I had spinach, broccoli slaw, strawberries, shredded beats, fresh basil, pine nuts, blueberries, cherries, grapes, carrots, cauliflower, peas, black beans, etc. and lite catalina dressing. It was awesome. I usually don’t like beets, but my salad club friend Laura grew them in her back yard. She shredded them added a little balsamic vinegar and sea salt. I LOVED them. I wish I had put more on my salad.

*for those of you who don’t know, salad club is a few coworkers and I bringing in a green and a fruit or veggie to share and we just set everything out like a salad bar.

My daughter Claire helped me chop stuff up the night before and I told her I hope I don’t forget to bring it to work. Without me knowing, she made this note and taped it on to the back door:

I love how she spelled club “CULB!” So cute!

****
So now on to the winners of PopChips!

NV
Barb
Alice
Errign
Shelley
Ally

I will e-mail you guys to get your addresses. Congrats!

Do you think you could start a salad club at your office??

It’s 3 small potatoes, with the skin on, 1 leftover Chicken sausage from Trader Joe’s, sliced, sliced yellow pepper, a handful of edamame and 1 fried egg. Oh Ma Ga, it’s a huge portion and it keeps me full all morning and it tastes so good. The thing that I think makes it taste so good, is I sprinkle some of my Penzey Spices Sausage seasoning over everything!

I know it sounds weird to put the edamame in there, but I was cutting up veggies for salad club at my office and threw some in last minute.

I sliced the potatoes really thin, and placed them in a small skillet. Add about 2 tablespoons of water and cover for about 7 minutes, or until the potatoes start to get tender. Then I added the chicken sausauge, the pepper and edamame and sprayed it with Pam Cooking spray so it wouldn’t stick. After that was cooked (about another 5 minutes), then remove all that from the pan. Wipe the pan clean, cook the egg and chop up to add to the hash. I’ve had time to make this before work AND get 3 kids to school, so it’s something quick enough even when you have a lot going on.

Which brings me to my favorite day of the week at work – SALAD CLUB! It’s every Tuesday and the choices get better and better each week!

I had spinach, carrots, cucumber, edamame, apples, grapes, black beans, corn, a few croutons, a little bit of bacon bits, and something I haven’t had in a long time, but was great – Lite Catalina Dressing. I remember eating that as a kid and I haven’t had that kind of dressing in years, but it was great.

*******
Spoiler alert! Make-over week on Biggest Loser!!! I was kind of dissapointed that they didn’t show them more getting ready and trying on clothes. There was a little glimpse of them here and there at the salon, but other than that, they just showed up all done up.

Hannah was the first to arrive. I was not a huge fan of the color of her hair and the dress kind of looked like it was a mermaid. BUT, her body looks great, she’s lost 100 pounds in 17 weeks, so that is fantastic. Her sister Olivia looked amazing. They cut her hair short, which was so cute and her dress was fantastic. She got to see her husband and he was also super chunky when she left for the ranch and he’s lost a ton of weight at home and looked great too. Irene. I love Irene, I kind of hope she wins the whole thing. They put her in a really pretty pink dress with sparkly silver shoes. She got to see her Mom. I had forgotten that her Mom was her partner in the show since she left so long ago, but she’s been able to lose weight at home. In fact, I thought they looked more like sisters than mother and daughter! Then men got to wear fancy tuxes and they both looked great too.

The bonus was that at the end of the show, NO ONE got sent home, so everyone gets to stay for another week, which of course everyone was excited about.

So, we are getting down to the wire…who do you want to win?

Have a wonderful day everyone!

From Cooking Light Magazine

I made this last night and it is by far the best potato soup I’ve had. I’ve made it dozens of times over the years and I never get tired of it. It’s from Cooking Light Magazine. Click Here for the recipe

This time I forgot to add the cheese in the soup and it still turned out great. On top I sprinkle turkey bacon, green onions and a little parmesan cheese. On the side, I cut up a few of my homemade pita added a little cheese and baked it in the oven for a few minutes. They turned out kind of crispy and yummy! (My serving was 3 strips of pita).

And since today was Tuesday – that means SALAD club at my office. Me and 4 of my friends bring some kind of greens and a fruit or veggie to share. It’s always great to see what people bring. This time I brought some chicken to kick it up a notch.

I had baby spinach, mixed greens, green onion, chicken, black beans, cucumber, soy nuts, a little blue cheese, shredded carrots, blueberries. This made me very happy!

I can’t wait for summer to come when there are so many more veggies we can have to add to salad club.

***********

Major drama on Biggest Loser!! Courtney and Jen lost the pop challenge and had to work out off campus. What they didn’t know was that they got to stay at a super deluxe house, and spend $1,000 on things to do during the week. They could spend it on a trainer, gym membership, spa treatment, dinner out, etc… They chose to buy their own food, gym membership and chose NOT to work with a trainer, thinking they knew what to do. It bit them in the ass at the weigh in. Courtney only lost 2 pounds and Jen lost nothing. Earlier in the show, the contestants had to search for easter eggs. There was one golden egg and whoever found it would get a prize. Of course they thought that would be immunity, or a pound advantage at the weigh in or money or a car. Turns out Hannah won it, and she was the only one making the decision of who gets voted off whichever team falls below the yellow line. It was good for her, because then she could save her sister Olivia if she needed to.

One of the highlights of the show was Rulon trying to do a handstand against the wall. He’s still like 350 pounds!! But he tried a bunch of times and then finally did it. The smile on his face was so big once he did that! He did great this week, losing another 5 pounds. However Jillian called Rulon saying other people mentioned how is diet isn’t what it should be. They showed him in his room with a bag of tortilla chips and salsa – caught on tape!

In the end, since Jen lost nothing, Courtney lost the highest percentage so she got to stay and Jen was automatically eliminated. Bob had good advice – he said that you will be tempted all the time at home with spa treatments, and dinners, and food choices but you have to just keep at it. She lost 91 pounds on the ranch and she has lost 105 pounds since she got home from the ranch!

What did you think of tonights episode??

Salad club was spectacular this week! I had spinach, carrots, edamame, black beans, sunflower seeds, grapes, peppers, onion, some croutons, red and green cabbage. It took me almost my whole lunch to eat this!

For those of you who don’t know, I started a salad club at my office. Anyone who wants to come brings a green (spinach, romaine, etc.) and a veggie or fruit to share. We lay it all out, and you can build it however you want.

I brought in some salad dressings I bought a few weeks ago at Caputo’s store in Elmwood Park, IL. There was a whole bin of the same brand of dressings.. all for only a dollar. Of course I had to check out the nutritional info and guess what? All of them are between 20 and 40 calories for TWO tablespoons! I bought 3. Ranch, thousand island and italian and I really liked all three!

This is the brand and what the bottle looks like. Check out their website HERE

So I’m eating stir fries again! I go through a bout where I make them all the time for lunches, and then I’ll go months without making it. This is what I had for lunch today:

It was leftovers from dinner the night before. I started out with frozen green beans from Trader Joe’s, frozen fried rice from Trader Joe’s, and frozen edamame from Trader Joe’s. The only thing I did was add more veggies (carrots, onion, water chestnuts, etc..). And since the one bag of fried rice from Trader Joe’s wouldn’t feed my whole family, I made brown rice to mix in with it. AND, I only added one large chicken breast for the whole stir fry (I just cut it into small pieces!). I also added a tablespoon of peanuts and what a nice addition that was! And I added House of Tsang brand Thai peanut sauce. It’s SO good!

I haven’t talked about Biggest Loser yet! How about Moses losing 100 pounds in 6 weeks?!?!?!?! Isn’t that insane? I don’t know how that is possible.

I want Courtney to win. She’s the daughter (team AQUA) who lost 100 pounds before she even got on the show. Once she got below 300 pounds, Allison asked her when was the last time she weighed that little and she said 6th grade! Can you imagine being over 300 pounds in 6th grade. My son is in 7th grade and weighs 85 pounds! How would she find a desk to fit into? She has the drive to go all the way and I totally would love to see her win!

I also have a few new food blogs I am reading:

One is Vegan for $3.33 a day. After losing her job and living on unemployment, her food budget was $100.00 per month, or $3.33 a day. She is a trained chef and has some great ideas! Check out her site.

The other blog I am loving right now is Skinny Kitchen. Nancy Fox owns Mrs. Beasley’s gift baskets, she opened Nancy’s Healthy Kitchen Restaurant in 1994 in California which became a destination for Hollywood Stars. 2 recipes I want to try: Skinnier California Pizza Kitchen Chopped salad and her skinnier homemade ranch dressing.

Have a great day everyone!

I decided to make a batch of these again since I’ve had a few cans of chick peas (garbanzo beans) in my pantry for a while.

They are so easy to make!

Ingredients:

2 cans chick peas, drained and rinsed and patted dry
2 tsp. olive oil
1 tsp. chili powder
1 tsp. cumin
1 tsp. garlic salt

Stir together all the ingredients in a big bowl. Pour onto a cookie sheet with a rim.

Bake at 275 degrees for 1 hour and 15 minutes. I would stir them around every 15 minutes or so.

If you take them out and they are still soft in the middle, they aren’t done yet. When they are perfectly roasted they are crunchy like a peanut!

I’m bringing these to salad club today at my office. It should be a nice crunch factor instead of croutons!

Have a great day – it’s f-r-e-e-z-i-n-g in Chicago today!