Easy Mini Cinnamon Roll-Ups

Hi friends!

First of all, I have noticed that we have some new readers, followers, and commenters lately! Welcome!  I am so glad you all have stopped by!  I hope that you all have gotten your week off to a great start!  I just realized that I am starting the 3rd week of Eat-In Month!  So far, it has gone really well!  I think they key for us is having a well-stocked pantry and fridge during the week.  That keeps us from having to make last minute take-out arrangements.

Tonight I have a quick breakfast (or dessert!) recipe to share with you.  I am not even sure that I would call this a recipe because it is so simple!  But these Easy Mini Cinnamon Roll-Ups came together in a snap tonight.  I have been planning these out in my head for about a week.  And over the past few days a few of my blog friends have posted similar ideas.  Click for Diana’s and Lisa’s recipes for cinnamon rolls.  I wanted to make a version that would be soft and doughy, sticky sweet, but not over-the-top on Points.  I had a leftover container of Pillsbury Reduced-Fat Crescent Rolls and the rest of these ingredients I would almost guarantee that you have in your pantry!  So this is a $2 (or less) breakfast that will feed 4-6 people!

Easy Mini Cinnamon Roll-Ups

Ingredients:

(for rolls)

• 1 can Pillsbury Reduced Fat Crescent Rolls (8 rolls)
• 2 Tbsp Earth Balance
• 3 Tbsp granulated sugar
• 1 Tbsp ground cinnamon

(for glaze)

• 5 Tbsp 10x powdered sugar
• 2 Tbsp fat free milk
• pinch of cinnamon

Preparation:

Remove rolls from packaging.  Cut each roll in half, yielding 16 long rolls.  Brush each roll with melted butter.  Mix granulated sugar with cinnamon and sprinkle evenly over all 16 rolls.  Roll them up and place on nonstick baking sheet.  Bake at 350 degrees for about 10 minutes, or until rolls are golden and fluffy. 

While rolls are baking, mix milk, sugar, and cinnamon to create a thin sweet glaze.  Set aside.

Allow rolls to cool slightly and then drizzle quick glaze over each.  Enjoy!

Mmmmm!  My kitchen smells so good after baking these!  They are nice and sweet and sticky—just like cinnamon rolls should be!  AND they are only 2 Points each!

For those of you who were lucky enough to have the day off today, I hope you enjoyed it!  I didn’t have to work, but I did sub a Zumba class tonight and  it was fabulous!  I think I earned at least 2 of these little rolls!  ;)

Hearts for Lunch? (Lunchtime Lettuce Cups)

Don’t be scared.  I’m not really writing about hearts.  Well, not the kind you’re thinking about.  I’ll explain in a minute.

This week, summer vacation officially ended for me.  I’m back at work.  We made it through our first two teacher work days, and soon all the kiddos will join us at school. 

It’s been a great week.  I’m really excited about getting the school year started.  But with work starting, it means that I’ve got to start being a better planner when it comes to lunches.  Last year I started off doing really well… but before long I was falling into the cafeteria trap.  Our school lunches are better than the stereotype.  However, there’s a lot of processed food, and it’s not always the healthiest.  I have found that the key (for me) is to be able to have healthy choices readily available.  And that means keeping a well-stocked work fridge and pantry.  Enter Lunchtime Lettuce Cups. 

This idea is actually one I got from my sisters and my mom.  I got addicted to those cute round flat breads last year.  They are great for sandwiches.  However, I fell a little less in love with them when Weight Watchers changed their POINTS system and they jumped from 1 to 3 POINTS, mainly due to the carbs.

You can use lots of different types of lettuce for these Lunchtime Lettuce Cups, but I like Hearts of Romaine.  (Hence the title… “Hearts for Lunch.”)  The shape of the leaves is like a little boat—or a hot dog bun.  Plus, they add a nice crunchy texture.  The filling possibilities are endless.  The Lunchtime Lettuce Cups I have pictured here are filled with spicy pimento cheese and roma tomato slices. 

Another combination that my sister Adrienne recommended to me (and it is delicious): Spread each lettuce leaf with a little chive and onion cream cheese (I use the light version).  Top with thin slices of turkey breast or grilled chicken breast strips, and chopped tomatoes.

As I said, there are many possibilities, AND these are healthy and low-carb.  Add some fruit or a cup of vegetable soup for a delicious, nutrient-rich lunch.  I’ve actually got a soup recipe to share with you very soon… AND another very filling Lunchtime Lettuce Cup idea!  Think… cheeseburger… meets salad.  Coming soon!

Cheesy Spinach Casserole... Brought to You by Clash of the Titans

So, normally, I wouldn't be posting in the middle of the day.  Mainly because I am usually at work!  Today is snow day number two of this week.  It's pretty cloudy and cold, so not much thawing is happening.  In fact, I'd say I might be here again tomorrow. 

Anyway, the husband suggested we watch a movie during Sadie's nap time.  Hi suggestion:  "Clash of the Titans."  Have any of you ever seen this movie?  Let me sum it up for you: swords, giant scorpions, hands being sliced off, Medusa...

Not my cup of tea.  Waste of a good nap time, if you ask me.

I just told him, "Wait till you see what I pick for us to watch tonight.  Paypack is coming."  Any suggestions???  I am thinking along the lines of "Titanic."

So anyway, while this movie plays on, let me share this quick and easy recipe for Cheesy Spinach Casserole with you.

This is originally from The Four Ingredient Cookbook, but I have lightened it up a bit.  If you like spinach, you'll love this dish.  It's warm, cheesy, filling, and SO easy to put together.  Come on... 4 ingredients??  Yes please!  I also think this could be awesome in a pie crust, sort of like a quiche... but I didn't have one here and was feeling too lazy to make one.  If you follow the new Weight Watchers PointsPlus, it is 4 points per serving (serves 4).

Ingredients:
8 oz. 2% Cottage Cheese
4 oz. 2% Shredded Cheddar Cheese
2 eggs
1 9-oz. package of frozen chopped spinach, thawed and squeezed out

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Mix the cheeses and the spinach together.  Beat the eggs in a separate bowl, and then mix them with the cheese/spinach mixture.  Pour mixutre into a greased caserole dish (nonstick spray works great, too) and bake for 45 minutes. 

Enjoy! 

Are you snowed in?  How are you spending your snow days???

A Ghoul Grubfest with Sorta Homemade Soup

Preview of the soup...

Have you ever heard that blessing?  "Rub a dub dub... thanks for the grub... Yay God!"  I have always despised that blessing.  I also really despise the word "grub."  It reminds me or worms, dirt, dirty little boys... all things that I am not really into.  (Good thing I ghave birth to a prissy little girl!)  But I have to use that word today because today at school we had a "Ghoul Grubfest."  This was basically our teacher Halloween "potluck" lunch.  Everyone brought in lots of yummy treats to share with everyone.  Don't you love a pot luck meal?  It's the only time you can eat an Asian salad, meatballs, vegetable soup, a cupcake, chicken wings, cheese cubes, and strawberries all on the same plate.  Now I am sitting here completely uncomfortable because I ate too much of way too many different things.... 

One of my favorite things about fall is the abundance of soups, stews, and comfort foods.  I think I could eat soup every day and be happy.  So that's what I decided to make for the "Grubfest."  I decided to do another "Sorta-Homemade" meal.   For those of you just joining me, "Sorta-Homemade" meals were inspired by Sandra Lee's Semi-Homemade show on Food Network.  You can click the link on the right side to see more semi-homemade meals.

"Sorta-Homemade Chicken, Broccoli, and Cheddar Soup" is so easy, and it's very rich and filling.  It has the flavor of a restaurant soup, but probably half (or less) the fat and calories.  If you follow Weight Watchers, one cup of this soup is 4 points and this recipe makes 10 cups.  That's not TOO bad for a cream-based soup.  The hard part is stucking to the portion size!

Here's the recipe...

"Sorta Homemade Chicken, Broccoli, and Cheddar Soup"

Ingredients:
1 pouch Bear Creek Broccoli Cheddar Soup Mix
5 cups frozen broccoli florets
1 1/2 cups chopped grilled (or baked or boiled) chicken breast
2/3 cup light sour cream
OPTIONAL: cheddar cheese, bacon pieces for garnish (not included in points values)

Directions:
Place 10 cups of water in crock pot.  Add soup mix and stir.  Turn heat to high.  Allow soup to get very warm/hot.  Then, add the frozen broccoli and the chicken.  Allow to cook on high for 2 hours.  Before serving, mix in sour cream.  Garnish with shredded cheese, extra sour cream, bacon bits if desired.

How easy is that???  No one will ever know you started with a mix, I promise!

Ok, one last thing...

I just returned from the hair salon... and I made a change... what do you think I did?  Any guesses???

Slow-Cooker Chicken Soft Tacos, Babies, and a Lost But Not Found Item

Remember my Zumbathon from yesterday?  Here's another pic!  Look in the front of the stage.  There are 4 people in front.  I am all the 3rd one on the right.  I have the craziest tan lines from yesterday! 

So... today I spent the better part of an hour turning the house upside down looking for my Macro Lens for my camera.  A Macro lens is the lens that lets you take a super-detailed picture of something (i.e. food) and let the background be completely blurred out.  I LOVE my Macro Lens.  And I JUST GOT IT.  Don't you HATE when you lose something you JUST BOUGHT???  But I cannot find it ANYWHERE.  I just used it yesterday!  I mean, I even pulled out the last bag of trash we took out and went through the trash.  I don't mean I glanced in the trash bag.  I picked through EVERY little item.  Remember that chicken I cooked last night?  I picked up those bones with my own hands.  Found some interesting things... but not my lens.  So... here's hoping it shows up on its own over the next few days.  Debbie L., if you are reading this, I am going to be trying your advice tonight on finding lost items.  I'll report back to you on Tuesday.

Other than my lost lens, it was a great day.  I started the morning with a fried egg, toast, and tomato slices.  Gosh, I love fried eggs.  Nothing better than runny yellow yolk! 

Oh, and check out this wonderful purchase I made at the store yesterday...

Now I can have pumpkin spice coffee whenever I want!  It's not as good as Starbucks, but still pretty darn good.  I love when all the fall and winter flavors come out.  I am waiting on Peppermint Mocha creamer to appear in the stores... That is the BEST!

We had a great morning at church and Sunday School, and we even had a lunch out at Panera.  (Sorry-- no pics of that... it was completely spontaneous, and I didn't have my camera!)

Then I went to my second baby shower of the weekend to help my friends Meredith and Jamie celebrate their new baby girl who will be coming in January!  We were all making guesses on the arrival date.  I guessed January 17.   Meredith is due January 10, but she's so relaxed that I think that baby will be happy just staying in there for an extra week!  That's exactly what Sadie did!  It was fun spending time with friends and celebrating!

Then I came home to another crock pot meal: Slow-Cooker Chicken Soft Tacos.  This is one that is great any time of the year, and you can make all sorts of variations to it.  You can't mess this one up.  I used chicken tenderloins because I had them on hand, but you can also use a pork roast or a beef roast as the meat.

I also want to give a shout-out about these tortillas, made by La Banderita.  They are made from whole wheat flour and have only 81 calories each, 2 grams of fat, and 6 grams of fiber... which adds up to only 1 point!  They are soft and tasty.  There are a lot of La Banderita tortillas, so you have to check all the labels, but these say "Low Carb, Low Fat" on the package.

Slow Cooker Chicken Soft Tacos

Ingredients:
Tortillas
5 frozen chicken tenderloins (yes, I said frozen.) or 3 frozen chicken breasts
2 cans diced tomatoes (I like the flavored ones.  I used one with mild chiles and one that had fire roasted tomatoes)
1 can of black beans, drained and rinsed
1 cup of frozen corn
2 tsp taco seasoning
1-2 tsp Frank's Cayenne Pepper Sauce (or other hot sauce)

(Optional) shredded lettuce, light sour cream, diced fresh tomatoes (for topping)

Put frozen chicken on bottom of crock pot.  In a bowl, mix tomatoes, beans, corn, taco seasoning, and hot sauce.  Pour over chicken.  Cook on low 6-8 hours, until chicken is cooked through.  Then, pull chicken out, shred it with 2 forks, and put it back in the crock pot mixture.  Turn off crock pot.  Allow chicken to warm back up.  Then serve on tortillas, covered with lettuce, tomatoes, sour cream, and more hot sauce if you like!  Ole!

If you decide to use a larger cut of meat, like a roast, then make sure you thaw it first.  The chicken could go in frozen because it was a smaller cut of meat and I wanted it to take longer to cook. 

Tomorrow I am looking forward to catching up with some wonderful literacy coaches and talking about a wonderful book!  (That reminds me... I need to make a little breakfast treat for our meeting tomorrow.  Can you guess what I will be making???)

Deep Dish Mexican Pizza AND... A Way to Burn it Off!!!

Well, let's get the exercise part over with, because there's no way it's as much fun to talk about as this deep dish pizza... (Here's a little preview.  YUMMM.)

So, tonight I learned a way to burn more calories in your group fitness classes... Get on the FRONT ROW!  Now, I am not a back row gal when I am taking a class.  I can't stand when I can't see the instructor.  But I also don't get on the front row.  (Weird, huh?  The front doesn't bother me if I am teaching, but if I am a participant, I am more a second-row girl.)  Well, tonight, my "usual spot" was gone.  (How territorial are we?!)  So, I ended up on the front row.  Let me tell you... it made me work so much harder!  I guess I need to move on up to the front more often.  I know I worked harder than I have been working. 

This morning, I had two delicious Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Muffins.  (No pictures this time... for some reason they did not turn out as pretty as they did last time.) 

I had a wrap and Baked! chips for lunch from my school cafeteria. 

I have been doing so great drinking my water this week. 

I'm doing a two-day lesson on clouds this week.  I've learned a lot more about clouds that I didn't know.  This afternoon, the clouds were really cool-looking, so I ran out with my new camera lenses and snapped some shots to show the kids tomorrow.  I used my wide-angle lens for these pictures.  The wide angle just allows you to get more of the scene in the picture.

Do you know what kind of clouds these are?
a.  cumulus
b.  stratus
c.  cirrus

Before this week, I couldn't have told you.  But now I know!  The answer will come tomorrow!

I taught Zumba after school, and then headed to Zumba at the Y.  After all that, I headed to Weight Watchers.  I was REALLY hoping for a loss this week.  Last week I didn't lose, and this week I gained 0.2 pounds!  UGH!!!!!!  Can you feel my frustration?  I am trying to remind myself that slow and steady wins the race, but I am getting tired of being the tortoise in this race!

Anyway, on to the pizza. 

This is a twist on a Weight Watchers recipe I got a long time ago.  I put a little Mexican twist on it.

"Deep Dish Mexican Pizza"

Ingredients:
1 roll of refrigerated pizza crust dough
2 cans diced tomatoes with chili seasoning
1 lb. lean or extra lean ground beef
1 cup of reduced fat shredded Mexican blend cheese

Directions:
Preheat oven to 425 degrees.  Spray a 9 by 13 inch baking dish lightly with cooking spray.  Then, unroll the pizza dough and press into the bottom of the dish and up the sides (creating the "deep dish").  Once oven is preheated, pop the dough in for about 5 minutes, just to cook the bottom a little.  Brown the meat and drain the fat.  Add in the diced tomatoes.  I also added in some spices here-- just some cumin, chili powder, and some Mrs. Dash Extra Spicy Hot.  (No exact measurements here-- just whatever you like)  Using a slotted spoon, spoon the meat and tomato mixture into the partially-baked crust.  (Using a slotted spoon will keep some of the juice in the pan, keeping your pizza from becoming mushy.)  Top the meat mixture with the shredded cheese.  Bake for an additional 8-10 minutes, until crust is browned and cheese is melted.  Let stand 5 minutes before serving.

The points for this are around 6-7 per slice, and there are 6 HEARTY slices here.  (Remember, it's DEEP DISH!) 

Adding a glass of vino makes it even better, by the way! :)

It's Friday-Eve!  Cheers!

Too tired to cook...

Well... guess what DIDN'T happen today... I did not try my new green ingredient.  I have plans to try it tomorrow.  When I got home tonight, I just couldn't do it...



"Sausage", Egg, and Cheese Sandwich



I had one of my regular favories for breakfast: a "sausage", egg, and cheese sandwich.  I LOVE that Morningstar Farms Maple "Sausage!"  It is sooooo delicious!  Sweet AND spicy... like you dipped your sausage patty into rich maple syrup.  But with only 80 calories (or 1 point) instead!

Also-- just a little side note... hubby and I were watching the news this morning and guess who was in Charlotte today?  Sandra Lee!  I wish I'd known ahead of time.  It would have been fun to try and go see her at the Southern Women's Show.



For lunch, I made my experiment for a teacher meeting: "Sorta-Homemade Chicken Tortilla Soup"!  I have to say, this one is a keeper!  It made a huge batch and was not expensive at all to make.  AND-- I made it in the Crock Pot!  Here's the recipe...

1 pouch of Bear Creek Soup Mix (Tortilla Flavor) (about $4)

1 can of white corn (less than $1)

1 can of diced tomatoes with onion and green pepper (less than $1)

1 1/2 cups of chopped, cooked chicken breast (about $3-- maybe less)

baked tortilla chips, cheese, and light sour cream to mix in (optional)

Directions:

Pour 10 cups of water into crock pot.  Turn to high.  After 30 minutes, mix in all ingredients except for the toppings.  Stir and cook on high for 3 hours.  Stir occasionally.  After two hours, turn to low for another hour.  Then you are done!  Add the optional mix-ins if you want. 

I fed 7 people, 2-3 of which had seconds, then I ate it again for dinner tonight and there is STILL another serving left!  So there are about 10-12 servings, I would say.  That's less than $1 per serving!

Doesn't that look delicious?????  It WAS!

I also made some corn muffins to go with the soup.  I LOVE corn muffins.  But I can't take any credit for this recipe.  It was a box of Jiffy Corn Muffin Mix.  All I added was some milk and an egg.  Sometimes, we don't need to reinvent the wheel.

After work I came home and did a little choreographing for a Zumba class I have coming up at Oakland Baptist.  (See the note on the right side of this page for info about that.)  Then I headed to the YMCA to catch Zumba with Katie.  So much fun.  She's the BEST!

I have not been very diligent about tracking points or doing what I need to do at the Y.  I need to get back to doing more weights and cross-training.  Zumba is awesome, but I need to do some of the other classes and workouts, too.  Do you ever get into an eating or workout rut? 

So... after all that... I didn't have the energy to cook tonight.  I will cook the mystery ingredient tomorrow.

My On-Again Relationship with Weight Watchers

So, over the years, I have had an on-again-off-again relationship with Weight Watchers.  I think I have joined three or four different times.  However, I rejoined "for real" in January of 2009 and vowed that I would make changes!  And I did!  I lost 40 pounds over about a year.  Here's a before and after, just so you can see the difference...

This is before WW...

And this is "After." 

I feel great about my progress so far.  But I really want to lose about 40 more pounds.  It will probably take 50 to make the Weight Watchers recommended goal.  I am just coming off a super-exciting and fun summer where I gained back about 10 pounds.  So it's back to counting points for me!

One thing I really struggle with is finding foods that are:

1.  Easy to prepare

2.  Quick to prepare

3.  Somewhat healthy (i.e. lower in POINTS)

4.  Tasty-- because everyone else in the household has to eat them, too!

As I come across food finds, I will share them here!