The best Mother’s Day gift ever! Thanks to my family, we are starting to juice around my house now. I – like many people have watched Joe Cross’s documentary – Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead about 6 times on HULU (it’s free too!)

It’s a movie about an Australian man, Joe Cross who came to America to juice for 60 days. In the process, he met people along the way, and lost 90 pounds.

Now I’m not planning on doing that so much as just add fruits and veggies in liquid form to my daily diet. Its day 4 and so far so good! Even if its a pain to clean it afterwards, I’m still going to do it. So what have I made so far?

Spinach, carrot, pear, apple, orange, cucumber juice

Spinach, grapefruit, apple, orange, carrot juice

Grapes, pear, lime, apple, cucumber juice

My kids are even requesting their own different combos!

I started searching recipes. I know there are tons of different ones out there and came across this one. Shelley and Helen – you would like this site, It’s called Running on Juice. He lost 60 pounds while running and adding juice to his routine.

Another person I look up to – we are “friends” on Facebook is Corinne Trang. I would describe her as a holistic person, very down to earth and into taking care of her body. She doesn’t look at food as a diet, but eating foods that nourish her and make her feel good.

And, another popular juicer is Kristina from Spabettie. She has a ton of great juicing recipes.

So, I’m excited about my juicer, and I plan for it not to become another appliance stored in the basement because it’s not used!

Do you juice? And if so what’s your favorite combo of ingredients?

My twin sister Biz and I have been inspiring each other this week – I walked home from work instead of jumping on the bus. It helped that I was talking to her the whole time – so it goes by fast, but I was glad that I did!

And my friend Jacky and Mara are also trying to lose weight doing low carb and being more in tune to what they are eating – which I think is great!

A quick google search and I landed on what looked like a great recipe from Taste of Home’s website for 40 minute hamburger buns – I didn’t have to let the dough rise!

Their recipe said it made 12 buns, I made 10 – each dough ball weighed 2.75 ounces

Ingredients
2 tablespoons active dry yeast
1 cup plus 2 tablespoons warm water (110° to 115°)
1/3 cup vegetable oil
1/4 cup sugar
1 egg
1 teaspoon salt
3 to 3-1/2 cups all-purpose flour

Directions

In a large bowl, dissolve yeast in warm water. Add oil and sugar; let
stand for 5 minutes. Add the egg, salt and enough flour to form a
soft dough.

Turn onto a floured surface; knead until smooth and elastic, about
3-5 minutes. Do not let rise. Divide into 12 pieces; shape each into
a ball. Place 3 in. apart on greased baking sheets.
Cover and let rest for 10 minutes. Bake at 425° for 8-12 minutes
or until golden brown. Remove from pans to wire racks to cool.

Yield: 1 dozen.

Nutrition Facts: 1 serving (1 each) equals 195 calories, 7 g fat (1 g saturated fat), 18 mg cholesterol, 204 mg sodium, 29 g carbohydrate, 1 g fiber, 5 g protein.

Here’s what they looked like before going into the oven -

And here’s after they were baked:

These were amazingly great! I will definitely make these again!

So salad club at my office was super deluxe this week, as you can see by my salad this is why I enjoy it so much!

And we had my daughter Claire’s softball game last night – still chilly out! We had a tough loss, but most of the girls didn’t even know – after the game, since I’m the scorekeeper they would ask – did we win? So I guess if they don’t realize it during the game, that’s a good thing!

She got to play catcher too – kind of a hard position because even at 10 years old some of these girls can already pitch 30-50 miles an hour – it’s crazy!

Did you play any sports as a kid? My twin Biz and I were lucky played softball, tennis, volleyball, basketball, soccer, ran track, gymnastics etc! Maybe that’s why we were skinny as kids! Ha!

Have a great day!

I was thinking about what to make for dinner last night. I knew I was going to make chicken and I had a few Poblano peppers I needed to use up so I googled chicken + Poblano pepper and this is the first recipe that came up and I had most of the ingredients so I used it as a template.

Jenn’s Chicken in Poblano Cream Sauce (adapted from THIS RECIPE)

2 Poblano Peppers
1 pounds chicken breasts, boneless and skinless cut into chunks
2 cups skim milk
2 tablespoons margarine
1/4 cup flour
Parmesan cheese
salt and pepper to taste
1 bag of egg noodles

Cook the egg noodles according to package directions, drain and set aside.

In a large skillet, melt the 2 tablespoons butter, then add the 1/4 flour and stir for a minute to combine. In a blender add the Poblano peppers and skim milk and blend until smooth. Add that to the flour mixture in the skillet and it will start to thicken. The sauce will be green!

Next I added the cut up chicken and cooked on medium/low until the chicken was cooked through. Then you can add the noodles and stir until the sauce is all combined. After dishing up, you can sprinkle it with Parmesan Cheese.

This was so good! The sauce was super creamy, it had a great flavor to it too. I bet if you roasted the Poblano peppers first it would be even better.

The original recipe called for adding Mexican Crema – or sour cream would also be really good in this dish, but I didn’t have any on hand .

***

It’s time for me to start getting things ready for salad club at work today. Now there are 7 ladies in our group and we are making some incredible salads. And I am part of another group at work too. Someone in my office wanted to start weight watchers at work, but we didn’t have enough people to do it, so I suggested we have our own meeting! So every Monday, no matter what you are doing to lose weight, we meet, discuss trials and tribulations and make a goal for the next week. We aren’t doing an official weigh in, but its helping people who want to be accountable to something.

That has also included a portion of extreme couponing! A friend of mine is a great money saver – she has 3 small kids so she’s teaching us how she saves money on stuff – it’s been really fun so far!

If you work at an office, do you have any kind of group walk/lunch/support group?

Have a wonderful day everyone!

I can’t remember where I read this, but I saw a recipe from a site where they actually baked the cookies in a 12 muffin tin pan. The thought is that they can’t spread as much and they are a little thicker, so I thought I would give it a try.

I scored on chocolate chips at Walmart – They had 60% cacao chocolate chips for only a dollar a bag – and the chips were huge!

I followed the directions on the package CLICK HERE FOR THE RECIPE

Using a melon baller, I scooped the batter into the muffin tins which I coated with cooking spray. My only advice is to make them as even as possible, because I did have a few with less batter, and the bottoms got a little brown.

Bake at 350 for 12-15 minutes, check earlier if you have a hot oven. Let cool and they easily slide out. They are chewy, moist and delicious – a welcome treat for my kids lunches this week!

*****

And in Gelato News, we had the pleasure of attending a pre-opening party for my niece Jessie’s 2nd Gelato shop in Chicago! It’s at 1955 W. Belmont (Belmont & Damen). The funny thing is it is only a few blocks from my first apartment in the City when I was in my early 20′s so I really know the neighborhood there. Lots of great antique stores around there too.

It’s not quite open for business, the front of the shop is painted and has the gelato case, but the back area (so much more space than her other store), will be the headquarters for the gelato making for both stores and the multitude of Chicago restaurants that she supplies.

My niece had so many great flavors – I tried a bunch!

She is so super creative. I also tried the goat cheese cashew caramel, blueberry french toast. It was insanely awesome and we had a great night with family and friends.

These are 3 of my nieces, from left – Marina, Michelle and Andrea

My daughter Claire (left) got to play with her baby cousin Grace.

BLACK DOG GELATO

Follow Black Dog Gelato on Facebook HERE to get updates on flavors and special events

So have you had gelato – what’s your favorite or most unusual flavor you’ve tried?

For those of you who don’t know, I traveled to Champaign, IL for the Christie Clinic Illinois Marathon with my husband David. He turned 50 on Saturday and in October asked me if I would join him to train with Team in Training. He graduated from U of I and the finish line was at the 50 yard line of the football stadium – so I said YES – BUT, I’ll do HALF a marathon. After running 2 marathons and knowing how hard that is, I said I would do the half.

Last week I was super busy at work, Claire had 2 softball games and the week went by in a hurry. I pretty much packed the night before, our plan was to leave at noon on Friday. 2 of our kids were off school, so we dropped them off at my Mom’s on our way.

We got to the hotel, checked out stuff in and headed to the EXPO and got our shirts, and bibs

We had a little down time, so David showed me some of the campus. He went to undergrad and Law school there, so it was nice to see some of the places he used to hang out. Although he was there a long time ago, there are lots of new places on campus!

We went back to the hotel and got ready for the Inspiration Pasta dinner at the hotel for all Team in Training runners.

At the dinner was a family that had a daughter who was 2 who had leukemia – she was so cute and was running around laughing and talking up a storm, she joined is in our team picture

Our reason for Training this season was because my mother-in-law Margaret passed away from a blood cancer, and the money we raise helps fight leukemia & lymphoma, but then 3 weeks before the race, finding out my dear brother Charlie was diagnosed with Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma, it made my race even more special to me and happy I was helping raise money for people like my brother!

After the dinner, we rested in our room because we were getting up at 5:00 a.m. to be at the race a little early because David and I were going to be on the local radio station!

It was really cool – we got to be on stage and really see how they put together a show at an event. We maybe talked 30 seconds – but that was an awesome way to start the day!

The race started at 7 – but with 18,000 people, they started people in waves, so it was 20 minutes after the start that I actually started the race.

I wanted to take in all of the course, the people cheering us on as well as talk to as many runners along the way – and take pictures too!

Shortly after we started, we ran through an area that had a bunch of frat houses, and yes – there were guys out that early BLARING songs in huge speakers on their porch, drinking already! Good times!

There was an Elvis impersonator

There was a band – and they were really good!

There was a bagpiper

The course went through residential areas, parks, and through the campus – pretty cool scenery!

Very pretty nature path

Not sure why this statue is in the park, but somebody gave her shoes and a bib #!

At mile 11 and 12 I ran/walked with 2 nice ladies and they took a picture of me at my 12

At the end, the course met back up with the marathoners, forgot that there would be people finishing the marathon while I was finishing the half! At 3.5 hours there were LOTS of people finishing the marathon.

Coming into the stadium and seeing the end was great!

I took a picture after I finished of the finish line

David and I after he finished the marathon strong!

I forgot to mention, when we left our room to meet our friends in the lobby – David and I each had a letter posted to our hotel door from our coaches, I thought that was super nice!

Our medals!!!!

I have tons more photos to show, so I’ll write more about it later – but it was an awesome weekend, a memorable one for my husband to finish his 5th marathon on his 50th birthday at the University he attended!! And thanks again to everyone who helped us reach our fundraising goal – we raised $3,500 in 4 months for The Leukemia & Lymphoma society.

And thanks to all the kinds words of encouragement on Facebook as well as texts from friends during the race! I even talked to my twin Biz around mile 8 to say Hi!