Cheater, Cheater, pumpkin eater.

Let's preface this by saying, I'm a cheater. Yes, I try to follow rules and behave as I'm supposed to but I cheat. In high school, a friend and I sat by the wall and would put our vocabulary books behind the AC unit when we had tests. In college, I used google to find tricks to make my papers longer. And now, as an adult, I'm cheating when it comes to my health.  I don't work out and I don't eat as healthy as I should. Due to having a baby, my blood pressure has been high and I'm on medication, something I'd like to get rid of.  And tonight, I'm counting the kettle corn I'm going to eat as my extra yellow container I still need.

21 day fix is a portion control system that uses color coded Tupperware containers to help with portion control. Today was my first day, and I have already cheated. First thing this morning, I put creamer in my coffee. I will say I only used 1 teaspoon and I did it because I didn't want to just toss the creamer. This is my 'trial' round to help me get things figured out and how well I like doing it. So far, so good.

Although 21 day fix does seem to be a fad diet, it's more than that. (I am not a beachbody coach. just speaking from my experience!) It's a program that teaches about portion control and gives you tools for success.  And it isn't starving yourself. I struggled with eating my lunch today because of the required amounts of food I am supposed to have.  My lunch was seasoned hamburger, lettuce, tomato, onion, peppers, mushrooms and cottage cheese, as well as a dressing. It was delicious. Today has probably been some of the best food i've had in a while! Tonight I made mini meatloaves, roasted asparagus and mashed potatoes.

I have plans for tomorrows meals, which isn't completely out of the ordinary for me as I do like to plan but this takes some figuring to make sure all of the containers are accounted for during the day. Having things prepped and ready for tomorrow will make getting up at 5 AM for work much easier!

 I have yet to start the workouts, so I can't comment on them. I'm hoping to get one in tonight yet.

Follow me on my journey over the next 21 days. (As part of our support group, we are also doing "The Love Dare". I will likely have posts on how that is going too, if I remember. I'm trying to keep accountable without commenting like crazy in our group app so people don't get tired of me! :)
If you'd like to know more about my meals let me  know.

~H

laissez le bon temps rouler!

We hosted a Mardi gras party at our house last night.  We found the "baby" in the King Cake last year and decided to go all out for our party.  Last year it was really just R & I and our friend Dan.  We didn't have a kings cake baby so we added a duck. 

We know we were a few days late as Fat Tuesday really marks the end of Mardi Gras but we really just wanted a good reason to get together with friends and have some fun.  
I started preparing for the party by perusing pinterest. :) Of course.  There are so many great ideas for everything there. Lot of great decorating and invitation ideas for parties.  


I made an adorable wreath for the party with extra mardi gras beads we had. I got a few strands from the Dollar Tree also. The hardest part was probably cutting out the fleur-de-lis from foam board.  Any suggestions on how to cut that stuff?  I already had the wreath from a previous one I made and had most of the beads. The green were actually a long strand tha was used on a Christmas garland. The amount you'll need depends on how thick the beads are and how thick your wreath is.  I just cut the fleur-de-lis from the foam board and painted it.  The center is just gold glitter. My house looked like stripper visited. :) 

For food we had craw fish that we picked up from our local Hy-Vee store. It was precooked and frozen so we just needed to heat it up. To do this I boiled a pot of water and stuck a few crawfish in at a time for about 3 minutes.    
I made some Jambalaya type soup...Our friend told me he wouldn't call it Jambalaya but it was good.  I used this recipe.  I couldn't find banana pepers (or didn't look that hard) so I didn't use those but used a whole red and green pepper.   I also used a sausage ring (near the ring of bologna in our store)  instead of polish sausage.  Honestly, I didn't even try any of it because I was so tired of food by the time the party came. I had been cooking all day and munching as I went! 
I made crab dip from here. And also made some bbq beef from a crock pot recipe book I have.  It was pretty good as well.  

Beyond that, the most important part was the King Cake. :) I made a blueberry cake and a cherry cake. King cake is a sweet roll cake. Almost like a cinnamon roll in cake form.  I used this recipe  from The Food Network.  I added pie filling with the cream cheese filling.  To hid the baby, I did it after cooking because I didn't have a real King Cake baby, I turned the cake upside down and cut a small slit in the bottom. After flipping right-side up I couldn't even tell were it was.  We made our own colored sugar because finding purple and yellow was difficult. I just took a half cup of sugar and slowly added a few drops of food coloring at a time while mixing very well.   I think it might work well if you used superfine sugar rather than regular. 

I also found a picture of super cute cookies and decided to try to copy them. I'm not the best at frosting but I really want to work out that this summer! I think they're still cute but the originals were way cuter, but I didn't have that much time to make them! 

Overall I think every thing turned out great and we had a really fun time. We had lots of beads and masks for every one.  Our friend brought over some of Pat O'Brian's Hurricanes and some other Grape punch.  Pat O'Brian's is a place in NOLA that is famous for their hurricanes as they were the original. 


I think it was a successful party. Not as crazy as the real deal but it was a good start! :) Everyone came decked out in Purple and Green some with great hats and their own masks! 


As always, Enjoy! Have a great day! 

~H

  

Print Friendly Recipes!

 Hey all! Just in case you're wondering I have newly created a place where you can find more printer friendly recipes.  They'll mostly be the ones posted on here but in a more black and white style so you can go to that page and print it straight from there. Yes it is another step but better than wasting all your ink and you can print it rather than write it down. :) I thought it be helpful to some. So you can check it out {here} Yes, I'm a cheater on blogger and am using google pages for it. I'll try to remember to link each recipe up to it but if I forget feel free to remind me! :) 

PS. I will hopefully be posting my pumpkin bar recipe later! :) I also have a sewing craft I did a few weeks ago that should be getting a post one of these days too. but until then! 


~Enjoy!~
HR






https://sites.google.com/site/reddoorrecipes/

Eat: Apple Crisp.

Things have been pretty busy for me lately but I did find a few minutes to make an apple crisp the other day. School is into mid term time so things are picking up quite quickly but it's going well! :)

To me, Apple Crisp is probably the epitome of fall desserts. The greatest part is it takes like literally 5 minutes to throw together and about a half hour to bake and most often the only thing you need to grab before making it is the apples. Super awesome for if you need to throw together a dessert in a hurry. And honestly who doesn't like apple crisp!?

What's for dinner?

Randy is out of town and I was tired of lame suppers and lunches when he's gone or when we work opposite schedules so I decided to try out a recipe I have had for a while and had the stuff for.  So here it is.  I'm not sure where I got it from so I apologize if I stole it from you without credit. Leave me a comment and let me know!

<printable>

Cheesy Chicken & Shells

1 1/2 cups shell pasta

2 tablespoons flour

1/4 cup of water

1 1/4 cups chicken broth

1 can (10 3/4 oz) Condensed cream of chicken soup

1/2 cup Velveeta cheese chopped

1 1/2 cups cubed cooked chicken

salt & peper

1/8 teaspoon paprika

1-2 Tablespoons melted butter

2-3 tablespoons dry bread crumbs

Cook the pasta. Meanwhile, combine flour and water in a sauce pan until smooth, stir frequently. Gradually stir in broth (I didn't do it gradually so mine was a little clumpy but I don't think it changed the results.) Bring to a boil. Cook and stir for 2 more minutes or until thickened. Reduce heat add soup, cheese and seasonings.  Cook and stir 5 minutes or until cheese melts take off heat.

Add pasta, and chicken to soup/cheese mix. 

Put in 1 1/2 quart baking dish. Sprinkle with breadcrumbs that have been mixed with the butter. 

Bake at 350 for 30 minutes. 

Sound like a lot of work but it really wasn't so bad for the results. Now I'm not a big fan of Velveeta but there's not a lot in it so it's only a faint taste of it. I supposed you could maybe substitute cheese soup but it's only a quarter cup. It's like a homemade mac and cheese with chicken. Pretty good. 

Oh, and the chicken I used is probably the best ever if you can find it. It's Tyson's Grilled and Ready Chicken.

(Grilled & Ready® Fully Cooked Refrigerated Oven Roasted Diced Chicken Breast) 

All you have to do is microwave it for about 4 minutes and it's ready to go! Great for other recipes that call for chicken too!

Also, I should have probably put it in a bigger dish but this one worked out.

That's what was for dinner. :)