Summer and Food

I've been meaning to post for awhile but life kind of got in the way. It happens to all of us..the craziness of summer is just starting to settle out and I'm hoping I can get back to working and crafting more soon.  The kids are going stir crazy with all the heat and humidity it is to hot to go outside or do anything, you just can't breath out there. We've been doing small things like a trip to the ice cream shop and the art store for some indoor fun supplies. They found this wonderful book on making fairies Forest Fairy Crafts: Enchanting Fairies & Felt Friends from Simple Supplies 28+ Projects to Create & Share at our local bookstore so they have been working on those and building with legos.

 I had the unfortunate run in with the doctor yesterday.  What was suppose to be a simple follow up to check my blood work (which I failed to find time to do with the insanity around here) lead into a 1500 calorie diet. :(  It's either that or she said I could do the South Beach Diet but looking at it gave me a headache. There's way to much, it looks so complicated. 1500 calories is not a whole hell of a lot considering I love food...Five Guys, Chinese, pasta and all my favorite local eateries. I have a bit of weight to loose so I figured I'd get started with the 1500 calorie counting and see if there's a less complicated version of the South Beach Diet later.  I want something were I don't need to cook 2 different things for each meal of the day...something the whole family can deal with.  

I have a secret though.....I have to admit I have a very bad habit when it comes to counting things, I did this bad thing when counting WW points.  If I want something to eat that is not so good for you and uses up most of my points I would and will go all day with little to nothing at all just so I can splurge and have my glorious not good for you food.  I know I shouldn't do this but my love for food leads me to do crazy things.

So this is day two of my counting calories and this is what I have:

Smart One breakfast sandwich - 210 
Lunch - tuna on a coco - 250
Honest Tea - Honey Green Tea - 70
Dinner - Had to run out and do some errands so we went to Panera Bread because we knew they had the calories listed.
            - U pick 2 - no side - Roasted Turkey Avocodo  BLT  - 240
                             - Onion Soup - 190
                             - Split half an oatmeal cookie with hubby for dessert - 195
                             - Acai Berry Green Tea - 0


Total - 1155  and if I happen to get hungry later I'll add a 90 calorie yogurt.


With this total I'm figuring I should be able to add a 100 calorie snack between breakfast and lunch and then again between lunch and dinner.


250 Calorie Tuna Melt

1 can tuna - 80
3 tbsp olive oil may - 180
1 tsp dijon mustard - 0
1 tbsp chopped onion - 4
1 small dill pickle chopped - 5
dash of salt
dash of pepper


Combine all ingredients mix well.  I kind of mash my fork into it to get some better flavor out of the pickle and onion. 

Spread half of the tuna mixture on a Coco - 16 calories - (So you want to know what a coco is.  It's a multigrain puffed disc that Whole Foods makes.)  Lay one slice of american cheese - 100 calories- on the top and broil until the cheese is melty.

I could bring down the calories a little more by using less mayo but I like my tuna creamy. 

Strawberry Rocks

Today while out at the garden I noticed the strawberry plants were in full bloom. I can't wait for some nice fresh strawberries. One of the problems with strawberries is birds. We have a lot of birds around and from what I've read they like to peck and eat the strawberries. One of the ways that I have read to prevent this from happening is painting little rocks to look like strawberries.

The idea behind this that the birds will see the rocks as berries and peck them.  The birds will not like this and will eventually not want to touch the actual berries.  I figured we would give this idea a go this year so this was the kids craft project after school today.

Just a side note - The strawberry plant I have was a sad little clearance plant from Lowes last year. I paid all of a whopping fifty cents for it. It actually grew back the first year year I had the plant and we got a few small strawberries from it. It formed shoots and now we have 3 plants, not bad for a fifty cent investment. 

Strawberry Rocks!

Materials:

Some small rocks from around the yard.'
Red, Black and Green Craft Paint
Paint Brushes
Water for washing brushes
News paper or painting surface

1.   Lay rocks on the flattest side on news paper or painting surface.

2.   Paint the tops and sides of rocks with red paint and let dry.


3.  Paint some green where the "tops" of the strawberries would be and let dry.

4.  Take a small sized brush and paint black spots on the red to mimic the seeds of the strawberries. Let dry.

5.  Take the dry rocks and lay them out among the strawberry plants.


Here's my kids strawberries: