Salmon and Risotto

This is out of order but I made Salmon with pesto and I served it with a mushroom risotto.

I made the pesto first and I was not to sure how this would turn out. The recipe doesn't use any nuts in it and when I tasted the pesto it was REALLY strong! I added a little water to the recipe, since it was soooo thick. I then spread it on the top of my salmon fillets and threw them in the oven.

While they baked I started in on the risotto.

Saute the shallots.

Next add the white wine and then the rice.

Then comes the tedious part. Add a cup of the chicken stock and stir it till the rice soaks it all up...and then repeat....and repeat....and repeat....and repeat....and repeat...you get the idea.

I love the colors it is so very springy!! The bright green of the salmon pesto and the salad. And it was delish!! Got a thumbs up from the kiddo and the BF said it was great too!

Speaking of the BF he came home and surprised me with flowers!! He makes me feel so good sometimes.

Finnally a weigh in that I am not ashamed of...

So today was weigh in day and after two weeks of big gains I stepped on the scale with no positive thoughts. And to my surprise there was a 2 pound loss. So I guess that means I am on my way back towards losing.

My lovely breakfast and this weeks little book!

Try to make sure that Steven also has a healthy snack during our meetings!


At today's meeting we talked about how we recover from set backs. I shared that my life has fallen down around me and that for two weeks I gained but this week I was able to turn it around and I lost two pounds. I realized that while I have lost control over my life and future (for the moment) I can control my weight.

Today I just feel down. Feel tired and grouchy and sad and just not good at all.

Yesterday I spent a wonderful day with my nursing school friends shopping for a wedding dress. It was wonderful, I was really worried it would be awkward due to me being all kicked out and stuff. But we had fun, there was laughter and good tears and lunch!

Made pork chops for dinner tonight with mushrooms and shallots. Served with multi-grain bread, salad, and leftover risotto. Super yummy, but just did not really feel like eating.

First I seasoned the pork chops with salt and pepper and threw them in the cast iron for about 5 minutes on each side. Then they went in the oven at 350 while I finished up the sauce.

In the same pan that the pork chops had just been in I threw in a little extra butter adn then one cut up shallot and part of an onion that I found in the fridge. Once they were soft I added a cup of chicken stock and then the mushrooms. This is where the BF came in and started cooking with me. He added some red wine to the mix and was my stirrer.

We took the chops back out of the oven and threw them in the sauce so they could soak up some of the flavor.

What a lovely looking dinner. Too bad I didn't feel like eating....sad face.





Maybe if I go to bed early. I am starting to lose interest in the things that I thought I would spend my free time doing. I have not knitted or read since my test. I did do some organizing today. Started on the guest room and the office. My goal is to get them completely organized and usable and presentable.

Some Food Pictures

I can not wait to get a nice fancy camera that will take pictures that look like this.

Those are my Rootbeer Float Cookies that I made for a fundraiser at school.

Instead my food pictures end up like these:

This is my St. Patrick's Day dinner. It was amazing! Found the recipe over at my favorite skinny recipe website ever! Also found a recipe for cauliflower that I even loved! I am not usually a fan of the cauliflower!

Or even this picture:

This is my breakfast. My goal is to get back on track with weight watchers. Because I am going to have to start doing it on my own without the meetings so I need to get my ass in gear! This is my 4 point breakfast.
oatmeal cooked with frozen berries and just a tiny sprinkle of brown sugar.
Fresh strawberries
Earl Gray tea.

Filling and delicious!

I mean these are taken with a point and shoot digital camera so there is a limit to what I can do with it but what a difference! The cookie picture was taken by my friend Amy and she definitely has an artistic eye! Here's hoping that once I get a fancy camera it comes with the artistic eye included already!!

The new coupon lady!

Now that I am out of school and my main source of income is gone!! Sad day!! I am going to be a coupon clipping, penny pinching, red headed lady! Well hopefully we will see.

I love to shop!! I am not going to lie and keep that hidden, I LOVE TO SHOP!! It is great after a hard to day, or a rainy day, well any day really. But I need to stop using that (and food) as a way to deal with life and stress.

So I started googling around on the internet and found the Krazy Coupon Lady's website. Fell in love!! I printed everything off I needed to start couponing away! Even went to all the different coupon sites and printed off a ton of coupons. Then I came home spread it all out and started clipping away.

Notice the wine, can't coupon without it!

I am now just waiting on the inserts I bought from Ebay to get here and I will put together a coupon binder!! It is surprisingly hard to find those plastic binder pages that kids use to put their baseball cards in. But find them I did!

So once they get here and I can take the coupons out of the envelopes they are in I will take some pictures of my progression. And of course once I do a shopping trip with coupons I will post about that also.

Lets round up the random pictures in my database

I have been taking pictures meaning to write a blog post about them and then of course I get busy and forget to do so. So here is a series of posts all on one day to get me all caught up!


First up:

My wonderful boyfriend who has put up with my stressed out horrid attitude got me flowers. Sure it took a lot of hinting and telling him that I strive on spontaneous romance, but I love that he thought of me and got something so beautiful!

He always tells me that he isn't a fan of cut flowers because they are dead.

The basil in a jar is the other "flower" he brought home for me after a fight.

I was never supposed to show that picture....so don't tell....I came home this winter to find him wearing the Snugli that I got him (and he said he would never use the sleeves) and playing video games....had to snap a pic.

I am so crazy about that man!!

The last week...otherwise known as Hell week

So after many years, a lot of hard work, and a lot of money (yay student loans) I missed my nursing final by 4 points. I am now fighting to come back in next year. Hopefully fingers crossed the powers to be realize that not letting us students know what the policies were means that they need to work with me and not against me!! I am in talk with the college in charge of my school and I have to e-mail them this weekend with a summary of what is going on!

So that right there is a non depressed way to say what happened this week. I grieved my loss of school like I grieved when I lost my sister and niece. It has been really hard and there has been a lot of random crying.

Oh and then to top it all off I went to my weekly meeting and YAY for me (sarcasm dripping off that if you couldn't tell) I gained 2 pounds. Which just added to my depression. Failed at school, failed at weight loss, failed at life....

Well hopefully I will turn it all around!!!

Study Study Study arghhhhh

I have been cramming everything from this term and I am sure that my head is going to explode!!!!

Countdown to test is now only two more days!! Wish me luck that I can retain this information!!!

Stress and two dinners

First the stress:
So my stress is building and along with it builds my fat reserves!! So at weigh this week I am up 3 pounds. So disappointed in myself! I know logically that until I take my test on Tuesday I am not going to seriously follow any weight loss plan I might make. So my goal is that Tuesday will be the start of my new plan. I have it started in my head but I am trying to not even think about it right now so I can get through this week!!

So onto the two dinners:

I am loving taking pictures of food and I can't wait till I graduate and I get myself a new nicer camera!!

Day before yesterday I made a roast in the oven along with asparagus and a green salad. The roast was super easy and delish. You see the BF bought part of a cow awhile back and now I am trying to use so that I have room in the freezer for other things besides beef. So I took an arm roast, and cut little holes all around it that I shoved garlic chunks in. Then I covered the whole thing in Montreal steak seasoning.

All I did then was throw it in my fancy Pampered Chef roaster, spill a little red wine around the bottom and pop in the oven for an hour or so.

Even though it had great flavor it was a little tough. I forgot to trim all the "silver skin" off. So says the BF. But it was good the next day as leftovers also. The kid had it straight, I had it chopped on a salad, and the BF had it chopped up in quesidillas. So all in all it was good but could have been better.

Tonight I went on the WW website and found a recipe for baked Ziti. Sounded good but could be better.

I took the recipe and got rd of the peas (nasty!!) and added a red pepper and mushrooms. So tasty, everyone liked the BF and the kid with no requests or ideas on how it could be better from either one of them!! What a nice surprise!

Baked Ziti with Turkey Sausage

Ingredients
3/4 pound(s) raw turkey sausage, spicy-variety, casings removed
1 medium onion(s), chopped
1 medium green pepper(s), chopped
1 medium red pepper chopped
8 oz mushrooms chopped
28 oz canned diced tomatoes
2 Tbsp canned tomato paste
1 tsp dried oregano
1 tsp dried basil
1/2 tsp dried thyme
1/2 tsp fennel seed
1/2 tsp table salt, or to taste
1/2 tsp black pepper, freshly ground
12 oz uncooked whole-wheat pasta, ziti, cooked according to package directions
6 oz shredded part-skim mozzarella cheeses

Instructions

* Position the rack in the center of the oven and preheat the oven to 350°F.
* Crumble the sausage meat into a large saucepan and brown over medium heat, stirring often, about 4 minutes.
* Drain off any fat, then add the onion, mushrooms and bell peppers. Cook, stirring often, until softened, about 3 minutes.
* Stir in the tomatoes, tomato paste, oregano, basil, thyme, fennel seeds, salt and pepper. Bring to a simmer, then reduce the heat and cook uncovered 5 minutes, stirring often.
* Stir in the cooked pasta and half the cheese. Spread evenly into a 9- X 13-inch baking pan. Top evenly with the remaining cheese.
* Bake until the cheese has melted and the casserole is bubbling, about 20 minutes. Let stand 10 minutes at room temperature before slicing into 8 pieces. Yields 1 piece per serving.

And to finish this post I have decided to give up two things for Lent (even though I am not Catholic)
1. Soda
2. Salad Dressing

Tomorrow

I am so nervous for tomorrow for three reasons.

1. I am learning how to put in IVs which thus means that I will be putting them in real live humans in a few short weeks.....arghhhh

2. Weigh in day is tomorrow, and I have not done good at all this week. I have not tracked, worked out or even cared what went in my mouth. I need to get on the ball because as of now I am just wasting money each and every week that I am not following the Points plus. I am hopeful that after final and my stress level has gone down that i will be able to focus on myself more.

3. Finals. No they are not tomorrow but as of today I have less then 1 week left to study and make myself smart. If I don't get a 76% on the final then I am out of OCNE nursing forever! That is terrifying to think that if I fail the test test next week then that will be throwing away the last three years in the gutter. I am hoping to pass, obviously!! I printed off flashcards and cut out half of them this evening. My goal for tomorrow is to finish the reading for the OB unit and start the next unit's readings. That is a lot of reading!!!

Wish me luck and I will check in with my weigh in tomorrow. Not looking forward to the scale!!

Weigh in

I forgot to mention that i am down a pound!!! WooHoo!!!

Only 20 more to go!!!

Who Who

So eventually this rim of a hat will become an amazing owl hat!! Well depends on how long I knit before i give up on it and it ends up in the pile of unfinished projects.

I got the pattern from this Owl Hatwebsite which I found on Raverly


So far its taking me 10 minutes to do a round, and I think I may have made a mistake, but I refuse to frog the thing!!
Wish me luck!!

Turns out i don't hate meatloaf!

So a few weeks ago I tried to make meatloaf for the BF. Turns out at the time I didn't know what I was doing. I made this greasy nasty lumps of meat filled with ketchup and onion. Pretty gross but I thought it tasted like meatloaf.

Well today I thought I would have another go. After some research online and lots of texts between the BF's mom I made the perfect meatloaf!! So I found this amazing stuffed meatloaf recipe but the only problem was that the actual meatloaf part was pretty much what I made last time, and I already knew that wasn't going to fly. So hence the picking of the BF's mom's experience. I took her recipe and customized it some to fit what I wanted. I just wish I would have taken more pictures of the process, but I was rushing and trying to get it all put together and in the oven before the BF came home.

So here is my best idea of what I made:

The best Meatloaf ever!!

2lbs ground beef
2 carrots
1 zucchini
1 purple onion
10 oz mushrooms
1/2 green pepper
1/2 red pepper
spices: I used pinches of thyme, nutmeg, oregano, rosemary, and of course salt and pepper
Italian breadcrumbs
3 egg yolks


The filling:
10 oz frozen spinach
mozzarella cheese
Parmesan cheese (i used a packaged shredded blend of the two of these and I didn't measure)
I put in the same spices as above and added some fresh cut up basil.

Glaze:
Ketchup
Worcestershire sauce
Bacon

I used my Pampered Chef Food Chopper to chop up all the veggies. Then sauteed them over medium heat till they were nice and cooked.

Then I mixed the veggies, ground beef, egg yolks, bread crumbs and spices in a large bowl.

In a smaller bowl mix together all the filling ingredients and set aside.

Now you need some counter space and saran wrap. Spread a long sheet of saran wrap and then spoon the meat onto it. Slap it down into a rectangle.

Spread the filling in the center of the rectangle staying away from the edges.

Use the Saran Wrap to roll the meat jelly roll style. Make it tight and make sure the ends are closed.

Plop it down on a cookie sheet. And bake it at 350 for about an hour. I stopped mine 10 minutes early and sprinkled cheese on the little loaf.

Spread your glaze on top and make it look pretty wit bacon.

That little chunk in the background was because my meatlaof was huge and hung over the edges so i had to pinch it off and make a mini meat loaf.

This is me and the meat!! Look at how proud I am am....by the way this smells amazing!! part of the proud look is pure shock that I am dying to try this.

Look at the gooey yummyness that is the cheese stretching out!

I tried to get a picture of it all pretty on the plate but the BF swiped the palte stating he was starving!!

So his only complaint this time was that it could ahev used more salt, I put very little in it. I disagree with him, as I thought it tasted really fresh and yummy.

Can not believe that I liked this...shocked at myself. I still hate cooked peas though!!