Happy Monday all! How are you all doing? In the past two days, I have pickled, preserved and jammed to my little hearts content all in preparation for National Can It Forward Day coming up this Saturday. I can’t wait to tell you all about it and to share the cool tips I learned from Ted Allen with you all. I also will be sharing in the fun by giving away some pretty cool stuff too.
Here is a sneak peak of a couple of my favorite things all from ingredients I bought at my local farmer’s market.
Organic 4 Bean Salad ~ I also made homemade bread n butter pickles! The hardest part is waiting for everything to marinate. I cracked up at The Husband telling the jars to “pickle, pickle, pickle” so he could try them. He is such a nut!
Organic Raspberry Jam ~ OK 15 jars of jam ~ I also made strawberry & raspberry mango.
The coolest invention ever thanks to Ball! It makes taking the jars out of so much easier.
The rest of this past week is a blur with work, driving to Lake Berryessa to check out camp sites, celebrating anniversaries, birthdays and antique fairs…yep, all in one week!
The coolest part though ~ I balanced it all out and managed to lose 1.2 lbs. this week ~ success!
Now for a few food highlights and The “Bliss” challenge that tricked my co-workers!
Healthy Egg Rolls ~ The Husband is totally becoming a pro at making them 
Team Building Lunch at my favorite place ~ the Napa General Store for lunch.
Starters ~ Champagne Poached Shrimp Spring Rolls
Pretty sure I could eat the entire plate myself but I shared.
I totally love it when my co-workers want to share with me because then I get the chance to try everything I want to try. We split two salads.
Vermicelli Noodle Salad Bowl
“Layers of lettuce, rice noodles, shredded carrot, cucumber, mint, roasted peanuts and a crispy pork roll and grilled prawns” The dressing makes this salad amazing!
Chinese Chicken Salad
“Shredded marinated chicken breast, local cabbage, scallions, toasted almonds, black sesame seeds, crisp won tons & house made Asian dressing”
I was in charge of dessert for everyone ~ little did they know I had it all planned out.
The folks at Weight Watchers asked if I wanted to try out the two brand new bars that will be hitting shelves soon. The one fun factor they included…..a “blind” taste test where I put these boxes out for my co-workers to try, but, didn’t tell them who made them or that they were “low calorie”.
It cracked me up to hear them ask me if it was a new type of candy bar or snickers and can I have both flavors….are there more in that box? I am taking the extras!
After everyone tried the bars and shared their thoughts, I spilled the details that not only were they low calorie treats, but, they were Weight Watchers new bars. Nobody could believe it and even better ~ they still stole all the extras ~ So fun!
My personal favorite ~ the Peanut Butter Brownie Bliss Bar!
Then again, I am sort of impartial to anything made with nut butters ~ 2 points+ a bar.
For chocolate lovers, this bar is for you ~ chocolate on top of chocolate and well, there is some built in portion control as only 6 come in a box (mean you have enough WPA to cover it!)
80 calories, 2 points+ per bar made with real chocolate ganache!
Chocolate Peanut Butter Goodness……
Seriously ~ look how thick that layer of milk chocolate and peanut butter is….it’s the perfect balance of brownie too. They are rich enough that one is enough.
Since I have been a mad woman canning away in the kitchen, The Husband took over dinner. All he asked was for me to make the salad. For some reason I could only think of slices of things (I totally blame the pickles for that!)
Simple Tomato & Lemon Cucumber Salad sprinkled with sea salt & black pepper ~ tadah! Fancy, huh?
He was in charge of the grill ~ Pork Chops with Secret Sauce……
And Corn ~ see, his part was easy too!
Simple, delicious and 100% Simply Filling (1 WPA for the sauce).
This week is busy with a trip to the winery, a trip to Sac and then The Husband’s birthday celebration weekend begins on Friday ~ I still need to shop!
If any of you all have any birthday ideas for him, share away….I need ideas too!
Night all!
Can’t wait for your pickling recipe. I love bean salad and was always so shocked at how many calories it was. I’m currently cheating on WW with another diet plan (desperate times, desperate measures), but I’ll be back. 🙂
I hope they let us try these in the meetings. That Triple Chocolate Brownie Bliss has my name written all over it. I purchase the Celebration Bars and they taste so artificial to me.
This frequent mention of the secret sauce is far too much of a tease! I love secret sauces! I need that recipe! 🙂
Do you know when these will be out in stores? The Peanut Butter Bliss looks AMAZING!!! Can’t wait!
I really want to eat some Four Bean Salad now!
Would love if the Husband could offer grilling tips, i.e., pork chops. We’ve tried grilling the thick chops from Cosco, but it wasn’t successful. We’re novices at grilling so any non-secretive tips would be greatly appreciated.
Danica I am trying to can pickles and jam this year for the first time so I can’t wait to hear your tips! I’m a little intimidated by it all!
I still need to do my blog post on those – my husband loved the peanut butter ones – and we both thought they didn’t taste “diet” at all!
Danica,
Where are you??? I miss your daily column. Hope all is well.
Kim