Recipe Book: Oatmeal, Banana, and Oatmeal-Banana Pancakes

I was having a smoothie every morning for breakfast, and I got burnt out.  And I was a little bit afraid that my (very loud) blender would wake Oliver up, although it might fall into the same category as coffee grinder or plane engine or bagpipes, which don't wake Oliver up, instead of ice clinking against your glass or fork dropping into the sink, which do.

I'm also now officially back on Weight Watchers, and I have a deadline (before I have to start paying again, if I don't meet my goal) of September 3rd to lose the leftover 24 pounds that just won't go.  I lost about 20 pounds in the first week or so after Oliver was born, and that's it.  "They" say breastfeeding is supposed to help with weight loss; I guess I'd be afraid to see what was happening if I wasn't breastfeeding!

Which brings me to my latest Weight Watchers-friendly breakfasts.  The first two recipes (if you can call them that, they're so simple) are ones I came across, and the third is a combination I think works.


Oatmeal Pancakes

• 3 Tbsp egg whites or 1 egg
• 1/4 cup dry oatmeal
• 1 packet Splenda or stevia
• a shake of cinnamon

Combine ingredients.  Makes one pancake.  Cook on the stovetop... as you would a pancake.  3 WW PointsPlus with egg whites, 4 with the whole egg.

That's it.  I like to make a week's worth on Sunday and reheat them each morning.  I also prefer to make them one at a time instead of in a whole batch so that I know each one has the same amount of oatmeal and egg, but that might be a little obsessive. 


Banana Pancakes

• 1 banana, mashed
• 2 eggs (you could probably use 6 Tbsp egg whites, but I haven't tried that)

Combine ingredients and mix well.  Makes about four pancakes.  Cook on the stovetop.  4 points for the whole batch, 2 if you're using egg whites.

These come out more crepe-like, I think.  I was calling them banana omelets; they taste much more egg-y than the oatmeal pancakes.  And they're fragile. I don't think I could make a week's worth in advance.


Oatmeal-Banana Pancakes

• 1/4 cup dry oatmeal
• 3 Tbsp egg whites
• 1 Tbsp mashed banana
• Cinnamon

Mash a banana and add cinnamon to taste.  Combine egg whites, oats, and 1 Tbsp of the banana.   Makes one pancake.  3 points.

I find these to be a nice middle ground between the two recipes.  The banana is sweet so it doesn't need added sweetener.  It also gives the oatmeal a slightly more pancake-y texture; the oatmeal alone makes a fairly dense pancake.  I made a week's worth of these last night (or, six days' worth for two people).  I mashed three smallish bananas with cinnamon, which went into 12 pancakes. 

My Hips

My mom told me this little anecdote about seven years ago, I think, relayed to her by her school speech therapist friend.  I don't suppose I'm remembering it entirely accurately, but it went something like this:

The therapist was working with a little boy on being able to say th. 

"Where does ice cream go?" she asked, obviously hoping the answer would be in my mouth. 

"To my hips!" he said, proudly.

That little boy must have been listening to his mother a bit too closely!


There are two reasons this story comes to mind.

First, my hips.  I've had hip pain, which comes about mostly by sleeping and then hangs out for much of the day, for a while now.  But it's reached new heights lately.  This week, I gave up trying to stay in bed with Steve.  Turning over in place takes an effort that usually wakes me up entirely, and with only my Snoogle pillow along one side, I was having to maneuver pillows each time I turned, too.

So this week, I built an entire fortress between my Snoogle and a traditional body pillow on the bed in the nursery.  Bonus: that bed is more pillow-topped than our bed, making it just a tad comfier.  Penalty: no Steve.  Unless he wants to squeeze into the eight inches or so of bed space left.

The result?  I don't know if I'm sleeping any more efficiently (according to my FitBit), but my hips don't hurt.

I'm already super-glad we made that bed work!

The cats like my pillow fortress, too.

 
The second reason that story comes to mind is weight.

In the span of about a year, between 2010 and 2011, I lost 50 pounds.   I gained about ten pounds back during and after my first pregnancy and miscarriage.  (It's amazing how fast that can happen!)  Mostly after, when I slipped into old habits and allowed comfort food to help me feel better.  I just didn't have the energy to worry about making good choices. We got pregnant again before I had time to lose more than two or three of those ten pounds gained.

And now I've already put on about thirty-two pounds (if I weigh myself naked in the morning, so it's probably more) during this pregnancy, with more than seven weeks left to go.  The scale is creeping dangerously close to that number I never, ever wanted to see again in my whole life.

I still go to Weight Watchers (almost) every week, although I don't weigh in and I don't count points.  The meetings are a good reminder to stay on track, to not go overboard with the cookies (being that I kind of did that around Christmas time...), and to eat a variety of healthful foods that will benefit me and the baby.

I've been getting on my little elliptical most mornings for the last several months, and I'm trying to make a point of doing at least ten flights of stairs a day.  And, of course, walking the dog.  It's probably not enough, but it's something.  

As I'm quickly coming up on being a mother, I need to figure out how to find a balance between making sure I'm healthy myself and not making too big a deal about it.  I'm afraid of instilling this I can't eat that because it goes straight to my hips mentality in my children.  I want to model healthy behavior and not have it be a big thing that we all worry about all the time.

So, there's that.  I suppose I'll figure it out as I go...

But, you know, my hips don't hurt today, and that's a big win!

Good-Bye, Fifty-Five!

Eighteen months and three weeks ago, Steve and I joined Weight Watchers.  I think we were the heaviest either of us had ever been.  Part of that was the preceding year and a half of dinner dates, and then just getting too comfortable.

Like you do. 

April, 2010

That picture doesn't even look like us to me!  At all.  I almost didn't want to put it up here, but it's probably good to remember where we started.

A week after that picture was taken, Steve proposed.  That August, we started our journey toward a thinner us.

I passed the 50-pounds-gone mark on August 4, 2011.  Then there was a wedding, a honeymoon, Thanksgiving, my birthday, Christmas, and New Year's.  A slow few months, weight loss-wise, to say the least. 

But we've gotten back into the swing of things.  We're back to working out and paying attention.

At our weigh-in yesterday, we both had lost 55 pounds!

Our attempt at a self-portrait

What weights 55 pounds? 

A bag of dog food weighs only 40 pounds, and that's heavy enough I don't want to carry it any farther than from the car to the house. 

My dog doesn't weigh much more than 55 pounds, and I'm pretty sure I couldn't carry her around. 

So how the heck did I carry 55 more pounds of weight on me all the time?  (Or, perhaps this is a commentary on how I need to build more muscle...)

I know I posted a picture like this recently, but I think this really is the biggest pair of pants I still own.  (I gave a bunch of too-big stuff away recently, but this pair of pants was a little worse for wear.)  I should probably hold onto them as yet another reminder.

Been there, never going back.

Got a belt?

To celebrate, I think I'm going to use one of gift cards I got for Christmas and have been holding onto for just the right occasion, and buy a new outfit. 

We also celebrated by each running two miles out of our total 3.5 mile "run" this morning.  (Someday we'll be able to do all 3.5, but today is not that day.)

We haven't lost these 110 pounds, because if they're lost, they might be found.

We're banishing them.

Recipe Book: Green Pepper Pizzas & Mini Cheesecakes

These recipes are from a few weeks ago.  I needed to type up the cheesecake recipe, so the post has been sitting in drafts ever since.  Since I'm very seriously procrastinating anything truly productive this morning, I figured I'd get this one finished.

Green Pepper Pizzas 

• 1 green pepper per person, halved (0 points)
• 3/4 cup (low-fat) cheese per person (6 points)
• 1/2 cup (or a little less) tomato sauce of choice per person (2 points)
• Toppings of choice (varies)

Because green peppers tend to be slippery when cooked, I sprinkled 1/4 cup of the cheese over both halves of the pepper.  Then about half the tomato sauce (I used Pesto Artichoke) in each pepper half, 1/4 cup of cheese on top of that, and the toppings.  I used a Morningstar meatless sausage patty (2 points) crumbled over one half of my green pepper, and four slices of turkey pepperoni on the other (17 slices are 2 points, so...).

Total WW PointsPlus as prepared: 10 

*~*~*

Mini Cheesecakes 

• 3/4 cup graham cracker crumbs
• 2 Tbsp light butter, melted (this may not be enough...)
• 2/3 cup low-fat cream cheese
• 6 Tbsp fat-free cream cheese
• 3 Tbsp lemon juice
• 2 large egg whites
• 1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 3/4 cup light cherry pie filling*

Place 12 cupcake liners in a cupcake pan.  Preheat oven to 375°F.

In a small bowl, combine graham cracker crumbs and butter; mix well.  Spoon 1 tablespoon of crumb mixture into bottom of each liner and press down gently; refrigerate until ready to use.  In a medium bowl, using an electric mixer, beat both types of cream cheese together until fluffy.  Add lemon juice, egg whites, vanilla extract, and sugar; beat until smooth.  Spoon cream cheese mixture evenly into liners; bake until set, about 15 minutes.  Remove from oven and allow to cool.  Top each cheesecake with 1 tablespoon cherry pie filling*.  

* I am not a fan of cherry pie, so cherry pie filling as a topping did not sound delicious to me.  Slimy cherries in gel?  Ew.  So I took frozen raspberries (which is what I happened to have in my freezer), microwaved them, added a little sugar, and mashed them with a fork.  Voila!  Fruit topping.

WW PointsPlus: 3 

This recipe came straight out of Weight Watchers Weekly from 2/5/12.  

Recipe Book: Curry Roasted Cauliflower & Onion Balsamic Chicken

This post is for my sister.  I was telling her about this ridiculously easy-peasy chicken recipe the other night, and she wanted the details. 

I have to apologize in advance for the impreciseness of these recipes.  The chicken recipe was given to me like this, and the cauliflower is one I make all the time (seriously, we have it with dinner at least once most weeks, sometimes more) and just eyeball at this point.

Another note:  For the first time ever, we used purple cauliflower.  Did you know there was a such thing as purple cauliflower?  I had NO IDEA!  It kind of blew my mind.  Tasted the same, just... purple. 

Please excuse the purple cauliflower...

Onion Balsamic Chicken

• Chicken - about 2 pounds
• 1 package Dry Onion Soup mix
• Balsamic Vinegar to taste

Cover chicken with onion soup mix, and then cover the entire thing with balsamic vinegar.  You might consider covering your baking pan with foil first, as the vinegar baked into a difficult-to-remove layer on my Pyrex dish that took soaking and some good, hearty scrubbing to remove.  Anyway!  Bake at 350° for 30-35 minutes, until chicken is cooked through.

WW: 4 points for 4 oz of chicken. 


Curry Roasted Cauliflower

• Cauliflower - about half a large head or one small head, cut up
• ~1 tsp Curry (or to taste)
• ~1 tsp Olive Oil 
• ~1 tsp Salt (or to taste)
• ~1 Tbsp Minced Garlic (I like a lot of garlic... say it with me, "or to taste")

In a large bag or bowl, mix cauliflower with curry, olive oil, and salt.  Spray your baking pan with cooking spray, spread out cauliflower.  Bake at 450° for 15 minutes, taking the cauliflower out at the halfway point to turn it over and mix it up a bit. (I do 8 minutes, stir, 7 minutes...)  Stir in garlic, bake 5 more minutes.

WW: 1 point

No and Low

This is for Em and Ginger* as they jump back in to Weight Watchers.  I told Ginger on the phone last night about some of these, so I thought I'd gather all my no- and low-point foods in one place, and add to the list as I think of or discover more.  That's the plan.


+ Sweet & Spicy Pickles.  Soak cucumber slices in rice vinegar and lemon juice.  Add Splenda and a few drops of Sriracha sauce.  0 points.

+ Pineapple Pudding.  Mix one can crushed pineapple in its own juice with one box fat free, sugar free vanilla pudding.  Makes five 4-ounce servings.  0 points per serving.

+ Better than Peanut Butter Ice Cream.  Mix 1/2 cup sugar free vanilla ice cream (2 points) with 1 tablespoon Better than Peanut Butter (Trader Joe's, 1 point).  3 points.

+ Cottage Cheese with Pineapple.  1/2 cup fat free cottage cheese with pineapple in its own juice.  2 points.

+ Eggplant Hummus.  Buy at Trader Joe's.  1 point per serving.  Delicious with carrot sticks.

+ Chipotle Turkey Wrap.  Small low-carb tortilla with 2 ounces deli turkey, one slice of low-fat Swiss cheese, a teaspoon of chipotle mayo, and crisp Romaine lettuce.  5-6 points, depending on cheese.

+ Pumpkin Spice Muffins.  1 small (15 oz) can pumpkin, one box of spice cake mix.  (I've heard you can also use chocolate, but I haven't tried it.)  Mix the two together (no eggs, oil, or water) and bake according to the package.  Makes 24 cupcakes.  (You can also melt a marshmallow on top of each about 3 minutes before they're done for another half-point.)  2 points.

+ Diet Soda Cake.  Same as above, one box cake mix, one can diet soda.  No other ingredients.  Bake according to the box.  2 points per serving (without frosting).

+ Light Vanilla Soy Milk.  Delicious in coffee instead of creamer.  1/2 cup is 1 point.

+ Greek Yogurt Parfait.  Mix 6 oz plain, fat-free Greek yogurt with Splenda.  Add one small apple cut up into bite-size pieces and 10 almonds cut into thirds.  Drizzle with a little bit of honey.  4 points.

+ Apple Slices with Lemon Juice.  Easy to throw in your lunch, 0 points.


What are your go-to low-point foods?

*Name changed by Em.