Teddy's First Birthday Paw-ty

Sunday was a big day in the Kagan-Wachtel household.  We had Teddy's first birthday party!  Now, a baby only turns 1 once, so I had to make sure his party was perfect.  I sent out invitations weeks ago and I've been planning the menu for days.  I decided on finger foods so that I wouldn't have to do a sit down meal (since we don't have enough room for that), and to keep it casual.  After all, it was a dogs birthday party.  The hardest part of the whole event was figuring out how to "dog-ify" everything, from the food to the decorations, but I think I managed :)

First things first, I started buying decorations and party supplies months ago.  Petco was having a sale on their dog dishes at the beginning of the summer, so I stocked up.  I bought 8 blue plastic dog bowls in different sizes to use as the serving platters.  I thought this would be fun for a dog party and now that the party is over, the bowls have been donated to a dog rescue.  Mostly everything else came from Amazon.  They had different dog themed party supplies and I decided to go with primary color paw-print as the motif.  I thought the primary color was most appropriate for a first birthday party.  We got plates, napkins, cups, balloons, party hats, sprinkles for the cake, etc.  I also made sure to buy a bone shaped silicone cake pan, bone shaped muffin tins and bone shaped cookie cutters.

Next came the menu planning.  After a lot of back and forth, I decided on the following menu of finger foods:

• Mini spinach and artichoke dip in bread bowls
• Bite sized baked brie 
• Mini hot dogs (what kind of party would this be without hot dogs?!)
• Mini empanadas with a spicy avocado dipping sauce
• Deviled eggs
• Mac and cheese bites
• Homemade Cheez-its
• Fresh veggies
• Cake (human and canine)
• Plain and chocolate sugar cookies for the goodie bags

Bone-ified Cheez-its

Baked brie bites

Mini hotdogs

Bone shaped mac and cheese

The spread!  Deviled eggs, mac and cheese, spinach artichoke bread bowls, mini empanadas with spicy avocado dip

Teddy's carob cake with yogurt frosting

People cake!

 In the end, it was all worth it.  Everyone seemed to enjoy the food and have a good time.  Most importantly though, Teddy got a day to spend with everyone who loves him!

stop singing so I can eat this cake!

One of his many gifts - official MLB Yankee jersey

One pooped pup after a day of partying :)

Easy, Breazy, Breakfast

Ah, hello my loyal reader(s?), it's certainly been awhile.  This is not because I've been busy, but instead because I've been lazy and in the heat of summer / desire to do other things on my weekends, have not been cooking nearly as much as I would like.  Because of this I've also gained back any weight that had been lost.  Now that it is fall again (and my clothes from last year do not fit...) I'm back into the healthy cooking/eating mode!

I've never been a fan of breakfast.  When I was younger I would just skip breakfast, but slowly over the years my habits have changed and now I can't possibly make it to lunch without eating something first.  Unfortunately, because I am NOT a morning person I don't have time to make and eat breakfast at home before leaving for work.  I'm lucky if I get up with enough time to take the dog out and give him his breakfast! Because of this, the easiest thing to do is stop on the way to work (or go to the work cafeteria) and get a bagel.  Now, I LOVE bagels, but unfortunately if I have one more bagel my pants will most definitely not zip.

So, I'm getting creative.  Breakfast items that can be made the night before and packed for work and eaten at my desk.  Below are some of the breakfast recipes I've been playing around with lately.  I have a habit of finding something I like and eating it every day until I get sick of it, so instead I'm trying to find a few things I like and rotate them so I don't get tired of them!

Greek yogurt with peanut butter and jelly
I'm pretty obsessed with this lately.  It's so easy, transportable and filling!  I buy a big container of the Chiobani fat free plain yogurt and portion out 3/4 of a cup (on the container it says 1 cup is the serving, but when you buy the small, individually portioned container it's 6 ounces, so I'm going with that as serving).  I then add 2 tablespoons of Better'n Peanut Butter which is amazing.  It has 85% less fat and 40% less calories than regular peanut butter.  The only difference I find between the two is that the Better'n Peanut Butter is a little thinner in consistency and slightly sweeter in taste (coincidentally this is a good thing for this recipe).  I also add in 1 tablespoon of sugar free raspberry jelly.  You could eat it just like this and it would be delicious, but I need a little crunch for texture, so I add 3/4 cup of the 80-calorie Fiber One cereal and it's awesome.  For the whole thing it comes out to 6 weight watcher points and you'll be full for hours!  (Note: if preparing this ahead of time, don't mix the cereal into the yogurt - it gets soggy.  Pack a little baggy of pre-portioned cereal and add it at meal time).

Quinoa with roasted apples
This is one of those recipes that's easy to prepare ahead of time and portion out for work, but would also be great to make and eat on a weekend morning.  I found the recipe on the Weight Watchers website and altered it a bit to fit my taste.  To make, just melt 2 teaspoons of butter in a skillet and add chopped fresh apples (peeled and cored) and a cinnamon stick. Wait for the apples to get soft and begin to caramelize (takes me about 10 minutes).  While that's happening, add 1/2 cup quinoa and a cup of water to a saucepan and bring to a boil.  Once boiling, reduce the heat to low, cover, and allow to simmer for 10 minutes.  Once the quinoa is done, add cinnamon, brown sugar and milk (I use about 1-2 tablespoons of sugar and about 2 tablespoons of skim milk, but you can change this depending on your taste), and then fold in the apples.  I get between 2 and 3 servings from this (which comes to about 5-6 points each depending how many servings you get), but you could play around with it to make more / less. When I bring it to work I portion it out into a small container and then at work add a little water and heat it up for a minute and a half. Stir and enjoy!

Puffins with blueberries 
This is obviously super easy.  I love the peanut butter puffins that I get at Trader Joes.  Just mix 3/4 cup of  puffins with 1/2 cup of milk and a handful of blueberries, couldn't be easier!

Oatmeal with banana
I buy the pre-packaged oatmeal (I like BetterOats - Oat Revolution, old fashioned oatmeal with flax).  I get the maple & brown sugar variety, but they have others as well.  I keep it in my drawer at work in case I didn't bring anything else for breakfast so that I'm not tempted to go to the cafeteria and get A BAGEL.  It actually takes more time to go to the cafeteria, order a bagel, have them make it and get back to my desk then to just empty a packet of the oatmeal, add water and microwave.  I then slice up a banana and throw it in.  Whole meal for 4 points!

So, even though I love my breakfast carbs (bagels, pancakes, french toast, etc) and DO NOT like eggs (which is what's made healthy breakfasts tricky for me), I've found other options to make for myself that are more well-balanced and provide me with more energy than just a bagel :)

Anniversary Dinner

Last Friday was my and Josh's 3 year anniversary.  It just so happens that everything possible that we can celebrate happens in the spring/summer (both our birthdays, mothers day, fathers day, my dads birthday, Josh's parents birthday, Molly's birthday, Michael's birthday, etc) and because of this, we wind up eating out A LOT. 

To avoid an additional unhealthy, expensive and unneeded dinner out, I decided to cook our anniversary dinner.  Now, I cook dinner almost every night, so I wanted to make sure that this dinner was special.  I wanted to make sure that Josh would enjoy it, but also that it also wouldn't make us feel sick from too much food or fat.  My solution was to use good, quality ingredients and smaller portion sizes. 

I did the food shopping the night before and only had to spend about $60 on everything I needed (including $20 at the butcher shop and $20 for a bottle of Prosecco).  If we had gone out to eat we probably would have spent closer to $200 for everything!

For the first "course" I made Josh deviled eggs.  I do not like eggs and therefore never make them.  Josh likes them though, and recently started making himself hard boiled eggs to eat for breakfast.  Since he started making them he's toyed around with the idea of making them into deviled eggs, but somehow he'd eat them all before he had the chance.  I figured for the special occasion I would boil, peel and devil some eggs!

I originally made 4 eggs, but 1 had a fatal accident in the pot and 1 went to Teddy while he helped me cook :)

These were super easy, the hardest part was peeling the shell off!  I also used low fat mayonnaise, dijon mustard and spices to keep the calories low.

For our appetizer course I made stuffed artichokes.  Artichokes are Josh's favorite vegetable, but I never make them because they're so labor intensive! So, I figured what better time to make them for him than our anniversary.

Stuffed artichokes are one of our favorite things to order when we go out, bu they're always so heavy with all the butter, oil and cheese.  I decided to lighten them up by following Skinny Taste's recipe.  They were delicious.  Good thing I made each of us our own because we both finished them without a problem!

For the main course I knew I wanted to cook meat.  I never cook meat.  It scares me.  Whenever we have steak, Josh does the cooking.  However, we have a great butcher in our town and we always get the freshest and tastiest meat there.  I decided to try my hand at filet mignon, since even though it tastes rich, it has less fat than most cuts of steak.  I paired the filet with a red wine & shitake mushroom sauce and it went together amazingly well. You never would have known, but aside from the meat itself, the only fat in here was from 2 tablespoons of butter. Served with some roasted asparagus it was delicious!

For the last, and obviously most important course, I went all out.  Every tablespoon of fat that I avoided over the course of the meal went into the dessert. 

A couple of weeks ago I stayed home sick from work with bronchitis.  Josh, being the best boyfriend that he is, kept me company on the couch all afternoon and even let me have the remote :) . Therefore, we watched daytime cooking shows.  My favorite is Barefoot Contessa.  After she made chocolate pecan pie bars with a total of 9 (!!!) sticks of butter, I thought Josh was going to make me turn it off.  However, he was a good sport and let me keep it on.  Her next dessert recipe was for something called Brownie Pudding.  Now, Josh loves almost anything with chocolate and aside from a souffle, brownies and pudding are his favorites!  I used Ina Garten's basic recipe but decided to bake it in muffin tins instead of a big dish so that they would be portion controlled.  I paired the brownie pudding with some vanilla bean ice cream and voila!

The dessert was amazing.  Very rich, but in the smaller portion it was perfect.  With another glass of Prosecco this was the perfect end to our meal.  I think after this meal Josh will keep me around for at least another year :)

Cooking is Caring

Ahh, so June has been some month.  Josh's father went into the hospital at the end of May and actually just got out last night.  So, obviously the month has been very difficult for Josh's family, especially his mom.  I really wanted to do something for her (and win brownie points with the hopefully-soon-to-be-mother-in-law(??) ) so I decided to cook a bunch of healthy meals and snacks that she could freeze and eat when she wanted.  I knew that cooking would be the last thing on her mind, and with Josh's dad in a hospital 30 minutes away, she wouldn't have any time or energy to cook for herself.

So, I spent an ENTIRE Sunday cooking up a storm.  I made whole wheat blueberry muffins, olive bread, mushroom & leak soup, vegetable lasagna, whole wheat macaroni and cheese, broccoli cheddar quiche in a whole wheat crust and chocolate chip walnut cookies (the real deal).

After getting everything cooked, I put the lasagna and macaroni into individual portions so they could be frozen and then thawed for a single serving.  Everything else got put into freezer bags and labeled.

Even though I know I can't take away the stress she's under, I hope that by making this she'll know that Josh and I are here for her and that we're thinking of her.  Besides, don't chocolate chip cookies just make stress go away??

No Butter? No Problem!

So, the other night I was home alone with Teddy (Josh was at class) and it was pouring rain outside.  I figured it was the perfect time to bake some cookies.  So, I go into the kitchen, put on my apron and then realize that I have no butter!  Oh no, how do you make cookies (good cookies) without butter?!

So, I go to the computer and type in "no butter cookie recipe" figuring that there would be plenty of vegan recipes that I could work with.  I found one that looked pretty good and with some tweaking was able to make it with what I normally put in cookies.  I didn't even tell Josh at first that there was no butter in the cookies, and he couldn't tell there was anything different about them.  They came out moist with a crisp bottom and a great texture due to the addition of oatmeal.  I also tweaked some of the other ingredients / measurements to try to make them a bit healthier.

The basic change between these cookies and a normal cookie recipe is that it uses canola oil instead of butter.  Just this alone makes the cookie a bit healthier, even without my addition of whole wheat flour, oats and lower amounts of sugar.  The basic differences between butter and oil is that butter contains a much higher amount of saturated fat (7 grams versus 2 grams), cholesterol (31mg versus 0mg) and sodium (82mg versus 0 mg). 

These are definitely going to make a re-appearance in my cookie line-up!

Chocolate Chip Oatmeal Raisin Cookies

• 1/2 cup whole wheat flour
• 1 cup white flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 3/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1/2 cup white sugar
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 1 & 1/2 cup oats
• 2/3 cups canola oil
• 2 eggs
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 1/2 cup chocolate chips
• 1/4 cup raisins (or more to your liking)

So, I go back to the kitchen with my new plan, pre-heat the oven to 350 and get my ingredients ready:

Then I combine the flours, baking soda, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, sugars and oats together in the bowl of my mixer.  Then I make a hole in the center and go to add my liquids... and I realize I'm out of vanilla! Well, I had already made it this far so I went digging in the pantry and found a vanilla bean!  I scraped out the seeds and continued on my cookie-baking way.

After adding the eggs, oil and vanilla I mixed until combined.  Then I added the chocolate chips and raisins and mixed some more.  Sometimes they tell you to mix these in by hand, but I like to use the mixer still because it breaks up some of the chocolate chips and then you get little bits throughout the dough.

Using a cookie baller, 2 spoons, or your hands, form the dough into small balls and put on a baking sheet lined with a sil pad.  I like to use my little cookie scooper so that I can make sure they're all the same size and will bake in the same amount of time.  Then just take the bottom of a glass and press them all down a bit to flatten them out.

Bake for about 14 minutes (depending on size of cookie), or until lightly golden on top. Cool the cookies on the tray for 5 minutes and then transfer to a cooling rack.  These cookies tasted better after they cooled a bit and the bottoms crisped up (I know because I couldn't wait to try them so I tried one right off the baking sheet - bad idea, still too dough-y).

My batch made 32 decently big cookies.  We've been enjoying these cookies for a few days now and I still can't believe that you don't miss the butter.

So, lesson for the day is with some perseverance you can make delicious cookies even without what you think are essential ingredients!

That Time of Day

You know that time of the day when you just want a snack... for me it's usually round 3:30; a couple of hours after lunch (and 30 minutes before our cafeteria closes).

Now, I realize a good choice of a snack is an apple, or a cut up red pepper that I bring sometimes, or my 90-calorie Fiber One bar (have you tried the chocolate pretzel with caramel one - it's amazing!), but sometimes I just want my salty carbs!

Every so often I give in and go down to the cafeteria and get a bag of pretzels.  I just can't help it.  It makes the whole day better. 

However, on a recent excursion to the cafeteria in search of something salty, I found these:

These are hallow pretzels.  They are literally just the crunchy, salty pretzel shells without any of the inside.  Now, it's not that these are necessarily healthier (they still have 110 calories and 22 grams of carbs in 1 oz), but they ARE all natural, and have only 5 ingredients: unbleached wheat flour, canola oil, salt, yeast & soda.

I'm just saying, if you're going to eat pretzels, why not eat the all natural ones with no preservatives?  Besides, the whole point of a pretzel is for that salty crunch, and that's all you get in this bag :)

Where Did May Go??

Wow, it's June?!  When did that happen?  I feel like May just flew by in a whirlwind of graduations, birthdays and fattening food!

The diet has not been going well.  It's so hard to stay on track when there are so many celebrations going on, and my May 2012 was just chock full of 'em!

First, there was Mothers Day / Bubby's Birthday / Molly's Graduation party.  This was a complete brunch catered by my mom (which meant that at least there were low fat, whole wheat and healthier options - not that I partook in those...).  The party was a lot of fun and we had a full house for it! 

During the next week were Molly's graduations.  Tuesday was the Steinhardt School Graduation at Radio City and Wednesday was the NYU All School Graduation at Yankee Stadium.  I can't believe my little baby sister has graduated.  Not only graduated, but graduated from the same school I went to!  Being at her graduations definitely brought back a lot of memories for me. 

At the Steinhardt School graduation Molly got her name called and got to walk on stage to get her "diploma" (ie: fake piece of paper that they hand out).  I have no recollection of doing this - either I blacked it out or they don't trust Tisch students to walk across a stage without making a scene.  

My mom, dad and I all had a great time at this graduation, although sitting through all the name calling got pretty boring towards the end.  They had intermittent performances by the Steinhardt singers and dancers which was a lot of fun - I had no idea such talented performers were in other schools at NYU besides Tisch! Also, Molly's best friend, Joey (whom my family has gotten close to), was selected as the student speaker, so it was great to be able to see and hear his speech.  Afterwards, our family and Joey's family went out for lunch at Dojo in the village as a small "good-bye" to NYU.  (I think I ordered the brown rice and steamed broccoli platter in attempts to be healthy and then I ate Molly's french fries and shared an appetizer of sesame noodles - oh well, I had good intentions...)

The next day Josh and I ventured to the Bronx for Molly's Yankee Stadium Graduation.  While the trip in was horrible and stressful, the day was great.  We made it to our seats with about 3 minutes to spare before they ceremony started.

It was especially great for me because my graduation was at Yankee Stadium as well.  It was fun to see it from the other perspective and just watching the graduates there made me remember 4 years ago when I was sitting there!

After the Yankee Stadium graduation it took about 7 years to find Molly (AT&T had bad service combined with Molly's usual lack of organization (:P) and the 32,000 people there) and once we did we had time for a few pictures and then we were off for lunch at Saigon Grill!

The NYU Graduates from left to right: Josh ('07), Me ('08), Dad ('81), Molly ('12)... just missing Bubby, class of 1948!

The next weekend I had arranged for a photographer to come and take family portraits of us.  We haven't had these done since Molly and I were little, so I thought for Mothers Day it would be nice.  Unfortunately, Josh had class and wasn't able to join us, but the rest of us had fun getting ready for our "photo shoot" and posing for the camera.  Teddy was by far the star of the day though... that boy was just made for modeling!  We actually got the "sneak peak" shots today, check some of them out below:

Then that next week was Michael's (Josh's brother) birthday.  We went out for a nice family dinner and then had a delicious tirimisu cake back at Josh's parents house!  Celebrating the birthdays of people who are younger than me is really starting to make me feel old!

Not too long after it was my birthday.  My big 2-6.  I think this is the first birthday that I was NOT looking forward to.  What's the point of getting older now?  Nothing good happens.  It's great to turn 16, 18, 21, even 25... but who wants to be 26?? It's just getting closer to 30 now...

For my actual birthday Josh, Greg and I went out to dinner at a trendy Asian-fusion restaurant and then went back to the apartment for some drinks.  We were all exhausted and looking forward to the upcoming 3 day weekend!  

The next day my parents came out to Long Island in order to do a family dinner to celebrate my birthday.  We were just hanging out on the couch with Teddy when my front door opened and Molly and her boyfriend, Danny, came up the stairs!  It was such a great surprise that they came for my birthday.  I was completely shocked.  My family is not very good at keeping things secret, so I can't believe that no one (especially my dad!) spilled the beans.  

That night we all went to Peter Luger's steakhouse for my birthday dinner celebration.  This is the first time my family  has ever been out to a steakhouse together.  For so many years my mom, dad, sister (or some combination of the three) were vegetarian, so steak was always out.  This is the first time we all eat meat - and boy, DID WE EAT MEAT!  We got the steak for 6 and had just enough left over to bring home for Teddy. 

Then the rest of Memorial Day weekend was spent relaxing with Josh and Teddy. 

And now it is June.  Time to get back to the healthy cooking!