(My happy, singing, piano-playing snowman wanted to say hi). Hello blueberry Chobani! Today is a dual review! Hubs forgot breakfast this morning so I sent some with him to eat when he got to work (don’t worry, before I shoved a blueberry Chobani and a granola bar in his hand, I made sure he knew the importance of not missing breakfast!!).

Ross’ Review: “Surprisingly tasteful. I really enjoyed the whole pieces of fruit and I appreciated that it wasn’t overwhelmingly sweetened but also not bland either.”

LC’s Review: “Another really tasty, creamy Chobani! Can you tell I’m obsessed with the creamy texture, high protein content, and overall good nutrition of it? This made a great component of my fast lunch today!”

I’m still thinking that so far the peach is my favorite. I’ll probably do a peach flavor next time I do a Chobani, so I’ll verify if it still stands as my numero uno!

Now on to din din…

Tonight’s dinner was tasteful and pretty balanced.

I don’t really have a name for the chicken dish I created (maybe Mushroom Shiraz Grilled Chicken?)but I will tell you what was in it and how I made it!

• red wine (I used some Barefoot Shiraz I had open)
• balsamic vinegar
• 4 button mushrooms, sliced
• pomegranate seeds
• honey
• evoo from my Misto
• 1 boneless, skinless chicken breast, halved
• poultry seasoning
• salt
• pepper

1. In a 10-inch skillet lightly brown your button mushrooms (lightly sprayed with evoo) over low heat. Once browned, pour some red wine (enough so the entire bottom of the pan is coated), a small drizzle of balsamic vinegar, and a small drizzle of honey. Throw in a small handful of pomegranate seeds. Let mixture simmer together. (The mushrooms act like shiraz sponges, so keep an eye on it. You may need to add more liquid to get whatever saucy consistency you prefer).
2. Season both sides of each piece of chicken breast with poultry seasoning, salt, and pepper. Grill on a George Foreman grill until the chicken’s temperature reaches 165 degrees F. (I usually don’t rely on the Foreman grill accurately telling me when the meat is done. I find it’s usually overdone that way).
3. Drizzle the mushroom shiraz sauce over the grilled chicken whenever you’re ready to serve. Enjoy!

I served this with roasted broccoli (YUM!) and leftover mashed potatoes that we brought to my husband’s holiday party. For the roasted broccoli I just used a small bunch of broccoli (I used the florets and then cut the stalk into smallish cubes to get the extra nutrients/ green volume!). Lightly spray the broccoli with evoo and lightly season with kosher salt, freshly ground black pepper, and freshly grated nutmeg. Bake in a 400 degree F oven for about 15 minutes. This will give the roasted nutty taste to the broccoli, while yet still keeping some of the fresh crunchiness.

Let me know if you give either of these recipes a try! Please don’t forget to go to the poll I posted earlier today and let me know how you think Life According to Mrs. LC can improve!!

Thanks so much!
LC

P.S. My to do list from earlier in the day is coming along well. Everything is done except the nutrition studying (I’m about to start that now) and the laundry is in process. It probably all would have been done had I not wasted so much time going around to a bunch of different stores that wouldn’t even let me put in an application because they were NOT HIRING to that extent. Thanks, yah, I know. The economy sucks. ANYWAY! I love my life, my apartment, my nutrition stuff, my husband, my friends, my BLOG friends!!! Y’all are awesome and I’m going to leave on that positive note!

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Well, once again I was amazed at the wonderful texture of the Chobani. I was a little concerned that the texture would be negatively affected after mixing the yogurt with the fruit on the bottom, but it still stayed just as creamy. If anything there was added texture with the bits of real strawberries. Nutritionally, I’m still impressed:
(Photo taken from www.chobani.com). I love the high percentages of protein and calcium. And for someone like me (I realized today that I’ve definitely not been getting anywhere near 2,000 calories a day lately), the high levels of protein and calcium are an even greater percentage of my daily values.

My conclusion: if you like regular strawberry yogurt, you’ll LOVE Chobani strawberry greek yogurt.

Side-by-side comparison: I think I still may like the peach flavor more. Good thing I have a couple more to compare it to!

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Ross had the holiday party for his school tonight (he works at a special education elementary school). I was pretty excited about it, especially because everyone needed to bring something. What? An excuse to get busy in my kitchen? Well if I must.

The main side dish we brought were some home made mashed potatoes.

FYI that’s my biggest mixing bowl. Here’s what I used:

• 5 lb. bag of white potatoes (Publix, $1.99)
• 1 – 1, 1/2 c. fat free sour cream (prob. about $1.50)
• 4 T. unsalted Smart Balance butter
• kosher salt to taste
• about 1 T. garlic powder

I cut my potatoes into very tiny pieces because I’m impatient and want them to cook faster. Place all the potato pieces in a big pasta pot, cover with water, and bring to a boil (don’t put the potatoes in already boiling water). Once the potatoes are fork tender, drain the water and use a potato masher to mash the potatoes. While mashing, add in all your remaining ingredients.

I really do think it’s important that for something like this you do a tiny taste test (or someone close to you, like I did with my husband). Ultimately you’re going to know when your potatoes taste good. A lot of people like their potatoes saltier than I do, but others don’t like garlic, and others don’t want the extra tang from the sour cream. Completely up to you!

On a bargain-note, this was an incredibly affordable side dish to bring to the party. All but the potatoes and sour cream I had on hand, and I only paid $3.50 for those two things (and we have leftovers!). I encourage everyone to browse their grocery sale ads when considering items to bring to holiday parties!

I also threw together a quick dessert platter.
(Don’t you love the pretty paisley platter! We got it as a wedding present!)

Desserts included:

• Chocolate Chip Candy Cane Cookies
• Peppermint Cocoa Biscotti
• my mom’s Lemon Square bars (she sent some home with us post-Thanksgiving)
• Oatmeal Cookie Cloud Pumpkin Pie slices (super tiny slices, I had them in the freezer since I made them before Thanksgiving).
• garnish of pom seeds (aren’t they just like pretty Christmas crystals?)

Well we’re off to go enjoy a quiet movie evening. I truly hope everyone has a wonderful weekend!

Love,
LC

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Update from yesterday: I did not go running yesterday, I wore my shoes a bit to get used to them, but am going for a run later today. Yay!!

Product Review

A couple days ago I finally tried a Chobani (Chobani fairy? Please make my Christmas! It’s so hard to find Chobanis here in Dulls-ville!). I picked up the peach flavor at a Fresh Market store in Sarasota while we were there for Thanksgiving. All I can say is YUMMMM!!!! Wow, I really wasn’t expecting to taste that big of a difference from the Oikos Greek yogurt, but I thought it was so much creamier and just better.

Obviously I enjoyed it so much I and was so excited I had to taste it first before I found my camera. I was really impressed with the nutritional info, too. (You can check it out on Chobani’s website here). 14 grams of protein? Whoa! Based on a daily intake of 2,000 calories, that’s 28% of your daily protein needs!

I would totally recommend this and I personally can’t wait to try the other flavors (and the plain nonfat). I have never even seen a strawberry Chobani in stores, so hopefully I can find one sometime soon-ish!

Deals and Steals

Ok, so I’m just going to throw this out there. I’ve shopped at Big Lots. While the stores themselves are usually a little unorganized/ not the cleanest or fanciest, I am now totally hooked. I went in to a local one on Monday because I was searching for a pretty, inexpensive tree skirt, and I honestly didn’t like any that I saw at Target, Michael’s, Marshalls, etc. And I refuse to settle. So I found a gorgeous tree skirt that matches our tree beautifully, and then I figured I’d head over to their non-perishable food section. Hey, I’m a foodie, why not?

Oh. My. Gosh. I’m totally hooked and hitting that again! I think what I was most excited about were my finds of Annie’s Organic Pomegranate Vinaigrette Dressing and Annie’s Organic Green Garlic Dressing – each were 80 cents. Um, do they even know how much these sell for at other stores? I’ve seen them $4 and up, each in the Publix Greenwise department!!! So I picked up one of each for myself and for my mom (Merry Christmas Mom!) I was talking to a worker there and she was telling me they get a lot of organic goods there, so it might be worth a scope out if there’s one by you!

Food/ “Recipe”

Anyway! I used the Green Garlic dressing in our dinner from Monday night. My mom had a ton of huge Swai fillets (it’s a fish, also known as Basa Fish), so she gave a couple to Ross and I to take back with us. The fillets were so big, I split one in 3 pieces (2 used in dinner, 1 in Ross’ lunch the next day). I coated each piece in the Green Garlic dressing, then lightly dipped it in bread crumbs and cooked it in a skillet over medium heat with a small amount of EVOO. (I don’t know how much, I use a Misto sprayer and just sprayed the bottom and then sprayed again whenever it got stuck). When the fish was done I drizzled a little more of the Green Garlic dressing on top of the fillet (which by the way was one of the most tender pieces of fish I have ever tasted!).

I served them with peas (frozen, that I pretty much killed when I nuked them way too long!) and homemade mashed potatoes, yum! (The mashed potatoes = 3 white potatoes, peels on, cooked until fork-tender, mashed with a couple tablespoons of fat free sour cream, a tiny bit of butter, garlic powder, and a pinch of kosher salt). I had to test this out because I’m making this for a holiday party that I’m going to with hubs on Friday night (a 5 lb. bag of white potatoes is $1.99 at Publix!).

Christmas Decorating

I know I’ve been promising pictures of our decorating, so here are a few sneak peaks. There are no cute pictures of us newlyweds in front of the tree yet, because, well, to be honest, I felt I looked like crap last night and didn’t feel like looking cute (read: I was comfy in my sweats). So here are a few pictures from our tree.

Full of all sorts of pretty golds and reds. (Which is kind of ironic because we bought our ornaments sporadically last year in post-Christmas sales and some this year pre-Christmas sales, and we totally weren’t trying to be matchy-matchy).

And LOOK! Jack Frost decided to decorate for Christmas too!!

Check out all that frost on my neighbor’s SUV! Big deal! This doesn’t happen very often in Florida, folks!

Well I need to go be productive. Expect an entire Christmas related post in the future…pictures of all our decorations, us being cute newlyweds celebrating Christmas, new traditions, cookie baking/ decorating with friends, and more!

I hope everyone is having a wonderful week!

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Anyway, I’ve been trying a lot of new products (well new for me) and I wanted to just share how I feel about them.

I’ve been wanting to try the Flat Out wraps for a while, so I finally bought a pack of the Spinach Flat Out Wraps (bought at Publix, pack of 6 for $2.69). I’ve made a couple different things with them. These were some flat out pizzas I made for us one night. Toppings included lots of spinach (julienned, I find you can fit more on that way), grape tomatoes, black olives, grilled chicken, a few sliced mushrooms, and a bit of shredded extra sharp cheddar cheese. Rave reviews from the husband (but we were also ravenously hungry that night, so that could explain it too).

The next day I used a flat out wrap for lunch. I spread 2 T. of garlic lover’s hummus over the wrap, and then put black beans, 1/4 julienned cucumber, loads of spinach, and black olives. I think that was it. It was super tasty though, the garlic hummus made it, and at only 40 cal. for the 2 T. and chock full of protein, it’s much better than mayonaisse and other sauces/ dressings (good thing I’m not a big dressing person, and DEF. not a mayonaisse lover).

I also tried one of my new Luna bars! I’m sure many have experienced this flavor, but I have yet to try the Chocolate Peppermint Stick flavor. It was good, I had half each on two different days, but I have to agree with Caitlin when I say it tasted more “artificial” than Clif bars and other such bars.

Then, when we were at Target the other night, I found these organic fruit strips that I really wanted to try. They’re really good! I wanted to try the pomegranate flavor (I’m a pomegranate freak!) but we settled on the apricot flavor since Ross and I will both be eating them. The apricot is good because it’s sweet, but then there’s a tartness that comes out – yummy!

Here’s also the nutritional information on the box.

I think I liked these so much because they were basically a great on the go snack of dried fruit (not a bunch of added garbage). And there are 10 bars in a package for $2.99. Not bad!

Alright, I know, not the most interesting post, but I’ll be back later with some recipes. And please, if you’re going grocery shopping this week, do not buy the Pictsweet brand of frozen/ steamable veggies. My sister found a frozen frog in her frozen edamame (I’ll see if she can post some pictures on her blog later).

Happy Friday everyone!
LC

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So PLEASE do not ever buy this brand of frozen veggies! Check out Megan’s blog, Per Aspera Ad Astra, to read her story of this event (check later this evening once she’s back from class and soccer practice). I have a feeling when we all reconvene for Thanksgiving we’ll be taking a trip to Whole Foods to stock her up on some real edamame and other foods.

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Now for the blog about the jog (I love alliteration and rhyming, if you haven’t noticed lately). I successfully completed W5WO2 of C25k today. Now I need some cyber support! Saturday is when I’m scheduled for the 2 mile jog. 2 miles straight, no walking. For me, this is a big deal, I don’t know if I have ever been able to jog for 2 miles without having to stop to walk. So please y’all, say some prayers, cross your fingers, send some cyber lovin’, whatever! I am just kind of nervous/ excited about this. It’s not the 5k (yet!) but it’s definitely another milestone for me.

Time to go see if I can find something (sans froggies) for a later lunch. See you later!

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