Eating In. Eating Out.

Well tonight we are eating WAY later than my 6pm rule, but it was pretty much un avoidable. We had couples counseling at 5pm that ran a little late (till 5:30) so we were either eating dinner at 4:00 or now. I chose now. It’s also ok because I wont be going to bed so early tonight because I get a THREE DAY WEEKEND! So I’m ok with pushing things back an hour. I will have to think about counseling for next week and how to fit dinner around it, we will see.

Well tonight we are having a great (AND VEGAN!) dinner!  I am making Skinny Chili Seasoned fries (with my amazing Mandolin I got for Christmas!), the recipe is a video from The WW Chick that you can watch here. They are super easy and pretty much amazing! They also arent fried! Hallelujah! With this we are having Vegan Sloppy Joes (which my BFF Mallory told my are called Sloppy Janes) that we buy in a box from Whole Foods. They are really yummy, even Mr. Gaunt likes them. We have them on Sara Lee 80 Calorie Wheat Buns.

In other news I skipped weigh in this week. I have maintained well and am still sitting 1.5lbs away from my big goal of 75lbs lost. I’m ok with this, I will not dwell. So I missed the meeting, but I do know this weeks topic was on Eating Out. Anyone who has ever attempted to lose weight KNOWS eating out is freaking hard! It just sucks! Mr. Gaunt and I have a few places we feel comfortable eating at (Chilis has a light menu, Water Course has amazing Vegan and vegetarian food, Subway and Chipotle can be safe) (Oh and Eat This, Not That has a website now where you can get all kinds of great restaurant tips!) but it’s still hard. Bitch Cakes, an amazing WW member/blogger who I have raved about before did a great post on her own personal feeling on eating out. I just had to share HER list of reasons for why she doesn’t eat out:

• I don’t trust the cleanliness of the food/kitchen/preparer(s).
• I don’t want to be subjected to/distracted by/tempted by food.
• I don’t like eating while talking (it takes the focus off the food – I feel like dining and socializing should be two separate things).
• I don’t like having other people watch me eat.
• I am vegan and health conscious and don’t believe there’s (for example) no oil or MSG, or I worry that they shared a utensil that touched meat or something else I don’t want to ingest.
• I don’t like using silverware other people have used.
• I don’t want to see/smell meat that other people are eating.
• I know I can make a better, healthier, lower point version of whatever I am going to eat. So why stress myself out *and* pay money for a meal that’s not as enjoyable and also higher in calories, fat and points?

I think this is such a good list! Although I’m not a huge germ-a-phobe, I get what she is saying with cleanliness. She also posts about what she does with friends instead of eating out. Read her whole post HERE! I wish I could separate food with entertainment, it would make life easier.

So that’s about it, just something to think about. We had a really great therapy session tonight, brought up lots of old feelings and made me feel a lot better about things I would have called mistakes. I feel really good about this.

Squash Pizza

Mr. Gaunt and I made pizza tonight. I skipped my weigh in because I don’t think I lost more than maybe a half pound. It’s fine, I maintained nicely all through Christmas, what more could I ask for? Anyways back to the Pizza, I posted earlier that I planned to make this squash pizza, but laughed out loud when I read they wanted me to cook the Butternut squash for an hour and also spend an hour caramelizing onions…ha! I wish I had that kind of time and motivation. So I adjusted things a bit to make them fit my time frame.

INGREDIENTS:
-Pre Made Whole Wheat Pizza Crust
-Minced Garlic
-Olive Oil
-1 small diced onion
-5-6 large Thyme Leaves
-1 Cup sliced Mushrooms
-2 Chicken Apple Sausages diced (optional, skip for Vegetarian)
-1/2 Cup 2% Mozzarella Cheese
-1/2 an Acorn Squash
-3-4 small red potatoes sliced
-2-3 Tablespoons Light Alfredo (or Olive Oil)

DIRECTIONS:

Preheat oven to 400

-Cut Acorn in half and scrape seeds and pulp out. Spray with Pam and sprinkle with garlic salt. Put in deep microwavable dish, add 2 or 3 tsp. water (just enough to make steam). Cover well with plastic wrap. Cook on high for 10 minutes.

-Saute Diced onions and Garlic in a large pan. Add Mushrooms. When mushrooms are soft add sausage. Saute it all until nice and brown and cooked. Turn burner off and sprinkle torn up Thyme Leaves on top, let sit.

– Slice Red Potatoes thin (best if you have a mandolin – Which I got for Christmas!)

-Spread Alfredo (or olive oil) onto Pizza Crust. Sprinkle lightly with cheese

-Dump The Onion Garlic Sausage mix evenly onto Pizza Crust

-Spread out raw Potato Slices evenly on top

-Scoop Out small clumps of the Acorn Squash and place evenly on top of the potatoes

-Sprinkle with Cheese.

Place in oven and cook for 15-20 minutes until cheese is golden. Let cool and serve. This is ABSOLUTELY the best pizza we have ever made! Everything was perfect! Oh and we Netflixed Mad Men and watched the first episode. The Feminist in me want to scream! Im going to give a few more episodes, people seem to love it.