Saturday, January 29, 2011

Food Friday...a little late.


A friend of mine sent me this recipe. I thought it looked delicious as well as healthy and I plan on trying it out at the first opportunity!
Seared Scallops with White Beans & Spinach (serves 4)
  • 2 strips bacon, chopped
  • 1/2 red onion, minced
  • 1 1/2 cans (14oz) White (Cannelini) beans, rinsed & drained
  • 4 c. baby spinach
  • 1lb large sea scallops
  • 1 tbsp butter
  • juice of 1 lemon
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Directions
1. Heat a medium saucepan over low heat. Cook the bacon until it has begun to crisp. Add the onion and garlic; sauté until the onion is soft and translucent, 2 to 3 minutes. Add the white beans and spinach and simmer until the beans are hot and the spinach is wilted. Keep warm.
2. Heat a large cast-iron skillet or saute pan over medium-high heat. Blot the scallops dry with a paper towel and season with salt and pepper on both sides. Add the butter and the scallops to the pan and sear the scallops for 2 to 3 minutes per side, until deeply caramelized.
3. Before serving, add the lemon juice to the beans. Season with salt and pepper. Divide the beans among 4 warm bowls or plates and top with scallops.


If you're concerned with the label information, here ya go:


Nutritional Facts per serving
CALORIES266 CAL


FAT6.4 G


SATURATED FAT2.5 G


CHOLESTEROL49.5 MG


SODIUM392.9 MG


CARBOHYDRATES24.9 G


TOTAL SUGARS2.1 G


DIETARY FIBER6.4 G


PROTEIN27.3 G

Monday, January 24, 2011

Recipes

Ok, so I've been coming across some yummy new recipes and people have been asking for them. I thought, what better way to share them than to put them on my blog! So I'll be sharing some wonderful new recipes with my *many* readers. :)

1) Chicken & Bows (freezer)

1-16oz pkg Bow tie pasta
2lbs chicken breasts (cut into pieces)
1c chopped sweet red pepper
1/4c butter, cubed
2 cans cream of chicken soup
2c frozen peas
1 1/2c milk
2/3c parmesan cheese

Cook the pasta. Cook the chicken & red pepper in butter. Add the soup, milk, peas, & salt/pepper. Bring to a boil, reduce & simmer. Drain the pasta and add to the chicken.

2) Sweet & Sour Chicken (crock pot)

1lb chicken breasts (cut into pieces)
1-16oz bag frozen broccoli, carrots & water chestnuts
2 1/2c cooked rice
1/4c chopped toasted almonds
2-9oz jars sweet & sour sauce

Cut chicken into 1" pieces. Place chicken, sauce & veggies into a 4qt slow cooker. Cook on low for 5-5.5 hrs or high for 2.5 hours. Serve w/cooked rice & sprinkle with almonds.

3) Sausage Corn Chowder (crock pot)

1lb smoked sausage (cut into bite-sized pieces)
2 medium carrots (cut into bite-sized pieces)
1 can Cream of Golden Mushroom soup
3c. diced hash browns
1 can creamed corn
diced onion & peppers

Add all the ingredients to a 5qt slow cooker. Cook 4-5 hours on high or 8-10 hours on low. I doubled the recipe so I could freeze some left overs.

I'll be posting more recipes. One of the other blogs I follow does "Food Fridays" so maybe I'll do that, too. I'll also let you know which ones are good for freezing. I found a lot of these useful for making ahead before Clara was born. It's nice to just pop down to the freezer downstairs and bring dinner up rather than trying to figure out what to make.

Saturday, January 22, 2011

*zzzz*

Saturdays at work are boring.

They're especially boring when you're not qualified to do anything. This is where I am. The only nice thing is that since I don't "count" I can leave at 2pm instead of 6.

This is awesome because I woke up at 3:45am to get ready for work and we're going to be out very late tonight so getting in a nap will be essential. Of course, I'm not entirely sure that's going to happen, but I can at least try. :)

I woke up at 3:45am and stumbled down the hallway-on to my usual workday morning routine (use the bathroom, pump a couple bottles, eat breakfast, shower, change, pack my lunch, make Adam's coffee, brush my teeth, and say goodbye to everyone around 5:15am). I was standing in the kitchen looking out my back window trying to figure out if I was still asleep. There was a deer in the backyard...probably not more than 10 feet from the window. It was just weird because we live in the city.

Anyway, I just thought it was interesting. Now I'll go back to doing nothing productive...and watching them clear snow.

Yes, it's snowing....again. Enough already. I'm done. We had snow for Christmas, now I just want Spring to get here so I can see all the stuff I planted last fall and so we can take Clara on outings. Right now it's too cold to leave the house!

Wednesday, January 19, 2011

Oh so busy!

So I thought I'd take a moment and post an update. Not a whole lot is new, but there have been a few recent developments. I also wanted to post some new pictures of Clara.

These are her 11-week pictures. She's growing so fast! She's also socially smiling and laughing. Her favorite place to be silly is on her changing pad or on her playmat. She abhorrs tummy time so she ends up spending her "entertainment" time on her back on her playmat. She likes to bat the hanging toys around so they make noise. She has also become a big fan of standing on stuff: our laps, the floor, etc. At this rate she'll be walking before she crawls! She went to the doctor on January 3 for her 2 month appointment. It went really well. She weighed 13lbs 2 oz and was 24.5" long. She also got shots, but after the initial poke, she didn't seem too upset. She was done crying by the time we left the clinic. Her next visit is in March.


Adam has now started school. He almost has a full week in! So far so good, I guess. It's school afterall. I also start school next week. Looking at the calendars it's probably going to be a fairly easy semester, but that's ok since I have enough on my plate.
I went back to work as of the last time I posted. Now I'm working with my shift again. It's ok, but 12 hours is a long time to not be doing much. That won't change until I get totally signed off and certified. So then I'll be spending 12 hours doing a little bit more, but not a whole lot. At least it'll give me time to work on homework.
In the category of "not-so-good-news" we just recently found out that our friend Eric has relapsed with Leukemia for the 4th time. Luckily they caught it early and they've already started his treatment. For more information, see the website at the right: L.I.F.E. We wish him and his fiance Cari the best of luck and offer our support during this difficult time.
Speaking of websites on the right-hand side of the page, I've been following the blog of a couple of parents who found out their 2-month-old daughter had a brain tumor. They're beautiful Scarlett has since had 2 brain surgeries and is doing really well considering. Please, check out their blog, but be warned-it requires a lot of Kleenex! It's really touching and makes me really appreciative of every second I have with my healthy daughter (especially since they're so close in age).
That's about it for now. We've got 2 more workdays to get through and then we're going to Appleton to see Eli for the last time before he becomes a Daddy again. :) I'm so excited for them both! I can't wait to see pictures!!





Friday, January 7, 2011

New year, more new things.

Since having Clara, I've returned to work. My job requires me to perform a physical fitness test (PFT) in order to return to duty. I just had a baby 9 weeks ago. Most women aren't even back to work yet and my employer wants me to run this test. The test consists of running 250yds while wearing a 50lb weighted vest and climbing a ladder all under 2 minutes 20 seconds. Well, I haven't exercised in the better part of a year and just got the all-clear from my doctor to start exercising 3 weeks ago. With the holidays and returning to work all occuring in the same time-frame, I haven't had much time to hit the gym. Not to mention, it takes more time away from Clara than I already am. I talked with management and they said that as long as my doctor said I'm ok to come back to work, then I can run the test. So I had no choice.

Frustrating as hell.

So yesterday I ran it.

And I failed...go figure. I told them I would. I didn't fail it on purpose. The only light at the end of the tunnel was that I only failed it by 5 seconds. That was the impressive part. I thought one of two things would happen:

1) I would fail fantastically.
2) I would hurt myself.

I was sort of hoping for #2, only so that I could sue the company. I didn't actually want to hurt myself and be off work for longer and not get paid for it. The only reason I came back to work after such a short time when Clara was born is because I didn't have a choice. It was either come back to work and get paid or stay home and not get paid. Since Adam isn't working, I didn't have a choice.

So I decided I needed to find something to get me in shape. We purchased a YMCA membership late last year. I decided it was time to take advantage of it finally. So I got online and found a couple classes that I'm interested in. One of them is called 'Body Sculpt'. I took it for the first time last night with my friend Roxy. It was amazing! I had a great time and it's exactly what I need to get myself back into shape. I have no doubt that if I continue to go to this class once a week (I'll also be going to a 'Water Workout' class on a different day of the week) that I'll finally shed the last 20lbs I want to lose and get myself back in shape. I have 30 days to re-run my PFT and I've no doubt I'll be able to do it and pass...so long as it isn't on a Friday. :) I had a great time last night, but I can hardly move today! I'm REALLY sore and tired (since Clara had a rough time going to bed last night) and am really unmotivated to do anything constructive today.

As far as things coming up, we've got a pretty open calendar. This weekend I want to get the Christmas tree down and get the living room put back together. We're also talking about doing some shopping with money we got for Christmas. It'll probably be one of the last free weekends we have since Adam's starting school on Thursday and I start back on the 23rd.

I've been told I need to get some more recent pictures of Clara up, too, so I'm going to try to take some this weekend and get them up here. I've also got a lot of work on my website to do...I'll see if I can get a free hand sometime during the weekend. :)

Until next time, dear readers, have a great weekend and for those of us in the Midwest....STAY WARM!!

Saturday, January 1, 2011

New Year, new plan for saving money...

So other than the obvious way to save money, I'm investing my love of online shopping into a couple different websites. One of them is www.ebates.com. This website lets you shop at all your favorite stores, but actually pays you to shop there! The other website (which my brother frequents) is www.groupon.com. This website sends you coupons from local businesses that lets you save money. And of course I'm still using www.swagbucks.com as well, but that website doesn't necessarily save you any money, but the points you would earn by searching for things lets you buy items with your swagbucks.

We have a plan for 2011. Most of it involves a lot of school and a lot of work, but it's a plan and a way to a better future for our family. The beginning is going to be rough, but if we can make it through that, we can make it through anything. :)

Happy 2011 everybody!