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Breakfast Burrito

It’s the most important meal of the day.   Yet, I have always struggled with knowing what is the best choice for me – healthy and filling and fast.   When I met with the nutritionist, she made some suggestions, and with lots of trial and error and calculations, I have finally come up with my go-to breakfast for the work week – the Plain Jane Breakfast Burrito.  I call this Plain Jane because all I use is meat, no peppers, onions, or mushrooms like in other burritos and omelets.  But I might add mushrooms one of these days.

The key to keeping this low-cal and low-carb (per the nutritionist) is being picky about the wrap.  I read the labels of all of the tortillas available and tried the La Tortilla Factory brand, since they were low carb.  Next, I started out using real eggs but decided to try egg beaters one week.  They were not terrible and I still felt full, so for convenience and better numbers, I have stuck with them.  And last, the meat choice.  Jimmy Dean Turkey Sausage Crumbles is what I use most often.  I only use ¼ cup of the crumbles with ¼ cup of the egg beaters, so the package will last about two work weeks.   For variety I have used three slices of Publix thin sliced cooked ham or a couple of slices of leftover bacon.  I don’t add it to the eggs;  I just put them in the tortilla and cook the egg beaters by themselves and slap on top.  If I am out of everything else, I have been known to use some Oscar Meyer Bacon pieces.  Really, you can add anything – the aforementioned veggies, cheese, etc.  Just be sure that you check your nutritional values on everything.  Myfitnesspal.com is one of many websites that will calculate the nutritional value for any recipe or list of ingredients.

So after I add my sausage, I let it cook while I grab my lunch and pack it.  Then I flip it when it looks set, and turn the stove off.  Then I grab my diet Coke and my afternoon snack and pack those.  By then, it is ready to be assembled and wrapped in foil and in a few seconds – ta da – burrito ready to go.  By the time I get to work, everything is good and warm and I can have my breakfast while I check my morning emails.

The burrito with ¼ c. egg beaters and ¼ c. turkey sausage is 115 calories, 12 g of carbs, 7 g of fiber, 17 g of protein, and 565 g of sodium. 

Easy Peezy Crock Pot Roast

Yet again, I have allowed myself to get behind in my blogging.  So I am going to try to get two recipes in one week this time.  We'll see.

Anyway, tonight's fairly short blog is for what I consider the easiest and best crock pot roast I have ever fixed.  Now, this will only work for the person who is not home all day long.

Place one frozen roast in the crock pot.  Yep, right out of the freezer.
Pour one can of Campbell's Beef Broth over the roast.  Sprinkle one packet of Lipton Onion Soup Mix (your favorite recipe flavor) over the roast.

Cover and cook on low for 8-9 hours.  My crock pot is the programmable type, where it switches to Warm after the timer is finished.  That may have contributed to the greatness of the flavor, but this was the best roast I have ever fixed!  Since we are trying to reduce carbs along with calories, I did not add any veggies.  However, you could just pile them on at the beginning and they will probably be good and mushy after 9 hours.

The finished product photo does not convey the yummy smell in my kitchen when I got home, but trust me, this was falling off the bone goodness.

What type of roast was used:  In these photos, I used a chuck roast.  At a different time, I used a sirloin tip roast.  We get our beef from my dad, so whatever cuts the butcher gives us, that is what we work with.  Good ol' Tennessee farm raised beef!
 

Grilled Vegetable Skewers

For several weeks now I have been remiss in my blogging duties.  Big T and I have initiated a “lifestyle change” that involves regular exercise and carefully monitoring our eating habits, so I have yet to fully adjust to a different schedule that involves a side trip to the gym after work.   Therefore, some items have fallen behind, like laundry and blogging.  However, I want to share some of my recipes that I have been putting into our rotation for anyone else that might want to try them, so the first one is for grilled vegetables using a marinade I found online recently.   Unfortunately, I do not remember which website I found it on to give them credit. I do, however, want to give a shout out for myfitnesspal.com.  It takes some discipline, but I really like this website and they have a mobile app to make logging on the go very easy!  So back to our regularly scheduled food.

We prefer to use squash, zucchini, mushrooms, onions, and cherry tomatoes for our grilled vegetable skewers. 

  

 I don’t like tomatoes but I add them for my guests and they are pretty.  You can also add peppers.  I don’t like them either.  These pics won’t show onions because we chose to grill them whole.  I’ll post that recipe later.

Chop the squash, onions, and zucchini into big chunks and put them in a ziploc bag with the tomatoes and mushrooms. Next gather these ingredients and make the marinade.

Vegetable Marinade

½ c. olive oil

½ c. lime juice

¼ c. water

¼ c. dijon mustard

2 T. real maple syrup

2 T. minced garlic

2 t. dried basil

½ t. salt

½ t. freshly ground pepper

If you add everything in order and DON’T mix it until the very end, it looks like this:

 

Love it when science and cooking mix. Or don’t mix.

Anyway,mix well and pour it over the vegetables. 

 

Moosh all of the air out of the bag and zip it closed.  Then roll the bag around and make sure all of the veggies are coated.

 

Throw the bag(s) in the fridge for 2 hours.  Go watch a favorite movie.  Then put the veggies on skewers.  I prefer metal, but if you use wooden ones, make sure they have been soaked for at least 30 minutes first.  Then place them on the grill on medium heat.

 

 Flip them after about 3 minutes or so.  Then flip them onto the plate.  Your side dish is ready; dig in! 

A couple of tips:

The marinade can be made up to 7 days in advance of use.  I usually store mine in a mason jar.

Chop your veggies the night before to save time on grill day.

Paper Tissue Flowers

Last week I discovered that I remembered how to make paper tissue flowers.  I guess I never really forgot; I just hadn't thought about making them.  But, I had this kinda cool looking gift bag that I wanted to dress up just a tad.  So I used a few sheets of coordinating paper tissue to stuff in the bag - as we do these days - and used the remainder for a flower.

First, I put six layers together of the tissue and cut a strip about 5" wide.  Then I fan folded the stack of tissue, with each folder about 1/2" wide or so.  Next I wrapped a bread tie around the middle, offsetting the fold of the wire just a bit so that I would have a longer "tail".  And yes, I said "bread tie".   A bread tie is just the right gauge wire for these.   If  you don't have a bread tie, go to the store, get some bread and take the tie.  You can use a clothes pin to hold the bread bag closed.

Round the ends so that what you have at this point is shaped like a tongue depressor.

Next fan out one side of the flower and pull up each sheet toward the middle.  Don't pull too hard, or you may tear the paper.  It's okay if you tear a little, the flower will be so tight it will not be noticed.

After you finish with that half, repeat on the other side.  Then fluff and pull until you like the way it looks.

Now you can attach it to the handle of a gift bag or onto the top of a gift. Wow - mine didn't look like this in 5th grade!

Boo Boo Bunny

                            
I found the instructions for making Boo Boo Bunnies many years ago in a book.  I used it then as a craft for the children that I was babysitting.  Now I include them as part of a baby shower gift.  They are so easy!  The idea is that when a little one has a boo-boo, you can grab the ice cube out of the freezer and pop it in the bunny and hold it against the boo-boo.

Materials needed:

One washcloth

Reusable ice cube

Ribbon

I have found that the thin cheaper washcloths work better for these.   The reusable ice cubes can be found at Bed Bath and Beyond or probably any kitchen-y type store.

First, open the washcloth, turn it so that it looks like a diamond, and start rolling it up from the corner like this: (Sorry for the white on white. It's what I had handy.)

Continue rolling until you have one long roll like this:

Then fold it in half like this: (It won't stay together this close, I had to tape it to take the picture)

Then flip the front two ends back like this: (yep, tape again)

If you use a thicker washcloth, you might want to use a rubber band to hold it still while you tie the ribbon around its "head" and fluff the ears, but with the thinner cloths, I can just hold it and tie it tight:

The last step is to drop in the ice cube in the body of the bunny:

And now you have a really cute adder for a baby shower gift that only took minutes to make!