Burgers, Sweat and Ravioli

It seems to be our routine now that we end up not having breakfast at least one day over the weekend.  Saturday we got up, started doing stuff around the house, and before I knew it, it was almost noon!  I still had some menu planning to do, so I ate a quick piece of toast and 1/2 a cup of cottage cheese.  That held me over because I knew we were going to The Assembly for lunch.  Best.Burgers.Ever.

That, my friends is the poblano burger – you can’t really see it, but its slathered with a thin, spicy poblano sauce that’s amazeballs.  I could only eat 3/4 of it (ditched the top bun) but I am still counting it as 600 calories.

Later in the afternoon I did Day 16 of Insanity.  It felt good to get all sweaty!  I posted this on Facebook – in case you missed Saturday’s post, I’ve lost 7.2 pounds since May 31!

We had gorgeous weather this weekend, even between some rain storms.  Saturday night we hung out back and grilled.  When I was cleaning out our freezer, I found that I had a Door County Cherry Pork roast that I never used.  I have no idea where I bought it either!  I was worried if Tony would eat it because pork has been off putting for him lately, but he was in.

We enjoyed a couple beers – this one is new to me but I’ve read about it.  150 calories a bottle and delicious – more flavor that a regular light beer.

If I didn’t know it was pork, I would have thought it was beef!  Tony really liked it, and the zucchini?  All mine!

So last week I made me and my boss some pancakes – I used flax seed, wheat germ, oats.  I purposely did not make the pancakes very sweet – only 1 tablespoon of sugar for the whole recipe, because I knew my topping of blueberries, bananas and sugar free syrup was going to be overly sweet and combined would be the perfect combo.

I had two leftover and just left them on the counter.  Tony texted me later and said “what the hell are those pancakes – they taste like sand!”  I promised that I would make him full metal jacket blueberry buttermilk pancakes over the weekend.

Buttermilk Pancakes For Two (or Three)

• I made this two servings, three pancakes each
• 455 calories, 21 fat, 75 carbs, 2.6 fiber an 19 protein

Ingredients:

• 1 cup of buttermilk
• 1 cup of flour
• 1 tablespoon sugar
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 egg
• 1.5 tablespoons butter, melted and slightly cooled
• 1 teaspoon olive oil
• 1/2 cup fresh blueberries

Mix everything together but the blueberries.  Let the batter sit for a minimum of 15 minutes.  I used a 1/4 cup measure to get six pancakes.  Once I put the batter in the pan, I then place the blueberries in the pancake, press down a bit and then flip.  If you add the blueberries to the batter, the batter becomes purple.   The batter is super fluffy.

Even the syrup was happy about the pancakes!

Tony gave these two big thumbs up.  Super fluffy and delicious.

And since I made Friday my rest day – Sunday was Day 17 of Insanity.  I rocked it.

Do you guys watch Master Chef?  Last week they had a homemade pasta challenge, and I realized I hadn’t made pasta in a while.  I chose to make it on a Sunday because I have more time, but seriously this meal came together in 30 minutes.

Have you made your own pasta?  It’s really easy.  I took my pasta dough recipe out of this cookbook:

Pasta Dough:

• 4 servings – 150 calories, 2.7 fat, 24 carbs, .8 fiber and 6.37 protein

Ingredients:

• 1 cup flour
• 2 eggs
• that’s it

Just put the flour and eggs into a food processor and pulse until combined.  I added about a tablespoon or so of flour on my counter and just brought the dough together.  I only used half of this dough for the ravioli – 1/4 for the bottom of the ravioli and 1/4 for the top.  I ended up cutting the rest of the dough into spaghetti and cooked that off for a later time after the ravioli were done.

Ravioli Filling:

• 2 servings – 232 calories, 17 fat, 2 carbs, 0 fiber and 17 protein

Ingredients:

• 5 ounce Italian sausage, removed from casing and cooked
• 1 clove minced garlic
• 1/2 cup ricotta cheese
• that’s it

Once the sausage is cooked, add it to the food processor with the garlic and ricotta and pulse about 5 times.

Alfredo Sauce:

• 4 servings – 140 calorie,s 8 fat, 7.7 carbs, 0 fiber and 6 protein

Ingredients:

• 1 tablespoon butter
• 1 tablespoon flour
• 1 cup evaporated milk
• 1/4 cup Parmesan cheese
• salt and pepper
• that’s it

Melt the butter in a sauce pan.  Add flour and cook for one minute.  Gradually add in the evaporated milk until the sauce is nice and thick.  Remove from heat and add in salt and pepper to taste.

I have a ravioli press – I got it off of Amazon for 10 bucks, but I am sure you could find it at Bed Bath & Beyond.

Once you put the top dough on, you just take a rolling pin and try to get all the metal to show, that way you know you’ve cut through the dough.  Just flip the press and they all come out – I do add Pam to the press before putting the first layer of dough on though – they never stick that way.

It was pretty hot in my kitchen, so they didn’t all turn out that pretty because the dough was soft – no worries, they all tasted good!

Um, Tony and I may have put a treat into our basket at the grocery store.  We keep seeing all the cupcake wars on t.v. and we are like, what’s the big deal about a cupcake??  Well, this red velvet cupcake with buttercream frosting?  Let’s just say I deemed it insulin worthy!

I got to Facetalk with Hannah last night for about 45 minutes.  Her dog is so cute, but I don’t think he understood that if he stood right in front of her computer, I couldn’t see her!  I was laughing so hard!

So guess what? I counted every calorie over the weekend, including the cupcake and drinks I had, and I didn’t do too bad!

Saturday:

• 1848 calories, 63 fat, 186 carbs, 10 fiber and 84 protein
• 40% calories from carbs, 31% from fat and 29% from protein

Sunday:

• 1562 calories, 55 fat, 129 carbs, 4.6 fiber, 51 protein
• 33% of calories from carbs, 32% from fat and 35% from protein

Okay, well my fiber intake was a bit low, but otherwise, not too bad!

Alright, I have to sign off, its starting to get stormy outside this morning and I have to get my shit together for the day too.  On tap for breakfast – ham rollups and fresh fruit and lunch is skinny broccoli pepper jack cheese soup – I’ll post that recipe tomorrow.

Make it a great day!  How was your weekend?