French Bread Pizza

This was the quickest/easiest dinner ever! Faster than even ordering a pizza.

Slice french bread into two pieces

Spread pizza sauce over the bread (We like Prego Tradional)

Add Canadian bacon

Add cut up green peppers

Add small can drained pineapple tidbits

Sprinkle shredded mozzarella cheese

Put in oven on Broil for about 5 minutes or until cheese is melted. 

My model husband loved the pizza.

The Good Stuff

Do you watch Biggest Loser? Don't you love it when they do those cheesy advertisements during the show and try to make them look all natural? For example: Bob says: "Hey Stephanie come on over here. I notice you have a really big sweet tooth. Have you ever thought of choosing Extra Fruit Sensations Sweet Tropical gum to get rid of that craving? It's only five calories and studies have shown that when you chew gum you are less likely to indulge in your cravings! That's why in the Biggest Loser house we ALWAYS have a bowl filled with Extra sugar free five calorie gum." So funny! Well I'm totally going to advertise for Costco right now. They have a wonderful cookbook called Favorite Recipes The Costco Way. I borrowed it from my mom and we absolutely love the recipes. Of course they put in there that you are supposed to buy the Costco brand of stuff but we are Wal-Mart grocery shoppers and it works. We don't have enough peeps in our fam yet to buy Costco bulk. So this past week was Costco recipe week. There was one unfortunate recipe that was gross which I won't list but the rest were ones we will definitely repeat.
Tilapia Parmesan:

Breakfast Tacos:

Chicken and Pineapple Pizza:

Cheesy Stuffed Peppers:
Southwest Potatoes and Chicken:

The following recipe is from Safeway's website. I looked under the recipes that you can make in less then thirty minutes.
Cajun Chicken Pasta: So Delicious!!! We highly recommend it! It seriously tastes like something from Olive Garden and it only takes 30 minutes to make! It looks like a ton of ingredients but most are spices.

Ingredients 4 ounces linguine pasta 2 boneless, skinless chicken breast halves, sliced into thin strips 2 teaspoons Cajun seasoning 2 tablespoons butter 1 green bell pepper, chopped 1/2 red bell pepper, chopped 4 fresh mushrooms, sliced 1 green onion, minced 1 1/2 cups heavy cream 1/4 teaspoon dried basil 1/4 teaspoon lemon pepper 1/4 teaspoon salt 1/8 teaspoon garlic powder 1/8 teaspoon ground black pepper 2 tablespoons grated Parmesan cheese

Directions Bring a large pot of lightly salted water to a boil. Add linguini pasta, and cook for 8 to 10 minutes, or until al dente; drain. Meanwhile, place chicken and Cajun seasoning in a bowl, and toss to coat. In a large skillet over medium heat, saute chicken in butter until no longer pink and juices run clear, about 5 to 7 minutes. Add green and red bell peppers, sliced mushrooms and green onions; cook for 2 to 3 minutes. Reduce heat, and stir in heavy cream. Season the sauce with basil, lemon pepper, salt, garlic powder and ground black pepper, and heat through. In a large bowl, toss linguini with sauce. Sprinkle with grated Parmesan cheese.

4 weeks to go!!!

Only four more weeks until the half! Can't believe it! I'm getting pretty excited.  I really liked this weeks workouts, they were challenging but didn't kill me. 

Monday: Franklin Park, 1.41 mile warm up, 30 minute tempo run at a 8:40 pace, 1.23 mile cool down  =5.5 miles
Tuesday:  Jillian Michaels 30 day shred
Wednesday: 2 miles @ 8:30 pace, 2x1mile at 7:30 pace, and 2x800meters at 7:00 pace = 5.32 miles
Saturday: 11 miles @ 9:00 mile pace

I was a little worried that the 11 miles would be really tough since we didn't do a long run last weekend due to the 6K but Haley and I both ended up feeling really great.  We went on a new route and it was really fun.  I love being able to excercise and chat and have girl time all at the same time!

This weeks dinners:
Monday: New York Teriyaki (I'm not really a rice person and I ended up eating mostly just rice and not even eating the beef teriyaki. Weird.  I think running changes my eating habits. )
Tuesday:  Missionaries and mom came for dinner.  Sweet and Sour meatballs and rice, salad, and strawberry shortcake.
Wednesday:  Last weekend I had made this weird casserole that really wasnt very good with ground beef mixture on the bottom and noodles on the top.  We didn't want to waste the noodles so we scraped them off and made homemade mac and cheese.  I felt so inventive and thrifty saving those noodles from being tossed in the garbage.  lol
Thursday: My night to host BUNKO so we had what I litke to call Olive Garden salad, french bread, manicotti, and brownie bottoms with ice cream for dessert.
Friday: Leftover manicotti ( I made WAY too much.  I made 3 dishes and we only ate 1 at BUNKO.  So left some at the padres, and took some to grandma and grandpa.

Looking back, it was a very interesting week as far as meals.  Lol.  I don't know how it is with anyone else but I try to stretch it out as much as I can in between grocery store visits.  It's like a game I play, to see how long I can go without going to the grocery store.  Very weird I know.  But it seems like I'm saving money when I don't go for awhile.  But really it just makes it so when I do go I have to stock up and fill our empty fridge and cupboards.  And it's fun when you don't have much left in your fridge and cupboards seeing what you can scape together for a meal.  That kind of makes it sound like we are starving poor people, but I promise we aren't, at least not starving ;)

Cheese Zombies

I don't know if I've mentioned it but, I really like to cook.  I like the organization of making a weekly meal plan and buying all the groceries.  We really haven't repeated any meals since we have been married.  I keep wondering when I will run out of recipes.
The past time that we had the missionaries over I made cheese zombies.  A co-worker of Thomas' had made them and that gave us the idea.  We got the recipe online and they turned out almost exactly like the school kind! I was amazed!

I also made some home-made tomato basil soup.  It was yummy to dip the cheese zombies in but I wouldn't just make it by itself.

Notice the container with the red cap on it.  Thomas introduced me to it. It's a salad topper with sesame seeds and bacon bits and some other yummy little toppers.