Great grocery store find and NYE menu

Rick and I are spending our first New Year's Eve since we've been together in tonight, no party's no fancy restaurants, no friends- just me and him and our comfy home. We decided to make a 'fancy' meal and relish in the snooki ball drop on MTV lol. I searched all morning for a recipe that called out to me. I was craving all sorts of things, not things that necessarily go together. So here is our menu for tonight with clicky links to the actual recipes:

Italian Wedding Soup
Flank Steak with Balsamic Reduction
Parmesan Risotto

Breakfast tomorrow is:

Bacon and Cheese Quiche

Not all is 'diet-friendly' but I'm sure with our substitutions, it will be much healthier then anything we would have eaten out at a restaurant. Also, for the flank steaks I found a great find at the grocery store without even looking! I found these perfectly portioned flank steaks that are exactly 100 calories, 3.5 gms of fat a piece!

I hope everyone has an amazing New Year's Eve and New Year's Day! Be safe, see you next year! xxoo

Yummy Din-Din and Advice Needed

Hey Everyone, I thought I would go ahead and share an all time favorite recipe with everyone. Amy posted this recipe about a year ago, and it is probably my favorite meatloaf recipe ever! I make it about once a month and never get tired of it. I use a mini-loaf pan which makes 8 perfect 5oz servings. Here is a picture and the recipe:

Amy's Hot Meat:

1 pound ground turkey
1 medium chopped/diced onion
1/2 cup bread crumbs
1/2 cup ketchup
1 cup mexican blend shredded cheese
1/2 cup feta cheese
1/4 cup honey mustard dressing
1 egg
Black pepper

Bake @ 350, until thermometer reaches 160 degrees. It took 35 minutes with my mini-loaf pan.
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Also a good meatloaf recipe is one Nicole shared with me last year, VERY good and moist! Here it is:

1 1/2 lb lean (at least 80%) ground beef
1 cup milk
1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon ground mustard
1/4 teaspoon pepper
1 egg
3 slices bread, finely chopped (1 1/2 cups, lightly packed)
1 small onion, chopped (1/4 cup)
1/2 cup ketchup, chili sauce or barbecue sauce

*Substitutions*
I used ground turkey and used 1/2 cup of BBQ sauce it made it really moist! cooked it for just about 60 minutes, Also didn't do bread did bread crumbs.

1.Heat oven to 350°F. In large bowl, mix all ingredients except ketchup. Spread mixture in ungreased 9x5-inch loaf pan, or shape into 9x5-inch loaf in ungreased 13x9-inch pan. Spread ketchup over top.
2.Insert meat thermometer so tip is in center of loaf. Bake uncovered 1 hour to 1 hour 15 minutes or until thermometer reads at least 160°F. Drain meat loaf.
3.Let stand 5 minutes; remove from pan.

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Now for the advice I need. As Rick's surgery is quickly approaching, I am trying to think back to some post-op liquid/mushy recipes that I enjoyed. Does anyone have any favorites they wouldn't mind sharing? You can post them as a comment or email them to me at knwitham@gmail.com. I remember one of my favorites being a ricotta cheese bake, which consisted of:

1/4 C Ricotta cheese
1/4 C Fat free cottage cheese
1 ounce mozzarella cheese
dash salt/pepper and parm cheese
1/2 C Marinara

Mix all ingredients in your magic bullet or other blender devise. Pour into personal size casserole dish; heat in oven at 400 for 15 minutes or microwave for 1 minute 30 seconds.

Thanks so much!!! xxoo

80lbs down, FINALLY!

Praise the lord! I finally hit 80lbs down today, I have been waiting for this for a long time. It took me forever to move through the 70's! Only 33 more lbs to goal!! Want to hear something screwy? I am still freakin 'OBESE'! Can you believe it?!? I am in the 160's and still considered obese! I need to lose exactly another 10lbs more pounds to be considered 'overweight'. Have I mentioned how much I hate the BMI scale?

I'm not sure if I've mentioned this or not yet, but Rick got his surgery date! He is officially being banded on January 21st. We went for a bunch of pre-op appointments yesterday, it was like dejavu! He had a ton of blood work, an EKG, met with the anesthesiologist, and then met with the nurse practitioner. He was supposed to be down 20lbs for this appointment, but ended up weighing in +7lbs! Uh-Oh! Our nurse was not happy to say the least. She even threatened to postpone his surgery. She prescribed him 2 weeks of HMR shakes and instructed him to follow it to a T, and said that 3 weeks of it wouldn't hurt him. So January 7th, liquids it is. This should help me out as well, since Rick is the chef in our household, I won't be cooking to much.

I hope everyone has wonderful Christmas, I sure did! Rick got me a pandora bracelet with a bunny charm, a cupcake, and an engagement charm. From friends a family I got a snowman, a butterfly, the letter 'K' and the breast cancer charms. I love them all! I am thinking of making this a reward type thing for me, for every 10lbs I continue to lose, I buy a new charm. That would be a nice incentive!

Happy New Year's to everyone, I hope everyone has a safe and happy New Year's!! xxoo

Holiday Challenge Week 7- Final week Results and Winners!

Hey Everyone- The results are in! We have 3 winners for the Holiday Challenge. Let's all congratulate:

1st place: Heather- Heather lost an amazing 15.8lbs and a total of 10% of her body weight! Amazing job girl! Heather has a had a rough couple of weeks with the loss of her brother and is really shining through. I can't think of anyone who deserves this more then her. Congratulations!!!

2nd place: Grace- Grace lost 25 lbs bringing her to a total of 9.5%. I will admit Grace had a few rough weeks where I was worried about her, but she busted through and got herself back on track! This girl showed true endurance, and didn't let 1 bad week on the scale ruin things for her. She was the biggest loser for multiple weeks and is well on her way now.

3rd Place: Nikki B- Nikki lost 19.9lbs and 9% of her body weight. She was only banded a few months ago in September, and is already putting up huge numbers! There's no bandster hell for this girl, and if there is she's not showing it!

Congrats to everyone, this was a super successful challenge! As a group we lost a total of 393.3lbs with an ending total of 49 participants this averages 8lbs per participant! Awesome!

Goodbye obesity hello Success!

Last weigh in TOMORROW

Hey Challengers,

Just wanted to send a reminder out that all weights are due tomorrow along with a picture of the scale. E-mail me the picture to knwitham@gmail.com

The sooner you get your weights in, the sooner I can announce the winners!

Thanks loves, xxoo

Angie Update

Hey Everyone- Just wanted to fill everyone in. I just spoke with Angie, and her tummy tuck is complete! She is on her way home now, and said the pain is dull, nothing terrible.

I will fill you in if I hear anymore, I'm just relieved everything went well! xxoo

Challenge Week 6 Results

Here it is ladies, week 6's results.

Guess who came in first place AGAIN this week? Yup- GRACE! She lost 8lbs and 3.2% this week! Way to grace, you are popping up biggest loser #'s week after week!

As a group we lost 126.5lbs bringing us to a grand total of 350.7lbs! Fantastic week!

Don't forget next week is the last week, so I will need you to send me a picture of the scale! E-mail it to knwitham@gmail.com. The sooner you send it, the sooner I can announce the winners.

xxoo

Challenge Week 6 Check In-Warning food porn!

Whoops! I had a semi-bad week. As I mentioned I went to Washington DC to visit Rick's sister Lorri. We had so much fun, and I know if it wasn't for DC being such a great walking city, the scale would have been much much worse. Things we did were visit:

• National Gallery of Art
• Smithsonian Museum of Natural History,
• Went to a comedy show @ the DC Improv
• Went to see the Christmas Tree @ the White House,

Walked around Georgetown,went to DC cupcakes and even got to see them shooting Season 2!!! Here are a few pictures of the shop..

I bought 6 cupcakes: 2 peanut butter chip with chocolate frosting, 2 Rudolph red velvet, 1 vanilla coconut, 1 vanilla birthday cake with chocolate frosting. Don't worry I didn't eat them all! I have had 3 of the 6 over the course of the past 3 days, not too bad!

I also indulged in some other yummy food fare, here are some pictures of that:

This is me channeling my inner southern belle- Fried Chicken, Macaroni and Cheese, Waffles, and Green beans... SERIOUSLY??? What good bandster would order this? SOOOO good though! I ate one piece of the chicken, a little mac and cheese, a few green beans, and didn't even attempt the waffles. Oh yeah and it came with white gravy too!
This is my oval burger lol. It was a hamburger with bacon and bleu cheese (didn't eat the bun) Soooo good!

Hope everyone else had a wonderful week. Challengers: make sure and send me your weights, only 1 week left!!!

Challenge Week 5 Results

Here you go ladies- Only 2 weigh-in's left! Can you believe it?!?

This week's 'biggest loser' lost 3.8% Holy Moly! She has been a biggest loser one other time this challenge, and has set some great goals for herself. Can you guess who it is?? Click HERE to find out! Way to go!

I am super excited to report that we lost a total of 74.3lbs this week!! Bringing us to a grand total of 298.5lbs lost! If you remember my post from last week, I made a goal for us to lose 60lbs this week- well we hit it and soared beyond it! Congrats!!!

Keep it up! xxoo

Challenge: Week 5 Check in

Hey Friends- Here is my week5 weigh in for the challenge. I am down 2lbs this week, WAHOO! I see a new decade arriving next week (finger's crossed) I am going to Washington DC this Wednesday through Saturday for a mini getaway though, so it might be tough! Not sure I told you all or not, but back in October JetBlue was running a sale for flights from Boston to DC for $7 each way! Seriously, how could I turn that down?? Rick's sister lives right outside DC so I am going to go for a few days to have some nice girl time! I can't wait!!!

I hope everyone is having a fantastic week and recovering from Thanksgiving! I look forward to getting everyone's weights! Love ya!