I’ve determined that the key to staying on a healthy eating plan is the ability to trick your tastebuds when you feel like splurging. One of  my favorite “cheats” is Cool Whip. The chocolate variety is creamy and decadent, and it cures a cocoa sweet tooth like nobody’s business.

If you are a low-carber and haven’t had pork rinds, then you need to at least give them a try. They make an excellent crunchy substitute for popcorn, although I haven’t found any movie theatres (yet!) that sell it. It’s a good option for movie night at home, though. 😉

Another trick that I’ve discovered is coffee on-the-go. I don’t often splurge on fancy coffee shops, but the Coffee of the Day with a shot of sugar-free caramel, Splenda and half n’ half is really not unlike a Carmel Macchiato, and soooo many fewer calories and grams of sugar!!

Those are just a few of the tricks that I’ve learned to substitute for some of my fave “cheat”foods. I welcome your ideas on other tips & tricks!

I love eggs. I love spinach. Eggs + spinach = nomnomnom! My plan for dinner last night was shrimp skewers & salad. Unfortunately, the spinach salad mix was starting to wilt. It hadn’t gone bad, but I’m picky about crisp greens, and it just wasn’t good for salad. So, I made a different side dish for the boys and decided to salvage the spinach by chopping it up and making a frittata for breakfast.

Spinach frittata

If I may say so, it was delicious! (I had to try a bite of it before I could post it here for you, of course). 😉

Besides being yummy, it was unbelievably simple. I used almost a whole package of spinach salad (shame on me for not eating it sooner, but I digress), 9 eggs and about a cup of shredded cheese.

I beat the eggs with a bit of water to help them fluff, then sprinkled the chopped spinach on top. (In retrospect, I might have mixed it in, but it turned out ok as a layered dish.) I added a few sprinkles of salt & pepper and baked it in a square casserole dish for about 40 min. I added a couple of handfuls of shredded cheese (I estimated about a cup’s worth) as soon as it came out of the oven, so it would melt nicely on top.

I tried a bite (for your benefit, of course 😉 )  and declared it a success! Enjoy!

I had some leftover chicken that I had smoked and was in the mood for chicken noodle soup, so this is the result: Harvest soup!

Recipe:

Harvest soup

1 small or medium spaghetti squash
1 packet Lipton Onion Soup mix
~6 oz cooked chicken, shredded (I used leftover smoked chicken, but rotisserie chicken would also be yummy)
salt & pepper, to taste
Cholula hot sauce (or Tabasco, or pepper sauce)

Cut spaghetti squash in half (a cleaver works well) and place cut-side-down in a microwave safe casserole dish. Add about 1/2″ water and cover with wax paper or plastic wrap. Cook for 10-12  min, or until squash “noodles” pull off easily with fork. While squash is cooking in the microwave, add chicken and onion soup mix to 4 cups of water; heat to low boil on stove. Add squash to chicken soup and turn to low/med heat to simmer. Add salt, pepper and Cholula sauce, to taste. (I used about 6-7 shakes of pepper sauce.)

Ladle into bowls and serve hot. This recipe makes a rather thick soup; if you prefer soupier soup, add chicken broth and adjust seasonings, as you prefer. Enjoy!

One of my favorite appetizers is Artichokes Tiganites at Yia Yia Mary’s. Yummy, fried, veggie goodness! My only critique is that it is a little too salty for my taste, but I still love it.

I was craving it recently, and since the only restaurant location is in Houston, I decided to try to recreate the dish with a little less salt and pan-fried instead of deep-fried.

Voila! Allow me to present my own variation of garlic artichoke hearts:

Garlic artichoke hearts

Artichokes are fat-free and contain fewer carbs than an apple (13g – only 1g is sugar), and they pack a whopping 7g of fiber, which brings the carb count down to 6g. A medium artichoke even has about 4g of protein – excellent for a veggie!

My recipe:

• 1 can Artichoke hearts, drained
• 1 Tbsp olive oil
• 2 Tbsp minced garlic (I actually used about 3T, but the consensus of my sous chefs was that it was “a bit heavy on the garlic,” so I would recommend using a bit less)
• dash of salt, to taste

Saute the minced garlic in olive oil until aromatic. Add artichokes & salt and pan-fry on medium-high until heated through. Serve immediately.

If you need further convincing to give this unusual veggie a try, consider this: even my picky one liked it! 😉  I think he has finally come to realize that if he’s going to have his own show on the Food Network someday, then he’s going to have to branch out and try new things. He described the dish as “a meaty texture and garlicky.” I made him repeat, “It’s good!” about three times, just to be sure that I heard him correctly. Heehee

Get it … leftovers? Since it’s the day after?

Methinks that I’m running out of food-related posts on a weekly basis, so perhaps Foodie Friday needs to change to a periodic post instead of a weekly post. :p

A dear friend from work got married on Saturday evening. As we were driving to the site, it dawned on me that only two of the boys have been to a wedding (& can remember it … No. 5 went to one as a baby, but I don’t suppose that really counts.) 😉

The boys were excited about going, but what really got me tickled was when No. 3 piped up: “I’m SO excited to have wedding cake! And not just a snowcone!” If that makes no sense to you, then you haven’t had the tasty treat of a wedding cake-flavored snowcone from Bahama Buck’s. It is one of the boys’ favorite flavors.

The wedding was outdoors, and we were blessed with a nice breeze and shade. The boys enjoyed playing with grasshoppers and running wild on the playground with a couple dozen other kids.

And, needless to say, the cake (red velvet with cream cheese frosting) was a BIG hit. 🙂

The boys don’t seem to have the same negative responses to carbs that I have, so I’m much more flexible on what they eat (although, I still try to cut back on sugar). The little three take their lunches every day, and the older two have decided to take lunch twice a week, for a change of pace.

The staple, as you might expect, is sandwiches. I try to vary the selection with pb&j and lunchmeat, but I know that sandwiches get boring, so I mix in some different “entrees” like Hot Pockets (pre-heated that morning and wrapped in foil to stay warm, since they aren’t allowed to use the microwave) or soup (in their new-fangled Thermoses!) I try to make sure that they have at least one fruit or vegetable and only one “sweet” snack.  We also discovered some Splenda-sweetened drinks that are bigger and have much less sugar than the juice/punch pouches, and all of the boys like them.

Did I mention that I just renewed my Sam’s Club membership? LOL – these boys eat a lot of food, and I know it’s only going to get worse as they keep growing!!