Last month I had the privilege of giving away copies of Rocco Di Spirito’s new cookbook, Now Eat This.   Imagine my surprise when I got an email from the same publisher, offering me his new book Now Eat This Diet to my readers!   Now I know the world is all about green monsters and smoothies – I am quite possibly the very last food blogger not to try one.

But the publishers gave me a sneak peak at one of his smoothie recipes!

SERVES 4

Green Tea Watermelon Super Punch

Makes 4 servings: 176 calories, 0 fat, 37 carbs, 1 fiber and 6 protein (4 PointsPlus)

Ingredients:

· 2 cups ice

· 4 cups cubed seedless watermelon

· 1 cup nonfat Greek yogurt, such as 0% Fage Total

· ¼ cup fresh lime juice

· ¼ cup agave nectar

· 1 cup chopped fresh pineapple

· 4 teaspoons unsweetened matcha green tea powder

Method:

· Toss all ingredients into a blender and blend for 5 minutes to increase volume.

· Serve in glasses with a straw.

Here is my smoothie – believe it or not I already had everything at home to make this, except for the watermelon, which I picked up on my way home from work.  Hannah loves green tea ice cream and Tony bought some matcha green tea powder at a Japanese grocery store last fall so we could make green tea ice cream at home.

The verdict?  I really liked this.  It’s bright and refreshing.  Not sure why mine isn’t as bright looking as Rocco’s, but I guess that would depend on the green tea powder.

I did cheat and used canned pineapple 😀

I let the blender go for five full minutes – it was nice and foamy 😀

I definitely think when the weather gets warmer, I’ll be making more smoothies.  But our weather is . . . cold. . .windy. . . snowy. . .nasty.  So I was happy that yesterday was . . .

BAGEL WEDNESDAY! 8 Point Jalapeno Cheddar Bagel with 1/2 cup egg beaters and 1 ounce deli ham.  Perfect 10 point breakfast. 😀

For lunch I decided to shake it up a bit at the gym – I did the Stair Master and chose the “random” setting.  I really had no idea what that even meant, until I realized I had no idea what was coming.  The first 30 second intervals were pretty slow, and I almost changed the level when all of a sudden I was pedaling so fast!  I only did it for 20 minutes (2 minute cool down) and ended up doing 66 floors!

Next up was the bike machine – I had time to do a 3 mile bike ride.  My incentive was to beat the pacer bike by as much time as possible.  I ended up doing the ride in 12:36 minutes – beating the pacer bike by 8:08! Woot!  Then it was 5 minutes of abs and a few minutes of stretching.

My idea for lunch was based off of a Clean Eating recipe – a sweet potato steak wrap with a spinach blue cheese sauce.  I will be the first to tell you that I am not a sweet potato fan.  I am trying though.  I baked 3 sweet potatoes over the weekend.  I had to call my Mom and ask her if you ate the skin like a regular baked potato – turns out you can’t!

Since I had the fryer out last night for the fries, I sliced the sweet potatoes kind of thick, and flash fried them for about 2 minutes to give them some texture.  I let them drain on a paper towel and just finished them off with salt and pepper.  While the sweet potatoes were supposed to go IN the wrap, I opted to keep them on the side. 😀

Spinach and Blue Cheese Sauce (adapted from Clean Eating)

  • 3 cups baby spinach
  • 1/3 cup fat free half and half
  • 3 tablespoons blue cheese
  • pinch of salt
  • pinch of pepper
  • pinch of cumin
  • pinch of crushed red pepper

Put in a blender and puree.  Keep in refrigerator for up to a week.  Holy cow this sauce is good – although very mile on the blue cheese front – in fact there is just a hint.  My friends at work and I decided that we would add an extra point of crumbled blue cheese in the wrap to get that blue cheese taste.   I had this make 8 servings, for about 3/4 of a point per serving – about 1/4 of a cup.

The middle of the wrap is just two ounces of cooked steak, romaine lettuce, wrapped in a 4 point whole grain wrapper, heated in the microwave and then drizzled with the spinach sauce.

While I liked the wrap (I need to reduce the cooking time of the steak next time – the meat while still tender was well done) – guess what I loved the most?  The sweet potatoes! Although, I have to admit, I added a splash of Tabasco to them to balance the sweetness, and then I dipped them in the spinach sauce – lunch was a delicious 9 points! 😀

This made a lot of sauce – I think I am going to make a zucchini/cheese omelet for breakfast and drizzle this sauce over the top. 😀

I had pork chops on the menu last night, only to realize as I was driving home that I forgot to take them out to defrost.  So a simple pasta dish subbed nicely – I cooked 2 ounces of lean ground beef, drained any fat, then added a cup of baby spinach and marinara sauce and poured it over a cup of fusili – dinner is 8 points.

Stats for Wednesday:

  • 39 points (including 12 points for wine and Trader Joe’s sesame crack pretzels eaten while watching Top Chef)
  • 40 minute stair climber/bike ride
  • average blood sugar 108

I am off to put my breakfast and lunch together – can’t wait for lunch today: a skinny reuben sandwich with new potato/green bean pesto salad. 😀