Easter for me has always been about Jesus, but a close second is chocolate. I am almost as passionate about the stuff as I am about coffee....and I don't think it's a coincidence that they pair perfectly together. So what's a girl like me, trying to lose weight, to do when chocolate is everywhere. I've already decided my beloved Cadbury eggs are off limits as well as the Reese's peanut butter eggs. :( But there is NO way I will ever give up chocolate. So when my mother in law asked me to bring dessert for Easter dinner, I had a good idea: Dark chocolate dipped strawberries. They are incredibly easy to make and a healthy indulgence.
Rinse berries, then dry with a paper towel. Set aside.
Create a double boiler: fill a pot halfway with water and bring to a boil. Pour one bag of dark chocolate chips into a Pyrex dish, or a pie dish like I used. Set dish over the pot of boiling water (don't burn yourself on the steam!) And let sit for about ten minutes until chocolate gets melty.
Carefully steady dish with a pot holder as you stir the chocolate with a spatula until smooth.
Dip each berry in chocolate, holding the stem. Rotate until is is mostly covered. Set on a wax paper covered baking sheet, and then continue until all berries are dipped.
On e done, let sit for about five minutes, then cover with plastic wrap and put in refrigerator.
When you are ready, put on a pretty dish and enjoy the heck out of them!
"Mom, why don't you always get me toys at the store? I'm sick of my toys.". Both of my boys have taken turns whining this...hoping it would inspire me to go to the store and shower them with every thing they've ever wanted. It had the opposite effect.
"I love buying you toys on your birthdays and for holidays, but we don't buy toys all of the time. You can always do chores for money though.".
I've suggested this over and over, but for some reason this week my boys sprung into action and decided to earn some money. They started with just one or two things per day. For each chore, we would mark down one mark on a paper. This was the pay chart, each mark equalling a quarter and the agreed payday would be Friday.
Ethan started to get creative with his chores; loading our woodbox full of logs...learning to put away laundry that I had folded....cleaning out my car, the list goes on and on. Will stuck with the dependable bed-making and bringing his dirty laundry downstairs...though he did learn to dust with pledge yesterday under my supervision.
The end result today for payday: Ethan made ten dollars in one week...that's forty chores! Will made $3.75 but ethan and I agreed that it would be okay to round up to four dollars.
We stopped at the bank, and then off to Walmart we went. There was so much to look at. Will settled on a small stuffed puppy while Ethan found a RC car that was just over his ten dollar range. He negotiated with me, and we settled on me helping him pay if he helped me put groceries away when we got home.
My boys are so proud of their purchases that they haven't stopped playing with them. I can tell that they are proud to have earned them and I am proud of them for working so hard. Every chore they did was their idea. It's been a wonderful week.
Today I dropped Will off at preschool, and then brought my computer with me to Starbucks in an effort to force myself to write....yes, I am THAT person. Anyways, it worked. For an hour and a half I was on a roll...typing brilliant things while sipping a latte. And then IT happened. All of my newly written brilliance vanished. Had I not been in a public settings I would have started crying. All of that work...gone. I left Starbucks, not sure what to do. As I waited in my car for preschool to finish, I opened my laptop and searched everywhere I could think to...
Nothing. I was getting ready to throw in the towel and start drinking wine when I got home...but after picking up Will and waiting outside Ethans school, I googled (on my handy dandy smartphone) how to recover an unsaved word document. Immediately I found what I was looking for, and I realized I am not the first MS WORD victim.
Through a few simple instructions, I was able to recover my unsaved document. Whew!
Sometimes I just need some pizza! Last night, my darling husband wad nice enough to pick some up for me. It was a cheat meal, and I don't regret a single slice.
"I'm not on a diet, I am just eating healthier.". A couple of months ago I saw this quote on Pinterest and decided to make it my secret motto. So in the spirit of not dieting, I allow myself AT LEAST ONE cheat meal a week. Just because a person is trying to make good choices doesn't mean they should deprive themselves of their favorite foods. Life would be so dull, and the chances of you sticking to being healthy in the long run are slim. It's easy to get the idea in your head that you are only eating healthy and, then if you cheat...it's easy to beat yourself up for it. But of you make a plan to cheat once, twice, even three times during the week and the make good choices the rest of the time, I guarantee you will have better results and feel happier when you get to indulge instead of feeling guilty.
I created another successful meal last night. When I went grocery shopping last week I bought tons of veggies, so I decided to put them to good use last night in a stirfry. I used a great sauce recipe that I found in Food Network Magazine a few years ago.
Sauce: combine 1/2 cup chicken broth, 1 tbsp soy sauce, 1 tbsp. Hoisin sauce (I found it at Albertsons in the ethnic food aisle), 1 tbsp red wine, and 1 tbsp cornstarch. Mix well and set aside.
Cook your protein..I used three pork chops, or a little over a pound. Slice off unwanted fat from the chops. Slice and chop until meat is in bite size. Cook in 2 tbsp. Olive oil or coconut oil (I used both) until cooked through and light in color. Remove from pan and set aside.
Prep your veggies. I used one red bell pepper, one onion, three small heads of broccoli, a handful of baby carrots, and about two cups of fresh green beans. I steamed the broccoli, carrots, and beans for about ten minutes.
While steaming, cook chopped onion and pepper in oil until tender. Chop steamed veggies and add to onion and pepper mix. Add pork back to veggies and pour sauce over all of it. Mix it up and cook on medium for a few minutes. Season with salt and pepper, or soy sauce, and enjoy.
The apple cider vinegar experiment, or A.C.V.E. for shorter typing. Today is day two. After feeling bloated for the last few days, I was delighted to wake up and feel slender again. Not sure if it was from pushing through that workout, eating veggies and lean pork for dinner, or the apple cider vinegar in that smoothie that make the difference...so I will give credit to every small step I took yesterday. I haven't worked out yet today, but after searching pinterest for A.C.V. recipes last night, I couldn't resist trying one. I love a nice glass of juice in the morning, and since grapefruit juice is my favorite, the stars seemed to align.
In an 8oz. Glass, combine 1-2 tsps honey ( or agave nector if your honey runs out like mine did), 2 tsps apple cider vinegar, and fill the rest with grapefruit juice. Stir well with a fork. Drink up.
The tartness overtakes the vinegar taste and the honey soothes the throat so that there isn't as much burn. Yummy.
