Reduced Fat Mayo with Olive Oil

I have a extreme love for Extra Virgin Olive Oil. It has a great flavor and it adds a lot to anything that it is cooked with, especially meat and salads. So, when Kraft came out with their Reduced Fat Mayo with Olive Oil I wanted to give it a try. While I was glad to see it was Reduced Fat and not Low Fat (because I don’t think that even EVOO could save low fat mayo), I wanted to look up some nutritional information first. Olive Oil is much better for you, but what did that really mean for mayo?

One serving is 1 tablespoon, which provides 45 calories, 4 grams of fat, 2 grams of total carbohydrates and 95 mg of sodium. Regular Kraft mayonnaise has 100 calories and 11 grams of total fat, 1.5 grams of which are saturated. So far, it is looking good. The real question came when I bought a bottle and tried it. I was expecting more of an olive oil taste, but all and all I really liked it. It tasted a lot better than real mayo tastes and provides that healthy alternative for those of us that don’t really like mustard on our sandwiches. I think it is definitely worth a try!

Disclaimer: The writer of this post only eats mayo in tuna fish sandwiches. However, it was still amazing and tasted GREAT!

Speaking of tuna, it is by far my favorite sandwich of all time. Although, I am very very picky about my tuna fish, it has to be JUST so. Everyone in my family is the same way and we all have our own variations of tuna fish sandwiches. For mine, I take one can of StarKist ChunkLight Tuna in Water. I prefer the taste of this brand over any other brand. I also prefer it in water, not oil. The consistency of tuna in oil is just gross. (PS. I apologize for the sideways nature of this photo. It is straight on my camera and in the original computer file. However, no matter how many times I re-upload it, it turns it sideways. I don’t know how to fix it).

Use a can opener to open the can. Make sure it opens all the way and no little pieces are left still attached to the can, but don’t take it out just yet! Use the lid to press all the water out of the tuna can. This will probably take several tries.

After you have gotten as much water out as you can, you can take the lid out and throw it away, but make sure not to cut yourself! Blood is NOT a very good secret ingredient. Then use a fork to empty the tuna into a tupperware dish or anything else that you can mix it in and then store the leftovers.

I use a fork to get it out of the container because once it has been smashed and drained, it kind of turns into one big piece of tuna. The fork separates it into little pieces that are perfect for a sandwich!

Now it is time to start adding the good stuff! First, add 2 tbsp of mayo. In this case, I used the new olive oil mayo, of course!

According to Sparkpeople, you have have 2 tbsp for every half a can of tuna in order to make a balanced meal, however, I don’t like mayo so I only use 2 tbsp for the whole can. I usually eat yogurt with my lunch anyway, so that makes up the extra dairy I am losing by not adding all 4 tbsp. It also helps me to justify adding this next part! 1 tbsp of Mt. Olive’s Sweet Relish.

It is my favorite brand of relish and I love the flavor it adds to the tuna and mayo. Then you just mix it all together and BAM! Deliciousness.

This will make two sandwiches so just store the left overs in the refrigerator. After about a week, it gets pretty gross, so make sure to eat it before then! I enjoy my sandwiches with about a handfull of Sun Chips, Greek Yogurt and about 6 baby carrots.

Alice in Wonderland and Through The Looking Glass

I just finished reading Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll. I was reading The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes as well, but once I finished Alice, I HAD to read the second installment, Through The Looking Glass. I love these stories. It is a great little play on logic with Alice finding herself having to rely on logic to navigate this foreign and crazy land called Wonderland that she doesn’t quite belong to. I think it plays on the era in which it was written and how she did not fit into the society of the time and was looking for a place to call her own. Alice herself, although she sometimes loses her composure, is stubborn, brave, mature and determined. She handles a lot of the situations she is thrust into with just elegance and grace, a great quality for a child and great role model for other children.

During her journey, Alice meets some of the most unique characters. I think those characters were actually my favorite part. They are all so deliciously crazy. Carroll found a way to give each of them their own unique voice, which I really enjoyed and was very impressed with.

Because I was such a huge fan of the movies, I thought I would know what to expect, but I found myself constantly flipping to the next page and the next wanting to know what would happen next. It really was a delightful story and if you have not read it, I would recommend it.

I am going to get back to The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes now that I am finished with these two delightful stories and I will review on it next week! Oh, and before I go….NEW LIBRARY CARD!

My old one, which I have had since I was 8, was apparently deactivated. They wouldn’t let me keep it, which I am kind of sad about. (Again, I apologize for the sidewaysness. I am trying to figure out why it is doing that and how to fix it, I promise!)

My Reminder

Today’s health and beauty segment is brought to you by my weekend of carb overload, followed by sickness and a massive migraine headache.

 

It is lady time and during lady time I always want to eat everything in sight, the worse for me it is, the better. I spent from Thursday of last week, until Saturday night eating loaded baked potatoes, mashed potatoes (with a little bit of chicken) and gravy, rolls, Sonic and lots and lots of Chinese food. Oh, and we can’t forget the ice cream and the ice cream sandwiches. Not really a problem for most people, just a little bit of guilt and then they move on, but for me it was worse.

 

I have been eating so much healthier lately, that introducing this many carbs (which turn to sugar when they break down in your body), sugar and greasy fatness into my body was making me feel rather sluggish. For a girl who is insulin resistant, you can imagine the war it was playing with my pancreas as well. Normally, I drink about 10-12 cups of water a day, however, I had not really been doing that last week either, so when I got thirsty, instead of grabbing my normal bottle of water, I got a Lipton Green Tea with Citrus. Sounds kind of healthy, right? Wrong. It has 21 grams of sugar per serving! That is more than Dr. Pepper! I did not read this before I drank half of the bottle. With the other sugars and carbs in my system, that half a bottle of green tea was my undoing. I crashed, hard, and got very nauseous. I almost threw up behind one of the nurseries buildings here in town and I got very flushed. (Another side effect of me not drinking any water, my hair and skin are so dry! It is breaking like mad today!)

 

Since that moment, I have been back on my regularly scheduled eating habits, but I haven’t fully recovered. I am still nursing a huge migraine that I have not been able to kick for two and a half days now. When your body gets used to certain things, like eating healthy and consuming a lot of water and those things are suddenly taken away or replaced with crap your body reacts just as drastically. Before this weekend, I hadn’t noticed how much better I felt and how healthy my skin and hair was becoming. Now, all I want is to go back to feeling good again. How I ever functioned in my life feeling this way before is beyond me.

 

This was definitely a reminder for me on why I chose to change my lifestyle and why it is important to maintain that change!

More Gardening Fun with Flowers!

I have spent so much time in the last three years in front of my computer writing papers and studying that I haven’t made it outdoors very much. Now that school is over and I have more time to go out and enjoy the outdoors, I am really trying to find activities that allow me to do that. My new obsession is gardening. I know I showed you guys’ pictures of my vegetable garden, but this weekend I did a different kind of gardening. I planted flowers!

 

This morning we planted the flowers into our front flowerbeds with our regularly scheduled perennials. See, we keep all the bigger stuff the same; the same trees and bushes. Then, every year, we go out and find different annuals to put along the border and in the hanging flower baskets, just to spice it up. So, yesterday, my mom and I spent the day at various flower nurseries around town picking the perfect flowers to add to the front flowerbeds. We ended up with petunias, dahlias, moss roses, bleeding hearts, a columbine, snapdragons, a calibrachoa, darla whites, lobelias and dianthus’. (There were two others but I can’t find the tags and can’t think of their names).

 

 

 

 

 

I know, it is kind of hard to see some of the new flowers just yet. They are still so small!, but It is going to look great once all the rose bushes bloom and the flowers start to grow!

My work is not over just yet though, as I type this, my dad is cutting out some wooden timbers we are going to use to create a raised bed for the strawberries here in the back vegetable garden! Speaking of the vegetable garden, it is coming along nicely, despite two hard freezes between now and two weeks ago. Gotta love Oklahoma weather!

 

 

It is almost time to start planing tomatos, cucumbers, corn, green peppers and the herbs! Look at all the pretty little starts just waiting for their turn!

 

Pan Seared Anything

My favorite thing to make lately is pan seared anything. Mostly because it is super easy, but another reason is I love the flavor! First, I preheat my oven to 450 degrees. I take the meat and lubricate it in Extra Virgin Olive Oil. Then I sprinkle on some salt and pepper. The next part varies depending on the type of meat I am making, but it is completely up to your own personal tastes. There are so many different combinations you could use and lots of other spices as well! Have fun with it!

 

Anyway, the last spice I sprinkle on is always one of McCormick’s Grill Mates Seasonings. I LOVE their spice combinations!! They taste great and they flavor things really well. The Garlic and Onion seasoning is my go to spice for chicken. This is also great to add to the water you cook your potatoes in for mashed potatoes. The potatoes absorb the flavor and you get these really great, subtle garlic-and-onion-flavored mashed potatoes. I love it because then I don’t feel the need to add tons of butter or gravy to my mashed potatoes, so I can keep them as healthy as possible. For steak, I use the Montreal Steak seasoning and for pork I always grab the Barbeque seasoning. I am not usually a big fan of barbeque because it is messy and the flavor is a little overwhelming and detracts from the taste of the meat. However, with this seasoning, I don’t have either one of those problems. If you have used these spices you should definitely check them out, as well as some of the other combinations made by McCormick’s.

 

Anyway, after you season the meat on both sides, you cook it in a preheated skillet on medium high heat. You will have to transfer this skillet to the oven in a minute, so make sure it is an oven compatible. I use a cast iron skillet. Cook the meat for about 2-3 minutes on each side until it is browned and then put the skillet into the preheated oven. I usually cook it for about 10- 15 minutes, turning it over every 5 minutes until the meat is fully cooked.

 

The best part about this is the calories. The only calories added to that of the meat are the 120 from the EVOO and 16 from the pepper. Although, if you use the Montreal Steak Seasoning, add 5 calories as well.

 

Great flavor, easy and low calories. Can’t be any better than that!

 

New Job…and One Step Closer to my Dreams

This week I am unemployed. I previously worked at a shelter for children who had been removed from their homes due to abuse and neglect. However, that was a part time job in which I could only 999 hours a year (roughly 20 hours a week). It was great when I was going through school and 20 hours a week was all I could handle with classes, internships and studying. So, I used all my 999 hours (even though I don’t roll until June) and said my goodbyes. I began applying for jobs in the Northeast United States back in January. I was hoping that by March 15^th I would be on my to starting my new life, but I am not. It has been hard because I don’t live in the area, but saving up enough money to move on 20 hours a week is not an easy task.

 

A few weeks ago, I was getting scared. What would I do with no money? I had started this plan and now it was getting to the end I wasn’t where I wanted to be. On a whim, I applied for a local job working with kids in head start programs to de-escalate aggressive behavior problems. Last Thursday, I was offered the job! Earlier this week, I went and got all my pre-employment drug tests/TB tests etc out of the way and I start on the 28^th. Not only do I get to use my degree, but I will have health benefits and I will be able to replenish my savings account (which I took a lot of money out of to pay off my $2200 last semester of grad school).

 

I am still going to apply for jobs in the Northeast, but now I can apply for the jobs I want, instead of anything that will get me a position. I will have therapy experience, which will give me that much more of a leg up. I will live my dream of moving away, it just might take a few more months to get everything positioned right. More importantly, this experience is teaching me to be patient and not to expect instant gratification.

 

Gardening, The Healthy Alternative

In an attempt to be healthier, we have planted our very own garden in the backyard. Our garden is cholk-full of fresh vegetables and fruit like broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, peas, red potatoes, white potatoes, onions, lettuce, spinach, carrots, tomatoes, corn, green beans, cucumbers, watermelon, and cantaloupe. Our summers are always full of delicious, preservative and chemical free vegetables and fruits. Once you taste them, it is hard to switch back.

We grow a lot more than we can eat in one summer, so a lot of our vegetables get frozen, canned, stored or given away to neighbors and co-workers. We make homemade spaghetti sauces, pickles, canned peaches (which we get from Porters. We aren’t ambitious enough to grow those ourselves) and frozen corn, green beans and peas. Everything else, we eat faster than we can grow it! It has become quite the family project from planting to picking. We grow a lot of our stuff from seed. It is started inside in our grow room/laundry room and then transplanted outside.

When they are done growing, we can pick some lettuce, carrots, tomatoes and spinach, clean it and make a salad for lunch or pick some corn, peas or green beans for dinner.

Not only is it healthier, it is also cheaper. We buy packages of seeds for about $0.99 each and those typically last for about 3 years. We make our own fertilizer and soon we will have a rain bin so we can reuse rainwater instead of having to use it out of the tap. So far this year, we have spent $8, minus the cost of water, and it will feed us for about three months.

I will warn you, in the beginning it is a lot more expensive because you have to build the garden, get gardening tools and, in our case, buy lots and lots of dirt because our yard was full of clay. There are also materials for fertilizers, etc. However, after a couple of years, it is so worth it! Moreover, if you have kids, it is a perfect activity to do as a family that gets everyone up and outside.

If you ever have the chance or the desire to plant your own garden, I suggest you do it. Nothing tastes better than fresh fruits and vegetables!

The 100 Books List

One of my goals was to make a list of 100 books that I wanted to read and read them in the next couple years. At first, developing this list was easy. There was this running list in my head of classic British novels (probably my favorite genre) that I had always wanted to read and books on my bookshelf I had never finished; I had just never made the time. This was actually part of the reason I decided on that goal in the first place. Why 100 you ask? That number has no significance except I was watching A Walk To Remember at the time I wrote the goals list and she was “reading all the books on Mr. Rothman’s list of 100 contemporary American authors”, a list that does not actually exist. I know, I checked.

So, after I wrote down the classic British novels and the books on my bookshelf and only had about 30 books, I started to freak out a little bit. I looked online for lists and upon discovering the one form A Walk To Remember didn’t exist, I checked out a few websites where people voted on the books they loved the best. However, the voting websites just had different versions of Twilight and Harry Potter listed about 12 times each, so that wasn’t very helpful. Next I stumbled onto Times’ list of the 100 best books of all time. That got me about 15 more books added to my list. We were cruising now!

Then, a friend of mine introduced me to Good Reads. I spent HOURS on this site looking at different books and completing my list. I am pretty happy with it! If I didn’t have six of the books already, then I don’t know where I would have started. I want to read them all right now! So, without further ado….the list.

The List of 100 (in no particular order):

• Alice In Wonderland  by Lewis Carroll (currently reading)
• Through the Looking Glass by Lewis Carroll
• The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle (currently reading)
• To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
• The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
• Animal Farm by George Orwell
• Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
• Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut
• Me Talk Pretty one Day by David Sedaris
• On Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
• The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
• Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
• Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
• Les Miserables by Victor Hugo
• Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
• Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America by Barbara Ehrenreich
• Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen
• Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
• Brave New World by Aklous Huxley
• The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams
• The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein
• My Sister’s Keeper by Jodi Picoult
• Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte
• Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card
• The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown
• East of Eden by John Stenbeck
• The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
• Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
• Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
• The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett
• Emma by Jane Austen
• The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood
• The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath
• A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
• The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls
• The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chboksy
• Tuesdays with Morrie by Mitch Albom
• The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time by Mark Haddon
• The Five People You Meet In Heaven by Mitch Albom
• Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes
• The Other Boleyn Girl by Philippa Gregory
• Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert
• The World According to Garp by John Irving
• The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer
• The Sound and the Fury by William Falkner
• A Little Princess by Fances Hodgson Burnett
• The Little Prince by Antoine de Sait-Exupery
• The Prince of Tides by Pat Conroy
• The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson
• For Whom the Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway
• The Idiot by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
• A Separate Peace by John Knowles
• The Neverending Story by Michael Ende
• Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret by Judy Blume
• Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller
• Mansfield Park by Jane Austen
• The Boy in the Striped Pajamas by John Boyne
• Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil by John Berendt
• Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray
• Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen
• Dead Until Dark Charlaine Harris
• Living Dead in Dallas by Charlaine Harris
• Club Dead by Charlaine Harris
• Dead as a Doornail by Charlaine Harris
• Definitely Dead by Charlaine Harris
• All Together Dead by Charlaine Harris
• From Dead to Worse by Charlaine Harris
• Dead and Gone by Charlaine Harris
• Dead in the Family by Charlaine Harris
• The Giver by Lois Lowry
• The Crying of Lot 49 by Thomas Pynchon
• Flowers in the Attic by V.C. Andrews
• If There Be Thorns by V.C. Andrews
• Seeds of Yesterday by V.C. Andrews
• Garden of Shadows by V.C. Andrews
• The Vampire Lestat by Anne Rice
• The Queen of the Damned by Anne Rice
• The Tale of the Body Thief by Anne Rice
• Memnoch the Devil by Anne Rice
• The Vampire Armand by Anne Rice
• Merrick by Anne Rice
• Blood and Gold by Anne Rice
• Blackwood Farm by Anne Rice
• Blood Canticle by Anne Rice
• The Taming of the Shrew by William Shakespeare
• White Teeth by Zadie Smith
• Only the Good Spy Young by Ally Carter
• Heist Society by Ally Carter
• Uncommon Criminals by Ally Carter
• Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier
• Persuassion by Jane Austen
• Pippi Longstocking by Astrid Lindgren
• The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway
• Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison
• To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf
• The Crucible by Arthur Miller
• Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
• The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton
• Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood

So, there it is! I already started with the two e-books I had.  Next week, I am going to head down to my local library and get my library card renewed…apparently it doesn’t work anymore.

Electric Knives

We are just going to pretend that I posted this last night, okay??

I am going to make this short and sweet. I love electric knives. Whether you are trimming the fat off of meat, cutting chicken into chunks for chicken nuggets (or the low sodium, baked, not fried, sesame chicken I am currently making) or cutting a fresh pineapple, they work wonders! Hell, you can even use them to cut a turkey at Thanksgiving! So many things to do with one, so little time.

How I survived without one for all these years is beyond me.

Developing A Habit

They say it takes 21 days to make a habit and that is what I want, habits. The sad thing is, I need to make the things that I used to do every day, things normal people do everyday into habits. Here is why. In grad school, sleep, work and school became more important than anything. Showering went from an every day activity to every other day, and then only during the week. Brushing my teeth went from a twice a day thing to whenever I remembered thing. Flossing became a thing of the past, so did make-up and doing my hair. Ponytails became my friend. Eating healthy was traded in for a stop at the local fast food place in between jobs, internships and class. It is all very gross, I am aware.

In order to turn these things back into habits, I have made a list of all the things I want to do during the day that I had stopped doing previously. I am doing pretty well on most of those little habits I want to develop. I have put on make-up every day for two whole weeks…AND I have curled my hair every morning for almost a week. GO ME!

I’m eating healthier again and feeling better about myself because I don’t feel gross and disgusting all the time. I still have a long ways to go but I am learning to develop better, healthier habits. I mentioned before that I joined SparkPeople.com. Well, I also have been learning how to develop healthy hair and skin. I have started to treat my hair to decrease breakage and increase strength because of the heat that gets applied to it. I have also started to put lotion on every night before bed to make my skin healthier.

I also started on my list of 101 things in 1001 days. Well, I started on that list back in September when I started the other blog, but since it only had one post and I wanted to be able to manage them both under one account, I moved that one post to this new blog and updated my 101 things in 1001 days to reflect the things I had accomplished.

Back in October of 2010 I went through everything I owned, including the stuff in boxes in the attic and picked out the things I needed to keep and the things I could toss or sell. We had a garage sale for three weeks straight! I made almost $200! And I got ride of some of the clothes that are too big, or don’t fit me or I haven’t worn in years. This is good for me. I am kind of a clothes hog. Growing up, we didn’t have a lot of money, so I never really had more clothes than I needed for one week. When I got to high school and my parents were making more money, I started to get more clothes. I had never really owned more than one pair of pants before, so I guess I just didn’t want to give them up. I find I still do that. Hold on to things until they wear out or someone forces me to throw them away because I am afraid I will go back to those days of only have five shirts and a pair of pants. This was my first step beyond breaking that habit. Once I FINALLY move, I will probably go through it all again.

In October I also visited New York City. I went there for a job interview, and I was only really there for an afternoon, but it was pretty damn awesome. When I walked out of Penn Station and stepped onto the streets of New York City it was like a dream come true. I was in awe of how tall everything was and for a minute I felt the weight of just how small I was in comparison to the world. Living in the midwest, you hear the stereotypes of rude people and overcrowdedness. In the six hours I spent there, none of that seemed true at all. The buildings were tall, yes, but everything seemed to fit there and there seemed to be so much space. Everyone was very nice. I had a nice conversation in Subway with two people I had never met about the homeless in the city. It was a fun experience and I can’t wait to go back and do all those touristy things people normally do their first time in NYC.

Earlier this week, I did something else pretty major. I payed off my last semester of school. It was a $2000 bill and only working part time it was hard to get the money together. I did though, and I paid them, in full. I was very proud of myself! Next stop, pay off my credit cards and then no more debt! (Other than my student loans that I will be paying off until I die).

I have done a few small things, like back up my music library and gave a copy to my mom (she has been begging me for YEARS), start a personal blog and subscribe to a Word of the Day Newsletter. Well, actually, I downloaded a Word of the Day Application on my iPhone, but whatever.

I have also started a few goals that haven’t been completed yet. I got a savings account back in December! Of course, it is much smaller now than it was a few months ago since I payed off my school. I have worn make-up every day for two weeks. Part of the reason I never wore make up before was I hated the way it felt on my skin. And it always looked flaky and gross, but Maybelline just came out with their Fit Me Foundations. Love, love, LOVE this make-up. Not only does it fit my skin tone (which is super hard to do because I am ridiculously pale) but it doesn’t feel heavy or flaky. The same week I got my awesome new make-up, I took a trip to my local health food store. I hate taking pills because when they hit my tongue I can taste the medicine and it makes me gag. So, I asked about alternatives at the health food store. We discussed liquid vitamins and capsule vitamins. I decided to try capsules first because liquid is so ridiculously expensive and poor me can’t really afford it right now, but so far they seem to be working okay. I still gag every once in awhile, but it isn’t on every single vitamin.

I have done some other things too that I am slowly completing. I bought re-usable bags to take the grocery store (I just have to remember them when I leave the house). I am paying my bills on time and not waiting until the last minute to send in the checks for credit card payments. I wrote out a morning routine (again, I just have to learn to stick to it!) and I made a list of TV shows I wanted to catch up on. Right now, I am watching Being Erica. It is a Canadian show they air on SoapNet. I saw the commercials all the time when I was catching up on The O.C. and I got curious. It is pretty cool. Other TV shows I am going to eventually catch up on are Supernatural, Dexter, Castle (I still haven’t seen the first few episodes of the first season), Bones, House, and The Tudors.

I am also working on the “Do an activity outside once a week for a month” goal. My parents have a garden in their back yard and they plant all kinds of fruits and vegetables, then can or freeze them to eat throughout the year. This year, I am helping and even growing a few things of my own! In the next week, I am also going to start my walking goals. A mile a day will keep the pounds away!