The Blonde Diaries

Tonight I was trying to figure out what to make for dinner. Mike and I are on a strict budget right now to try and recover from our honeymoon spending. One of our budget busters is grocery shopping. We stock up on items but never finish eating them and sometimes they go bad. For the past month, I have been shopping at home and trying to use up these items which we have stocked up on.

Tonight I reached my limit. I think I need to start looking for recipes and shopping from a recipe ingredient list. We are out of things to eat or at least things that go together. We are eating hot dogs with ketchup (out of chili), baked beans, peas, and a small salad. I would have loved to make a large “junk” salad for dinner but Mike insists on having protein in every meal and well, hot dogs won’t cut it and I have nothing else. It is all very frustrating.

I decided that I better start looking for recipes to cook with just a few ingredients as well as coupons to save on our grocery bill. I found a great $1.00 online coupon that will help me save a little money at the grocery store as well as fixing that no protein in the salad issue I mentioned in the preceding paragraph. Budding has developed a new product on sale in Texas, St. Louis, Missouri, and Arizona called Fix Quix. It is a diced meat product that you can add to any recipe or salad to help make a quick and nutritious meal. I have not tried it yet but I will be looking for it this weekend as it is sold at the local HEB and Kroger grocery stores – both available near me. There are three varieties – chicken, ham, and turkey and it looks just like you cooked the meat yourself on the grill and diced it up yourself. I can see using it with salads, pitas, and wraps just to begin with and then venturing out into chicken alfredo pasta and turkey enchiladas. So if you are in a food rut, need to save a few bucks, and want to try a new product look for the Fix Quix kits in your super market. Don’t forget if you live in Texas, Arizona, or St. Louis, Missouri to print that $1.00 off coupon to take with you! Unfortunately the coupon only works in those states/areas but be on the lookout for the product and coupon coming to your area soon.

Just wondering if maybe the calendar fairies could stop by and push the calendar forward a few weeks for me. I realize my work is not done yet but I am tired of working late, not going to the gym, and eating really unhealthy food. I have wised up and began bringing lunch AND dinner in order to avoid ordering in every day at work and so I don’t end up eating at 10pm when I am getting home right now. But it is getting old and I am getting tired.

If I bring another lean cuisine or sandwich to work I think I will throw myself out of the window. Anyone have any good recipes?

Normally, I do not have a problem picking a main ingredient and making a meal out of it. Today though, I have a problem. You see a few weeks ago Kroger had a sale on frozen fish so I picked up a bag of Tilapia and then a bag of Flounder. I have been using the Tilapia to make fish tacos at home but they are fairly light and flaky. I thought Flounder was a thicker or meatier fish but according to my mother it is very similar to Tilapia. So I’m not exactly sure how to cook it or more precisely, what kind of dish to add it in. I could always fish taco it but that gets a tad boring you know.

How do you cook Flounder?

I was sitting back in the tub this morning getting ready for work when I decided to take a minute and read the front of my Philosophy 3-in-1 body wash in Double Rich Cocoa scent. If you aren’t familar with Philosophy products, their body wash scents are to die for. The body wash can also be used as a shampoo/conditioner combo or as bubble bath. Hence the 3-in-1.

On the front of every 3-in-1 bottle is a “recipe” for whatever the scent is. In this case it seems to be a recipe for hot cocoa. I’ve also noticed the recipe on the front of my cinnamon buns and crumble berry cake 3-in-1s in the past but I’ve never paid too close attention. Today though after reading that recipe I wanted to try it out. The only bad part is that I don’t know if it is a real recipe or not. I would assume so.

Have you ever tried to make one of their “recipes”?

One of the most famous recipes when you are on Weight Watchers is the diet coke cake. I have heard people talk about it at meetings and on online message boards for years now but have been too chicken to try it. I just couldn’t believe that you could make a cake with just a box of mix and diet soda. It just didn’t seem real or too tasty to me.

Well, my new coworker has tried it before and was talking about it a few weeks ago. It sounded so simple and easy to make and she swore that it tasted like real cake. I figure since she seems to be very similar to me that she was most likely telling the truth and I would give it a try. I hit up Kroger and found the new Reduced Sugar cake mix and brought home a diet coke plus from work to make my cake. And the ingredients sat for 2 weeks on the counter. Call me a chicken, call me skeptical, just know that I wasn’t sure even after buying the ingredients if the cake was worth the trouble.

But after more Googling (hello how do you ice this cake??), and mentioning it to my mother, I finally made the cake Monday night. Boy was the cake good, quick, and easy. It even looked like real cake when it was all said and done. I ended up using the entire 12 oz Diet Coke Plus and a box of the Reduced Sugar Devil’s Food Cake mix and followed the cooking directions. It came out really moist and without any real flavor differences. I also “iced” it with fat free cool whip. I would totally make this cake again but next time I want to try yellow cake mix, diet orange soda, and cool whip with fat free chocolate pudding mix for the icing. Yumm!

So there you have it. If you haven’t made the diet coke cake you should totally make it and give it a try. You can even make them into cupcakes if cake isn’t your thing. I think it comes out to 3 WW points per serving if you follow the serving size directions but I made smaller pieces to cut my points per day down.