Individual Baked Apple Pie Dessert

Super yummy and quick dessert that the whole family will love.  

You'll need one roll of Pillsbury Seamless Crescent Roll Dough (yes, you can use the regular triangle ones, you'll just need to press them together real good to form a seal).  One can of Apple Pie filling.  Cinnamon Sugar.  Butter.

Unroll the package of dough and cut into 6 squares.  Put them into the cups of a cupcake pan making little pockets (spray it of course with non-stick cooking spray first).  Fill the dough pockets with the pie filling.  Pinch the corners of the dough together over the top of the pie filling.  Give it a little twist if needed.  Spread a little butter across the top and sprinkle with cinnamon sugar.  That's it, you're ready to toss them into the oven.  Follow the crescent roll baking directions.  Remove from the oven when just starting to turn golden brown.  Eat warm or cooled.  Great with a side of vanilla ice cream.

Before Baking

After baking - YUM

Note:  We do not have 6 people in our home, so we had leftovers.  You can microwave these later if you like them warm.  Just put them in for one minute on high.

Loving this pretend Winter

So this Winter without ice, sleet, or snow, or even freezing cold days, has just been terrific for me and my puppies.  It's meant 4-5 walks a week.  I feel so fortunate.  They LOVE it, and I do too.  It's great to get outside and walk almost everyday.  And I love that we have several walking trails in our town so it keeps things interesting.  We're all going to shed some pounds this Winter!  Sweet!!!

Hawaiian Chicken - Crock Pot Meal

So this is the easiest meal ever.  Hawaiian Chicken.  You'll need a bag of frozen chicken breasts (4-6 breasts).  You need one can of pineapple (20 ounces) - drained.  And you need one jar of Target's Archer Farms brand of Hawaiian-style Barbecue Sauce.  Put the 3 ingredients in your crock pot for 4-6 hours on low (you can put the chicken in frozen).  Use a spoon to chunk up the chicken - it should be tender enough, it will just cut right thru and fall apart.  Do this while it's still in the crock pot.  Not only will you have one less dish to wash, but it will help coat the chicken in the sauce.  Serve over white (or brown) rice.  We did a side of steamed broccoli.  You could also add chopped up green & yellow peppers or onions to the chicken mixture.  Totally up to you.  It's yummy - I promise.

60 Days - No pennies spent out to eat

So in the middle of January we went on the Scentsy Leadership Retreat in Riviera Maya, Mexico.  It was beautiful and all inclusive and super posh (hot tub for two in my room overlooking the balcony overlooking the ocean).  Couldn't ask for much more.  But of course, Scentsy always gives more.  And one of their trainers that they brought in for us was Chris Locurto, who is this finance trainer that went from being severely in debt to being a millionaire in about 5 years.  Scentsy not only wants us to make a lot of money with the company, but they want us to have the skills to keep it and to turn it into even more money on our own.  So they provided us with the absolute best personal financial training out there.

Now, what in the world does financial training have to do with a Weight Loss blog, right?!!?  I know you're wondering.  Well, here's how it ties in.  My husband and I challenged ourselves that when we got home from Mexico to do 60 days of no spending money eating out.  We have a few groupons and gift certificates to use up, but no actual spending of money.  Not only will we save about $1000 bucks (because we do eat out a lot) in the 2 month time period, but we'll be a lot healtier just cooking at home.

So today, Feb. 4th, we're 18 days into the challenge.  I did buy one coffee drink out - bad me.  But other than that, we're doing great.  We've saved a crap load of money and we're both down a few pounds.  Cooking whatever we want, but cooking it at home.  Healtier than our old eating out most of the week.

So starting today, I'm going to try to share with you a recipe a day.  Now sometimes we are eating leftovers or we just have salads or soup from a can or something.  But if we cook something, I'm going to try to post it.  I will not promise that all of these recipes will be healthy, but they will be yummy - in fact they will be yummier than going to a restaurant.  And that alone can help you shed some pounds!

After a month off.....

....... I've only gained back .5 pounds.  Still down 30 pounds from my originally April 11th start date.  I'm extremely happy with that.  We did all of our Summer vacationing at once.  MN/WI for 8 days, TX for 5 days, and then Lake of the Ozarks for 3 days.  We've been gone more than we've been home the last month and we've eaten out a lot.  If I never see a french fry again, I think I'll be okay with that.  Well, for a month or so at least.  Anyway, back to the weight loss plan and so excited about it.  I've got a wedding to attend in 3 weeks and I'd like to lose another 10 pounds before that.  I'm back to work - and to working out!!!!

Walking with Bugs

I'm on vacay but I'm still getting my exercise in.  Going for long walks with the misquitos of Wisconsin every morning.  Kinda afraid of the weigh in when I get home from back to back trips.  We're cooking our own food on this one, so we're being somewhat healthy - much better than if we went to a restaurant - but we've made chocolate chip cookies and drank a massive amount of wine.  Hmmmmm.....  Well, we did do our longest walk yet 2 days ago.  Almost 4 miles.  We'll see how it goes.

Awesome Website

Hey walkers (and runners), there's this awesome site out there that we just played with called MapMyWalk.com.  You can pre-set up a walk to make sure you get your distance in for the day or you can track how far you went after a walk.  It even works on nature trails.  Just have to click where you turn.  Today's nature trail and neighborhood walk ended up being 3.17 miles.  Did it with the dogs (including a couple of potty breaks and one lay down break when the dogs just didn't want to go anymore) in an hour and 12 minutes.  Not great - but not bad.  And definitely better than I would have been 30 pounds ago.

Walking Buddy

I want to send a quick shout out to my husband Rick.  Man does he push me.  It seems he always wants to walk a little further than I do.  And at a faster pace.  And I keep pushing myself to keep up with him.  Gonna shed some extra pounds just because I'm walking with him and not alone!

Walking the Dogs

Want to know the best part about being 30 pounds lighter???  It doesn't hurt to walk the dogs.  I can go on a 30 minute walk, even a 60 minute walk, with my dogs now and my knees and ankles don't hurt at night like they used to.  It's so awesome.  I'm getting healthy and my puppies are loving me for it!!!

Big Cheesy Grin

So I hit the 30 pound mark today.  Doing the happy dance.  2 days shy of 3 months.  Right on track in my opinion.  Healthy and thin - here I come!!!