I’ll be taking a week off from blogging, but before I go here’s the rest of my day.  You’ll have to check back a week from now to see if I’m N&I (new and improved).

You can see that the potato salad made another visit on my plate along with the faux fried squash, some cooked yellow squash, some sliced mom and dad’s garden tomatoes and some chicken casserole.  The chicken c’role is just plain ol’ comfort food.  It’s called poppyseed chicken and is an old old potluck recipe.  I modified using Greek yogurt instead of sour cream and changed the cracker crust to using 1/2 stick of Smart Balance instead of a whole stick of butter.  So using chicken breast meat, greek yogurt, lowfat cream of chicken soup, and whole wheat crackers with Smart Balance and some poppyseed sprinkled on top it’s a whole lot healthier than the original!  Maybe still not the best – but hey – I’m a Southern girl, I gotta have a little comfort food every once in awhile!  What a nice day - got to spend it with both my girls and that’s the BEST!!!!!!  TTFN – see you in a week !

Then Jenn and I walked 2 1/2 miles – I love doing that in the morning!  Homecookedem came over to visit today bearing gifts; some TJ’s AB!  Jenn and I hadn’t had TJ’s and it was SDG, just like we knew it would be.  We sampled the natural and the creamy sea salt.  I like the creamy sea salt the best but Jenn likes the natural. 

Lunch was another new foodie thing for me.  Em made me a crack wrap.  I see why they have that name .  I will definitely be adding that to my food repertoire.  Crack wraps are creamy and filling and easy to make.  I’m glad I finally tried one – thanks Em!   We also had another new recipe I wanted to try out  Two – Potato Salad with Dill Dressing.  I loved this also.  I added some fruit to go along with it.

The star of the meal was definitely the crack wrap but the co-star was the potato salad.  Here’s the recipe – it is easy, delicious and nutritious!

1/2 cup plain fat-free yogurt, a tbsp. fat free mayo, 1 tsp. chopped fresh or 1/2 tsp. dried dill, 1 tsp. Dijon mustard, 1/4 tsp. salt,  mix this all up to put on the potato mixture.  You also need one large white potato and one large sweet potato cut and cubed.  Also, 1/3 cup chopped celery and 2 tbsp. of onion.  Mix it all together with the yogurt mixture and chill for at least 4 hours.  One serving had 170 calories, 0 fat and cholesterol, 230 sodium, 41 g carbs, and 4grams of fiber. 

After lunch we worked on starting Emily’s wedding album.  She wants to make a book with the pictures so were doing on online.  They are fun and turn out so nice.  Another great thing about them is that they are very resonably priced.  I did one of our Puerto Rico vacation last year that I just love!  Nice to look back on those memories.

So here is my plate.

The salad adds a lot of color .  And last but not least, I cut up a watermelon.

The missing piece was mine! 

Later this evening I started hearing the last of the blueberry cream pie ice cream calling my name from the freezer.  Here’s what became of it.

Publix brand lowfat, low sugar Blueberry Cream Pie ice cream with fresh blueberries, a little light Redi whip, and some crushed pecans.  A decadent finish to the day without a decadent amount of calories! SDG for sure .

Next on the agenda was a two and a half mile walk with Jennifer.  Thanks Jenn for keeping me going!  I love walking in the morning – I just need to keep it up when school starts and get up early to do it – we’ll see.  Next on my TDL was a mani – and boy did I need one before vacation – those nails were looking bad.  Not now though thanks to Thresa – the best nail tech ever!  Next it was time for lunch which consisted of a nice big salad with yellow pepper, red pepper, mushrooms, cucumber, Vidalia onion, homegrown tomato, feta, and of course lettuce.  I always feel like I’m taking a vitamin when I eat this kind of a salad (which is pretty much daily).  I should call it a vegamin salad.  It has lycopene, antioxidants, fiber, and other healthy stuff and it is tasy and filling!  Today I topped it with some light Catalina to gie it a little  sweet taste.  I also had a black bean burger that I made from scratch and some black beans and rice from Uncle Ben.  It was filling, delicious and nutritious.

I think my plants were saying the same thing as the rain fell to nourish them. 

They’ve been getting tap water, but I’m sure as the rain fell on them today they said – ahhhhh, delicious and nutritious!  They hadn’t been rained on in a long time. so I’m happy for them even though for me it’s just a rainy summer day.

After some cleaning and watering my plants outside I had a salad for lunch.  I put Farmer Boy Greek Dressing on which is simply the best Greek dressing you can find.  I know I talk about how good it is all the time, but really – you need to try it if you haven’t!

After a really uneventful Monday afternoon I figured it was time to eat supper.  We have so many leftovers that I just pulled some out for everyone to choose something.  I had leftover tilapia with some freshly sauteed squash, some black beans and rice, and another wonderful salad with fresh homegrown tomatoes. 

Ahhhhh, I can hear my body saying thank you for getting back on track with healthy eating.  YAY!

This was the view of Atlanta the night before the race from our window:

And what a beautiful sunset!

And here’s a view of the beginning of the race.

Emily and her friend Erin post race:

Jennifer post race:

We went back to hotel and had a wonderful breakfast buffet.

The buffet was such an assortment of foods and also a chef was there making omelettes, so I put a little of everything on my plate.  Of course, this makes this post look like a “hog blog” instead of a food blog.  Since this is only a once a year thing I think it’s okay.  I had walked a lot getting to and back from the 6 mile spot where I cheered my girls on.  So I figured I could splurge on breakfast.  

Here’s a picture of my girls after breakfast, freshly showered about to leave the hotel and head back home for some R&R until our picnic with friends at 5:00.

Our after race picnic with friends was such a nice ending to 4oJ festivities, complete with setting off lots of beautiful fireworks together.  These pictures are of some of the items to choose from – gotta love that picnic food!

And a delicious berry cobbler.

Two more picnics on the 5th – one at 1:00 and one at 6:00 – we can do it!

Notice the guy in the background who finished the race and is about to chug a pitcher of beer!  Here he is (below)  as this guy ran by – a toast to all!

 Yes – people showed their patriotism!

He was RUNNING - 6.2 miles carrying his son - what a guy!

What a blast!  Food pictures from the 4th and 5th will be up later tonight or tomorrow.  3 picnics in 2 days so lots to show and tell about!  Check back .

A few days ago Emily came up with a genuis idea.  Her BFF Erin was going to be in town for the 4th and my BFF Erin’s mom was off on the 3rd so Emily wanted to have a girl’s lunch date with them at our house and then go to the pool.  It was so much fun!  We hardly ever get together just us girls and talk and laugh.  The only one missing was Erin’s sister Jennifer – missed you Jen! I made the lunch – Healthified Chicken Pasta, Honey Chicken Salad, fruit salad, with veggies and crackers to dip in Sabra Hummus – yumlicious!

Dessert was blueberry cream pie icecream (lowfat and low sugar Publix brand) in cute little glasses with some of the cookies I made the other day.  I got involved in talking and didn’t get a picture.  The girls went to the pool and sunned and swam for awhile.  Barbara and I joined them later.   Supper was dining out on the way to Atlanta.  For the last 5 years we have had a tradition of spending the night in Atlanta because my girls both run the Peactree Road Race.  55,000 people run it every year and it is part of our family heritage beginning with my dad running it for the first time in 1980.  He ran it for twenty years before he had to quit because of a knee problem.  My sister Melissa and my daughter Emily both started running it around the same time.  This was Emily’s ninth consecutive run and Jennifer has run it three times.  So July 3rd’s dinner is carb up time.  We have done different menus for that – sometimes Italian, last year it was Mexican, and this year we went Chinese.  I shared some of Emily’s spicy garlic eggplant.  She asked to have tofu in it for some added protein.  It had just the right amount of spicyness and was cooked perfectly.  We of course got the brown rice to go with it.  The eggplant was so tender.  I also shared a little of Jennifer’s Beef Lo-mein.   The hot and sour soup at the Orient Garden is the best so that was my starter course!

You’ll have to see some sights I saw at the P’tree RRace – some are indescribable – you’ll have to see them to believe them and I have them ready to post.  Check back later tonight for the sights of the Peachtree.  We’re heading to a picnic with our BFF’s!

The reason I said I had a surprise in my earlier post was because this probably was a surprise to my kids.  I NEVER baked when they were growing up and never made cookies.  The closest we ever came to having homemade cookies were the ones you break apart and bake.  So I even surprised myself that I can make cookies!  And they really are good and no artificial stuff – all natural ingredients and still low fat and calories – Yay!

Since we had a big lunch and I went to Open Mike Night (it’s always fun to see new talent come along) I had a snackie supper – you know – one that’s just kind of this and that of snack type food which I just call a snackie supper. 

Some pretzels, wheat thins, sunchips, Sabra hummus (the best!), and some yogurt french onion dip from Kroger.  I also had some of the faux fried squash from lunch that I heated up.

After supper I went back to the pool and did some water aerobics. Such a SDG day!