I Love Fart Bars

However, fart bars do not love me. So, I needed to find a snack and frankly, I'm just not good at eating fruit, even if it is sitting right in front of me.

A while back, our local grocery store had their store brand peanut butter on sale. I have never had a problem with it, but these two jars had the consistency of crisco. Taste was fine, but eww. I didn't want to throw them out, so I went in search of a recipe. I also had a pile of overripe bananas, but that seems to be the norm around my house.

I surfed over to Allrecipes.com and found a recipe for Banana Peanut Butter Bread and a couple of reviewers mentioned that they had made the recipe into muffins. Just the thing I need. So I made some and they are good! I made a few of the recommended changes and baked it like this:

1/2 cup butter, softened
1 cup white sugar
2 eggs
3/4 cup peanut butter
3 bananas, mashed
1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon vanilla

Preheat oven to 325 degrees F (165 degrees C). Line muffin tins.

In a large mixing bowl, cream together butter and sugar. Add eggs; beat well. Stir in peanut butter, bananas, flour, baking soda and vanilla until blended. Scoop out a large soup spoon full of batter and put in muffin cups.
Bake at 325 degrees F (165 degrees C) for 25 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into center of the muffin comes out clean. Remove to a wire rack to cool. Makes 24 muffins for 3 points each.

I really liked these and will make them again. Although they are 1 point more than a fart bar, they take care of that need for a little something between breakfast and lunch that happens to me about 10:30ish every day. And they don't tear up my guts or turn me into a fart machine.

And how about that beautiful loaf of bread? It's about a point per ounce and way more delicious than diet bread. Just sayin'...

Cheesy Chicken Enchiladas

They say people learn from their mistakes. I think the lesson I'm supposed to be learning is to order take out.

Here is this week's new recipe from the Weight Watcher's website.

Cheesy Chicken Enchiladas

1 spray(s) cooking spray
8 oz Kraft Velveeta Light Reduced-Fat Pasteurized Processed Cheese Product
1/2 cup(s) fat-free sour cream

1/4 cup(s) fat-free evaporated milk

1/4 cup(s) scallion(s), green part only, minced
1/4 tsp crushed red pepper flakes
3 cup(s) cooked chicken breast, chopped*
6 medium whole wheat tortilla(s), 7-inches each
1/4 cup(s) low-fat shredded cheddar cheese, sharp variety
6 medium olive(s), green, pitted, sliced
1/4 cup(s) salsa

Preheat oven to 350ºF. Coat a 9-inch glass baking dish with cooking spray. In a microwave-safe bowl, combine cheese product and sour cream; cover and microwave on high power until cheese melts, about 1 1/2 to 2 minutes. Remove half of melted cheese to a small bowl and stir in evaporated milk; set aside. Add scallions, red pepper flakes and chicken to remaining cheese mixture; stir to coat.Spoon about 2/3 cup of chicken mixture down center of each tortilla; fold in sides of tortilla to cover filling and place tortillas in a single layer in prepared dish; spoon remaining cheese sauce over top and then sprinkle with shredded cheddar cheese and olives.

Bake until cheese topping is bubbly, about 20 to 25 minutes. Serve with salsa. Yields 1 enchilada per serving.






Okay, my first sentence may have made it sound like these were a disaster, but they weren't. Just had a few issues that on top of many other cooking issues I've had, make me wonder why I still enjoy cooking.

So, here's what went wrong with these: The store I shop at does not carry light Velveeta, so I bought the full-fat stuff with the thought that I would use half velveeta and half low-fat colby jack for that part. But then when I get home, I find out that full fat Velveeta has the same fat content of the low-fat colby jack. Who knew?

So next, I have no clue how many chicken breasts I need to cook in order to obtain 3 cups of cooked chicken. So, I took out the open bag of chicken breasts, there was one humongus breast and half of another regular sized and a tiny piece of one. Eh - that looks good and I really don't want to open another bag...soooooo... That's what I cooked. I ended up with about 2 cups of cooked chicken.

And final screw up is the fact that I can't read. Instead of adding the evaporated milk to the melted cheese mixture and setting THAT aside, I set aside the part that did not have the evaporated milk and mixed the chicken, scallions and red pepper flakes into the part that did have the evaporated milk. After I had done that I realized that the evaporated milk was probably what made the cheese mixture into a sauce. Doh!

So with the lack of chicken, I only ended up with 5 enchiladas instead of six. But they were very good, even screwed up. I'll make them again, but hopefully, learn from my mistakes.

Sunday Paper

I love the Sunday paper. Except this week. The only things in the sale ads are tvs and junk food. I don't need any of that!!

Sausage Cabbage and Potato Soup

I found this recipe on Delish.com, and then tweaked it to make it a bit more Weight Watcher friendly.


1 tablespoon canola oil
1 onion, chopped
1 1/2 pounds shredded green cabbage
1 pound baking potatoes, peeled, halved lengthwise, and cut crosswise into 1/2-inch slices
2 cups water
1/2 pound sliced carrots
4 cups canned low-sodium chicken broth or homemade stock
1 bay leaf
1 1/2 teaspoon(s) dried thyme
1 1/2 teaspoon(s) salt
1 pound Hillshire Farms Turkey Sausage, sliced up

Heat canola oil in a pan, add onions, cook them about 5 minutes or until translucent. Then dump everything else into a big-ass pot and cook it. Remove bay leaf and eat.

This makes 13 cups of soup with a points value of 3 points per cup. I put the soup in gladware containers and freeze them, that way, I have a quick lunch on hand. Another bonus -- the thyme and bayleaf make the house smell wonderful while the soup is cooking.

This soup is really good, good enough to serve to guests! But I like it so much, I don't want to share!!

Clean Slate

I just love the New Year. It's like a brand new notebook, just waiting for the pages to be filled in. A fresh start is always good. So, like millions of other people around the world, I'm making that list of resolutions. Number one on the list is to continue with my quest to get healthy!

My resolutions for my blog are this:

• Get back to trying a new recipe every week and posting about it.
• Keep track of my successes and I'm sure a few failures in my Weight Watchers journey.
• Working through my issues with emotional eating.
• Tracking my exercise goals for 2009.

Okay, just for the record, the holidays were not good to me weight-wise. I have no one to blame but me. Anyhoo--- my net weight loss for 2008 was 13.6 pounds. I'm happy, because it's better than the 15 pounds I gained in 2007. Right?