Absolutely Delightful » Nutrition

What’s For Dinner Wednesday: Slow Cooker Peach Curry Chicken

Wed, 03 Mar 2010 23:28:06 +0000

Yum! Super easy and very low fat. A great way to enjoy a low fat curry. It’s got a nice West Indian flavor. Very delicious.

Ingredients:

5 (6 ounce) boneless skinless chicken breasts
salt and pepper, to taste
4 medium russet potatoes, cut into 1.5 inch pieces
1 bell pepper, cut into 1.5 inch cubes
1 (9 ounce) jar peach preserves
1/2 cup chicken stock
3 1/2 teaspoons Madras curry powder
1/2 teaspoon ground cayenne pepper
1 TBSP minced fresh ginger

Directions:

Season the chicken breasts with salt and pepper, and place into a slow cooker. Add potatoes. Whisk together the preserves, chicken stock, curry powder, cayenne pepper, and ground ginger in a bowl. Pour over chicken breasts.
Cover, and cook on High for 3 to 4 hours, or on Low for 5 to 7 hours. Make sure to flip over the chicken breasts once during cooking. Add bell pepper cubes during the last 45 minutes.

Update on Frugal February: Failure or Feather in my Fortune Cap?!

Wed, 03 Mar 2010 20:27:52 +0000

Early last month I wrote about a goal I had set for myself to keep to our food budget in February (preferably coming under budget). For the past few months we had been running WAY over budget in the grocery category. We track all our expenses and so we are able to easily see where we are at any given day in the budget. I’m a bit of a data freak (and by ‘data freak I mean ‘control freak’). Anyways, it’s kind of a fun game for me and it also helps keep our spending in check. So, last night we looked at the expense sheet and…(insert drumroll)…I did it! We have budgeted $400 per month in groceries (not including diapers) and our spending in that category reached only $302.87. That’s $97.13 under budget! Yay! Of course, it’s a bit of a cheat because February is a short month and we also had Dr. CutiePant’s father visiting for about 4 days of that, during which time he treats us to dinners and lunches and I never have to cook. Regardless, I do think we still would have come in a little under budget. Goes to show that I have to start paying better attention to the numbers throughout the month and not just at the end of the month.

Portion Control In A Bowl! The Measure Up Bowl.

Thu, 18 Feb 2010 01:17:55 +0000

The formula for successful weight loss is Do More, Eat Less. To do more, just get your butt moving but how do you eat less – that’s the hardest part! Portion control is what it’s all about and the Measure Up Bowl will help you do it. I need one of these as I have recently taken to serving myself out of measuring cups! Loosing the baby weight is not easy to do and portion control is hard for an-always-hungry-never-satiated nursing mother. Now only if this bowl came with the superpower of not allowing it to be filled with second or third helpings.

Potty Training is Bad for Mommy’s Waistline

Tue, 02 Feb 2010 16:36:07 +0000

So, our two-and-three-quarter year old is basically now potty-trained. It took a lot of M&M’s. Actually, he did very well and it was way easier than I thought. I am so proud of him! He would get one M&M if he went pee when we asked him and two M&M’s if he told us he had to go pee. Also, two M&M’s for poop (which was more difficult than pee but now he’s got it). Fortunately I found the achilles heel for my son to want to listen to us and get potty-trained. Unfortunately, peanut M&M’s are also my achilles heel. I love them and could eat a whole jumbo bag. I also have not much will-power so I ate a lot of M&M’s during potty-training. I finally smartened up and figured out a way that I would stay away from them. Not from sheer will-power but from my weird OCD tendencies, so I let my son put his hands in and pick out his own M&M’s, thereby rendering the remaining M&M’s in the jar thoroughly fingered by semi-wet newly washed toddler fingers and all mottled, which made them loose their appeal for me. I do like the shiny candy shell – it’s purdy.

Frugal February

Tue, 02 Feb 2010 00:57:29 +0000

Okay, so we’re now one month into 2010 and I am going to aim to write much more frequently (all good, useful, and interesting stuff, of course)! Also, I’ve decided that I am going to do an experiment in frugality for the month of February. My husband and I keep a log of all of our expenses (every penny) and we try and keep to budget but the past two months we have been going over in our grocery budget. Way over. By like $200! We have budgeted $400 per month for 2 adults and an almost 3 year old (Madam Poopsalot is breastfed so she doesn’t count…yet). I was horrified to find out how far over we’ve been going, especially since I look at the weekly circulars and try and do my menu planning from what is on sale and what is in season. Granted I won’t skimp on fresh fruits and veggies and I like to eat well. We’ve also been eating more meat than usual…maybe because I’m breastfeeding now?! I also use coupons so I was just shocked because I think that $400 a month for 2 adults and 1 toddler is very reasonable for a grocery budget in Southern California – especially one that doesn’t include diapers or paper products under the umbrella of “groceries”. So why are we going over so much? For the month of February my goal is to come in under budget!

Some good resources for budget planning are:

Ideas from $5 Dinner Mom on how to make $5 dinners at $5Dinners.com.
Learn coupon advice and tips at A Full Cup. They make couponing a sport!
To compare advertised deals in one spot to maximize savings before you go out visit My Grocery Deals.
Looking for online printable coupons? Visit Coupons.com. They have a new batch every week.

I’m curious how much everyone else spends on groceries per month. Send me your stats!

Win a $50 Safeway Gift Card

Mon, 07 Dec 2009 04:34:30 +0000

Who couldn’t use a $50 gift card to Safeway?! I sure could. The great lady over at $5 Dinners.com is holding a giveaway! She runs a great site with a lot of great suggestions on saving money as well as cost effective meal plans.

Enter here at $5 Dinners.com. Good luck!

Vitamins in Pregnancy. Annoyed!

Thu, 04 Jun 2009 03:59:01 +0000

It is so hard to find reliable information on vitamins during pregnancy. I have been having some NVP (nausea & vomiting in pregnancy) and although not nearly as bad as with Hayden, I had sought the counsel of the folks at Mother Risk (www.motherisk.org). Awesome organization – more on that in another post. Anyways, the folks there told me to increase my protein intake and one of the ways that I can do that is through protein powder since meat doesn’t really appeal to me right now and I certainly don’t want to smell it cooking. I do have a protein powder that tastes awesome but it has added vitamins and minerals so I was looking up RDA to see if my prenatal vitamin combined with this and the food I eat would put me in a danger category since I’m pregnant. I got as far as vitamin E and apparently there is this new Dutch study that has shown a possible link between vitamin intake over 15 mg (the RDA) during pregnancy and heart defects in babies. Yikes! My prenatal has 15 mg in it and then I’m sure my daily diet has some. This particular protein powder has 15 mg also. I looked into getting a different prenatal but most had about 10-15 mg and some even had 30 mg! I have even seen some prenatals that have way over the RDA for vitamin A (not as beta carotin) and this has been proven as a teratagen. Anyways I’m annoyed. There are so many things to worry about and look out for when you are pregnant and so many sources of conflicting information. I’ll just be glad when this is done and we have our healthy baby in our arms.