Flatout amazing! My first time making a flatout wrap

Two thumbs up!

I wanted to buy a low-cal, low-fat wrap for sandwiches (yes, thinking about my laptop lunch makings) and found among the wraps a weird looking oblong wrap. Brand name is Flatout and after looking at the nutritional values of those available, I got the Honey Whole Wheat one. It’s a lot of good bread for just 1 point. Odd though, I can’t find it on the Flatout website. This is the closest to the nutritional value that I found: Multi-grain Flatout.

The texture is great. It’s not scratchy or heavy wheat. It didn’t fall apart like the one tortilla ‘sandwich’ that I made did.

I looked on the website to try and figure out how I was supposed to use it. I found a few recipes but no play-by-play. So, I went with the generic “put the stuff on round end of the bread and then roll tightly.” I smooshed the cheese on the bottom using a wet tablespoon. It made the spreading of the cheese much easier. I then put on spinach, some thinly sliced turkey breast, and some slices of tomatoes. I rolled up from the filled end as tightly as I could but couldn’t do too tightly because of the tomatoes.

It held together very well considering I take my sandwiches so dry — no mayo, etc. I sliced it in half and it still held up well.

Fantastic product! I can’t wait to try some other ideas with it. Interestingly enough, after I bought it, I saw a fellow blogger post her fajita photo made with Flatout bread. So weird to go from never knowing about a product to buying it and seeing it in use shortly after!

Two days of eats

Oatmeal:
How I love thee but won’t it get old quickly? I still have about 2 or 3 cups left in the fridge for nuking. So far my favorite way to make it (other than oodles of brown sugar and milk and butter) is banana. Gotta find some other ways!

PB&J roll-up disaster
I tried to make a PB&J roll-up so that I can cut it up for my Laptop Lunch. It was a disaster! My little cutting board looked like I just butchered something. The spewed guts (aka: jam) went on top of some yogurt so that was good. But the roll-up…. I don’t know what I did wrong! I put peanut nut butter on the tortilla first so it wouldn’t get soggy and then put on the jam. I put too much jam (2 tablespoons) definitely but the cutting was horrible.

Breakfast

• Oatmeal, steel-cut, leftover, 1 cup: 2
• Apple, organic, Fuji, cut-up: 1
• Cinnamon:0
• Da Dew! 0
• Was going to put slices on top of the oatmeal but that’s hard to eat so I chopped some up and mixed apple in after the oatmeal was nuked. Sprinkled cinnamon on top. Not a huge fan. Maybe it’d be better with the apple nuked or some sweetener added like honey or such. I’ve seen people add applesauce to oatmeal so thought this would work.

Lunch

• Chicken fried rice
  Based loosely on OAMC Chicken Fried Rice. I used some of the cooked brown rice, rest of the chicken, onion, frozen vegetables, 2 eggs, and soy sauce/pepper.

Dinner
2 Turkey cheddar dogs, 1 cup corn/lima beans.
I didn’t cook this but photographed anyway.
3 hot cocoas: 12
ice cream (1 cup + chocolate syrup): A kazillion points. Ok, not really.

Brunch
PB&J roll-ups: 2 Tbl peanut butter, 2 Tbl jam, 1 tortilla (3)
1 cup ff yogurt
Diet dew, 1 can

Saturday foodstuffs

Yeah. Difficult day. Emotionally draining. I’m glad it’s over. I ate those little quarter sandwich things on a boat that I didn’t take pictures of but I did take pictures of the dinner I ate out. Yay? Oh and I am a huge fan of steel-cut oats! Cook up a bunch and store it for a quick nuke each day!

Breakfast [5]

• Oatmeal, steel-cut, leftover, 1 cup: 2
  I’ve been warming the oatmeal up in this bowl. I measured out how much each line is with water from a measuring cup, but also the oatmeal comes from a storage container that has lines for 1 cup, 2 cup on it. Very helpful.
• Banana, 1: 2
• Honey, 1 teaspoon: .5
• ICBINB, 1 teaspoon: .5
• Diet Dew, of course: 0
• I mixed up some cut-up, slightly smooshed banana in with the microwave oatmeal. Pretty lovely combination!

No picture of the food, but enjoy the water….
Lunch [4][9]

• Finger sandwich, 2 quarters, 1 turkey and 1 roast beef: 4?
• Water: 0

Dinner [9.5][18.5]

• Diet pepsi: 0
• 1 fried mozzarella stick: 2
• 1 broccoli nugget thing: 1
• Mahimahi: 5
• Broccoli: 1
• Hushpuppy, 1/2 of one: .5

After

• Diet dew, 1 can: 0

And then….

Ice cream with chocolate syrup. It seems the emotions of the day sent me back to my frozen lover. At least now that I’ve figured out how much my bowls hold, I can say how much I had. 13.5 points. How satisfying was it? Not very.

Friday Food Journal

I’m off work today. Thought I’d make a bunch of steel-cut oats for heating up later. This time, I stirred more so I didn’t have a layer of very browned bits stuck to the bottom. Stirring is our friend!

Also, while on the brain train, I came up with a way to outsmart my temperamental card reader. I locked the card before trying so that if it got hungry, it would not eat my pictures.

Breakfast [7]

• Oatmeal, steel cut, 1.5 cups: 3
• Local honey, 1 tablespoon: 1
• ICBINB, light, 1 tablespoon: 1
• Banana, 1 whole: 2
• Diet Mountain Dew, 1 can: 0
• Notes: I measured out the margarine this time to see how much of a dollop I do. 1 tablespoon was too much. And 1 tablespoon was too much honey. I tried banana chunks in it as I was eating and liked that combination.

Lunch [6][13]

• Leftover chicken, 1 breast: 5
• Mixed vegetables, 1.5 cups: 1
  I put the frozen pile right next to the chicken on the same plate and microwaved everything for 5 minutes. Vegetables were hot. Chicken was warm enough.
• Apple, organic Fuji, 1 whole: 1
• Diet Mountain Dew, 1 can: 0

Dinner [6][19]

• Cereal, 2 cups: 4
• Milk, Skim, 1 cup: 2

I feel like I’m forgetting something but am finishing this post almost 24 hours after eating this dinner so forgot. Argh!

Laptop Lunch #1

Do I include the laptop lunch as part of my food journal or do I do it on its own? Not sure so I’ll try on its own for now so that I can find them more easily (and in case other folks are looking for them too). But I’ll have a picture on the food journal too.

It came. I was so excited to use it that I didn’t even wait for a full dishwasher load. I washed it by hand! Come on. That says a lot.

I had no idea what I was going to put in it. I had Oven fried chicken but there’s no way the pieces would fit. I could take the meat off but the leftovers are too fresh to do that! I had not planned so just went through the fridge.

I made it completely the night before and here it is ready for work the next morning.

And here it is open but with the tops on. I always wonder how people do the tops so I took a picture of how I did them. I followed the directions and put the lidded container in the back and had the tab pointing toward the middle.

No pictures at lunch. Sorry. Card reader was hungry and ate the pictures I took.

Large containers are 1 cup. Smaller are 1/2 cup. The dip container is 1/8 cup.

Laptop Lunch #1: 4.5
1 cup salad greens: 0.
1 cup Amy’s Vegetable Barley soup: 1.
2 Laughing Cow, light, wedges: 2.
1/16 cup (1 Tablespoon) Light Greek dressing: .5.
1 White House Natural Plus applesauce cup: 1.
1 Sugar-free Jello: 0.
The Special K protein bar on the utensils was included cause it fit but wasn’t eaten.

Ye ol’ hump day food journal

Last night I suddenly got starving hungry around 11:30. “Well, Jessica, if you were in bed….” I know. So I had a Laughing Cow wedge since I’m fruitless. I’ll add that on to today.

My excuse is that I was so busy studying my computer science homework and taking a quiz — which I bombed unfortunately — that I lost track of time. And then, of course, I had to read the User’s Guide for my new toy. Weird thing? I’m thinking about sketching out some ideas for boxes so that I can make a shopping list. Either that or just copying Vigilant20.

I threw together one tonight from leftovers and what I had on hand. Photos tomorrow of my first Bento / Laptop Lunch!

Last night [1]

• Laughing Cow, Light, 1 wedge: 1

Breakfast [2] [3]

• Oatmeal, 1 cup: 2?
• Splenda, cinnamon: 0
• Diet Dew, 20 oz: 0
• Multivitamin: 0
• Water, 24 oz:0

Lunch – 12:30ish [4] [7]

• Fruit salad: 2?
  1/2 cup? raw spinach, mandarin orange, sprinkle of carrots, 1 cup? melon bits; no dressing and I didn’t miss it… the orange juice was plenty!
• Yogurt, fat-free, 1 container: 2
  Amazing that this little container (6 oz) is 100 calories. Also amazing the list of ingredients is almost as tall as the container. Milk, High fructose corn syrup — no wonder 100 calories. Sigh.

Snack – 2ish [7] [14]

• Cheddar cheese stick, Sargento, light: 2?
  I’d rather have Laughing Cow. That stuff is so good.
• Water, 24 oz: 0
• Die dew, can: 0
• KitKat: 5
  I chose this over cake in the conference room. KitKat >>>> cake. See? Indulgence. But choosing what is ‘worth’ it. Y’know?

Snack – 4 [5] [19]

• ::whisper::KitKat: 5

Dinner – 7:45~ [9] [28]

• a href=”http://www.recipezaar.com/3929″ target=”_new”>Oven Fried Chicken, 1 huge piece: 6
  I used some of that frozen cut-up chicken from last month’s .49/lb whole chicken sale. So, don’t laugh at the piece shapes. Ok, you can laugh. I did. Because I use so much chicken and because I love spice, I increase the flour to 3/4 cup and each spice gets upped to 1 teaspoon and the salt becomes 2 teaspoons. I spray the pan with some butter-flavored Pan since I was raised on butter-flavored Crisco as the oil of choice for fried chicken. Also, Recipezaar’s values come out to 4 points a piece but these are huge so I rounded.
• Milk, 1 cup, skim: 2
• Romaine lettuce, 1 cup~: 0
• Greek dressing, light, 2 Tbl: 1
• Carrot, 1: 0

Snack [8] [36]

• Hot cocoa, 2 cups: 8

Total: 36

Eating through Tuesday

[HAHA! I was so distracted by the laptop lunch that I forgot to ‘publish’ this.]

Class went late Monday which threw me off. I was late to work. I hate that. Well, I wasn’t late because I was in by the implied cut-off time but I am trying to hit closer to 8 a.m. than 9 a.m.

Because of my glorious excuses in the previous paragraph, I didn’t pack my breakfast. I did bring snacks though because they were easy to grab. In my bear-just-woke-from-hibernation stupor, I put my Lean Pocket in the fridge. It thawed, of course. I tossed it. Bright idea: Buy a bunch of frozen stuff and stick it in the freezer at work in a container that says “Jessica’s Low-calorie, Low-fat, Low-taste Food.” If I mark it that way, then who’d want it?

Had another follow-up visit for the Lasik today. Even with all the water I drank, he said my eyes were dry. They don’t feel dry. Argh.

Now, on to the real excitement! What’d I eat today and what’d it look like!

Breakfast [9]

• Multivitamin: 0
• Hot sausage, 1 link: 7~
  I wish I’d never tried these. They’re addictive. Since last night’s meeting was about indulgence and our homework was to indulge in something, I thought I’d have a little treat.
• Potatoes, 1/2 cup: 3~
  I can’t finish the amount the give me.
• Diet Dew, 20 oz: 0
• Water, 24oz: 0
  I know, right? Water before noon!

Lunch – 12:30ish [3.5]

• Egg drop so up, 16 oz: 1.5
  I got excited that this was being served today but my heart fell to my feet when I saw the red flecks. I remember one day almost everything had some sort of bell pepper in it. I like all peppers except the sweet bell peppers. But, no, it seems to be a hot pepper and there’s a gingery sweet flavor or something. I think this was the worst egg drop soup I’ve ever had. But others probably love it.
• Banana, 1: 2
• Water, 24 oz: 0
  Yes, that’s my 24 ounce mug.

Snack – 3ish [4.5]

• Water, 24oz: 0
• Cottage cheese, fat-free, 1~ cup: 3.5
  I sprinkled some cinnamon on some and it was ok.
• Laughing Cow, light, 1 wedge: 1

Dinner – 7ish [12.5]

• I didn’t make it but I photographed it.
• Some kinda southern sausage, 3 oz.: 7.5
• Collards, 3/4 cup?: 1
• Blackeyed peas, 1 cup?: 4
• Water, 8 oz: 0

Snack [8]

• Hot cocoa, 2 cups: 8

Total: 37.5

Steel-cut Saturday

Today, since I had all morning and wanted to procrastinate my studying, I tried some steel-cut oats. Boy, did that take forever to cook! And the bottom of the pan was scrubtastic. Worth it? Not sure. I have half of the pan leftover in the fridge.

Breakfast – 10ish

• Steel-cut oatmeal, 1 cup: 4
  Interesting. WW.com says oatmeal is 2 points per cup. On container, it looks like 4 a cup.
• Honey, 3-string drizzle: .5
  I miss my local honey desperately!
• ICBINB, light, dollop: .5
  From the tub.
• Milk, skim, 1.5 cup: 2.5

Lunch
Diet Mountain Dew, 1 can: 0
Tortilla, low-fat: 2
Ground turkey with taco seasoning, 1/2 cup: 4?
Cheese stick, low-fat: 2
Picante sauce, liberal pour: 0
Corn, 1/2 cup?: 1
Lima beans, 1/2 cup?: 1
Lima beans have a little taco meat in them because I microwaved the two together in a non-plastic bowl

Dinner
Leftover lasagna from the freezer, little square: 12?
Salad (spinach, 1/2 apple, sprinkle of dried cranberries, sprinkle of walnuts, carrot): 0+.5+1+3+0
Balsamic, light dressing, 2 Tbl: 1
Leftover cauliflower: 1
Corn, lima beans: 1

Snack
Hot cocoa: 8

I’m filling most of this the day after because of how hard it was to do anything but study yesterday. I think I need to keep the little paper journal with me so I can write stuff done and not rely on memory. Photos help but I don’t photograph everything.

Yesterday’s quiz in the class went horribly. I’m getting very frustrated with the amount of times this professor puts material on the quiz that isn’t covered in the class. I turned to my comfort: ice cream.

Not a snack…
Ice cream with chocolate syrup: 20?

Oh and I didn’t write down what I turned to the other night after the bad fight. That time it was Krispy Kreme chocolate glazed donuts. I just looked up how much that “retreat into comfort zone” cost and that was 30 points. Needless to say, I’m way over my WPA. Will my few (ok, a lot at the few times) transgressions mean a gain tomorrow?

Somebody saaaaave me (oh and a couple of dinners)

I think I mentioned my crazy course load this semester. Well, I knew it would be time consuming so planned for it. This means very little time for anything else, unfortunately. That means I missed hitting some local markets, planning meals based on sales and sleep. Ok, I did sleep a little.

Dinner: Taco Soup

• I love this recipe. I’ve been doing it for a few years now with some experimentation with ingredients here and there. All this is cooked for about as long as I want to wait. I guess it takes about 20 minutes to heat everything over medium.
  • 1ish pound of meat (or not). If ground something, it’s browned with the onion and garlic. If it’s leftover something, then I brown the onion first so that I don’t overcook the leftover something. If I’m vegetarian, then I up the bean count by one can.
  • Garlic and onion. I prefer chopped red onion. I add about 2-4 teaspoons of minced garlic. If I’m cooking without meat, then I brown them together in some heated olive oil.
  • 1-2 cans (rinsed and drained) pinto/black/kidney beans. My favorite combination is two beans. I like the difference in look. I believe this time I had one can of pinto and another of kidney.
  • corn for color. I guess I put in about 1-2 cups. If frozen, then I just have to keep that in mind when cooking. Just cook it a little longer. If canned, drained.
  • Rotel diced tomatoes with chile. Usually run about 2 cans of this. I add it with all its juice. It can get a little spicy but I like spicy. I’ve tried with other diced tomatoes with chile and keep coming back to Rotel.
  • Taco seasoning. I use a packet of low-sodium. I used to have my own taco seasoning mix mixed up but need to get a new jar of it going.
  • Ranch seasoning packet. I only use half of a packet because it’s so salty and stuff. I don’t think it needs a full packet and can save the rest for the next soup.

  With this, I had some homemade tortilla chips. I quartered some corn tortillas and placed them on a baking sheet. I sprayed them with Pam and put them in a 350 oven for about 13 minutes. They got too brown though so maybe 350 for 9 minutes?

Dinner: “Sticky” dump chicken, rice and squash

• Sticky dump chicken: I love the idea of dump chicken but this combination was not good to me. Way too gloppy and the smell as it was cooking was unpleasant. I love peanut butter but this wasn’t what I thought it would be.
• Brown rice: I used instant brown rice in the bag. I thought I’d have sauce from the dump chicken but didn’t 😦 So I added pepper to it and a pat of butter to moisten it.
• Squash and onion sauté: Again with the random makeups. I had a half bag of frozen squash in the freezer and wanted it. Over medium, I heated extra-virgin olive oil, added leftover chopped up red onion (probably about half an onion), and stirred it around till the onion started to soften. I then added the frozen squash and covered it for about 10 minutes or more. I took the lid off and added pepper and a little salt. With the lid off, the squash lost a little of the squishy look but not too much.
• Note: Obviously, the chicken isn’t happening again. But overall, the look was bleh. I was hoping for more punch. Ah well.

I can really tell when I have natural light in the photos. I held the bowl of soup up against my dining room window to shoot. The plate of squash and chicken was photographed on my dining table without outside light. I’ve included a shot of the squash cooking (at right) where there’s some window light coming in.

Roast chicken, mashed potatoes, garden salad

I’m seeing a chicken theme here. Bwok? I do eat other things, really! But for .69/pound (.20 off per pound), I got a roasting whole chicken and looked for something to do with it that would be at least a little different than the other birds that have fallen on my plate recently. I wrapped it up in plastic last night and checked the potatoes. They felt neglected and started to expand their family by growing. But it’s not that hard to pop out the eyes — how barbaric sounding! — and make some mashed potatoes. The other side was hard to choose though. A quick check on the fridge yielded the answer in leftover salad bits. “Eat us!”

Dinner: April 27, 2008

• Roast chicken
  I’m seeing a chicken theme here. I do eat other things, really! But for .69/pound (.20 off per pound), I got a roasting whole chicken and looked for something to do with it that would be at least a little different than the other birds that have fallen on my plate recently. I did a rub and wrapped it up in plastic last night and checked the potatoes. They felt neglected and started to expand their family by growing. But it’s not that hard to pop out the eyes — how barbaric sounding! — and make some mashed potatoes.
• Mashed potatoes
  De-eyed, peeled, cubed, boiled some Yukons. I guess I should have realized by their low price (.80/pound) that they weren’t going to be much longer for this world. The chicken left some liquid in its pan, so I whipped up gravy (I use cornstarch).
• Garden salad
  Leftover boiled eggs (white only), tomato, romaine, cucumber, celery and Good Seasonings Light Greek Vinaigrette.