smalltownhealthyliving

A little peek into my life as a midwest mom, wife, and chiropractor…

Happy Birthday Bros

Tyler is slowly getting better.  Still no fever, but now he has a cough and is just not sleeping great.  I don’t think I’ve had a full night of sleep since last Saturday.  His appetite is definitely not back yet.  His diet consisted of cheese sticks and pears today.  Hopefully he gets plenty of rest tonight because we have a big weekend coming up.

 

Not much for food pictures, since we’re still a little blah around here.  I did re-try my turkey, apple, Swiss sandwich and did not burn it this time, although it was still a little crunchy.  It was excellent.  So were those two cake balls in the background that I had for dessert. 

 

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I threw a taco salad in there for lunch one of these days, and it was pretty much the same as usual except I added an avocado.  I saw them at the store the other day and couldn’t resist. 

 

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I had kind of a late breakfast today because I had to run into the clinic and see a patient.  It was a good one though, two eggs with the last of my sautéed veggies and some parmesan cheese on top. 

 

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Another taco salad for lunch today and then Hubby grilled chicken hindquarters for supper.  I requested buffalo sauce on mine instead of bbq sauce.

 

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Then I chopped it up and made a salad with celery, feta cheese, spinach and more buffalo sauce.

 

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So good. 

 

Hope everyone has a safe and fun long weekend, I’ll be back on Monday with a recap. 

 

Before I head out, just wanted to wish my little brothers Happy Birthday!  29…. they’re gaining on me!

 

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Don’t worry Kyle, you’ll get a fun picture too next week. 

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Tyler’s Horrible Timing

I swear, Tyler gets sick at THE worst times ever.  I think his body likes to test us.  Like when he got strep a couple weeks ago?  We were traveling and out of town, and he was supposed to have a fun couple days playing.  That didn’t happen.

 

Yesterday?  He comes down with a fever in the middle of the night on Sunday and can’t go to daycare on Monday.  On the day that our office manager is gone.  Of course. 

 

Thank goodness we have that flexibility to take him to work with us.  Yesterday was the first day in a long time I prayed for a slow day.  Thankfully Hubby and I managed.  We’re so fortunate to have such understanding patients.

 

I took a couple pictures of the sad little guy.  We’ve been trying to wean him off the pacifier, but we felt bad for him and let him have it when he’s sick.

 

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I’m not sure what exactly he had, but I know it wasn’t strep and I know it wasn’t pneumonia (which apparently some kid at daycare had).  Just an upper respiratory infection that came on quick.  Apparently there are several kids out this week. 

 

The last two nights have been pretty horrible for me, sleep-wise, because Tyler doesn’t sleep well when he’s so congested. Plenty of time up in the middle of the night and time in the recliner with him on my lap.  Hopefully he can make it through most of the night tonight.  His fever was gone by this afternoon, so I know he’s through the worst. 

 

We did try something new today for him that some of our chiropractor friends recommended.  We tried some essential oils for him.  I’ve had many people ask me about them in the office, but I don’t know too much about them.  Tonight I had a local guy that is somewhat of an expert on them come in and teach me a couple things, and then he tried some on Tyler.  Tyler tolerated it very well (much better than he does getting adjusted) and seemed to even like some of the oils.  I can’t remember all the ones he gave him, a lot for respiratory problems and infections. 

 

Within about 30 minutes, he was running around and playing, and babbling in his hoarse little voice.  I was pretty impressed.  I did a little eucalyptus oil on his chest tonight to see if that helps his breathing.  We’re also running a warm air humidifier which helps a lot. 

 

I ordered a kit of the oils, so we’ll have to experiment a little more.

 

So needless to say, I have not taken a ton of pictures.  The main thing I have for you is my new favorite sandwich, courtesy of Cooking Light.  It’s a turkey, Swiss and apple grilled sandwich. 

 

Here is the official link to the recipe, but it’s super easy.  Butter two pieces of bread, pile on turkey, Swiss cheese and thinly sliced Granny Smith apples.  You can also add the honey mustard sauce that the recipe calls for, but I just skipped that. 

 

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Then you grill it up like a grilled cheese.  Helps to have a grill press, which constantly weighs down the sandwich so everything gets nice and melty. 

 

I was a little preoccupied with a sick kid, so mine ended up like this:

 

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I know it looks borderline burnt, but it was delicious.  I love that combination of the apple and the cheese.  I made another one today for lunch, but didn’t have any more Granny Smith apples, so I used a Braeburn.  Definitely not the same… you need to have the tart, crisp apple to balance everything out.  The Braeburn just got mushy.  

 

The other meal I have pictures for was tonight’s supper.  We were both exhausted, so I dug this out of the freezer and threw it in a skillet.

 

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It was so good- totally worth all the sodium.  Just wish I could eat the whole bag, but I had to share with Hubby.  Smile

 

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I followed it up with my new favorite dessert (no, not cake balls)….

 

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Frozen cherries.  They are cold, crunchy and sweet.  I can’t get enough!

 

That’s all for now, time to think about bed time since who knows what the night has in store. 

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Weekend Update

We had a nice, well-rounded weekend.  Saturday morning we headed to a nearby town to run/walk a 5K.  Our office was one of the sponsors, and it was for ALS research.  I’d say those are all good reasons to attend.

 

We brought Tyler along and pushed him in the stroller, so we walked for most of the race.  We did jog a little bit on the smooth surfaces, since we don’t technically have a jogging stroller.  Tyler really likes to go fast.

 

Here he trying to shorten the course by moving a cone:

 

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It was a beautiful morning, just the perfect temperature.  Afterwards we hit up the bake sale they had, and purchased a couple goodies.  Should have taken a picture of that… bought some blueberry muffins, small banana bread loaf, puppy chow and brownies.  And pretty much all of those are gone already.  To our credit, we picked the smallest packages.  Smile

 

The rest of the day was filled with different little projects, with the main one coming at dinner time.  Grilled pizza!!

 

We assembled all of our toppings ahead of time, so I browned some spicy sausage, sautéed up some onions and peppers, cut up some fresh mozzarella and spinach and divided the dough.

 

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Thank goodness the weather held off for us… it was just starting to sprinkle when we started to make the pizzas.

 

It was pretty dark because of the rain by the time we got around to eating, so sorry about the horrible photography.

 

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We used pizza dough from a can, but it was a whole wheat crust.  We used two cans, wanted to make a lot of pizza so we would have left-overs.  We didn’t have enough fresh mozzarella so we just used shredded mozzarella for the rest. 

 

Delicious as usual.

 

One of the other projects from Saturday was a trip to Walmart.  I managed to pick up a copy of The Hunger Games DVD, so that was our Saturday night entertainment.  Of course, Hubby got bored about an hour into it and went to bed, and I fell asleep about an hour and half into it.  What a crazy couple.

 

This morning I had plenty of leftover peppers and onions, so I made an egg scramble with the veggies and a little chopped up ham.  Plus a side of whole wheat toast.

 

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Today was pretty rainy, so we had lots of playtime indoors today.  I managed to get away to the gym for a quick circuit workout, and it felt good to get moving after doing the 5K yesterday.  Then I came home and had leftover pizza for lunch, completely erasing all my efforts at the gym. 

 

It finally stopped raining in the afternoon, so we headed to the park.  Tyler and Hubby played a little basketball. 

 

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I love this picture.  He looks like the Hulk.

 

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Supper time rolled around and I made some quick vegetarian nachos with black beans, queso blanco and chopped up spinach. 

 

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I also had a pineapple Chobani.

 

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So it was a good weekend overall.  One last relaxing weekend at home before a couple crazy ones coming up.

 

Should be a good week…. last week of our office’s 4 year anniversary special month… stop in for a cake ball! (Yeah, we’re all about health)

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Stovetop Tuna Noodle Casserole

Summer is back.  I was really enjoying the mild temperatures lately, until the heat wave came back the last couple days.  Nothing as extreme as earlier, but we did have to break down and turn on the AC today.

 

Couple quick food pictures before we get to the main recipe.  Hubby grilled last night, bet you’ll never guess what….

 

Yeah.  Steak again.  That guy keeps getting Omaha Steak gift cards for every holiday, so we are up to our ears in beef.  What a rough life.

 

This time I changed it up a little, to the horror of my husband.  I sliced my steak and put it on top of a salad.  The salad included spinach, cucumbers, onion, slivered almonds, feta cheese, and strawberries.  I used some Newman’s Sesame Ginger dressing to accompany everything.

 

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Yum.

 

This morning I got to sleep in a little, thanks Hubby.  When I got up at 7:30, I decided to cook up some French toast.  French toast really isn’t too bad of a breakfast, I decided.  You’ve got protein with your egg, complex carb with the whole grain bread, and I topped mine with fresh strawberries for my fruit serving. 

 

I used one egg, scrambled it up a bit and added a little bit of milk, cinnamon and vanilla.  I decided to cut my bread up into strips, thought that would be fun for Tyler.  I only managed to get two pieces of bread used up with the one egg. 

 

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Tyler ate his three pieces plain, then I added my strawberries.  Sorry Hubby, you didn’t get any.  Maybe next time. 

 

Tyler was a good helper. 

 

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Now the tuna noodle casserole.  The whole idea of making this came from having some leftover peas in the fridge.  Guess that’s all it takes to get things going.

 

And I picked an excellent day, the hottest day of the week to be huddled over a stove.  Whoops.

 

Stove-top Tuna Noodle Casserole (from Food.com)

Ingredients

    • 2 tablespoons butter
    • 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
    • 2 cups whole milk
    • 1 teaspoon kosher salt
    • 1/2 teaspoon ground pepper, less if you prefer less spice
    • 1 -2 tablespoon of chopped fresh herbs, such as chives (optional) or 1 -2 tablespoon parsley (optional)
    • 2 (6 ounce) cans tuna, drained ( I prefer albacore solid packed in water)
    • 1 1/2 cups frozen peas
    • 8 ounces wide egg noodles, cooked

Directions

  1. Cook the egg noodles.
  2. During the last few minutes add the frozen peas to the simmering noodles; then drain.
  3. Meanwhile, melt the butter in a medium saucepan over medium heat.
  4. Whisk in the flour, and continue whisking for about 2 minutes or until the flour butter mixture starts to turn a beige color (a very light colored roux).
  5. Continue whisking and slowly add 1 of the cups of milk, incorporating the liquid as you whisk; then add the remaining 1 cup of milk.
  6. Let it come to a gentle boil, stirring regularly to keep from burning on the bottom of the pan as it thickens.

 

 

Of course I changed a couple things.  I didn’t have whole milk so I used 1%.  I also used whole wheat flour instead of all-purpose, and did not include any fresh herbs.  Still have to get going on growing that herb garden.  Oh, and I used whole wheat noodles.

 

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It was decent, needed quite a bit of salt and pepper though.  Not much flavor… guess that’s where the herbs come into play.  I really liked that this recipe didn’t have any of the “cream of” soups that are loaded with icky fats.  Making a roux takes time but always pays off. 

 

Tonight Hubby grilled again, this time we switched up proteins to chicken.  One of my favorites… Italian dressing marinated chicken.  I made a veggie grill basket to go with it with broccoli, carrots and tiny eggplant that one of my patients brought me. 

 

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I haven’t had too much eggplant… like none at all.  It was ok, kind of bland, picked up the flavor of the garlic oil I used to toss the veggies with.  If anyone has any ideas of what to do with eggplant, let me know. 

 

I stayed inside while the boys grilled. 

 

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We had a busy day today, went out to Backbone State Park where Hubby rode his bike through the trails while Tyler and I played at the playground.  Then after a marathon nap (for Tyler, not me- I was at the stove) we headed out for a long walk with Erica and Brooke. 

 

Everyone is pretty tuckered out tonight, so I think it’s time for this girl to get in the shower and get to bed.  Have a great weekend everyone!

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Peanut Butter Overnight Oats

Overnight oats are big in the healthy eating blog world.  I have tried them twice.  First time, not so great, but the second time wasn’t bad.  Here’s a link to my old blog address that has the details. 

 

Hubby had finished up his jar of peanut butter (we have separate jars because I do the natural kind, he does the regular chunky JIF) so instead of throwing it away, I made some overnight oats.  This time I can say I really enjoyed it. 

 

I did a google search as usual and came up with this recipe from a blog called Parsley, Sage and Sweet.  As usual I changed it up a little bit.

 

Overnight Oats in an almost-empty PB Jar (adapted from here)

1 almost empty jar of peanut butter                                                                                                   1/2 cup old-fashioned oats
1 tablespoon brown sugar                                                                                                                1/2 cup milk (I chose coconut milk)                                                                                                   1/2 cup plain or vanilla Greek yogurt

DIRECTIONS:
1.  Dump the oats in the almost empty peanut butter jar.  Sprinkle the brown sugar evenly on top of the oats.  Stir together the milk and yogurt, then pour on top of the oats. Put the cover back on the peanut butter jar tightly and shake it vigorously. 

2.  Put the covered jar in the fridge overnight,  The next morning, open up the jar and stir it all together, digging the peanut butter up from the bottom and around the sides.  Stir in fruit if you like – raspberries would be great, or swirl your favorite jam, jelly or preserves into it.   If you prefer your oatmeal warm, give it a nuke in the microwave for a minute or two. 

 

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I didn’t stir any fruit or jam in, but that would have tasted great.  You can also add whatever you want to the jar the night before, like flax seed or chia seeds.  I went against my instinct and put it in the microwave for a little bit to heat it up, and the jar warped.  I hate putting plastic in the microwave, I just think about all the nasty chemicals from the plastic leaching into the food.  So don’t put it in too long.  You could always transfer the oats to a glass bowl, but the beauty of this is that you can just throw away the container when you’re done, no dishes besides the spoon!

 

So that was breakfast yesterday.  Lunch yesterday was a repeat turkey sandwich with spinach and Havarti.  As usual we were tired last night so nothing much for supper.  I had a partial bag of raw cut-up veggies that I steamed for a couple minutes then sautéed in some garlic oil with some corn (from Sunday night) and salt and pepper. 

 

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Look at that steam coming off.  Besides the corn, there are carrots, broccoli, cauliflower, celery and a couple radishes in there. 

 

I had a bowl of frozen cherry berry mix on the side.  Working on my fruit and veggie servings for the day! Oh, and a couple servings of extra sharp cheddar cheese.  Gotta work in that dairy.

 

Today was the first Tuesday we took Tyler to daycare.  Usually we just keep him home since we split up the workday, but we just can’t get much done anymore and I’m falling behind on work.  I felt bad, but I know he’s having fun playing with his friends. 

 

I did want to get him a little extra mommy time, so I dressed him up in warm clothes and we went on a walk early this morning.  He absolutely LOVES to go outside.  You say the word outside or walk and he runs to get his shoes.  He always tries to push open the door because he can’t wait to go outside. 

 

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Hurry up Mom!!

 

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I love his little sneakers.  We had a great time playing at the park and going for a nice, brisk walk. 

 

After I dropped him off at daycare, I went straight to the gym.  I’ve been neglecting my boot camp workouts lately to do my own cardio, so today I got back on track and did a weight set.  It felt great.  The structure of the workouts were a strength move with a heavy weight for 8 reps, then lowering the weight and going until fatigue.  Then in between sets I had to do an active recovery move for 90 seconds, like double crunches or high knees.  I especially felt it in my shoulders with the fatigue part of the shoulder press set.  This was probably my favorite workout yet of this round of boot camp.

 

Right when I got home, I had made a recovery smoothie, since all I had for breakfast was some of Tyler’s yogurt and a handful of Crispix. 

 

My smoothie had frozen strawberries, frozen blueberries, a kiwi, spinach, scoop of protein powder and coconut milk to thin it out.

 

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Here it is blended up- see, you can’t even see the spinach!!

 

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It hit the spot.  I really liked the kiwi in there, made it a little tart.

 

I was super productive this morning, which was great.  One of the many things I accomplished was grocery shopping.  I was in the tortilla section, and I was reminded of a wrap we had at a seminar we were at a couple weekends ago.  It was a wrap with deli meat, cheese and a dill pickle- simple, right?

 

Which in turn reminded me of those dried beef and cream cheese wrapped pickles that you see at appetizers at parties.  I love those things. 

 

This is my interpretation.  Start with a whole wheat tortilla, spread a wedge of Laughing Cow cheese on it (I used original Swiss), place three pieces of deli meat over the cheese (I used Hormel’s no preservative honey ham), layer some baby spinach over that, and top with a dill pickle (or two). 

 

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Each one ends up being about 250 calories.  The picture is just of one wrap cut in half, so they are pretty good size.  It was salty deliciousness. 

 

After a busy afternoon in the clinic, we took a family walk with Tyler.  Went to the park again since he loves it.  Today he ran to the big slide, but needed Hubby’s help.

 

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I wish you could see his face on this next picture, it was pure joy.  He likes to go fast apparently.

 

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Again!!  

 

That kid is going to wear us out. 

 

When we got home, I fed and bathed Tyler while Hubby worked on the charcoal grill again- wing time!

 

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Threw in a little sweet corn this time since I still have a bunch of it from the batch I cooked up on Sunday.  Thanks again Mom and Dad for the corn.

 

The wings were perfect of course, and I was stuffed.  Not too stuffed to enjoy a bowl of frozen cherries for dessert though.  I’m all about frozen fruit lately.

 

Whew.  That was a marathon post.  Time for charts then bed.  Adios my friends. 

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