I guess I’ll start with the good news first:

So close to -10.0!!

So that means I got my 5% sticker.  I told Tony that I was mad I didn’t hit the 10 pound loss yesterday, but then I said “I’ll get it next week so I’ll get another sticker!”  Apparently, I am all about the stickers. šŸ˜€

Since things are so crazy at work, I decided to make lunch for the support staff.  But since half of them are Catholic, I couldn’t make my famous (and award winning!) Buffalo Chicken Chili.   So I made  Lenten Chili.

Ingredients:  (Makes 8 generous servings: 7 PointsPlus – about 1.5 cups each)

  • 1 pound black beans, soaked overnight, and rinsed
  • 6 cups beef broth (hope that didn’t break any lenten rules!)
  • 2 carrots, sliced
  • 1 yellow pepper diced
  • 2 tablespoons ancho chile powder
  • 6 ounce can of tomato paste
  • 2 cups Boca Crumbles

Add the rinsed black beans into a large stock pot.  Add remaining ingredients except for Boca Crumbles, and cook for 60 minutes.  Add boca crumbles and cook for 30 more minutes, or until the black beans are tender.

I just put it on my work stove around 11:30 on Friday and had ff sour cream, reduced fat Mexican cheese and Hint of Lime and Hint of Jalapeno (yum!) tortilla chips on the side.

This is a perfect chili for a crowd, because its not too spicy.  Of course, I generously splashed Tabasco in my bowl. šŸ˜€  There was probably 1/2 a cup left in the pot in the end.

Since there was no meat on Friday, I decided to make a bay scallop gratin again.  We had this dish right before Tony’s surgery.  All we did was dip garlic bread and crackers in it – it is so good.  I actually think the bay scallops are a bit sweeter to me than sea scallops.

we would have to pay about $30 in a restaurant for the size of this dish – I did only use 3/4 of this package though and froze the rest
the secret is in the butter/olive oil/garlic/bread crumb topping šŸ˜€

So this weeks BSI is Mango.  Given the crazy week I’ve had, I decided to go through my archives and submit an old recipe.  Only one problem.  I didn’t have one recipe with mango in it!  So I am taking the easy route, but this turned out really good.

Mango Pineapple Apple Smoothie (2 servings – 1 pt. each)

  • 6 ounces apples juice
  • 4 ounces fresh mango
  • 4 ounces fresh pineapple
  • 1.5 cups ice cubes
  • Put in a blender and blend šŸ˜€

This was so refreshing and perfect right before Hannah and I went swimming – yep, Hannah bought us our own pool toys so we wouldn’t get busted.  We ended up doing 20 minutes of cardio and then swam and played for 40 minutes – so much fun!

Enjoy your Sunday!  Our temps will be 80 but tornado weather comes with it. šŸ™