4684....

OK, I am sorry for not posting yesterday.  I was kinda a busy day for me with no help that I am use to in the evenings.  My husband had to start work early today so instead of leaving the house at 3:30 AM this morning, he just stayed in the city last night.  I guess that's one of the downfalls of living in a small town and working in the city, but we made it through the evening just the kidlets and I.  With that being said, I didn't make no fancy supper cause I knew the kids wouldn't eat what I had planned so I thought I would save the recipe for another day.  Instead we had Octopus's and seaweed.  No, it was not the real stuff!!! (Like hell, I would eat either of those! And I wouldn't make my kids either, if they want to try else where they can go right ahead, but those 2 things are on my don't buy list!)  The octopuses where hot dogs cut in half and then one end cut in quarters and boil them (I am not a fan of hot dogs boiled so I skipped these!) and the sea weed was spaghetti cooked and I added some green food coloring to the water to make it look kinda like the real stuff.  My kids thought this was one of the greatest meals ever. 

So I was thinking yesterday about my blog (should have been writing, I know....I am sorry!).  I think I might start posting my recipes only once a week instead of daily.  Looking over my own blog I think it would just make it easier for the reader and myself.  I will still try and post my daily meals, but some time on the weekend I will write a full post of all the recipes I used.  If there is ever something one of you comes across and would like the recipe sooner, please feel free to contact me at ashleymvipond@hotmail.com and I will be more then happy to send it your way. 

Now, one more thing before I head off for a while.  My work outs yesterday...... When I got up yesterday morning I didn't want to do a work out, I wasn't going either.  Then I came to my computer and started reading my blogs I follow daily.  Well they surely inspired me and instead of finishing the read then, I went and got changed into my work out clothes and did 45 minutes on the Wii Fit.  After the work out was done, I did come and finish reading every ones posting!!!!! So I just want to thank you all for the inspiration, whether you know it or not, reading your blogs helps me alot.  Now for my evening work out, again I wasn't really planning on working out last night but I got some inspiration from a T.V. show this time.  I started watching I Use To Be Fat , on MTV.  Wow, its the first time I have seen it, I am not one to watch MTV a whole lot, seems how my TV is on kids shows all day long and then in the evening I seem to be to busy to watch much else.  Anyways, back to my point here.  This show is about young teens tyring to lose weight, from what I have gathered from the 2 shows I watched last night is that they have about 100 days with a trainer and they work their ass off to lose the weight.  They are taught how to eat correctly, how to deal with emotions and how to exercise right.  So after watching about 25 minutes of the first show, I felt the need to exercise.  I was thinking what I could do so I was still able to watch the rest of this show.  So I broke out the Wii fit balance board, my runners, and my pedometer, and decided I was doing to keep doing step ups till the end of the show.  And that's what I did.  I know these step ups aren't as high as some exercise ones but still after 10 minutes I was ready to give up, but I pushed my way through it and kept going till the end, a whole 35  minutes and a hell of a lot of sweat.  When I took off my pedometer I was surprised to see I did well over 4000 steps, actually it was 4684.  I was thinking maybe 500, but nope I was wrong.  I guess when I got into the rhythm of the steps and the show at the same time, I kinda forgot about how much I was really doing.  All I know is that I was excited when I seen that big number.

Scrum-diddley-umiuos

This while getting my son ready for his hockey tournament, I was watching the Food Network. One of my favorite channels,  why wouldn't it be?!?!  I look the way I do due to food, so it would go hand in hand with me that watching food shows would be great.  Anyways, I was watching Eat, Shrink, and Be Merry, I love Janet and Greta.  I wish I had a sister to cook with or even a friend!  They have such a qurkie attitude towards one another and their guests, it just makes me giggle.  So today they were revamping a cream cheese muffin recipe.  Wow did they ever look yummy.  After the votes came in at the end of the show and Janet and Greta winning, I thought I just had to try this recipe, and had to do it today.  On I go to my life line the Internet and looked up the Eat, Shrink, and Be Merry website and found their recipe for Little Miss Muffin Tops.

To the kitchen I go to start baking, that is after I checked to make sure I had everything here for the muffins.  For the most part I did.  I added/changed a few things around for what I did or didn't have on hand.  For the most part they tasted amazing! 

So I know you are all waiting for the recipe!!! Here ya go:


LITTLE MISS MUFFIN TOPS
Recipe is taken right from the link above, anything in italics is what I chose to do.  Feel free to try either way!

Lemon-berry muffin tops with strawberry cream cheese filling. Per serving: 187 calories, 6.1 g total fat (1.3 g saturated fat), 4 g protein, 30 g carbohydrate, 2.3 g fibre, 21 mg cholesterol, 274 mg sodium

Yield: 12 mine made 15 regular muffins

Ingredients

Dry ingredients

• 1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 3/4 cup whole wheat flour
• 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt

Wet ingredients

• 1 cup low-fat vanilla flavoured yogurt (I used plain, not to sure if there is a difference or not?)
• 1/2 cup lightly packed brown sugar
• 1/4 cup vegetable oil
• 1 egg
• Grated zest of one large lemon (I didn't have any fresh lemons on hand so I skipped this ingredient)
• 2 tablespoons freshly squeezed lemon juice (I used bottled lemon juice, again cause I didn't have fresh on hand at all)
• 2/3 cup fresh blueberries (I used frozen mixed berries.  Included raspberries, blackberries and blue berries)
• 2/3 cup fresh raspberries
• 12 teaspoons light strawberry cream cheese (Philadelphia brand) (once again I didn't have strawberry cream cheese on hand so I mushed up a 1/4 cup of my field berries with light cream cheese and 2 packets of splenda)

Directions

Dry ingredients

1. Preheat oven to 375°F. Spray 2 muffin-top(I used regular muffin pans, like mentioned at the beginning of the recipe)  pans lightly with cooking spray and set aside.
2. Combine dry ingredients in a large bowl.

Wet ingredients

1. Whisk together wet ingredients in a medium bowl. Add wet ingredients to dry ingredients and mix just until dry ingredients are moistened. Fold in blueberries and raspberries.
2. Divide batter evenly among 12 muffin-top cups. Hide 1 tsp cream cheese in the centre of each muffin. Bake for about 12 minutes (I found mine took about 20 minutes, now this could be because my berries were still a little frozen) , or until muffin tops are puffed up and a toothpick inserted in centre comes out clean. Remove from pans and cool on a wire rack. Serve warm.

We had these yummy muffins for our dessert tonight.  It was a great way to end off a yummy supper!