Top Ten Tuesday: Blogs to Check Out

I’m always adding new blogs to my Google Reader (you don’t have one? You need one, I promise) and I thought today I’d share some of the good ones I’ve come across lately. This is by no means an inclusive lists of my favorite blogs nor is it in any particular order. But they are awesome, and you should add them to your Google Reader (that you now have) too.

1. Organizing Your Way. Part of the “life…your way” series of blogs, I recently subscribed to the organizing section and while I must admit that most of what I read goes into the “awesome idea, I should do that sometime but not today” file in my brain, they have fantastic tips on organizing everything from papers to dinner. And while I was over there to grab their link, I subscribed to the full “Life Your Way” feed. Maybe you should, too.

2. NieNie Dialogues. Here’s how author Stephanie Nielson describes herself: “I am: Returning from a near-fatal airplane crash, burned 80% of my body, and will have surgeries for the rest of my life. Probably. But I am alive. I cherish Mr. Nielson, Claire, Jane, Oliver, and Nicholas.” As though her story wasn’t amazing enough, she has the neatest house. And she also throws great parties.

3. The Fence. I often feel the blogosphere is populated with mostly SAHMs (or WAHMs, or whatever acronym is fashionable at the moment and is meant to mean ‘moms who don’t spend their days at an office.’) and it’s always a pleasant surprise to find a blog written by someone who can relate to the difficulty I have getting out of the house in the morning. Kami Lewis Levin, author of The Fence, is one of the funniest people I’ve ever come across.

4. Baking Bites. You will gain 10 pounds by looking at the pictures, but it will be worth it.

5. Smitten Kitchen. See disclaimer on #4.

6. Gina’s Skinny Recipes. To undo some of the damage done by the last two blogs I listed, I highly recommend this one. It’s my go-to website for recipe ideas that are delicious, nutritious, and low in weight watchers points. Kate, my picky eater (no idea where she gets this. None.), loves Gina’s Crock Pot 3 Bean Turkey Chili, and claims it’s better than my chili, which is the one thing I’m confident about my ability to cook. Or at least I was, until Kate decided she liked this one with chickpeas and black beans better.

7. Bringing Home the Bacon. Holly Michael writes about life as a mom in the corporate world… while raising her three kids on a pig farm (which is just down the street from my house). She also doesn’t like kittens, which means she and I are kindred spirits.

8. Snips and Snails. I was introduced to this blog through Beth from I Should be Folding Laundry (another one to add to your reader!) shortly after the author’s 2.5 year old son was diagnosed with a cancerous tumor behind his eye. Julie’s posts about his struggle continuously amaze me with their openness and honesty. Also? When you see one picture of little Andrew, you will be hooked.

9. Curvy Girl Guide. This site just launched at the first of the year, I believe, and is written by bloggers super famous well-known in their own right. They talk about a little bit of everything, with the focus being on getting comfortable in your own skin.

10. Oh Amanda. How could I write a Top Ten Tuesday post about bloggers and not include Amanda, who created Top Ten Tuesdays herself? I love this girl. You should SEE the birthday parties she throws for her kids – amazing. She wrote a post today about her top ten tips for Blissdom, which are fantastic and real, just like her.

So, what’s in YOUR google reader?

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Weight Watchers-Friendly Entertaining

One of the most challenging things on my Weight Watchers journey has been get-togethers with friends. I mean, it’s a great excuse to eat indulgent foods… and to eat too many of them!

Last week I had a few friends over to my house. I knew a couple of them were on Weight Watchers, like me, so I set out to find WW-friendly foods that we’d all enjoy – and that everyone else would too. After giving it some thought, I decided to have a Mexican-themed party, using some of my favorite recipes – just tweaked slightly – and some from the Weight Watchers Kitchen Companion iPad app!

The Kitchen Companion is another great tool – and it’s free to download. Anyone can use it, but WW e-tools subscribers can log in and have greater access. Here are some of the features:

Everyone who downloads the app can:
• Get the latest 10 featured recipes
• Save up to 10 favorite recipes
• Create custom shopping lists
• Set cooking timers in recipes
• Watch cooking technique videos
• Share recipes with email or Facebook

Subscribers to Weight Watchers Online & eTools can also:
• Find thousands of Weight Watchers recipes
• Access complete shopping, ingredient and equipment guides
• Get cooking primers and technique videos
• View exclusive recipe collections hand-picked by our editors
• Use the WeightWatchers.com Recipe Builder to create and edit recipes
• Send recipes to your Plan Manager for tracking

For the party I hosted, I particularly used the Recipe Builder… which actually I use just about every day to help me track my points! I just put in all the ingredients for a recipe and the number of servings, and the app does all the math and tells me how many points are in each dish. It also has ideas for less-points substitutions, which was helpful as I planned my party!

Here are the things I made:

Lime Chicken Soft Tacos

Ingredients
1 1/2 pounds skinless, boneless chicken breast meat – cubed
1/8 cup red wine vinegar
1/2 lime, juiced
1 teaspoon white sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
2 green onions, chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 teaspoon dried oregano
10 (6 inch) flour tortillas
1 tomato, diced
1/4 cup shredded lettuce
1/4 cup shredded Monterey Jack cheese
1/4 cup salsa

Directions
Saute chicken in a medium saucepan over medium high heat for about 20 minutes. Add vinegar, lime juice, sugar, salt, pepper, green onion, garlic and oregano. Simmer for an extra 10 minutes.
Heat an iron skillet over medium heat. Place a tortilla in the pan, warm, and turn over to heat the other side. Repeat with remaining tortillas. Serve lime chicken mixture in warm tortillas topped with tomato, lettuce, cheese and salsa.

Guess how many points is in a serving of the chicken. Ready? TWO. That’s it. I added some reduced-fat cheese and cilantro (and I personally skipped the tortillas) and voila – delicious!

I also made taco dip, made famous by my BFF Jess’s mom, Cheryl. Again, I used the Recipe Builder for substitution suggestions and to add up the points (5, in case you were wondering). Baked chips made it a really reasonable snack!

My friends brought other Mexican foods to round out the meal, but I knew with what I had prepared I could have a really satisfying dinner without completely blowing my diet. However, I was somewhat baffled by dessert.

I did a little digging and came across this brilliant – and incredibly simple – idea.

Chocolate-covered strawberries.

As you may know, all fruits (and most vegetables) are now ZERO points. Really, this blows options for low-point desserts wide open! My chocolate-covered strawberries were not nearly as pretty as the ones in the picture, but they tasted great and the only points came from the chocolate (which I went light on).

Want to skip the chocolate all together? Try this – strawberries & cream!

Perfect!

So, what are your go-to recipes (and how do you avoid blowing your diet) when you entertain?

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Weight Watchers provided me with an iPad and a three-month online membership to facilitate my review.

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Baby.

If you’ve ever seen Sam in real life, chances are you’ve also seen Baby.

Baby is Sam’s beloved teddy bear. Baby’s not actually the kind of bear that’s intended to be, you know, played with – he actually originated as a holder for a Babies R Us gift card. Like this – only blue.

(Photo credit to consumerist.com, who points out that this bear comes with a tag that warns of its lead content, which is awesome. However upon further reading, I found out that said tag is only attached in the state of Illinois, which has a lower threshold of acceptable lead levels in baby toys than Ohio does. Which explains why Andy and I didn’t notice the warning on any of the 15 versions of Baby we purchased in Sam’s first 1.5 years of life, and also explains a lot of other things as well. Insert Ohio joke here.)

I’m also not sure when Sam became so attached to him, but the first pictorial evidence I can find of Baby’s existence is shortly before Sam’s first birthday.

See how nice and clean Baby is there?

That may or may not have been the original Baby. For a while, Sam had to have his Baby at all times, but Baby was interchangeable. I remember Andy going in to Babies R Us once to buy 7 or 8 of the things so we were never without one, and he made the check out person promise that they had 5,000 more in the back and that they weren’t going to run out. We even had a name for them – Backup Baby.

Unfortunately, last February when I was in Nashville at Blissdom and Andy was home with both kids and all three of them had a stomach virus and were puking their brains out, Sam decided to play “hide and seek” with Baby. Despite the fact that he did the hiding, he couldn’t seem to do the seeking and no one could find Baby. So, Andy broke out Backup Baby. Of course, Sam chose that moment to decide there was one Baby and one Baby only, and he wasn’t having it. Andy tried everything – he colored Backup Baby with marker, rubbed some dirt on his face… he even shaved off some of Backup Baby’s fur with a beard trimmer to make him look more worn out… to no avail.

They had a really great weekend.

A week or so later, I found the real Baby in a drawer in Kate’s closet. Sam and Baby were reunited. And they haven’t been apart since.

We’ve had some close calls – we’ve left him at restaurants, we’ve dropped him on the floor at stores, and most notably, we’ve left him in a hotel room and checked out (fortunately I rescued him from a pile of dirty bedding that was wadded up on the floor as the room was being cleaned) – but Sam doesn’t go anywhere without his Baby. He’s a little worse for the wear, but he’s still kickin’.

I know that someday Baby will end up like Woody in Toy Story – relegated to the bottom of the toy box, forgotten. But right now, he is a great source of comfort to Sam, which is in turn a great comfort to me.

Baby is a part of the family.

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