Thursday - Mushroom Ragout with Pasta

Today my husband had his wisdom teeth removed. You wouldn't think taking care of one person for one day would be that big of a deal. But geez! I'm beat! I mean don't get me wrong, he was a trouper...I just have no idea how mom's do it!!!

Tonight for My dinner, I had a mushroom ragout with pasta. The pasta I bought at TJMax, its swirled with many colors, very pretty. If you like mushrooms you will love this recipe. The mushrooms with the tomato sauce makes this a definite comfort food. Simple and pretty quick, great for a rainy day or maybe a nice way to treat yourself after taking care of someone all day long.

For my husbands dinner tonight, he had Alton Brown's Creamy Garlic Mash Potatoes. Man, this was a down fall for my diet. So good and sometimes you just need to treat yourself. Oh and my husband didn't taste much, he said his tongue is still numb.

Wednesday - Parmesan-Stuffed Chicken Breast with a side of Lemon Orzo

A little background about me. When I was little and would stay home from school I would watch Martha Stewart on TV and she would cook, garden or do some of her art projects, they all looked ridiculously easy (I now know that they are not and no one has just colored twine around the house). I come from a rather large family, so my clothing up until high school came from K-Mart and often from the Martha Stewart line. When I left for college, from my mom I received Martha Stewart pink towels for my dorm room.

Many years later, I now order her Everyday Food magazine and have bought the 2 Food Everyday books and love them. I use these magazine recipes or the cookbooks throughout the week, I love them because they are simply to use, most often are good for you and use fresh ingredients.

Tonight I made Parmesan-Stuffed Chicken Breast, you can find her recipe online or in her cookbook. I know it says 55 minutes to cook, but I promise two people hungry after work and the gym can make it in about 35 minutes. The Parmesan stuffing is tossed in a bowl and then placed under the chicken breast skin and baked...that's it! The largest draw back is the waiting.

On the side we made a simple lemon orzo. A little olive oil, parsley and lemon tossed with the cooked orzo and you are ready to eat.

Great dinner, it was a little over 500 calories, probably closer to 550. Great dinner, please enjoy. I highly recommend this one.

Sunday - Day 7

Sunday. The day before everything breaks into craziness. Sunday is my favorite day to cook, funny I usually look recipes that are all dayers. That way I can cook and lounge around the house, watching TV or reading a book. In my own way, its my day of rest.

Tonight for dinner I made Seared Fish with Crispy Potato, super yummy and you may notice a theme of super healthy (under 500 calories). Can't beat that!

It one of the those recipes I make time and time again. Although, really there is no real need to follow the recipe on this dish, I would just read it to get some ideas.

The tomatoes go into the oven until they start to curl on the side (she sprinkles them with a little sugar, honestly there have been times that I have forgotten to do this and I haven't noticed a difference). The potatoes are twice cooked: boiled and baked. You start with cooled boiled potatoes and you smash them with your palm of your hand to flatten them, coat with a little olive oil, salt and pepper and bake until crispy. I usually just throw the potatoes in a bowl with salt and pepper and mix rather than coating each individual potato (as the recipe suggests). The fish, is fried on the stove until cooked, my favorite part of the recipe is the crispy fish skin (sounds gross but it isn't I swear!). In the recipe, Martha (we are on a first name basis now) makes the green sauce by measuring and hand chopping the basil, mint and parsley. However when I make it, I just take out my mini food processor and throw the ingredients in. There has been times where I have not had one of those ingredients and I just throw whatever I have on hand in the mixer. It sure saves a lot of time;)

Love it~!

Thursday - Day 4

Soup. I figure once a week we should have soup, it low calorie and blah! It reminds you that you are on a diet and should be thankful for the good food you have! This was no different. It was a sad day. It was fine, you may like it, but its no cioppino or Beef Stew that has been simmering all day. It's was a little depressing.

Joey's Gaucamole!!!

I love or should I say loved Joey's Duo of Dips, unfortunately they have taken it off the menu. However, last time, I was in Joey's the waitress shared the gaucamole recipe with me. So I am gong to pass it along to you.

4 Avacodoes

1/4 Serrano

1/4 Cilantrol

Olive Oil to Texture

So simple, yet so good!

Wednesday - Day 3

Tonight we watched the biggest loser and while watching the show I thought to myself, who has the energy to do what they do on the show. I mean come on! I weight a good 150+ pounds lighter than the woman on the show and I'm exhausted by the end of the day.

Tonight's workout was back to the gym doing cardio, another 5 miles of running to angry chick music (okay its not all angry chick music). If you never have ran 5 miles on a treadmill you are in for a real experience, you don't pass any trees, dip down any hills or fight up hills, it's just you and the gym and two sweaty guys on each side of you (one being my husband) and there I am bopin my head to "Here I go again on my own" by Whitesnake. Its a real treat!

Life can sometimes punish you, even when you are being good. Have you ever heard of the Counter in Ballard? It's a burger joint and when you leave the gym in the evening and go out into the parking lot, all you smell is burgers. It hurts. At that moment you think, I can just pick up a burger and be done for the day. Instead we went home and made a healthly version!

Dinner tonight was Chicken Burgers. I would make these any day of the week. So good! The burgers were pretty simple; roast the poblano pepper and fry the onions, fry the burger and toast the buns and you are done. Instead of using regular buns I tried the new whole wheat 100 calorie buns, they were like crackers for burgers. I liked them! We added the rest of the arugula that we bought for the week and some leftover tomato. Yummy!

Tuesday - Day 2

Back into the full swing of things. Woke up, had my Via coffee (Carmel Flavor) with my cereal (Dark Chocolate Almond Granola, by Organic Cascadian Farm)... yummy. Decided to skip the morning Butterfingers. Lunch I had the leftover Turkey Linguine and a late snack of hummus on flat bread. I worked a little bit later, which can usually prove a challenge for me when I get home between being hungry and just wanting to tune out, I can think of a thousand reasons why not to go to the gym.

However, today was bound to be a good day, I got home threw on my workout clothes and went to the gym. Since Monday was a cardio day, today needed to be a weightlifting day. It was great, I doubled my weights on my Arnold Press and the side arm lifts. Totally proud of myself and tired, I went home to make dinner.

Dinner today again was simple and not very time consuming. I made Ellie Kreiger's Balsamic Chicken with Baby Spinach and it was done in a flash! Super easy, Ellie has you cook 4 minutes on each side. I think 4 minutes was a little much, I would recommend between 3-3 1/2. Remove the chicken from the pan and add spinach (we buy the organic, prewashed spinach which cuts down on prep time if you don't have to clean the spinach yourself), cook for 2 minutes. Once the spinach is cooked remove from the the pan and add the can of tomatoes, chicken broth and balsamic vinegar and warm to a simmer. Tada and you are done.

Both my husband and I agreed that next time we would like it with more spinach and the chicken could be cooked a little less. It was a good meal. I would make it again, it was simple and quick to make (about 15 minutes). It is low calorie meal, having only 353 calories, which also will make this meal very scale friendly!

Great alternative if you are thinking about running out and picking something up. This meal will be done cooking by the time you get home with the food (and your waist will thank you!).