Monday July 20 Recap

Another busy day with Hunter's stuff and the Screamin' Weeman. We started at 8 and finished at 5. I did get a 1.5 hour nap today though (thanks Scott!! I needed that!!). His therapy days can often be like our weekend days with lots of daytime grazing. And usually a really horrid breakfast (today was no exception).


Menus
Breakfast: Yobaby (ate all), cheesy english muffin (ate none), plums, lemonade (ate and drank very little), for Hunter. Ryanne had some grapes before going to school. I took a quick 1/2 hour nap so missed breakfast but got an early snack. Scott had cereal.

Snack: Early snack between AM therapies for Hunter. Tortilla with cream cheese, deli slices of meat and fresh spinach leaves. Less cream cheese on my side and more on his. He scarfed them down!! And he had some grapes and green peas. Much better than the breakfast foray. And he had a whole orange by himself after his second therapy!!


Lunch: Scott had a sandwich for lunch and Hunter and I used my free baked chicken meal coupon at KFC (Thanks Oprah!!). He actually ate a lot of it which kept me from eating too much. Perfect!!




Appetizer: Hunter couldn't wait until Ryanne got home from gymnastics and the stuffers weren't ready so I gave him the rest of the green peas and melted butter on them.

Dinner: This was an experimentation and it went over well. Had to improvise because of not having everything "in stock"... Stuffed potatoes/eggplant. We had veggies from last week and I wanted to get them used up. Scott won't touch eggplant usually so I ate the stuffed eggplant shell and he and the kids had stuffed potatoes. I saved the innards of the potatoes for hash brown starters for the kids in the AM. We had water and milk for dinner. Popcorn for dessert because we have the calorie room and it was a rough day :)



Stuffed Potatoes/Eggplant (what I used, substitutions very easy)

1/3 of an Eggplant
2 Medium potatoes, baked just to tender (use all eggplants if your family won't whine like mine!!)
3 small zucchini/yellow squash (I steamed in the microwave in a Hefty One Zip bag, open 2" with ~ 1/4 C. Water)
12 fresh spinach leaves, washed and chopped
1/3 C. chopped onion
4 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 packet McCormick Peppercorn Steak Grillmates
1 T Olive Oil
3/4 C. rice, cooked per directions
8 oz. chicken breast, cooked until not pink, but not overdone (I microwaved it).
3 T. Sour cream (I used lowfat for adults, regular for kids)
3 cheese slices (I used cheddar, but a strong swiss or goulda would be great)


Bake whole eggplant on a baking sheet at 425*F for 40 minutes. If only using a part, put the innard side down when baking, hollow out the innards when done and save for filling. Bake Potatoes to just barely cooked, hollow them out and save the innards for another dish.


Sautee Onions and garlic on stove with Olive Oil until onions are near translucent and reduce to medium heat. Finely chop chicken, squash and innards from eggplant and add to pot. Add Rice, spinach leaves and seasoning mix to pot. Mix thoroughly. Remove from heat and stir in Sour cream. Fill shells and top with cheese slices as desired. Bake at 425 until cheese is melted and filling is warm and bubbly.

Alternately, in my former, high metabolism, plenty of kitchen tools life... Cuisinart all the filling ingredients with 3/4 block lowfat cream cheese instead of sour cream. Wow, rich and delicious!!




And even my husband, so vehemently opposed to eggplant said, "that's a good one Hun!!" I then told him there was eggplant in it and he about keeled over ;-)