Category Archives: pizza

Remains of the snow.

It’s Friday!  This was a tough week, I have to say.  Work seemed especially tough (although I am so thankful to have this job!!!).  My legs were tired this morning, so I decided not to lift and to take a walk later in the day.  For all the snow that fell yesterday, not much accumulation.  The sun was bright and cheerful this morning and had already started to melt what was on the grassy areas.

Perfect morning for a warm breakfast.  I made up some cream of wheat cooked with a mashed banana.

Topped with peanut flour and coconut butter.  Just a lightly sweetened bowl from the banana (which actually was quite ripe).

I had a hard time getting started with work today, but then I logged in and one of my favorite docs was in there, so I set in.  I do take it a little easy on Fridays.  I am one of those people who doesn’t mind catching some weekend hours at work.  My whole life I have worked on weekends of some sort, so it doesn’t really matter too much to me whether the weekend falls on Sat/Sun or whether I take a half a day on Friday.  It helps working from home, too.  Working in jammies? Please and thank you…

I wasn’t totally sure about taking a picture of lunch.  It’s one of those that really doesn’t look good, but it tasted really good!  So I took it from a long shot.

I put an egg and some egg whites in the bullet blender along with about 1/4 cup of salsa and blended it up.  I then tried to make an omelet out of it, but it was so puffy that it fell apart.  I also had tucked some cooked lentils and laughing cow cheese in there and topped with a dollop of sour cream.  Although my dollop didn’t quite look like one you see in a commercial.  More like a blop.  Regardless, this was a very tasty mash!  It sure has potential to be baked up in a quiche!

It was such a pretty day out today.  My garden took a beating from the heavy snow, though.  My mums are all squished, but the sedum are still standing and have a nice snow cap on them!

Pretty 😀

I was finishing up that soap order today.  The soap is all done, I just was cutting it into logs.  Then I took a latte break.  Pixie showed mild interest:

Actually that wasn’t so much interest as “Get this thing away from me!”

I then got out in the sunshine (hello vitamin D!) and took a 2 mile walk, which I followed with another snack after I got back:

I did more work until dinner time and John came up and said “How about pizza?”  Didn’t have to twist my arm too hard!  We walked down the street.  We get 3 slices of pizza a drink for about $7.  We each have 1-1/2 slices.  I normally bring a water bottle for myself.

The walk there and back tacked on another mile on the day.  3 miles of walking today without even thinking much about it!  I miss biking right now, though.  I refuse to put the bike on the trainer yet.  It can’t possibly be the end of outdoor biking yet!  Although this weekend it is out.  More snow predicted for tomorrow night.  It’s too early!!!! Ahhhhh!!!!

At least we have pumpkins to carve.

Today’s pink item – some of the  swirled soap I made with the pink colorant.

 

The Breast Cancer Site

September Goals

Welcome to September!  I love September.  John and I just said this morning how this time of year is “our time.”  We love the cooler weather, the fall leaves, the warm food, football, the approaching holidays.  It’s just a great time of year!

I was up and out for day 2 of week 5 for C25K.  That was a 5 minute walk, 8 minute run, 5 minute walk, 8 minute run, 5 minute walk.  The intervals do make it go by fast, but I hate to say that running is mildly boring for me now. Maybe if I ran a little faster it wouldn’t seem so slow…

I was inspired by fall again for breakfast.  I did the banana bread breakfast pudding, but used pumpkin instead with a tablespoon of maple syrup mixed in.

That stuff on top you ask? Well, even if you aren’t asking, this is it:

Maple cream!  Squeeeeee!  I love this stuff.  My mom traded me a jar of maple cream for a jar of my orange marmalade.  Yum!

With breakfast in my tummy, I thought about this month coming up. Here are my goals for the month of September.

1. Do 1 new recipe and post it each week. I kind of am in the rut of my typical meals and need to shake things up. A couple slow cooker meals for sure.

2. Keep going with Couch to 5K. I think the next week or two will really tell me whether I can continue or not with my leg.  I am not as optimistic as I was in August.

3. Volunteer for something or join a book club/something like that.

4. Celebrate 15 years of marriage on the 28th. We should make it to then unless John really annoys me somehow.  LOL.

5. Do Pilates 2 times a week. I need better flexibility and Pilates always does that for me and strengthens my core to boot.

So – goals done.  Nothing crazy like in August LOL.

I also decided to celebrate the coming of fall with my lunch bowl – the candy corn dish!

I was sniffing the bags of candy corn at the store to get my high (didn’t purchase yet), so this will have to do for now.

I have not snacked on this granola.  I wonder if it will actually go stale.

Work was a slog today.  I was really productive, but the one PA that I was working all day is a horrible dictator.  Slurred rapid speech, making lots of mistakes.  It is hard on the brain to listen to that for very long.  My brain is exhausted.  It needs it to be Friday.

I was happy to see the latte arrive.

Usually cats love milk.  Pixie has absolutely no interest in milk or people food.  Which is a good thing.  In fact, she does not like a lot of the cat treats either.  She just loves the catnip.

Finished out work and went to marinate the boneless pork ribs to grill for dinner.  They weren’t thawed yet.  🙄  John was feeling totally wiped from his busy day (as was I), so we decided on cheap date night!  We walked half a mile up the street to here:

Pizza time!

This was good, although a bit too much pizza for me.  I did have tomatoes and broccoli on it, so I got in some veggies at any rate.  Funny how after we sat around talking a bit, I wanted ice cream.  Guess it is the wheat.  I didn’t have any ice cream, but I thought it was interesting.  I will have some blueberries later during Project Runway!

Time to chillax…

Question: What is your favorite pizza topping?

Take the last train to Georgetown

Having a wonderful time here with the family!  My camera battery is flashing red, so I skipped most food pics and got the important ones instead.

John’s sister has a Wii, so we had a fun time trying out Guitar Hero!  Here is John rocking out with his niece.

Here is a quartet – I am playing bass guitar.  I see my future career here!

Makes me want to get a Wii!

On Sunday, we headed into the mountains to Georgetown to ride the Georgetown Railroad!

It started at 8500 feet and winds its way even further up the mountain.  This was a special holiday train. Santa and Mrs. Claus were riding today and Christmas carols were playing.

Here is poppa and son:

Gorgeous views.  The Rocky Mountains are really breathtaking.  I wish it showed up as well on camera.

Looking back at our tracks:

It was super, super windy today.

After the train ride, we headed back a little bit to Idaho Springs.  This is an old mining town and ultra quaint.

While here, we had to stop at BeauJo’s.

This is a green company.  They switched over to solar and eco friendly cups, etc.   BeauJo’s serves  mountain style pizza.
You can customize any pizza any way you want, too.  They do an interesting crust where it is thinner on the bottom, but the side is rolled up and thick.  The tradition is to eat the middle and add honey to the crust as a dessert.

John and I split a pizza that had half BBQ sauce and half green chili sauce, to which I added pesto.  Awesome!

This was the view across the highway from BeauJo’s:

A mostly frozen waterfall. Isn’t that cool?  There was still water spilling down underneath the ice.

Sigh… so pretty.


We are traveling again on Monday.  Long flight day.  Trips like this make you realize the vastness of the US.

Bagel day and more biking.

Lovely sunny morning to bike to bagels.  Too bad we didn’t quite make it!  We took a chance at not having a tire changing kit and wouldn’t you know it, John got a nail stuck in his tire and it went flat.  He hasn’t even had his bike for 24 hours!  This was about 3.5 miles from home, so I just biked back home, got the car, and picked him and his bike up.  If somebody has a voodoo doll on us, they need to quit it.  :mrgreen:

My bagel was super, duper tasty.  I forgot how tasty toasted sesame seeds are!  The wheat bagels looked anemic, so I got this one.

Almost a bit over toasted, but not quite.  Delicious!

Poor John, I spend a good portion of breakfast grouching about our luck.  I know it is pretty small potatoes in truth, but when it all piles up at once it gets frustrating.  I am usually very positive and optimistic, but lately have been less so.  Must be hormones….

Lunch break and I was inspired to have some of my rye bread!

I had egg salad made with one egg.  Seems like a lot for one egg, doesn’t it?  I think it is because the bread slice is small.  Plus a mango tango pluot.  Pluots are super duper juicy.  John gave me the idea to cut these up.  Now no juice dribbles down my chin.  Not sure why I didn’t think of that before.

I was up really early this morning, so I had that hungry feeling most of the day.  I had some snacks:

And some cereal.  We really need to fix the bedroom door so it doesn’t rattle when Pixie pushes on it.  I have got to get more sleep.

*guilty as charged*

Of course, I would have Pixie in the bedroom which would eliminate the problem, but I do like to keep John around for some things :mrgreen:

Latte made with coffee we purchased in Montreal at the market on Sunday morning.  They roast their own coffee:

Love those big roasters!

It was dinner time and John had fixed his flat tire, so we decided to take another spin out for a cheap dinner.  We went to East End Eatery.  I had a side salad:

And  a wheat pizza wrap with hot peppers in it!

I believe they were peperoncini- not too hot, but very, very tasty.

Getting a little more comfortable on the bike.  I’ve put about 30 miles on it so far. The tire is a little more narrow that I was wanting to get, so I am a little nervous on parts of the path where the gravel is more soft.  I also am getting a little chafing, which I believe is just due to the new seat hitting me in places my old one didn’t.  Hope I get that callused up by the charity ride in a few weeks!  Good thing I have some anti-chafing gel.  Or maybe I should go commando under my bike shorts?? 😯

What’s blooming on tap for tomorrow!

Duty calls and a case of the frees

Rest day on tap for me.  That meant sleeping in as much as I could, which really is only about an additional 30 minutes if I am lucky.  I have an internal clock that always pretty much goes off at the same time.

I filtered the cold brew coffee and got out the bread dough from the fridge to rise.  Then made up some Almond Joy cream of wheat!

  • 10 grams of honey
  • 2 egg whites
  • 32 grams of Whole grain cream of wheat
  • 1 tablespoon of dark chocolate chips
  • 1 tablespoon slivered almonds
  • 1 tsp of unsweetened toasted coconut

Cooked the cream of wheat with honey added to the water, stirred in egg whites and did the toppings.  Yum!

Anyone else have these Arby’s glasses with the winter scene on them?  We used to eat at Arby’s a lot!

Then I got to work for Job #1, which was pretty busy.  And watched the Tour.  I don’t know if Andy Shleck has what it takes to beat Contador in the Pyrenees, but I hope so.  Congrats to his yellow jersey today.

Since I was eating early due to no work out, I needed a morning snack because my tummy was grumbly.

One of the only reduced fat cheeses I like.  Cabot brand 50% reduced fat cheddar.  It is quite tasty.

My toaster oven arrived today.

That was fast!  I will do a review on it soon after we do more than just toast in there.  Thank you CSN stores!

<insert lots more typing here>

Lunch time and I was ready to have some fresh baked bread.

It was almost a shame to put tuna salad on this, but boy howdy was this bread good!  From the Healthy Bread in 5 minutes book.

I was able to finish up work early and was FREE for the day.  We had a latte snack before heading out to do our civic duty:

This blood drive was held at the Elk’s Club.  I so wanted to park in this space:

For real? Seriously??

Happy donor post draining:

Happy face because they gave us coupons for FREE ice cream!  1/2 gallon of Friendly’s.  John and I each got a coupon, too.  Sweet.

Plus my post donation snack.  I am liking the raisins.  Go iron!

John asked if I wanted to get dinner out since it was dinner time when we finished donating.  Was I going to say no?  I don’t think so.  He had a coupon for a FREE cheese pizza at one of our favorite places  – East End Eatery.

Started with a bit o’ green:

And then the cheese pizza.

I love John’s hands in the pic.  He could barely wait for me to take a picture LOL.  I had 2 pieces.  I knew one wasn’t going to be enough, so I told myself I could have a 2nd piece, but I didn’t have to eat it all if I was full.  Well – I ate both pieces and felt satisfied and not stuffed, so that was good.

Who knew a plain old Tuesday could end up being so good?

Flashback Friday: The Pixie edition.

Happy Friday!   Had another nice workout today.  I went to the gym and the owner was there, so I showed him the Shape article.  He was pleased to see a member in there!  He took the article and set it out in the waiting area so other members can see it.  A little embarrassed there LOL!

I hopped on the stationary bike and rode for 15 minutes.  It’s getting easier – I might have to try the real bike this weekend.  My knee stings now, which is weird.  It’s constant, too.

The iron:

  • Stiff legged dead lift:  3 sets of 10 with 45# bar
  • Incline Barbell chest press:  3 sets of 8 with 55# bar
  • Rail squats:  3 sets of 10 with body weight only
  • Dumbbell pullover:  3 sets of 8 with 25# DB (surprised this one felt fine)
  • Military press:  3 sets of 10 with 15# DBs
  • Crunches on a bench:  3 sets of 15

Then I did 10 more minutes on the stationary.  Felt good.   Slow progress, but progress nonetheless!

Happy to be working out again.

Came home after thinking about creating some gingerbread custard oats during the last bike session:

1 tbsp of molasses cooked with the oats, along with ground cloves, then stirred in the egg whites.  Topped with some crystalized ginger bits from Ginger People and 5 toasted pecans.  Ah-mazing!

Here is a little backstory on Pixie for the Friday Flashback.  This was 3 years ago.  We had a cat already (Chloe), and she was pretty much a 1-cat household kind of feline.  I had spent a month working on befriending an injured stray cat outside and finally getting it into our house.  She had a lame front leg, at some point she must have been hit by a car. We named her Moxie and I set about finding a home for her.  We got a home for her and I burst into tears when she left, because I had grown very attached to her, but it wouldn’t have been fair to Chloe to bring another cat into the house (not to mention John being allergic and all).  Moxie needed to be an indoor cat because of the lame leg.   John felt so bad that he bought me a little stuffed kitty.

Look familiar?  Right about that time, a thin, raggedy, and desperate cat with giant feet came meowing up to the door.

She had ticks on her face and had fleas, not to mention that she was pregnant (which we did not know because she was rail thin).  John said I could feed her, but she couldn’t come in (hahahaha – famous last words!!!).  She stayed in our shop behind the house, and then miscarried kittens a couple weeks later, which was sad.

I took her in to get spayed before we were going to find a new home for her.  Here she is recuperating next to her doppleganger:

Isn’t that the most amazing coincidence?  I say that John brought her to me with that stuffed kitty.  After she was getting better, I kind of made up my mind to keep her.  Pixie adored me and seemed very needy, so I didn’t want to give her to a stranger.  The problem was breaking the news to John.  I don’t think he was very happy with me, but I thought she could live in the shop and then come into the house after Chloe passed away.  It worked out pretty well, and she lived out there for a year and seemed perfectly happy.  When Chloe passed away at age 18 last year, Pixie moved into the house with us about a month later.  She’s all fat and happy now:

And John doesn’t seem to mind so much:

It’s amazing how time flies, isn’t it?

Time for lunch!  I had a deconstructed BBQ chicken salad because the lettuce was like lettuce soup (ewwww….).

After lunch I finished up the rental house cleanup.  All fresh and sparkly clean.  Not sure if we are closing Monday or not, as the lawyers didn’t set a time yet.  Sigh….

After that, it was time for lattes:

Plus some mini ginger snaps:

These are tres delicious, which could be a problem!  Since it is the start of John’s weekend and the middle of mine, we decided to have a cheap dinner date.  That always means pizza!  John biked, and I drove.  I think 10 miles would be a bit much for me right now, although I am really starting to want to move.  The greens:

And a cheeze pizza wrap on a wheat wrap.  So good!

I lurve cheese!

I may or may not have had more mini ginger snaps when I got home.  Just sayin’

We are still trying to decide what to do for the evening.  Either some shopping or movie time.  It’s the weekend!

Question:  Tell me all about your pets.  How many do you have?

Goblin Gallop!

Happy Halloween everyone!

vamp1030

Race day!  The Goblin Gallop 5K.  250 runners, which was probably 100 more than last year.  It was fairly warm in the mid 50s at least.  I had trouble sleeping, so I was up way early.  Had a nummy cream of wheat with banana, vanilla protein powder, nut butter and a drizzle of chocolate sauce for prerace fuel.

brekkie1031

I did the cheapest costume ever – it cost about $8! LOL.  Black bike shorts and top, wrapped with yellow duct tape.  The antennae were some pipe cleaners that I glued puffs on and wrapped around a headband.  Voila – a bumblebee!

bee1031

I had so much fun with this, and people responded to it, which was fun.  A woman came up and took my picture and asked “Are you going to *bee* fast?”  Harhar.  When I was running, kids and people were yelling “go bumblebee!”  It was so much fun and made me laugh and grin while I was running.  I was a little slower than I was hoping for at 29:43, but I beat last year’s time for this race (30:12).  I think it was the combo of lifting and biking yesterday, plus not enough sleep.  However, I had a great time and this costume was totally fine to run in.  I’ll have to get some actual race photos from my  mom who entered the digital age with a new camera and came out to watch John and I!

Went out to lunch afterwards, where I realized that I did not eat a single veggie all day yesterday!  Not sure how that happened.  So, I had a salad

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along with my wheat pizza wrap.  So good!

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While there I spotted the last pink item for the month of October!

pink1031

I’ve had some outclicks to the National Breast Cancer website from these, so I hope that it has inspired at least a few people to learn more or do more about taking your health into your own hands!

Hope you all have a happy and safe Halloween!

Y workout and dining out

Today was one of those wacky food days, you know?  I didn’t sleep really well last night, which was actually okay because I had to get up early and meet my sister at her Y.

yIt’s pretty fancy – and the memberships are not part of mine, so I have to use a guest pass at hers.  Isn’t that weird?  I showed Colleen stage 1 of NROLW.  That was kind of fun to go back to the beginning again.   Then we ran a mile on the indoor track to end up the workoutl.  After we finished, we went to the Fortunate Cup cafe for breakfast.  I love this place – the interior is gorgeous.

fc

I wanted something more proteiny for breakfast, so I opted for an egg, bacon, and cheese grilled sandwich on a belgian waffle.  This was really good!

sammie

Plus some costa rican coffee.  I love this mug, it is so beautiful.

coffee2

After I got home, I gave John a buzz.  I knew he would be on his bike.  He was almost at Lake George by this time!  We talked about me meeting him there for lunch, but I after jogging and lifting, I was not up for a 30-mile round trip bike ride.  We decided to just meet in downtown Glens Falls.  I am glad, because my legs were pretty tired.  John says I haven’t been the same since my 8-mile run.  Maybe that is true.  We decided to go to East End Eatery and have a bite.  This place has amazing calzones, but we decided to forego all the dough and get pizza wraps on wheat wraps.  With a super fresh side salad.

salad1

lunch8

Hot again today.  We went home and got the new air conditioner set up downstairs.  It’s nice.  Pixie was kind of freaked out about it.  She doesn’t like the fans either, she’s so silly.  She slept most of the day (like always!).

pix2

Ever feel like just grazing for dinner?  I couldn’t even think of cooking anything.  John was making pasta, but I didn’t want something so heavy.  I opted for a Thomas’ mini bagel with some peanut butter and jam.

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Plus:

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I seriously need some kind of intervention with the blueberries 😀

Here is a picture of the biggest blueberry ever!  I put another berry by it to show how huge it was.

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It was yummy, too!

Question:  Is it hot where you live right now?

NROLW and pizza!

Did Stage 2 workout B of NROLW this morning.

Barbell deadlifts:   1 x 10 75 pounds,  1 x 10 80 pounds

Bulgarian split squat:  2 x 10 with 25 pound plate

Underhand lat pulldown:  1 x 10 50 pounds, 1 x 10 55 pounds

Reverse lunge with forward reach:  2 x 10 with 10# dumbbells (coordination is hard on this one LOL)

Prone cuban snatch:  2 x 10 with 10# dumbbells

Swiss ball crunch:  2 x 10

Reverse crunch:  2 x 10

Lateral flexion:  2 x 10

Prone cobra:  2 x 60 second holds

Cardio:
25 minute walk
15 minute HIIT on the stationary bike

Nice workout today!

I tried another green smoothie for lunch.  I amped it up with protien Lori-style!

blender1

Into this mix:

3 cups spinach leaves (30 cal)

1 serving of frozen tropical fruit mix (pineapple, mango, papaya 100 cal)

30 grams vanilla whey protein powder (100 cal)

1/2 cup 1% milk (55 cal)

1/2 cup water

Without the strawberries – I got that wonderful bright green color!

smoothie

I actually got almost 2 full glasses out of that, which I sipped on for quite a while while working.  I liked this one much better than the one with the banana.

John was going to make pizza for dinner, and I remembered an easy wheat pizza crust recipe from Steph Chows for a 30 minute crust.  I forwarded it on to him and he made the most delicious pizza out of it!  With fresh mozzarella and basil off the back porch.  This was not really a lot of cheese, but the fresh mozz melts more completely than the fresh stuff.

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Half the pizza had some locally made andouille sausage on it.  Here is my 300 calorie slice (mostly cheese with one small sliver of sausage):

dinner2

It was phenomenal!   Nom, nom!!  It was all I could do to not eat more!  Definitely have leftovers LOL.  What an easy crust recipe, too.

Big milestone post coming tomorrow………..

Yummy pizza recipe

Trying to find a replacement for the Nutrisystem pizzas. I got at least the thin and flat bread pizzas covered with this:

Flatout Multigrain bread
Contadina Pizza Squeeze Pizza Sauce Serving size: 1/4 cup (63g)
Hannaford Shredded Mozzarella Cheese Part Skim Serving size: 1/4 cup (28g/1oz)
Hormel Pillow Pak Sliced Turkey Pepperoni Serving size: 1 serving (30.0 g)

baked at 400 degrees for 12 minutes or so.

Stats:
Calories 283 Fat 12g Carbs 25g Fiber 9g Protein 27g
It made a huge pizza!

It’s a little high in sodium, since I used a whole serving of pepperoni.

The NS flatbread or thin crust is 210 calories, plus 35 calories for 1/2 a serving of pepperoni. So a total of 245.