6 ounces of filling.
4. Place remaining cup of sauce in an oven proof dish.  Put filled peppers on top of sauce and top each pepper with 1/2 ounce of cheese.  Bake at 375 for 30-40 minutes, until the pepper is tender and the cheese is browned.
5. Serve with pasta on the side – optional.

My plate: 1 pepper (7 Points) 1/2 ounce cheese (1), 1 ounce dried pasta cooked (3), sauce is zero because I made it from fresh tomatoes. 😀  11 points total.

Stats for Monday:

• 36 points (including wine)
• 50 minute treadmill – 39:11 time for 5k
• average blood sugar was 101

Hannah and I are not leaving for Oak Park until around 10, so I am scratching off one of my goals of swimming and heading to the gym this morning.  Looking forward to hanging out with Hannah, my Mom and sister.  Not sure where we are going to eat, but we’ll have fun! 😀

Check out this week’s BSI – host – Heather from Girlichef chose: Lemons!