Wednesday 9-21-11

Sorry for the really late post!  Today was kind of crazy with errand running, the kids and cooking and prepping. I got a lot done and I went to two grocery stores.  By the time I was done with everything I still had a whole chicken to cook, which takes forever, so I decided to use my Pampered Chef deep dish baker to do most of the work in the microwave and then finished it off in the oven so it could still get golden and crispy on the outside but not take 3 hours.  It worked well.  The chicken was still moist and delicious but it took a fraction of the time that roasting strictly in the oven normally would.  I love my deep dish baker, and I love my new recipe.  I made a paste of garlic, salt, pepper, fresh rosemary & thyme which I rubbed allover the chicken under its skin. Then I sliced lemons and put those under the skin too.  I added quartered baby red potatoes and onions to the baker, spritzed everything with olive oil, sprinkled it with fresh ground salt/pepper and garlic powder, more lemons and thyme.  It was another experiment that went better than expected.  I also squeezed in a workout while the chicken & potatoes were crisping up in the oven.  After dinner I spent all night in the kitchen cooking, prepping and cleaning up.  (I'm still not finished cleaning up, but I needed to take a break to write this blog.)  I made a whole batch of pumpkin spice cream cheese and a big jar of pumpkin butter, among other things.  My house smells delightful right now!  This is what my menu looked like today:

Breakfast (10 pts)
1/2 c. egg whites, 2 turkey sausage links, a Thomas' Everything Bagel thin + 1 Tbsp neufchatel and 2 skim milk/sugar free hazelnut lattes

Snack (0 pts)
A banana

Lunch (9 pts)
Leftover eggplant parmigiana (reheated from the deep freezer)

Snack (0 pts)
Cucumber slices

This fed my whole family with tons of leftovers for other stuff, yay!

Dinner (14 pts)
4 oz of "Short-on-thyme" (har har) garlic, lemon & herb roasted chicken with baby red potatoes & onions (breast meat only, skin removed), roasted asparagus and 5 fl oz of "two-buck-Chuck" chardonnay (not pictured.)

Dessert (3 pts)
2 slices of Sara Lee Delightful whole wheat toast + 2 Tbsp of homemade Skinny pumpkin butter

I used 36 out of 36 pts today and earned some APs (activity points) too.  All in all a very good (but busy) day.  I need to finish cleaning my kitchen so I can finally get some sleep. Good night all!