Days 4 & 5 Biggest Loser Recipes

Doing two days at once here, I'm falling a little behind because this week is a nightmare at school for me. Thankfully today is Thursday and its almost over.

Here are some recent recipes I have made from the Biggest Loser cookbook. I couple of meals we ate out but that's ok, I'm not trying to do them all in a week, just in the next few months or so.

Breakfasts: 1. Kelly's Cottage Cheese and Fruit Parfait: it was good. James really liked it, I thought it was 'good'. Nothing really special about it, just layered cottage cheese with some green apples and blueberries. James gave it a 10, I gave it an 8. Total calories: 174

2.Warm Pumpkin-Pie Cream of Wheat: I liked the idea of having pumpkin pie in the morning...but it didn't really taste like pumpkin pie so I was disappointed. It was missing the whipped cream! LOL Overall it was, again, good. James gave it a 7.5 I gave it an 8. Total calories: 121

Lunches: Matt's "Slap It Together" Turkey-Gauc Sandwich: I liked it, James loved it. The best part about it was that it called for prepared SPICY guacamole and the kind I bought was spicy so it had a lot of flavor. James gave it a 10+ and I gave it a 9. Total calories: 332

Dinner: Sexy Joes (like sloppy joes). SO GOOD! I'm not a big sloppy joe fan myself but this was yummy! The recipe calls for chili sauce but I had no idea what that was or where to get it so I just substituted more tomato sauce and I loved it. James and I both gave it a 10. Total calories: 331

With our Sexy Joes we had Parmesan-Pepper Sweet Potato Fries, also really good! James gave them a 9 and I gave them a 9.5. Total calories: 249 but I think this was with ketchup and we didn't use ketchup so it might have been a little lower.

Dessert: Lisa's Frozen Gramwiches: Couldn't be simpler, take a graham cracker and some flavored cool whip and make a sandwich out of them. They were tasty and so easy that I have to give them a 10! James really liked them too, also gave them a 10. Total calories for 3 sandwiches was 200.

So I think that puts me up to 25 recipes now, only 100 left :)

Day 3 Biggest Loser Recipes

Wow today I was a superstar in the cooking department. I made 6 recipes today! I have to say that I am really surprised at how good most of these recipes taste. I was expecting them to be flavorless and not so great but most of them are really good! (so far, lets not jinx ourselves!)

Breakfast: Boston-Cream Peanut-Butter Breakfast Banana Split, holy cow say that three times fast! LOVED IT! It was easy to make, really tasty and didn't involve any cooking...great for 7 o'clock in the morning. I give it a 9, James gave it an 8. I left for school before he woke up this morning so I left all the stuff out on the counter for him with the cookbook open to the right page. Well I guess James' dad (who comes over to watch Asher for us) actually feed Asher James' Boston Cream Pie yogurt so James had to use a different flavor. Maybe he would've liked it even better with the right flavored yogurt.

Lunch: Champ's Chicken Quesadilla. Very simple ingredients, but kind of a pain to prepare for a quick lunch. First you have to marinate the chicken for 15 minutes, then grill the chicken, then cut it up and then grill the quesadillas. But in the end it was worth it because they were very tasty, and with only tortilla, chicken and cheese I bet it was pretty cheap to make as well. We both gave it a 10!

Snacks: Today I made some snacks. These low calories are kicking James' butt so I had to give him something to snack on in-between meals, plus its better if you eat smaller meals more often then 3 large meals. First snack was Spinach Skinny-Dip, which you serve with cut up veggies. The first thing James said when he took a bite was "its missing cheese", I had to laugh, of course its missing the cheese, that's where all the fat is! Needless to say it wasn't nearly as good as Parmesan Spinach dip that you get at Applebees but it was ok. James gave it a 6, I give it a 6 also. But I probably won't make it again.

Second snack was Lemon-Poppy Seed Mini Muffins. These were really yummy. A little chewy compared to other muffins but the flavor is wonderful. James gives them a 10 and I give them a 9. At only 34 calories and just a trace of fat per muffin its hard to give them anything lower than a 9!

Dinner: Thai Ground-Chicken Salad. Ok first off, mine didn't have ground chicken in it because I already had chicken breasts here so I just cut it up into tiny little pieces...worked perfectly. Also the recipe calls for cashews and I thought I had some at home but turned out someone ate them all so I used almonds instead. I think the cashews would've been better but the salad was good as I made it. James liked it a lot. He gave it a 9. I'm already sick of salads so I was fighting to get the last few bites down. But don't get me wrong, it was really tasty, I just get to a point where I can't eat another salad and I'm at that point already. The dressing was a little spicy but full of flavor. I give it an 8, the dressing was burning my lips from the lime juice, I had to mark it down for that reason LOL!

Dessert: Iced Buffed Mocha...what a disappointment this was. It had very little flavor and since I was having issues with my Bullet Blender I was annoyed by the time it came to drink it and didn't enjoy it at all! I have to say though that I didn't follow the recipe very well so it could've been my own fault it didn't taste well. First it wanted instant coffee but instead I used coffee from a pot, also it wanted chocolate soy milk but I had accidentally bought vanilla so I added a little fat-free chocolate syrup instead. Anyway, James gave it a 5, and the 5 is because it had whipped cream on it, without the whipped cream it would've scored lower LOL!!!!! But I'm with him, I think a 5 is being generous, I'd say a 4. But out of fairness I'll have to try it again with the proper ingredients to see if its better.

Calorie count:

Breakfast: 294

Lunch: 242 plus we had a little side salad with fat-free poppy seed dressing

Snacks: Dip 21 per 2-Tablespoons (w/o veggies)

Mini-Muffins 34 each

Dinner: 333

Dessert: 127

For me, since I had maybe one serving of the dip and 3 muffins, my total for the day was about 1200. I'm not sure how many muffins or how much dip James had so I don't know his total but I'm sure it wasn't much more than mine. And I'm full, I didn't feel hungry at all today except right after my workout, which is not a surprise since it had been 4.5 hours since I had eaten breakfast.

Running total: 15 recipes made so far, out of 125!

Day 2 of Biggest Loser Recipes

Alrighty....4 more recipes tried today, here is the low-down on them.

For breakfast we had Better Blueberry Pancakes. I liked them, didn't love them but they were good. I put sugar-free syrup on them and I'm thinking I would've enjoyed them more without the syrup. I would give them a 6, James gives them a 10 which really surprises me, I didn't think he really cared for them.

For lunch we were out of the house down in St George so we had Subway...yummy but not in the Biggest Loser cookbook :) hehe.

For dinner we had Sweet-and-Spicy Pork Tenderloin and Parmesan-Roasted Cauliflower...YUMMY!!!! Both of them were really good. I was surprised at how good the cauliflower was, because I am not a big fan of cauliflower at all. The tenderloin was spicy but so good, it had a glaze on it that was kinda sweet so it was a great contrast to the spiciness. I give both of them a 10! James gives them "a 9 or 10, they were big hits with me"

For dessert we had Marty's Creamy Pineapple Sorbet and it too was YUMMMMMY!!!! It was very easy to make and the basic concept is easy enough to switch the flavors around a little and make something completely different. All I did was throw some frozen fruit (for this one it was pineapples) into the blender with some fat-free flavored yogurt and little lemon juice and blended! You serve it right away, it doesn't have to sit in the freezer or anything. My only complaint was that because there is hardly any liquid in it I had a difficult time getting it to blend but other than that it was easy as pie! I give it a 9 and James gives it a 9.

Calorie count for these dishes:

Breakfast: 140

Dinner: Pork 221 Cauliflower 32.5 (I didn't realize the recipe was one serving and only made one of it so James, Josten and I split the one serving in 3rds which made it only 32.5 calories each!!!) Dinner total 253.5

Dessert: 78

Total Biggest Loser recipe calories: 471.5

For dinner we also had a big portion of salad with very low-fat dressing on it so I'm guessing that's another 50-60 calories and then we had lunch at subway. James had a few other snacks throughout the day but not me!!!! I'm way proud of myself (and James too).

So, as far as these recipes go I would cook them all again except maybe not the pancakes. They weren't all that great, but I might try them one more time without the syrup to see if they are any better. I'm willing to share these recipes with anyone who wants them, so if you do just email (rhonda1118@gmail.com) me which ones you want and I'll get them over to you.

Well that's 9 out of 125 recipes so far! Woohoo I'm flying through!

A new experiment

A while ago James and I bought a cookbook from the Biggest Loser (you know, the reality show). I had made a few things from it but the other night I pulled it out to make one of the recipes I had already made and was flipping through the book. I said to James, I'm going to cook all these recipes and try them out. And I thought he'd say 'UGH, really?" but he said "go for it!" So I'll post a little something about the recipes I cook so that if someone wants to buy the cookbook they'll know if the recipes are any good. I'll even rank each recipe for everyone, on a scale from 1-10, 10 being the best.

Today I cooked the following:

For breakfast we had the Sausage, Egg, and Cheese Breakfast Sandwich. James gave it a 4.5, he said it was a bit dry for him, probably because there wasn't any butter on the english muffins. I really liked it, I'd give it a 7.

For lunch we had the Almost Fast Food Burger. Both of us really liked it! We both gave it a 9. Personally I don't know what was any different between this hamburger and the hamburgers we normally BBQ, except the whole-wheat buns. It was really yummy!

For dinner we had New Orleans Rubbed Chicken with Apricot-Mustard Sauce and Lizzeth's Cucumber Salad. For me the chicken was really spicy, well for me, Josten and Dakota it was really spicy. But it was still good, I'll just use less cayenne pepper next time. James loved it! He said the first bite was spicy but after that it was great. He gave the chicken a 9, I would give it a 7.5. The cucumber salad, for me, was ok, but I've never really liked cucumber salads. James said it was yummy, he gave it an 8, I give it a 5.

For dessert (yes even desserts are included!!) we had One-Serving Chocolate Cheesecakes. James gives it a 7, he says it was different but it wasn't wonderful. He really liked the crust of it, which was made from Grape-Nuts cereal. I didn't really like the chocolate flavoring of it, but I'm not a huge chocolate fan. I might make it next time without the chocolate. I gave it a 7 also.

Here is a calorie count, which really surprised James because he couldn't believe how little we ate and full he has felt.

Breakfast: 278

Lunch: 281

Dinner: 197 + 40= 237

Dessert: 107

Total for the day: 903

Of course we went to see a movie today, Avatar, and ate popcorn and a soda so we ate a lot more than 903 calories, but still, 903 calories would normally be one meal for us so that was pretty amazing!!!

By the way, Avatar was a pretty amazing movie. The visual effects alone are worth the price to go see the movie. But the story line was amazing too. I asked James after we got home if he thought the human race would really do something like that to another species if they had something we wanted. He said he figured there are some people out there that would and that broke my heart. Anyway, I don't want to ruin the movie for anyone that hasn't seen it yet so I won't go into anymore detail. But the movie is wonderful...everyone should go see it! Another great movie that we saw a while back was The Blind Side. Go see both of them, they are both wonderful!

Well I'm exhausted...I'm off to bed. I'll be back tomorrow with a review of our menu.