My Fourth of July

Here is a picture review of my fourth of July weekend:

This was our red white and blue lunch.. Hot dogs, chips, watermelon, and blue raspberry koolaid

 I made mini cherry pies from this blog

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My yummy jello cake... so easy to make and SO yummy!

Bailey painted my toes and even gave me fireworks :) 

We did this puzzle together- it is a bunch of dogs watching a fireworks show... so fun! 

We had a wonderful fourth of July weekend.... I couldn't help but think that this was the last one without a baby. It is kind of weird to think about, but hopefully Miles will get here soon! We are hoping for this weekend, but I know that Miles is going to come in his own time. 

Dinner time

Last night, Carl and I made the most AMAZING dinner! (although he would say I made it and he assisted a bit)

 We made........

Alfredo! It was so easy and the best alfredo I have had in a really long time (maybe even the best I have ever had... yes, it was that good!)

Here is the recipe I followed. I used whole wheat pasta, added steamed broccoli and chopped fresh tomatoes, AND Carl made Parmesan chicken that I chopped up and added as well. It turned out SO good! Good enough that I commented to Carl, " this is the kind of dinner where you want to lick your bowl." 

The only down side was it used a lot of dishes..... although I think we could have used less if I had made the chicken earlier or made it in a skillet instead of on the grill. The dishes that got used was our little grill for the chicken, a blender for the sauce, my steamer pot (which is 2 pots... one filled with water and another with holes in it to steam veggies) with the noodles cooking in the water under the steaming broccoli, and a skillet. So, I ended up with a sink full of dishes to do this morning... BUT it was TOTALLY worth it! Sooo... If you want to try the guiltless alfredo sauce sometime, let me know what you thought of it!

I thought I would also include a pic I took yesterday of my ever growing belly and new haircut!!! What do you think?

Cravings

The only thing I have noticed about my body's food changes is BANANAS. I have always been so picky about the bananas I like to eat.

This is the only kind of banana I would eat.....

yellow with green on the top and NO brown at all.

Now, I find myself eating all kinds of bananas...

Bananas with a few spots,

The little spots don't bother me anymore... I still eat them

Even bananas with LOTS of spots..

I ate one that looked like this last night. YUM!

In fact, before being pregnant, I would only eat bananas that were like the number 4 or 5. Now I find myself eating bananas that are 4, 5, 6, or 7 (this is a chart of the ripening process for bananas... cool right?) I see bananas in the grocery store and crave them.

I want them on my cereal, as a snack, before bed, with lunch, on top of ice cream... I just see them and really want to eat them. It is weird for me to actually want bananas, but I there are worse cravings (like the fact that I also really want to eat doughnuts, but just don't let myself)... so bananas are a good thing!

Sunday Baking time

I seem to go through phases where I enjoy baking (and have been going through it more and more now that I'm pregnant). Today I was lounging in bed, really just putting off having to get up because it's my last sleep in day this week too (now that Carl goes to school, I wake up with him and we get up at either 5 or 6 every morning) and started thinking about what we were going to eat for breakfast tomorrow.

Last week I made amazing pancakes. I used a mix and added this cinnamon apple stuff I had made for apple turnovers. It was really good- Apple pancakes! We ate them all week with peanut butter on top. It was so easy and yummy and kept us both full for awhile, which is very important for pregnant woman and students alike :).

This week, I decided to make muffins. They taste good and are easy to heat up every morning. SOOOOO... here is what I did:

I took regular muffin mix (the only one I can find that doesn't have transfat listed) and doctored it up! So easy.... the only thing the muffins called for is 1 cup of water.

I added:

1 cup water

1 tsp vanilla

1/4 tsp almond extract

1/2 cup chopped up almonds

1/2 frozen blueberries that I thawed out

1/4 cup craisins (I soak them in water for a few minutes)

1/4 flax seed

frozen slivered almonds on top

Here is what they turned out to be! They are SOOOO good! The almonds on top were frozen so they didn't burn and they taste so almondy and fruity.... YUM!!!

I also decided that while the oven was hot, I would make cookies... I had made them before but we gave some away to neighbors and they are SOOOO yummy, so I made more. Here is what to do:

Ingredients:

1 cup butter

3/4 cup packed brown sugar

3/4 cup splenda or regular sugar

2 eggs

1 tsp vanilla

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

1 Tbsp cinnamon (I am not sure if this is how much I added…. I just keep adding until it looks right. I most likely used a bit more than 1 Tbsp)

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon salt

2-3 cups rolled oats depending on how oaty you like your cookies... the first time I made it I did 3 cups, this time I did about 2 1/2 cups

1/2 cup chopped almonds

1 1/4 cup raisins

3/4 cups MINI semisweet chocolate chips (if you use the mini chips, you can get away with using less but it still tastes good)

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (180 degrees C).

2. In a large bowl cream shortening, brown sugar and granulated sugar. Add eggs and vanilla and mix thoroughly.

3. Combine the baking soda, salt, cinnamon, and flour and stir into creamed mixture

4. Add oatmeal, almonds, raisins, and chocolate chips and stir until well blended.

5. Drop by the spoonful onto greased cookie sheet. Bake for 10 minutes.

The mix in my wonderful mixer... it makes cookies so easy!

The cookies on the sheet... If you make them bigger it will make about 60 cookies.

The finished product! YUM!!!

The cookies are so good! They are nutty and chocolaty and cinnamony but not too raisiny. A really good cookie that is easy to make and tasty to eat (even Carl says they are super yummy and he is a cookie expert!)

Cooking adventures

For the last few nights I have not really felt inspired to cook. Poor Carl has had to do it all.... I just haven't wanted to make anything and nothing sounded good. BUUUUTTTT..... I finally decided to just make something and found myself (with a bunch of Carl's help) making a fab dinner that was really yummy!

First, I decided that we should do a cold spinach salad since we had the leaves in the fridge. I also wanted a meat (and we just happened to have thawed out chicken from the night before) and didn't want to eat any carbs because I wanted to make a dessert. So, this is what I came up with (with Carl helping A LOT!):

Spinach salad with cranberries and toasted almonds with sun dried tomato vinegrette. Carl was the one to think of the toasted almonds (and it was the best part of the salad!)

Parm chicken..... Chicken that we "breaded" with crackers (we didn't have any breadcrumbs) and 2 kinds of parm cheese. We grilled it on our george forman grill with no oil at all.... it tasted super good!

This was dessert. Apple turnovers. YUM! I made them by cooking our apples we bought at cost co (That were really close to going bad) with some cinnamon, 2 TBSP of butter, 1/3 cup sugar, and a bit of water and cornstarch. Then you take that filling and scoop it into thawed out phyllo dough. Bake on 375 for about 10 min, cover with powdered sugar, and it is all done! Not fried and hardly any butter in it at all- super easy and not too bad for you (just be careful not to eat too many at one time).

It was such a great dinner! We even made extra dessert and froze it... then I can just thaw it out, bake, and get apple turnovers whenever I want! It was so easy and super yummy!

On another note, about a week ago I made these:

They are cinnamon roll things that are like the monkey bread

(which I haven't ever tried due to the amount of trans fat it has in it). I found the recipe in a 'family fun' mag that i get. They are really good and taste super indulgent!

.

That's all the cooking I have been up to.... now if only I knew what to make for dinner tonight.

snack time!

I have found the perfect pregnancy snack (or not pregnant snack) . It has 15 grams of protein, tastes great, and pairs really well with most fruit. It is sweet, creamy, and tart. YUM!!

GREEK YOGURT!!

Now I normally hate eating yogurt. It is too creamy. For some reason I really don't like the way it feels when I eat it.... maybe I ate it too much when I was younger, but the only yogurt I enjoy is the yoplait chocolate whips (because they taste like chocolate mousse) and greek yogurt!

I have tried almost every kind of greek yogurt and love them all.... I really liked the blueberry and strawberry but I think my favorite is the vanilla, honey, or plain because then I can add my own fruit on the side (I sweeten the plain with some honey so it's not so tart).

If you are not a big yogurt fan, you should give this a try! It surprised me and now I love to eat one as a nice afternoon snack :)

A dinner out

Carl and I got some really good news last week. He got his USMLE test scores back from his step 1 test and did FANTASTIC! We both were really excited and decided to celebrate with a yummy dinner out. We went to a winery and bistro called St. Clair. This is a winery that is located in New Mexico and offers wine flavors you have never tried elsewhere- plum loco, green chile wine, margarita wine, ect. (and no I didn't have any wine.. I AM pregnant, but Carl did have a glass.)

Here are some pics from that evening:

We decided to eat on the patio due to nice weather and this is what awaited us!

We were the only people out there!

It was really nice to sit outside in the sun and be able to talk and laugh (and if you know me, my laugh can get a bit loud) and not have to worry about people listening or judging.

It was SO great to have the whole patio to ourselves :)

Carl waiting for our dinner order and eating some yummy, warm, fresh bread.

This is what Carl ordered... don't let the messy appearance fool you (this was after he had eaten some and mixed it all around)... he ordered a pesto pasta and it was REALLY good! It had a spicy red sauce under the pesto and that is what you see here.

This is what I ordered- pasta danielle. SO good... it was a bit spicy but had a great flavor!

Then we decided to splurge and get dessert too- we hardly ever do this... normally we are just too full, but we saved half of our pasta for leftovers and decided to try a good dessert.

We ordered a bread pudding. It was so good! yum- it tasted kind of like really sweet french toast.

As we were leaving (and my tummy was SO full) Carl decided it would be nice to take a few pics of me... especially since I had dressed up a bit.

So here we are- me and Miles, 5 months pregnant, healthy, and with a big growing (full) belly!

Oatmeal

So I am in the camp of, "I ate too much oatmeal one summer and now hate the feeling of it in my mouth so I never eat it." LOL... I normally don't like oatmeal- the taste, the feeling of the slimy oats... you get the idea BUT I have finally found a way that I actually like it.

I know, I know.... can't i just make up my mind already? Well, for those of you, like me, who hate or at least strongly dislike oatmeal, try this tip:

eat it with berries!

Make it and sweeten it and then add berries on top of it. The tart berries make the sweet oatmeal taste perfect and the crispness of the berries makes it to where you can't taste the sticky stuff.

It is so good and when I am out of blackberries, I use frozen (but thawed out) raspberries. SOOOOOOO, if you normally don't like oatmeal, give this a try :)

Tonights dinner

I made the most incredible meal tonight! It was so easy and SO good! Carl and I loved it and it is pretty healthy. I made black bean tacos and Brazilian Lemonade.

Here are some pics of the finished product:

These are Carl's tacos... he cut up all the stuff we put on the tacos while I cooked

Here are my tacos- covered in lettuce, avocado, cilantro, and lime juice

Here are the AMAZING drinks along with the food

It was all so easy to make and VERY yummy... if you want to try them, here are the recipes:

Brazilian Lemonade:

http://www.ourbestbites.com/2008/05/brazilian-lemonade.html

Black beans:

http://www.ourbestbites.com/2008/07/quick-and-easy-black-beans.html

Best snack EVER!!!

I was shopping yesterday and ran across these!

I tried to take a picture of the back, but it was blurry so I'm here to tell you that the only ingredient is fruit! THAT'S ALL!!! They are 100% fruit with no additives, including sugar (other than the apples which have cinnamon). There are 40 calories in the bag of apples, 45 in the strawberries and bananas, and 60 in the pineapples.

I bought these at Walmart for $.74. I just wish the bag was bigger! LOL I shared with Carl and we ate all 3 last night :)

Sooooo, if you see these at your local shopping center, pick them up and give them a try!

Dinner time

Tonights dinner. What to make???? I am hungry and ready to eat and a bit grumpy. I think I will eat some snap peas while I try to think of something easy to make. Considering the only thing I have eaten today is a pancake with blueberries, one mini cheesecake,and now some snap peas I decided that I could afford to make a less healthy meal. I was thinking about my taco sauce and thought about what it would be good on.

I came up with fried bean and cheese burritos. Like the kind you get at taco box or taco time. I thought it would be easy and taste super yummy with taco sauce, so I looked up a recipe and i found this:

http://www.westcoastcooking.com/content/view/123/34/

I read it through and decided that beans, cheese, tortillas, and green chile for Carl would be all we'd need (along with oil... we used the smart oil) and of course my taco sauce :) We heated up the oil (left over and reused from our tempera batch a week ago) and made 2 burritos in no time!

They were really good and tasted like the ones you buy at those taco places. I enjoyed my taco sauce, but found that RIGHT after I was finished eating I had MEGA heartburn AGAIN! I have now found the culprit for my heartburn last week..... taco sauce. :'( WHY???? I have been wanting this sauce for years and have never found it, until just last week at Smith's. I was so excited to eat it and now I realize I can't until I am no longer pregnant...... that leaves 21 more weeks of no taco sauce :'(

Here are some pics of us cooking

The ingredients for our burritos

Frying it up

Flip it over

Finished product

These were really tasty but I am now facing horrible heartburn again.... oh well, at least I now know what to stay away from.

mini cheesecake

I was checking my e-mail the other day when I came upon this recipe for easy mini cheesecakes. I really feel like when I see something that looks good or read about something I can't get it out of my mind.... I MUST try it (at least until I read about or see something else that looks good).

SOOOO.... we went to the store and I picked up the few items the recipe called for and decided to make it. These were so easy! Just mix, bake, and eat. They looked so good and Carl and I ended up eating a warm one last night and then a cold one today... YUM! Here are some pictures

Here is what they looked like after baking and the cherries we put on top.

And yes, I did eat one before taking this picture... I couldn't resist!

Here is the finished product with cherries... Yum, right?

This just shows how good they really are :)

I think next time (and Carl has already requested a next time since we only have 4 more left) I will try to use mini muffin tins. These were good and really easy, but I think it would be fun to have a bite sized cheese cake, instead of a muffin sized cheesecake.

Here is the recipe I used, give it a try and let me know what you think!!

Mini Cheesecakes

Ingredients

18 vanilla wafer cookies

2 (8-oz) packages cream cheese, softened

¾ cup sugar

2 eggs

1 tsp vanilla

Lemon curd or fruit preserves for topping, optional

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

2. Line muffin tins with decorative paper or foil baking cups. Place one vanilla wafer in the bottom of each cup.

3. In a medium mixing bowl or in the bowl of a standing mixer, add cream cheese, sugar, eggs and vanilla. Mix on low speed for 1 minute, then increase the speed to high and continue mixing for 3 minutes, until light and fluffy.

4. Spoon mixture into prepared muffin cups to ⅔ full.

5. Bake for 20 to 25 minutes, until golden and set. Remove from pans to cool, and refrigerate until serving. Top with lemon curd or preserves, if desired

Tips

· For a yummy variation, try substituting Nabisco Famous Chocolate Wafer Cookies for the Nilla Wafers, and top with raspberry preserves.

· The cheesecakes can be made ahead (without the toppings), wrapped tightly, and frozen for up to 3 months. Defrost them in the fridge the night before, and top them before serving.

Sushi

A few days ago I was looking at blogs and came across this post explaining how to make sushi. It looked SO good (and if you've ever been pregnant, you KNOW that when you see something that you like, you crave eating it until you finally do eat it.... or is that just me?) I looked at this picture for days and days and finally told Carl that we should try to make sushi here at home. It could be fun.... right?

So on Wednesday we went and bought a bunch of fresh food: asparagus, cucumber, avocado, bell pepper, zucchini, onion, and fresh just got to the store tuna. We also picked up some sushi rice, rice vinegar, seaweed, and a few other items.

I thought about my favorite sushi (the tempura asparagus roll) and decided that we should try to make tempura as an appetizer. WE WERE SET!

We had originally planned for this to be a sweet date on Thursday since Brock had said they would be here Friday.... but he changed his mind and came on Thursday so we changed our mind and decided it would be fun to try all together :)

Here are some pics of our endeavors:

This is the tempera we made... well, after we all ate most of it. It was SOOOOO good... but it took us awhile to get the hang of the batter thickness and the oil temperature

The start of a roll

Carl's roll after he cut it open

This is a better pic of Carl's tuna roll he made - tuna, avacado, red and yellow bell pepper

This was Brock's roll- tuna, tempera asparagus, avocado, and yellow bell pepper

These beauties were my roll!- Temper asparagus, carrot, avocado, cucumber (next time, I would use more rice)

Making sushi together :) We had a very full table with all of the fillings!

We had fun and making your own sushi is so easy AND you get to control what you put in it. It was a lot of fun and I would totally do it again. The only down side is since I'm pregnant, I have a major easy gag reflex. If I have too much in my mouth at one time, I gag.... this was a little problem since you have to eat sushi whole.... SOOOOOOO I think I will wait until I am not pregnant to eat sushi again.... It will be a bit more enjoyable then :)

So be brave and try to make sushi with some friends at your home... it is super fun and tasty (only recommend to those not currently pregnant).