Guess Who Has Their Cleaning Pants On?

My co-worker gave me one of her new flavors of Chobani – pear, so I made an apple/pear/Kashi Go Lean Crunch parfait for breakfast.  Again, I should know this by now, I need to use the plain Chobani in parfaits, by the last 1/4 of it, I was just done because it was so sweet – the first 75% tasted good though!

I am participating in Lori’s heart healthy weekend, and planned on doing a 5k yesterday, today and tomorrow.  Sadly, right before working out my blood sugar was only 140.  I contemplated eating more to get it up, but in the end, scratched that idea and ended up swimming for 40 minutes, which is about the time of my 5k.

While I didn’t make soup for everyone, I did have time to make soup for me and my boss.  This is really easy, because it only needed to cook for about 20 minutes before the butternut squash and apple were tender enough to puree.

Apple Cinnamon Butternut Squash Soup

• makes 4 servings of about 1.5 cups each
• 138 calories, 2.7 fat, 22 carbs, 4.3 fiber, 2.3 protein, 374 mg sodium

Ingredients:

• 2 cups peeled, cubed butternut squash (1 large)
• 1 apple, cored and cubed
• 4 cups low sodium chicken broth
• 1 Tablespoon minced garlic
• 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
• 1 6 oz. container plain Chobani
• salt and pepper

In a stock pot, put all the ingredients except the Chobani and cook, with a lid on, for 20 minutes.  Stir half way through.  If you have a stick blender you can use that, otherwise carefully transfer to a blend and puree.  Put back in the stock pot and stir in the Chobani. 

That’ show it looked after 20 minutes.  I think the only thing I’ll add next time is maybe some unsweetened coconut milk to thin it a bit.  It kind of looks like baby food.

But it was delicious.  Slightly sweet, but with the hit from the crushed red pepper it was a good balance.  I made us a ham and cranberry brie panini on the side – we each had half a sandwich and a bowl of soup.

I love my panini maker – bought it at a garage sale for $10 and it had only been used once.  Here’s a trick on cleaning it though – when you finish your sandwich, turn the heat off, unplug it and wet a paper towel and lay it across the press, then close it.  The steam from the wet paper towel steam cleans it, and once it’s cool, its clean.

You know what makes me happy these days?  It’s still light out when I leave work!

Tony and I can’t wait to be able to hang outside, listen to music, grill up some food.  Sadly it’s only 15 degrees today, so we have a ways to go!

While I am not Catholic, Tony is, so no meat on Friday.  His guilty pleasure during lent for lunch? The Wendy’s fish sandwich.  He declares it the best fish sandwich of fast food restaurants because it isn’t greasy.  I’ve never had one in my life!

Tony opted for cheese tortellini.  For some reason he’s been put off by red sauces lately, so he just had his with butter and Parmesan cheese.  Me?  I can eat meat so I make a quick Bolognese:

• 2 ounces of bulk Italian sausage
• 1 8 ounce can of tomato sauce
• 2 tablespoons tomato paste
• 1/2 cup red wine
• 1/8 cup balsamic vinegar
• 2 cups chopped fresh baby spinach
• big pinch of crushed red pepper
• salt and pepper to taste

I just browned the sausage, then added everything in except the spinach and let it simmer while the pasta water started to boil and the pasta cooked.  I stirred in the spinach and let it wilt a bit.  For a 15 minute sauce, this was amazing – it made 2 generous servings – I plan on sharing the other half with my SIL for her lunch this week.

Tony and I decided to have breakfast out this morning – something we haven’t done in ages!  I had scrambled eggs, 2 pieces of bacon, 1/2 the hashbrowns and a piece of toast.  We both agreed that the coffee was a bit week, but we enjoyed it while reading the paper.

We ran some errands and when we got back, I had a cleaning jones going on.  I knew I needed to deep clean the living room, move the couches, end tables, etc.  We have have carpet stains from Eddie when he couldn’t control his bowels near the end of his life.  I picked up this product and it works really well!  I just sprayed it, let it sit for 10 minutes, then used a sponge and scrubbed just a bit and the stains came out.  We found it at Menard’s.

And I finally cleared out Eddie’s toys, put his cage and dishes in the basement.  It was too hard some days to see his toys on the floor, as if he was going to come inside and play with them.

When he was young, he used to keep a stuffed animal for a couple days, and then Tony and I would wake up and the eyes would be chewed off and the stuffing would all be pulled out.  But the last couple years stuffed animals that I bought from garage sales stayed in tact – no eyes missing or anything! 

Well, I am off to the gym – well, as soon as I check my blood sugar and see that I am okay!  Fingers crossed the number is over 200!

Enjoy your weekend – see you Monday!