First off, if you have a blogger blog, I can’t comment at all.  It either gives me an error message, or if I type a comment, hit enter, it just disappears.  So know I am reading even if I can’t comment.  Am I the only one who’s having this trouble??

There are a couple dishes that I suck at, yet I keep trying over and over to make.  The first one is scalloped potatoes.  I cannot tell you how many times, even after baking for SEVERAL hours, I brought the dish to the table and the potatoes are still crunchy. šŸ™

Next up?  Omelets.  It’s hit or miss. Sometimes they are gorgeous, other times they just become a scramble.  You can see which version I ended up with:  Um, I forgot my camera on my desk, so I hope Marisa doesn’t mind me stealing her picture – it looked almost identical!

1/2 cup egg whites, baby spinach, roasted red pepper, 5 oz. of canned potatoes, 1 ounce of deli ham, 1/2 ounce cheddar cheese with a Thomas heart healthy english muffin and champagne grapes.  Breakfast comes in at 10 points.

I love champagne grapes, but usually they are too expensive for our budget, so I was thrilled that they had them on sale for 2 for $3.  I only bought one, but now wish I would have bought the other.

I did not work out at lunch yesterday.  Here’s the story.  I love milk.  I mean, love it.  I once worked at a law firm that had free milk, juice, bagels, peanut butter, etc. in all of their lunch rooms.  I literally would have three 8 ounce glasses of milk a day.  Until all of a sudden, I couldn’t handle dairy much any more.

While you know I have obviously reintroduced CHEESE with no problem, milk just didn’t work for me anymore.  But Sunday I made some banana muffins.  The milk container was right there – and I poured myself a glass, and then half of another glass.  I went all through the night no problems, until this morning.  Let’s just say I didn’t think it was a good idea to be away from the bathroom too long!

I felt fine by the afternoon, but now I need to kick milk back to the curb.  My mom always hated milk growing up and still does – she will do heavy cream in her coffee though. šŸ˜€

So lunch?  It was delicious.  I was inspired by this dish, mainly to use up the baby spinach I had on hand.

Italian Sausage Soup with Cheese Tortellini  (makes 8, 1.5 cup servings:  290 calories, 14 fat, 27 carbs, 3.3 fiber and 14 protein = 6 PointsPlus)

  • 8 ounces Italian sausage, removed from casing
  • 1 tsp. garlic
  • 2 cups frozen packaged cheese tortellini
  • 6 cups fresh baby spinach
  • 4 cups chicken broth
  • 4 cups tomato juice
  • 2 cups shredded carrots
  • 1 tsp. dried oregano
  • 2 tablespoons fresh basil (to be stirred in at the end before serving)

Cook cheese tortellini according to package directions.  For whatever reason, our tortellini calls for 10 minutes – it takes more like 25 minutes.  Drain and set aside.

In a large stock pot, brown the Italian sausage – now I don’t add any additional oil because I think the sausage is enough – just cook until brown and remove to another dish.  Add garlic, cook for 1 minute.  Add shredded carrots and cook for 3-4 minutes.

Add remaining ingredients and cooked sausage except fresh basil, and simmer for 30 minutes.  The last 5 minutes add in the cooked tortellini, heat until warmed.  Remove from heat and stir in fresh basil.  Serve with shaved Parmesan cheese if desired.

You’ll notice I didn’t add any salt and pepper to this dish because the sausage had so much flavor, but add it if yours needs it.

You know I menu plan and shop from my sale flyer every week.  Somehow between the grocery store and home I lost my menu.  Now I can pretty much figure out what it was based on what I bought – but I had links to recipes I wanted to try, so now I am just flying by the seat of my pants.  šŸ˜€

I knew I had ground beef, chicken wings, and pork chops.  Since we had pork kabobs last night, I knew that was out.  So I emailed Tony:

Options for dinner:

  •  Fried chicken wings
  •  Meatloaf
  •  Taco salad
  •  Bacon blue cheese burgers
  •  Pork chop Milanese with lemon sauce
  •  Or none of the above?

The answer?

Burger dammit.   xoxoxoxo

This burger was on Diners Drive-Ins and Dives from place called Dad’s Kitchen in Sacramento.   You cut up raw bacon, put that on the bottom of your burger press, add blue cheese, then your seasoned beef.  Smoosh together, then cook, bacon side down until the bacon is nice and crispy.

Then you cook the bacon, bacon side down and put a cast iron skillet on top – I just put a piece of wax paper over the burger.  The bacon got nice and crispy.

My burger?  4 ounces of beef, spinach, roasted red pepper, 1/8 cup egg white, 1/8 cup whole wheat panko bread crumbs, salt and pepper.  The patty comes in at 8 Points.  With the fries, dinner is 12 points.

And on a side note, I didn’t win the sandwich contest I entered.  This is the winning sandwich – do you think its a $25,000 sandwich??  I don’t. šŸ™  Since I didn’t win I have to find the recipe I wrote down – it was a chicken pesto meatball sub with a marinara and olive sauce on asiago cheese garlic bread. šŸ˜€   Have a great day!