I almost gave in…. + Cranberry Muffins! + Biggest Loser Re-cap!
It was like I had an angel on one side of me and the devil on the other. The angel was saying, “stick to your plan, you are doing great!” The devil side was saying “you’ve been doing so great, just treat yourself, it’s only 1 slice!”
This conversation went on for a good 5 minutes in my head. BUT, in the end, I heated up my soup, which was SO good, ate my banana, and I was fine! Phew!! And of course, I was much happier that I ate something healthy, then a slice of greasy pizza.
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So it was a busy night last night. I ran home from work, quickly heated up left over pork tenderloin and mashed potatoes for me and my husband and it was off to our local high school for 8th grade parent tour and Q & A.
Now, the weird part is, it’s the same high school my husband and I attended! Our paths didn’t cross in high school, he’s 6 years older than me, but it was very surreal walking around the school with memories flooding back. It’s a huge high school; his freshman class is going to be 850 kids. So, in a school that is 1 million square feet, and a total of 3,600 it can be a little intimidating coming from a smaller middle school to say the least. But I am so excited for him and all the opportunities they offer, I hope he enjoys his time there as much as I did.
My son just thinks it’s cool that Ray Kroc went there (the founder of McDonald’s!)
So, by the time we got home, it was 8:15, time for my daughter to go to bed soon, and I had to make something for birthday/anniversary breakfast for work. Earlier in the day, I was searching for a cranberry bread/muffin and found one that looked good at Blog Chef. I did change a few things; I lessened the amount of sugar, and used orange zest instead of lemon zest, and I used canola oil instead of vegetable oil and skim milk.
They turned out great and thanks to my sister, she figured out the calories for me since I didn’t have time to do that myself.
This recipe makes either 24 muffins, or 12 muffins and a loaf of bread. I made the loaf of bread and 12 muffins. Each muffin is 141 calories, 5.6 grams of fat, 21 grams of carbs, 2 grams of protein and <1 gram of fiber. And if you cut the bread into 12 slices, it would be the same.
Then, I made a simple glaze with powdered sugar mixed with skim milk. Take about ½ a cup of powdered sugar and a tablespoon of milk and whisk together until smooth and pour that over the bread and muffins. SO GOOD!
Here is the recipe. I used fresh cranberries, but you can use frozen ones too, that have been thawed.
2 cups fresh cranberries, chopped
1 cup sugar
2/3 cup of canola oil
½ cup skim milk
2 tsp. lemon or orange zest
2 tsp. vanilla extract
4 eggs
3 cups all purpose flour
½ cup chopped walnuts (I didn’t add those in)
4 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. salt
Directions:
Heat oven to 350 degrees. In a mixing bowl, mix together the cranberries, sugar, eggs, lemon zest, oil, milk and vanilla extract. Stir in flour, baking powder and salt. Fold in walnuts if you are using those.
Spray the muffin pan or bread pan with cooking spray and for the muffins, I baked them for about 14 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean. For the bread, it was about 45-50 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean. After they have cooled, then you can drizzle with the glaze. If you put the glaze on right away, it just melts.
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AND, if you are still reading this, thanks for sticking with me in this long post!
Let’s talk Biggest Loser!!
I did shed a tear when Rebecca was running the half marathon, she looked AMAZING!! It was kind of weird the reason why Rudy voted her off, I had no idea what he was talking about. I thought all of their make-overs turned out great too.
It will be interesting to see who is left standing in the end. Did you catch Jay Leno? It turns out that Rebecca and Daniel are dating! If you missed it, here’s the link.