I've been cookin'!

I promise someday I'll stop gabbing about Weight Watchers... About 13 pounds from now.

Ok, ok...maybe 11 pounds from now. Believe me, I'd rather be blogging about house projects and vacations and parties and those kinds of things (come on, spring!)... Hopefully soon. All I want for Valentine's Day is a damn trip to IKEA. Seriously.

In the meantime, WW is obviously a huge part of my life. I just got a new WW cookbook on Friday, so it was fun to do most of my meal planning this week from that. One thing that I really have a hard time with is not being able to gulp down chocolate milk with abandon. Don't get me wrong, I love water. I gave up soda at age 10 (water just tasted better to me), and I am so glad I did or I might have a lot more than 10-15 lbs to lose at this point in my life. However, I do enjoy a root beer from time to time or chocolate milk, or even a little juice with my weekend breakfasts. But with WW, it's all water, all the time (I don't "do" Crystal Light or any of that other crap). So I was thrilled to find this recipe on the VERY LAST PAGE of my new WW cookbook. It's kind of a smoothie and here's the recipe (it's 2 WW points):
1/4 banana
1/4 c. ice
1/4 c. nonfat choc milk
1/4 c. fat free vanilla yogurt

Blend it altogether and bam:


Absolutely my new favorite thing.

Yesterday was a bit of a cooking frenzy. I love those kind of days. I made pulled pork BBQ sandwiches in the crock pot for dinner:

(sorry I didn't take a pre-eaten photo)

Then I made individual pineapple/candied ginger upside down cakes.

In progress:


Out of the oven:


Ta-daa!:


I only had a bite, but they were good. The Bipster likes the cake part, but not the fruit. Go figure. He hates raw vegetables, but likes them cooked. He likes fruit raw, but not cooked. The boy makes my head spin.

I also got a head start on what will be tonight's dinner. It's chicken marinated in pineapple, jalapeno, ginger, shallots, soy sauce, honey, and lime juice:


And last but not least I made a 1 point veggie soup. My goal is to eat it in the afternoons, about 2:30-3:00 when I start getting hungry and cranky.


Tomorrow is my week two weigh-in. I don't think I will see any loss due to -*ahem*- Mother Nature. As long as I don't have a gain I will be happy.

At this point I'm still enjoying it (except for the afternoon hungry/grumpy thing), and really loving the meal planning part especially. I love to cook and I get very excited deciding what I am going to make each week - not only does it taste good, but it's good for me. This plan is a very good fit for my life (since I like cooking and planning), and I hope as this continues that the recipes I am making now will become a permanent fixure in my life. You know how you always have 5-10 recipes that are your 'regulars' that you fall back on? I am hoping these become my 'regulars'.