What a gorgeous day! I am looking forward to going to the gym this evening and eating the (hopefully!) yummy dinner I put in the crock pot this morning. It may not have been the brightest idea to use the crock pot on a day when it's 85, but it sure smells good! I've been slacking a little this week with my morning workouts, probably because I feel like I'm still trying to catch up on sleep after the busy weekend! I did time time to make it to the gym yesterday after work and will do the same today and likely tomorrow. Friday morning I'll be up at 6:00 and off to the gym- I know if I sleep in I'll skip working out after the office in favor of more fun plans and I want to be able to have a few guilt-free drinks that evening- have to start the weekend out right :D



I tried a couple new recipes yesterday and both were wonderful! For lunch I put a little evoo, a sliced tomato, some goat cheese, and fresh basil on top of a whole wheat pita and broiled it for a few minutes until it was toasty. The margarita version of the pear, walnut and gorg flat bread I've been making lately. It was a good change for lunch, so quick, light, and really delicious! For anyone that counts calories this is right around 250 and surprisingly filling, although P might disagree with me on that one. He always reminds me that he needs to eat more than I do and I think he could have woofed about three of these down and been content. I was quite satisfied with one :)



Dinner last night was pork chops with sage, blackberry and balsamic sauce. I found the recipe in the new cooking light and modified it to use ingredients I had and also to simplify the recipe a bit. It only took about 30 minutes total and P decided this was the tastiest meal I'd EVER made. That is what I call a success! We also had asparagus with a little evoo, salt and pepper, and just a bit of fresh Romano grated on top. Here's a link to the recipe:
http://find.myrecipes.com/recipes/recipefinder.dyn?action=displayRecipe&recipe_id=1898555

I used the following ingredients:

• 2 shallots chopped finely
• 3 tbsp sugar free blackberry jam (the cheap store brand)
• 1 cup chicken broth
• 1 cup white cooking wine
• 1 1/2 tbsp chopped fresh sage

I let all of that reduce until it started to thicken up and then added:

• 1/2 c chicken broth
• sugar (not sure why I bought the sugar free jam and then added sugar...)
• 2 tbsp balsamic
• a little salt and pepper

When it reduced down to about 1 cup I pulled the pan off the burner and added 1 tbsp Brummel and brown (yogurt butter). After the butter melted in I dumped it all into a little bowl and cooked the pork chops in the same pan. When I pulled them from the pan to rest I added a few of the drippings into the blackberry sauce. The sauce was so delicious and would be really tasty over beef or chicken if you're not a pork fan. This is absolutely a meal I will make again! (P took pictures but I haven't had a chance to upload them- hopefully this evening or tomorrow).

Last week I saw this recipe on Itzy's kitchen blog and knew I wanted to try it: http://itzyskitchen.blogspot.com/2009/05/pulled-chicken.html

This morning I put the following in the crock pot:

• 3 frozen chicken breasts
• 1 sliced sweet onion
• almost 1 bottle of BBQ sauce (I used Sweet Baby Rays since it was on sale for $1!)
• about 1 tbsp of Tabasco

I put the crock pot on high and then pulled the chicken apart at lunch (about 3 1/2 hours later) and added 2 tbsp brown sugar and about 1 tbsp of "cock sauce" as P calls it (otherwise known as saracha sp?). It smelled amazing and I can't wait to try it for dinner! We'll have cole slaw (I buy the pre-cut cabbage and make my own dressing- a little salt, pepper, light mayo, and cider vinegar) along with some sweet potato fries. I loved the cumin on the ones I made last week and I'll add some Cayenne if the chicken isn't too spicy. If it tastes as good as it smells it will be a great dinner and so easy!

Hope everyone is having a fabulous day!