Hawaiian Pizza - Yes, It's AMAZING!

It's pizza and movie night at our house.  I always knew I'd be able to do movies, but I never thought I'd be able to do pizza after surgery.  The trick is finding a whole wheat crust and just eating enough of it to give it that "normal" feel.  We liked Hawaiian Pizza (Canadian bacon and pineapple pizza) before surgery, so this is our version now.

Ingredients:
1 whole wheat, pre-made pizza crust (we use Boboli Whole Wheat Pizza Crust)
1/2 - 3/4 cup of tomato sauce
Italian seasoning
4-6 slices of provolone cheese
1 - 1 1/2 cups of shredded mozzarella cheese
4-6oz. of thin sliced deli meat ham
4 oz. can of pineapple chunks (in it's own juice - no syrup!)
1 sweet red pepper (cut into chunks)

Directions:
Preheat oven to 450 degrees.  Take crust out of package and place on pizza baking pan.  Cover crust with sauce and top with 4-6 slices of provolone cheese.  Dab a bit more sauce onto of the slices of provolone and then top with sliced ham, chunks of pineapple, Italian seasoning and sweet red pepper chunks.  Cover the entire pizza with shredded mozzarella.  Bake for 12 minutes and serve while hot.

So good and very economical.  We easily get 2 meals out of this for both of us.  2-3 slices for Ryan per meal and 1/2 or 1 slice for me.

Now it's time for the movie!

BBQ Burgers anyone?

Ryan made these a couple of weeks ago when we had friends over for a BBQ - and he made them again over the weekend, they are SO good!

Ingredients:
1 pound of lean ground beef (makes 4-5 patties) - we use organic ground beef, it tastes amazing and is healthier for us
BBQ Sauce (sugar free kinds are available, but I've found that 1 tbsp. of Jack Daniels Original works for me!) Ryan uses Sweet Baby Ray's for his
Whole Wheat Hamburger Buns
Sliced Cheese - we prefer Colby jack on ours - about 1 oz. per burger
Optional: Ring of Pineapple

Directions:
Make hamburger up into 4 or 5 patties.  Coat each burger with a layer of BBQ sauce before putting them on the grill.  Grill for 6-8 minutes, flipping until done.  With 1 minute of grill time remaining - layer the cheese on top of the burgers to melt it before serving.  Serve on a whole wheat bun (I use 1/2 a bun and just do it for looks.  On average I eat 2-3 bites of bun) with 1/2 tbsp. of BBQ sauce for dipping.  Ryan has his with the full bun - a lot more BBQ sauce and a ring of pineapple to make it a "Hawaiian Burger".  We also had no-sugar added pears and Ryan had Bush's Baked Beans.  They are delicious and pretty much indicate that summer has arrived at our house!

Taco Night

This one is Easy Peasy - and SO good warmed up as left overs =)

Ingredients:
1 pound of lean ground beef
1 package of taco seasoning mix
1 small can of corn - drained
1 can of black beans - drained and rinsed
1 small yellow onion - diced
1 package of whole grain taco shells (we use these: Ortega Whole Grain Taco Shells)
Additional Optional Items: 2% Shredded cheese, jalapeno sliced peppers, salsa, lite sour cream, shredded lettuce

Directions:
Brown beef in skillet - drain excess grease.  Add taco seasoning with 2/3rd's cup of water - stir until mixed in. Add in corn, black beans and diced onions.  Cook for an additional 5-6 minutes on Medium High heat until most of the liquid has been absorbed.  Serve with taco shells and additional ingredients. 

I ate the meat/bean/corn mixture about 6 weeks out from surgery with no problem.  It was one of my favorite early post-op meals.  Now that I can eat some of the other items, it's again one of my favorites.  The beans and cheese up the protein in this dish - so don't shy away from them.  The meal pictured is mine from last night - 1 taco shell, split in half to lay flat on the plate.  1/2 cup of meat mixture covered with a spoonful of salsa, 6 jalapeno slices, 1/4 cup shredded cheese and a small spoonful of lite sour cream. 

This was WONDERFUL!

Garage Sale = No Posting

To any followers out there - I thought I needed to explain my recent absence and lack of posting.  Last week I pulled all of my clothes that are too big for me now together to start getting ready for a yard sale.  Well, Ryan and I knocked it all out in a matter of 2 days (2 very loooong days) and got it all organized.  I've been having Pre-Sale shopping appointments at my house this week and so far it's going very well!  Basically, I'm running a plus size consignment store out of our garage.  The scary thing is, I've sold more than 50 items of clothing, and it doesn't even look like a dent was made! (There were over 300 items to start!) The sizes I'm selling are 18-28 and 1x-3x.  Just a tip to anyone that is thinking of doing something like this - I color coded my items with red, yellow and blue electrical tape.  Each hanger got a different color and the color corresponds to the price of the item. All my items are 1, 3 or 5 dollars.  Name brand suit jackets from talbots or cold water creek would be an example of something that would get 5 dollars.  Shirts or sweaters from lane bryant might be 3 a piece and then tee-shirts from target would be 1 dollar.  The feedback that I've gotten is that all my "shoppers" LOVE the pricing system and love being able to pre-shop the sale.  Our Final Garage Sale Blow-out is June 19th, so if you don't see me posting until then... you'll know why.

Can't wait to clear this all out and start the shopping process of 16's and under!  Whoohoo =)