The way our house is situated, we still have ice and snow on our back deck and I am kind of sick of looking at it.  It’s dirty, there are leaves from last fall intermingled in between the ice.  But when we have temps in the teens, I don’t see that going anywhere anytime soon.  Um, this doesn’t feel like spring!

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I made another Green Monster, although I added blueberries to this one, so it’s not very green.  However, when I added everything together:  1 cup soy milk, 1 container Chobani blood orange yogurt, 1/2 frozen banana, 3/4 cup frozen mixed fruit and 3/4 cup of blueberries – this giant smoothie comes in at 555 calories and wait for it, wait for it . . . 95 grams of carbs!   Of course, I didn’t figure that out until I drank it all.  It was delicious, but I didn’t give myself enough insulin and my blood sugar was 355 later in the morning.  I’ll have to research some lower carb smoothie options.  I still love the idea – its such a great way to get in a ton of fruit and veggies.

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I have noticed since I have gotten my fit bit, I do try to squeeze in any extra steps I can during the day.  When I went to the gym, I parked in the farthest corner!

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I ended up doing 40 minutes on the treadmill at a 7.0 incline and 3.8 mph.  All while watching the Chew which was all about chicken.  They went to a place called The Country Cat that made boneless fried chicken and it looked amazeballs.  It’s in Portland, a place that I really want to visit someday.  Has anyone ever been to this place?  It doesn’t help to watch food shows while working out – I just get more hungry!

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No picture of lunch – it was more lasagna soup and I added a bunch more spinach to it, so the color of it looked like baby puke, but it tasted good!

I’ve always loved Nature Valley granola bars.  I love a crunchy granola bar vs. a chewy one.   Of course I went to my new go to to find recipes – Pinterest!  I adapted this recipe.   I ended up adding sesame seeds, dried cranberries and unsweetened coconut to my bars.

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Check out your Dollar General for mixed nuts – that can cost $2.25 – less than half the price I would have paid for it a grocery store.  Make sure you really press down the mixture in your pan – I used my bench scraper.

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I waited just 10 minutes before cutting these – otherwise it’s one giant granola bar!

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OMG.  These are so good!  They are crunchy, toasting the oats gives it a whole new flavor – I’ll never not toast my oats before making granola bars again.  #winning!

While I was making my Italian meatballs for my lasagna soup over the weekend, I had some leftover Italian sausage – not really enough to do anything with, but I had an idea to form them in the shape of a burger.  I knew I had leftover brisket thinly sliced in the freezer so I did my adaptation of Chicago classic – an Italian beef combo.

Since the beef was sliced so thin, all I did was heat 1 cup of beef broth with 1 tablespoon of Italian season.   Once the broth came to a boil, I took it off the heat and added the beef just to warm up – I didn’t want to cook it because I wanted it still tender.  I ended up pan frying the sausage patties, and I melted an ounce of mozzarella on the bottom of my hamburger bun.  Then assembly time!  Italian sausage patty on the bottom, the beef on top, then I took half a ladle of the au jus and poured that over the top of mine.  The only thing missing for me was hot giardiniera!   I made due with a spicy pickle spear.

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Tony wasn’t a fan of the sausage patty, so he picked that off, but the meat was incredibly tender.  I still have two more bags of the sliced beef too!

I have nothing really on our agenda today – we meet up with my daughter-in-laws family tonight for dinner.   One project I need to do is to get rid of some of the pictures I have on my computer dating back to October – that should free up some computer space.  It’s rainy and 36 – maybe I’ll just stay in my pjs all day!

I got my 10,000 steps too!

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Make it a great day!