Back to the grind this morning, although I can’t complain.  I had a great four days off and I have another three day week this week.

In case you missed it, my step-son and his fiancé Lizz got married the Friday after Thanksgiving!  Just the two of them – but they’ll be coming up to Chicago on Wednesday.  With a whirl wind trip and lots of family and friends to see, I decided to take of Thursday and Friday of this week to keep all my possible options open to see them.

          joe and lizzz    married

I found out Joe’s ring is actually titanium – I guess that’s the new 20 something trend in wedding rings – who knew?  Can’t wait to see them this week! Open-mouthed smile

Tony picked chicken wings for his football food yesterday.  Usually my store sells the chicken wingettes – the smaller version that are already cut up – my store just had regular chicken wings.  I went to the butcher and asked him to cut them up for me – I forgot to tell them to cut off the wing tips, but oh well!

Usually I make my chicken wings using the copycat Hooters chicken wings recipe.  But that requires breading the wings and since I didn’t go to the grocery store until kick off of the Bears game, I didn’t have that time.  So I took them out of my grocery bag first, and had them sit in a cup of milk with Tabasco sauce for about 15 minutes, while I put all the rest of my groceries away.

Next I put 1 cup of flour in a ziploc bag with cracked pepper, salt and a pinch of cayenne pepper – this was enough for eight decent size wings.  Go from the milk mixture to the flour mixture, toss to coat, dip in the milk mixture a second time and give it a second toss in the flour.

I of course used my deep fryer – set at 375.  The smaller wing portions took about 8 minutes – the bigger seconds about 10 minutes. 

Did you know that Frank’s makes an actually buffalo wing sauce?  Where the hell have I been?!

franks wing

I used about 1 tablespoon of melted butter mixed with about 1/3 a cup of the chicken wing sauce.  One word.  Amazeballs.  The chicken was super crunchy, and the sauce wasn’t too spicy for Tony.  Winning!

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Thank goodness this was my breakfast and lunch yesterday! Smile with tongue out

I was Bizzy in my Kitchen – using leftovers to make up my SIL’s lunches for the week.  So far I’ve been pretty lucky, she’s liked just about everything I’ve made – although one week I gave her tofu in a dish, and that didn’t go over too well – she thought it was chicken and the texture of course was all wrong!

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I kind of remind myself of Robert Irvine – I always use my chalk board to menu plan for her based on what I usually have on hand.  Since I forgot to bring my Mom the sweet potato spinach ravioli, Jody got an extra meal this week!

I also made potato pancakes made out of leftover mashed potatoes and chopped up green beans almandine – they turned out really good!  I check off the recipe when its done and ready to go. Winking smile

Dinner last night?  Also amazeballs.  I had grilled chuck roast and baked potatoes on the menu, but neither of us was up for a heavy meal, so we opted for sandwiches.  I made two loaves of Artisan bread and used that as the base of our sandwiches.  Tony wanted a turkey BLT.  Me?  I had a Cuban on the brain!

Mine was:  2 slices of bread, sliced turkey breast, 2 pieces of bacon, yellow mustard, pickles and Swiss cheese – I made a panini out of it and it was so good – fresh baked bread sandwiches are just crazy ass good.

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So I am jumping on Brooke’s Skinny Snowman Challenge, although I am starting today even though it started yesterday.  I’ve printed out her handy point chart so I can track my points.  It’s using the honor system – basically each week you score “points” for certain things – and there is a mini weekly challenge to do each week.

Here is the low down for Week 1:

  • lose weight or maintain your weight this week – 15 points
  • veggie serving at each meal – 5 points per meal
  • 3 fruit servings a day – 10 points
  • log your food – 10 points
  • list 5 positive things per day – 5 points
  • drink 65 ounces of water – 5 points
  • over 65 ounces of water – 10 points
  • have a meatless Monday – 10 points
  • minimum of 30 minutes of exercise – 5 points each 30 minutes (maximum 50 points)
  • First week mini challenge – try a new recipe – 25 points

If I do all of the above – the most I can score is 450.  I already missed out on the first day.  I also see meatless Monday’s being a challenge for me.  I think the best way for me to get my fruits and veggies in is to make more smoothies – green monsters and the like.  If you have any tried and true smoothie recipes, let me know!

I have to participate the full five weeks that takes us to December 29.  The person with the most cumulative points gets a change to win a prize.  And I am all about prizes!

So at the beginning of my 21 day challenge, I weighed in at:

170

Today I weigh:

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I lost 1.8 in my 21 day challenge.  Could I have done better?  Of course. I kind of wasn’t as committed over the Thanksgiving weekend.  I had pie three nights in a row.  I didn’t work out.  And my water drinking wasn’t what it should have been.  But it’s better than gaining, right?

So I am going bold for this Skinny Snowman Challenge.  In five weeks my goal is to be 159, which means I have to lose 9.2 pounds.  During the holiday season.  My 45th birthday is March 19, and my goal is to be back to 140 by then.

Hope everyone had a wonderful long weekend.  Did you go off track these last four days?? 

I am off to make a pumpkin coconut milk smoothie.  Yep, my husband pretty much just threw up in his mouth reading that sentence, I am confident of that.  You’re welcome honey! Open-mouthed smile

Make it a great day!