quiche cups

I’ve been making these quiche cups since I first started South Beach.  The recipe is loosely adapted from a recipe for quiche cups from the South Beach Diet book but I’ve tweaked and changed them a lot to suit me.  I never really used a recipe or wrote down amounts but I’ve had several people ask for a recipe over the years so I’m finally writing it down.  These make a great, healthy breakfast.

eggs, black beans, cheese, green pepper, turkey bacon, and crushed red pepper

Just so you know, the eggs are the base of the quiche.  As long as you have eggs to “glue” everything together you can add all kinds of other ingredients – spinach, sausage, tomatoes, onions – think of it like a pizza or omelet!  Like I said, I’ve played around with this recipe quite a bit until I found a version that I really like.  I’ve also found that this is a great way to get some veggies in with breakfast.

start with 6 eggs

add cheese

rinse a can of black beans and add to the mixture

chop the green pepper

cook your turkey bacon (I use one of these bacon cooker things that you can use in the microwave that catches the grease)

crumble the bacon

add your seasoning(s) – I used a liberal amount of crushed red pepper (I didn’t measure that part – sorry!)

spray a 12 cup muffin tin

fill with the mixture and bake

now you can start your day with a healthy breakfast!

Recipe

Ingredients:

6 eggs, beaten

1 cup cheese

12 strips turkey bacon, cooked and crumbled

1 can black beans, rinsed

1 green bell pepper, chopped

crushed red pepper

Instructions:

Mix together eggs, cheese, bacon, beans, green bell pepper, and crushed red pepper.  Spray a 12 cup muffin tin with cooking spray.  Divide the egg mixture evenly between the 12 cups.  Bake at 350 for 30 minutes or until quiche cups are solid.  Cool and store in the refrigerator.

Each quiche cup comes to 135 calories.  If you are doing South Beach, these are perfect for Phase 1.  I usually have two for breakfast – two quiche cups contains one egg and two pieces of turkey bacon so that’s a good serving size.  Each morning I grab them out of the fridge and it takes just a minute or two to heat up in the microwave.

I think these are just the greatest things ever!  They don’t take very long to prepare and can be made ahead of time.  They are quick to heat up in the morning so you can have a healthy breakfast without much preparation.  You could even take them with you to work or on vacation as long as there is a microwave nearby.

Halloween 2011 – Picnics and Charlie Sheen

Trunk or Treat was last night – we had a blast and I carried my camera around all night but failed to take any pictures.  Boo on me.  But we did get pictures of our costumes before we left.

I was a picnic (with a trail of ants on the tablecloth that didn’t show up in the picture) and Michael was a YouTube video of Charlie Sheen.  I loved our costumes and was really pleased with how they turned out.  And the best part – they were cheap and easy!  They took about an hour to make and cost less than $6.00.  All I had to buy for mine was the tablecloth and then I just glued some of my stuff and some of Mom’s stuff to the tablecloth.  For Michael’s we just had to buy the poster board (by the way, he did the whole thing himself – very impressive!)

Happy Halloween!

Halloween Flashback

I’m currently working on my Halloween costume and I’ll show you that tomorrow (it’s super cute!) but today I thought I’d show some costumes from the past.  I know I showed you these costumes before in my weight loss post so you could see a comparison, but here they are again.

Halloween 2006.  Michael was a worker bee and I was a queen bee.

Halloween 2007.  I was a pumpkin and Michael was pie.  Together we were pumpkin pie.

(Due to our math-geekiness I made Michael edible pie on the front and mathematical pie…tee hee hee)

Those are the only Halloween costumes I can find on our computer.  As you can see, I’m all about cheap, easy costumes.  Both years our costumes consisted mostly of painted t-shirts (by yours truly) and accessorized with what we already had.  Stay tuned to see this year’s costume…

new recipe organization

I’ve organized my recipes to give you (and me!) easier access to them.  If you look toward the top of the page, there is now a new tab (next to “blog” and “about me”) that says “recipes”.  When you click on it you should see links to all the recipes I have posted here on chocolate moments so far.  I’ll update the list as I add recipes to the blog.

chocolate chip cheesecake dip

I’m on a cooking roll (making yummies to get ready for Trunk ‘r Treat tomorrow), so next up on the list is chocolate chip cheesecake dip.  I’ve had this several times before and I love it so I was so excited to try this chocolate chip cheesecake dip recipe that I found on Pinterest.  Not only is it delicious but it’s also incredibly easy and quick to make.  This is a good one to keep the ingredients on hand so you can whip it up really fast when you need a last minute dessert.  Definitely a crowd favorite.

butter, mini chocolate chips, cream cheese, vanilla, brown sugar, confectioner sugar, and graham crackers

melt butter and mix with cream cheese

add both sugars, vanilla and mix

add the chocolate chips and you’re done – seriously takes about five minutes

Chocolate Chip Cheesecake Dip

Ingredients:

1/2 cup butter (1 stick)

8 oz cream cheese

3/4 cup confectioner sugar

2 Tbsp brown sugar

1 tsp vanilla

1 cup mini chocolate chips

something to dip with (graham crackers, graham cracker sticks, animal cookies, whatever)

Instructions:

Melt the butter and soften the cream cheese, then mix together.  Add in brown sugar, confectioner sugar, and vanilla; mix.  Then add in chocolate chips.  Serve with graham crackers or something similar.

Like I said: super easy, super quick, and super delicious.

Linking up to Tatertots and Jello

cake batter rice krispie treats

I found this cake batter rice krispie treat recipe via Pinterest and I knew I had to try it.  I like regular rice krispie treats as well as the next person, although I’d usually choose something with chocolate over the plain rice krispie treats, however, I love cake batter so I wanted to give them a shot.  The verdict – a winner!

what you need: rice krispies, marshmallows, yellow cake batter, butter, and sprinkles

melt the butter

add the marshmallows, melt, and stir in cake batter

add in the rice krispies and sprinkles, stir until coated

spread into a pan and add more sprinkles on top

yum!

Cake Batter Rice Krispie Treats Recipe

Ingredients:

3 Tbsp butter

6 cups crispy rice cereal

1 10 oz package of marshmallows

1/3 cup yellow cake batter

sprinkles (about 1.5 oz)

Instructions:

Melt the butter in a large saucepan on the stove.  Once the butter is melted pour in the marshmallows and stir until melted, then mix in the cake batter.  Add the rice cereal and most of the sprinkles; stir until coated.  Spread the mixture into a baking dish and sprinkle the rest of the sprinkles on top.  Let sit 30 minutes then cut into squares.

A hint to make the spreading and cutting easier – use cooking spray.  My biggest beef with rice krispie treats in the past has been how messy and hard they can be to spread evenly.  This time I sprayed the pan with cooking spray before I poured the mix in and I also sprayed the spatula with cooking spray before using it to spread the mixture – it worked like a dream!  I also sprayed the knife with cooking spray before cutting the treats so that they wouldn’t stick.

What I love about rice krispie treats, in addition to them being easy and quick, is that they are pretty cheap to make – just cereal, marshmallows, butter, cake batter, and sprinkles.  Also, on the scale of desserts, these are pretty low on the calorie scale.  Don’t get me wrong, I’m certainly not calling these healthy, but they definitely have less calories than many desserts.

*edited 10/31/11: Once cooled these were pretty hard, then after letting them sit outside in the cold during Trunk or Treat they were like jawbreaking bricks.  I found that microwaving them for just a few seconds really improved the chewiness and ease of eating.  

Linking up to Tatertots and Jello

 

getting my craft on

I spent several hours Tuesday and Wednesday crafting – a welcome break from grad school work!  I made quite a few things that I want to show you.

Project #1: necklace (inspired by this tutorial)

Supplies needed: fabric (that t-shirt was actually in my car with the rest of the Goodwill stuff when I decided to keep it out and try to use the fabric for something – I’m so glad I did since I hardly bought anything for this project!), felt ($0.25 at Hobby Lobby), necklace (I got mine at Hobby Lobby – $0.75 I think), scissors, hot glue gun.

Cut out felt into circles depending on what size and how many flowers you want on your necklace.  Mine were about 1.5 in across.

Use the felt circles as a template and cut out fabric circles of the same size; I needed about 12 fabric circles per 1 felt circle (this is the hardest and most time consuming part).

Squish up the fabric circles and glue onto the felt (see Little Miss Momma’s tutorial – I didn’t take pictures of this part.

finished flower

Glue all five flowers onto a large piece of felt for the backing, then cut out around the flowers.  Attach your necklace (I glue-gunned mine on) – again, see Little Miss Momma’s tutorial for full instructions and pictures.

voila – finished necklace!

This was super easy to make and didn’t take too very long (like I said, cutting all the circles took the longest).  It was also cheap!

After I finished making this necklace I also wanted to try out a technique for another type of flower that learned about by a tutorial from The Small Things.  I used leftover pink t-shirt fabric to make this flower.

I liked it but wasn’t really sure what to do with it. I grabbed another t-shirt that I rescued from the Goodwill pile and made two more.

Then I bought a stretchy headband at Hobby Lobby and glued them on.

It’s not perfect.  I forgot that the headband would stretch when I put it on which stretched out the flowers; I tried to reposition them but then that made a big gluey mess.  But now I know for next time.

Project #2: painted leaf serving dish

I had this leaf shaped serving dish thing that I wasn’t really crazy about.

So I bought a little can of spray paint at Hobby Lobby and gave it two quick coats.  Took about 5 minutes of actual “work” for me (obviously I’m not including drying time, although it dried pretty quickly).  I didn’t sand or prime, just sprayed it like it was.  And it turned in to…

I filled it with some butterscotch candy and put it on our coffee table

Project #3: “I love you because” sign (inspired by this post found via Pinterest)

I started with this picture frame that I got from Mom’s attic or Goodwill

I quickly gave it two coats of red craft paint – no need to make it perfect

I cut out letters with my Cricut, attached them to a piece of cardboard, put the glass and cardboard back in, attached ribbon to the back, and hung it up

You can write on the glass with a dry erase marker and it wipes off easily (see the dry erase marker I put above the sign?) so the hubs and I can write messages back and forth.  Super quick, super easy, and I had all the materials on hand so I didn’t have to buy anything.

Project #4: legwarmers (idea from this post found via Pinterest)

I went to Goodwill and bought two sweaters, then cut the arms off

If you don’t like to (or know how to) sew, you could honestly just cut off the sleeves and either leave the frayed edges out if you like that look, tuck them under, or put the cut section inside your boots and make the cuff of the sleeve the top of your warmers (if you want to do that, make sure you get a pretty big sweater since the cuffs are usually pretty tight).  I decided to go ahead and sew up the edge that I cut.  I just turned the sleeve inside out, pinned it, and sewed it up.

Once I got my sewing machine to cooperate it just took a few minutes to sew it up.  And know I have cut leg warmers.  The best part is that since they don’t have feet in them, you can pull them up as high or push them down as low as you want.  See exhibits A, B, and C:
over the knees (sorry for the blurry picture)  - this will be so cute layered with skinny jeans!

below the knees (new boots from Target!)

or ’80s aerobics style – love!

Project #5 – wreath (copied from here)

I bought a wreath form from Hobby Lobby but I’ve heard you can get them at dollar stores, use pool noodles, or use that gray pipe cover stuff you can buy at Lowe’s – those are possibly cheaper options, although mine was only $2 with a 40% off coupon.  I wrapped yarn around the whole wreath, securing with hot glue every few inches.  It took a while (an hour maybe?) but I just did it while watching tv.

Then I wrapped my colored yarn around to make the criss cross pattern.

I made a bunch of felt flowers using this tutorial (also time consuming – again, another good project to do while watching tv), hot glued them on, and I had myself a fall wreath.

I love it!  It’s a fall wreath without being so typically fall-like.

After burning myself a million times with the hot glue, I’m pretty pleased with how everything turned out.  Tomorrow I get to make all sorts of goodies for Trunk or Treat so stay tuned for new recipes (if they turn out well!)

Linking up with the weekend wrap up party at Tatertots and Jello and at the before and after party at Thrifty Decor Chick.

my weight loss journey part 7 – the future

1. read my weight loss journey part 1 – the background here.
2. read my weight loss journey part 2 – the diet here.
3. read my weight loss journey part 3 – the exercise here.
4. read my weight loss journey part 4 – the results here.
5. read my weight loss journey part 5 – the maintenance here.
6. read my weight loss journey part 6 – the struggles here.

I hope that this mini-series has encouraged, uplifted, or inspired you in some way.  I know that just writing this down has really inspired me to get back to that girl I was in college.  If you already live an active, healthy lifestyle then at least you will know understand when I refer to weight loss or healthy living in my posts (it was such a huge life change that I sort of think of many things in my life as before the lifestyle change and after).

Before I close out I want to discuss what the future (hopefully) holds for me.  For one, now that I’ve told you that I’m going to get back on track I have to keep my word and do that.  I’m now accountable to you and so my goal is to back to my “happy weight” (that’s how I’m going to refer to that range where I know my body is comfortable and I could live forever like that) within the next few months.  That’s an immediate future goal, but recently I’ve also been thinking about longer-term goals.

We’ve discussed before (many times) my love of Pinterest.  Lots of the posts there are centered around fitness, exercise, diet, and healthy living.  Two images that I’ve seen several times and that have really made me think are these:

Both of these pictures have started me thinking about the example I’m going to be for my daughters (not being sexist, girls just seem to struggle more than boys).  Yes, that is a long way off but it’s something I need to figure out now.  I don’t want my daughters to see me going through cycles of dieting, falling off the wagon, gaining weight, being disgusted with how I look/feel, dieting again, etc.  I don’t her/them to learn negative body image or self talk from me.  I all my children to grow up learning a healthy lifestyle where we make healthy choices but don’t put all our focus on that.

So that’s my long term goal.  To get my mindset and habits in a place where I am living a healthy life, not obsessed with how I look or hating myself for having a piece of cake.  Not letting the number on the scale rule me.  Having BALANCE.  I hope you will set that goal for yourself, too.  Let’s teach our daughters, nieces, friends, students, coworkers, observers, everyone that it’s good to strive to be healthy, but that we are so much more than a body type or a number.

transitioning clothes from summer to fall – What I Wore Wednesday

I’m taking a break from my health-related posts (last one in my weight loss series to come this afternoon) to share an outfit for What I Wore Wednesday.

I love winter clothes, but unfortunately they can only be worn in winter – it’s hard to modify a chunky sweater to wear in the summer.  So one of the things I love about summer clothes is that you can wear them by themselves in the summer and then still wear them during colder months with a few tweaks and layers.

Exhibit A:

I got this blue dress at the Ann Taylor LOFT outlet store in Gatlinburg.  It’s a nice easy sundress that I could just throw on in the summer and I really like that (although I do hope this picture is not doing it justice and that it is indeed more flattering in real life)

Now that (on certain days) we are experiencing some cooler weather, I decided to wear it again, but modify it for fall by adding a jacket and boots.

This is what I wore out on our date Saturday night

Outfit specs: dress/Ann Taylor LOFT outlet, jacket/American Eagle via Goodwill, boots/bought in Texas this summer, socks/Burke Outlet, necklace/Gabriel Brothers

And now I can wear my summery dress in the fall.  Layering long sleeved shirts under dresses is another option as is wearing cardigans over summery tanks or shirts.

Linking up to What I Wore Wednesday at The Pleated Poppy

steel cut oats {works for me Wednesday)

While we’re talking about weight loss and being healthy, let me share with you a new (to me) food that I have been enjoying recently: steel cut oats.  I referenced these back in this post but didn’t really go in to detail.  Steel cut oats are basically what oatmeal (as most of us know it) is before it gets flattened out.  You can read more about them on Wikipedia.  Steel cut oats are small cylinders; if you rolled those out you get rolled oats (the non-quick cooking oatmeal), and then if you cut them up small then steam then and roll them out you would get quick-cooking oatmeal (the kind that just takes a minute – used in most oatmeal cookie recipes), and to get instant oatmeal the oats get cut up small, rolled out, pre-cooked, and dried.  So using our South Beach principles, which tell us that the less processed something is the better, we can see the continuum that steel cut > rolled > quick cooking > instant (for those of you who don’t adore math like I do, that means that steel cut is the best for you and instant is the worst).  Steel cut oats have a lower glycemic index than instant oats, which means your body takes longer to digest them and they don’t raise your blood sugar as fast. Since starting South Beach I’ve always eaten the rolled oats – the not quick cooking kind, although they still only take 2 minutes.  I’ve been hearing about steel cut oats and knew they were even healthier than rolled, so I bought some awhile back and finally decided to give them a try.

These are the oats I bought – I found them in the organic section at Kroger

This is what they look like dry – see how they are more cylindrical than regular oatmeal?  (actually I think they look like horse feed…)

Steel cut oats take much longer to cook than other types of oatmeal.  Mine took 20 minutes.  What I’ve heard other people say they do and what I decided to do as well was to cook a big batch at once to use during the week.  The package gave instructions for cooking four servings so I cooked those four servings, portioned them out into containers, and each morning I can just heat up one container.

Be careful as you cook.  I didn’t use milk (I usually do with my oatmeal but it boils over so fast) but I still had problems with the pot boiling over, even when I used a big pot.  That was a mess.

Once it’s cooked it looks pretty similar to regular oatmeal.

Each 1/4 cup of dry oats yielded 3/4 cup of cooked oats.  The package says 1/4 dry is a serving (170 calories) so I divided my cooked oats into 3/4 cup servings for breakfast.  In the morning I just get out one of my pre-cooked servings, heat it up, add my toppings, and I have a good, healthy breakfast.  As far as taste goes, the steel cut oats are a little chewier than regular oatmeal but that doesn’t bother me.  I like them.

The first time I ate them I tried an apple/cinnamon/nutmeg combination that I found here but I didn’t like it – the spices were too strong for me.

my “apple pie” oatmeal

Then I tried a variation of the banana coconut oatmeal found here and I liked it a lot better.  That’s what I’ve been eating since.  (Sorry, I keep forgetting to take a picture)

For my breakfast I use one serving of oats (3/4 cup cooked), one banana chopped up, a splash of milk, a sprinkle of sweetener (Splenda, whatever), a tiny bit of Smart Balance, and about a tablespoon of coconut.  That comes out to about 320 calories.  Not only is it yummy, but it is incredibly filling.  I usually have to have a morning snack between breakfast and lunch but on the days I’ve eaten this oatmeal I haven’t felt hungry until lunch.

I haven’t yet tried my chocolate and peanut butter oatmeal using the steel cut oats, but I intend to soon.

Eating steel cut oats for breakfast is healthy, yummy, and keeps me full until lunch.  That works for me!  (linking up to Works for Me Wednesday over at We Are THAT Family)