Low Carb Peanut Butter Cookies

I love peanut butter cookies! And these little babies are a delicious low carb treat that my husband can also enjoy. These don't get quite a crispy as a normal cookie would, so if you like your cookies chewy, these are for you! The recipe is simple: only 3 ingredients!

Ingredients:

16 oz peanut butter

1 cup Splenda (or any artificial sweetener)

2 eggs

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Combine all ingredients and mix until completely combined. Form one inch balls and use the tines of a fork to make the criss cross pattern. Bake for 12 minutes. Makes about 30 cookies.

Be careful as you are taking the cookies off the cookie sheet to cool. When they're still warm, they tend to crumble, but they firm up as they cool.

The best part? There's less than 4 carbs per cookie! Yes!

Chicken Fajita Nachos

Last night I fixed my husband's absolute favorite: chicken fajita nachos! And super easy it was.

Ingredients:

tortilla chips

bell pepper

onion

shredded chicken

fajita seasoning

cheese slices

Directions:
1. Chop the bell pepper and onion into slices. Add to pan and saute over medium heat for 6-8 min.
2. I had previously cooked a whole chicken in the crock pot and so I just grabbed some leftovers from the fridge and added it to the pan when my veggies were almost done. Add the fajita seasoning. Cook until warm.
3. I didn't have any cheese sauce so I had to improvise. I unwrapped 5 slices of American cheese, diced them up, and melted them in the microwave for 20 sec until completely melted. About half way through I added some water to help make it more like a sauce.
4. Serve chicken and vegetable mixture over chips and drizzle sauce over top. Delicious!

Here's the carb breakdown for a serving:
20 tortilla chips- 27 g
1/2 bell pepper- 4 g
1/4 onion- 5 g
1/2 package fajita seasoning- 5 g
5 slices American cheese- 6 g
Chicken- 0 g

Total: 47 g carb

The Trouble with Food Labels

Since my husband was diagnosed with diabetes, I have been educating myself on how to read food labels.  However, this is often a confusing task because the Food and Drug Administration doesn't even define some of the terms that food products have on them!

The key for my has been figuring out how many carbohydrates are in a serving size of a particular food item. I'm bombarded by labels like "Low Carb, "Sugar Free," and "No Sugar Added." These phrases can be deceiving for many reasons.

First of all, many products spouting low carb claims don't really many less carbs than the regular product. They try to subtract out the fiber and sugar alcohols to get what's called "net carbs." Even the Atkins Diet does this. But to my husband's blood sugar, carbs are carbs and it goes up no matter the fiber or sugar alcohol count. 

Sugar free is another tricky label because most of the time sugar alcohols just replace the carbs. Not only do these still make your blood sugar go up, but they can also give you some bad diarrhea. Yuck.

No sugar added is truthful in saying that additional sugars were not added to the product, but many things have natural sugars that make the carb count high. 

Go to Health.com to read about the 16 most confusing food labels.

How to Make Meal Planning Easier

Meal planning is something that everyone plans to do. We'd all love to sit down once a week with our grocery list, coupons, weekly ads, and an eye on our pantry to decide what the fam will eat for dinner. But many times that gets overwhelming. Since it's just my husband and myself, we try to stick to a $60 a week cash budget. Here are some things that make meal planning easier for me:

1. Keep the ads in check.
Just because it's on sale, doesn't mean you need it. If you already have enough shampoo, don't go out and buy another just to increase your stockpile when you can put that money (even if it's just a dollar) toward something else.

2. Know what's in your pantry.
It's the one of the worst things to be putting away your groceries only to discover something that you already have. Make sure you check your list that you've made so that you don't buy unnecessary duplicates.

3. Purge your cookbook.

I always sit down with my cookbook to decide what to make for the week. That being said, I just went through it and did a complete overhaul of the recipes. There were recipes in there that I'd never tried and those that I had tried, but we hadn't liked. So I kept only the recipes that I knew I would use and went from 76 recipes to 48. I paper clipped the recipes to card stock and slid them into a sheet protector. This way I can just pull out the sheet and take the recipe I need instead of having my cookbook taking up precious countertop space.

4. Let other people do the work for you.
Okay, this one sounds lazy but it really does help. For those people who don't have time to be Extreme Couponers and scour all the stores for the best deals, know that there are people out there who have already done that for you. I follow blogs like Money Saving Mom,
The Peaceful Mom, and savings expert Sami Cone for the latest deals and coupons.

Those are my tips to help the meal planning process go along smoothly.

Cauliflower Crust Pizza

Pizza: a diabetic's dream! This cauliflower crust makes a diabetic-friendly and delicious meal.

Crust ingredients:

16 oz cauliflower (I just buy the frozen bag)

1 cup mozzarella cheese

1 tsp oregano

1/2 tsp garlic salt

1 egg

Crust Directions:

1. Preheat the oven to 450F. Steam the cauliflower until tender and then mash with a fork as thin as possible.

2. Add the cheese and the egg and combine. To be honest, you have to eat it with a fork anyway so most of the time I don't even add the egg if I don't have any on hand.

3. Add oregano and garlic salt. Combine.

4. Press onto a pizza pan (or a stone like I have). If you do have a pan, don't press all the way to the edge because then you've have a hard time getting it out.

5. Bake for 15-17 minutes

Crust after baking

I you wanted it to look pretty I suppose you could round off the edges, but my husband will eat it despite its appearance.

Toppings Ingredients:

Pizza sauce

1 cup mozzarella cheese (or extra if you want)

Toppings of your choice! I went with good ole' pepperoni.

Toppings Directions:

1. Add pizza sauce and spread almost to the edges.

2. Add cheese and toppings. Top with cheese if desired.

3. Bake 3-4 minutes until cheese is melted.

4. Enjoy!

Yummy!

I kind of hinted earlier that it doesn't stay together very well. You'll have to eat it with a fork, but it tastes just like a Digorno!

 Pin it!

Southwestern Meatball Chili

This low carb recipe is super easy and delicious! It's also one of my husband's favorites. I think the only reason it's called "chili" is because it has chili powder in it. It's really just meatball stew.

This dish is quick and easy with simple ingredients:

16 oz fully cooked beef meatballs

16 oz package mixed vegetables, thawed

1 can diced tomatoes

1 tbsp chili powder

3 tbsp tomato paste

Directions:

1. In a Dutch oven, combine the meatballs, thawed vegetables, tomatoes, chili powder, and tomato paste. Cooked, covered, over medium-low heat for 20 minutes, stirring occasionally.

2. Ladle chili into bowls and top with things like jalapeno peppers or cilantro.

Nutrition:

4 servings; 385 cal, 24 g fat, 93 mg chol, 944 mg sod, 25 g carb, 8 g fiber, 20 g pro

Runkeeper

Since I'm training to run a 5k, I've been looking for apps on my smart phone to help me. The other day I ran across this application in a Yahoo! article and it's called Runkeeper. Many of you may have heard of it. After testing it out today, I can say that I would highly recommend it to all runners.

This week's run had me jogging for 90 seconds and then walking for 2 minutes. I liked this infinitely better than the first week which had me jogging for 1 minute and then walking for 90 seconds. I felt like I couldn't get far enough in a minute that the same people couldn't see me start and stop (I'm very competitive).

The Runkeeper app lets you customize a run workout and then lets you know when your interval is over and what the next interval is. It also periodically lets you know your time, distance, and mile pace. When you are done, it gives you the summary of your workout and uploads it to the Internet where it stores everything.

Don't like running outside? No worries. The Runkeeper has a place where you can manually input your workout also to be stored online.

I give it two thumbs up!

How to Quit Spending Money

I found this wonderful post at Real Simple about how to stop spending your money. The points made are very relevant because frugal people such as myself make excuses like these.

1. But It's On Sale!
 This one will suck me in many times. I love shopping at Burke's Outlet because they have so many good deals and they have a loyalty card that lets me save an additional 15% on Fridays! However, they're also one of those stores that has the "compare to x-amount-of-money at department stores" phrase on their tags, making it seem like a really, really good deal when you see the clearance price. But you need to ignore the base price and consider things like, "Do I really need this?" or "Is this within my budget?"

2. I Deserve It!
We all work hard, but that should never be an excuse to spend money. Unless you get paid proportionately to how hard you work (if you do, let me know what your profession is!), this phrase should never pass your lips.

3. I'm Getting a Raise Soon!
This is the same excuse that gets credit card holders in trouble. Fronting money that you don't have is NEVER a good idea. Life is not predictable and you never know what could happen. My husband and I have one credit card that we are using to build our credit so that we can buy a house). However, we only spend a certain small amount every month so that we know we can pay it off.

4. It's A New Fashion Season!
Everyone loves when new seasonal lines hit the stores because it's exciting to see the possibilities of new outfits! You look at your short sleeve shirt and see a woman all wrapped up in her cozy winter gear and you think you have to have it! But you don't. You probably have an immense amount of winter gear in a bin (or bins in my case) waiting to be brought out when the seasons change.

5. I Could Need It One Day!
I'm kind of a minimalist, so this is not a big one for me. But for those of you who like to dream big, just because you one day dream of spending Christmas in London does not give you an excuse to buy that expensive parka when you live in Florida. Don't buy clothes for the person you want to be, but buy them for your current lifestyle. When you finally plan that trip to London, then feel free to buy things as needed.

6. Everyone Else Is Getting Something!
The hardest part about going shopping with other people is that you are more likely to buy something you don't need simply because everyone else has bought something. Ignore that urge and only buy something that is within your budget. Or if it's too much temptation, politely decline your friends invitation to go shopping until you have money.

7. It's A Special Occasion!
I got married 9 months ago and I can attest to how easily it is to get sucked into buying things for myself with the justification that it was my special day! I love shoe shopping and so what better excuse to go shoe shopping but for your wedding? Except I needed red shoes and I already had both red high heels and red ballet flats. I wore the flats that I already owned (for comfort sake) and saved myself some money! Don't let a special occasion suck you into buying something you don't really need.

8. I Can Return It!
Not only is this sneaky and dishonest, it's not likely to work. Most times, when you bring something home you grow attached and it's not probable that you'll bring it back. Don't put your money on the line with this reasoning.

9. I've Already Blown My Budget!
This is a typical excuse for dieters. Their logic is that they've already blown their diet, so what's another pint of Ben and Jerry's. Wrong. Pick up the pieces and move on. The same goes with your budget. Just because you've already gone over certainly does not make it okay to spiral yourself into further debt. Start the next day afresh and let you spending mistakes propel you to make smarter choices next time.

Life Without Noise for a "Generation C-er"

This week I've begun a "Couch to 5K" running program. I'm not quite at the couch point, as in I can successfully, not necessarily easily, walk 3 miles. But I want to get to where I can run them. 

Walking 3 miles certainly takes a lot longer than running them. If you know me, you know that I'm an extremely competitive, impatient, and fast paced person. Therefore, training to run only seems logical. 

Something else I've noticed about myself in my bouts of exercise is that it's very hard for me to do anything without technology (hence the "Generation Connected"). Now, I do remember life before the Internet. I had a computer in my room that was not hooked to the World Wide Web and I used the card catalog in the library for my 5th grade Washington D.C. project. 

However, as I've grown up in times of ever increasing technology, I find it hard to ignore. I have to be playing a game on my phone while watching a movie, or watching TV while I wash the dishes, or, heaven forbid, listening to music while I run. 

All of this stimulus had lead to a lot of noise in my life and I found myself unable to enjoy silence! 

Job 6:24 says, "Teach me, and I will be quiet; show me where I have been wrong."

Lamentations 3:26, 28 says, "It is good that one should wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord...Let him sit along in silence when it is laid upon him."

1 Thessalonians 4:11, "...aspire to live quietly..."

So you see, silence is importance if we are seeking to learn from God. How will we ever hear his voice if there is always something else filling our ears? We need to unplug and be able to just listen for that still small voice. 

I'm taking on this challenge by not listening to music while I exercise, but instead I will use that time to think, pray, and listen. 

Buffalo Chicken, Fried Cauliflower and Green Beans

Ever since my husband was diagnosed with diabetes this past Christmas, I've had to make a few adjustments in my cooking. I consider myself to be a "healthy" cooker so what I've been learning thus far is straight substitutions. Tonight I made a healthier version of the side of hash browns by substituting cauliflower in its place. I've learned that you can pretty much sub in cauliflower wherever potatoes are called for. That makes a huge difference when you consider the fact that a medium sized head of cauliflower like I'm using tonight has about 30 carbs in it compared to the same amount in just one baked potato!

Tonight's chicken comes from left over chicken that I cooked in the slow cooker earlier in the week. I heated it up and added some buffalo sauce to give it some flavor!

The green beans are also left over from a previous dinner so they just needed to be nuked.

Finally, the fried cauliflower. All I did was fry it up in some oil and added salt. You could added some onion or bell pepper to give it some extra flavor. It actually tastes just like hash browns when you throw some ketchup on it!

Altogether this dinner adds up to just 46 carbs, or if you're feeding two people like myself, just 23 carbs a piece!

Master Cleaning Checklist

I've continued finding creative ways to use leftover food containers as storage around my house.

So far I've been able to use a waffle box as storage for all of my note pads, a Crystal Lite container for my paint brushes and sponge brushes, and a butter dish for all those stray 3M sticky hooks and their sticky pads. I'm still waiting on the perfect thing to use my glass spaghetti sauce jar for.

Also, here is a copy of my Master Cleaning Checklist that I use daily. I've tweaked it to what best fits my household and I've changed it a few times to go perfectly with my schedule. It will probably change again in the fall when I don't have days off to "deep" clean every day.

Bathroom Organization

Today I tackled the organization of my bathroom vanity. I'm a believer in organizing with containers that you already have around the house. I could spend a lot of money at the Container Store and have everything looking like a magazine, but for the purposes of under my bathroom sink, what I have lying around will do. Here's what I did:

Before

After

I threw away that old mouthwash, put the flat iron and curling iron in an old oatmeal container, moved the hair products to the bottom drawer, put all my cleaning supplies into a blue container that I wasn't using elsewhere, and moved my feminine products to the bottom drawer where I can better reach them.

Bottom drawer after

Bottom drawer before

I wrapped up the cords with twist ties and moved the hair stylers out. I also moved the diffuser and concentrator to the top drawer so the bottom drawer wasn't so packed.

Top drawer before

Top drawer after

I put the stray clips and bobby pin in the white container under the sink where they belong and put all my makeup in the makeup bag. I also moved the lotion up to the medicine cabinet next to all of my other skin care items.






Now everything is much prettier, easier to find, and easier to access!

Homemade Tub/Shower Spray

I didn't get to my "deep" cleaning yesterday due to work and church, so I combined Wednesday's cleaning (the bathroom) with today's cleaning--the bedrooms. The bathroom checklist looks like this

1. Sweep/mop the floor
2. Empty the trash/wipe down can
3. Wipe down all of sink and toilet
4. Scrub toilet
5. Wipe mirrors
6. Scrub tub/toilet
7. Disinfect
8. Change towels

I got to use my homemade tub spray today which consists of 2 easy ingredients: vinegar and dish soap.

Tub and Shower Magic!

It just takes two simple steps to make:

1. Heat 12 oz vinegar in microwave until hot and pour into squirt bottle. I used the one that my other cleaning solution was just in.

2. Add 12 oz dish soap and shake to incorporate. 

Obviously you won't use all of that in one go, so just heat it up again and shake it the next time you want to use it. 

Also, my checklist for the bedrooms looks like this

1. Dust

2. Disinfect

3. Spray mop

4. Change litter/check food and water

5. Vacuum rug 

6. Take out trash/wipe trash can

7. Wipe mirror

Not too bad for only 9:30 in the morning!

Kitchen Cleaning

This morning I woke up to the sound of my cat scratching. That scratching sound that she does when she's in the litter box trying to cover up her business. Yep, she pooped in our laundry basket. So needless to say, those clothes didn't make it until laundry day.
So while I was running the load of whites, I did my daily cleaning. Then after I switched them over to the dryer I proceeded to "deep" clean my kitchen:

1. Mop the floors
2. Wipe down the cabinets.
3. Clean out the fridge (I had to toss some leftover Mexican casserole that got sent to the back of the fridge)
4. Wipe down appliances (fridge, oven, toaster, Keurig, and washer and dryer)
5. Take out trash and wipe down trash can
6. Disinfect

Cleaning the kitchen is ALWAYs my least favorite room to clean. And it's probably the one that needs cleaning the most just to keep it sterile for cooking purposes. Right now I use Windex Multi-Surface with Vingear to wipe down everything, but as soon as it's out I'm going to try the cleaner I found on Pinterest.

Living Room Cleaning

Today on top of my daily cleaning, I "deep" cleaned my living room. The list looks like this:

1. Shake out door mat
2. Mop floors
3. Dust
4. Disinfect

I don't go all crazy and dust every surface, just the top of the TV, the entertainment center, and the side tables. And my disinfecting just includes spraying disinfectant on all the surfaces that are touched on a regular basis: light switches, lamp switch, all controllers for video games and TV, and the buttons on the Xbox and TV.

Monthly Cleaning

I didn't get to the monthly cleaning yesterday because I decided to spend time with family instead. So I tackled it today. It consisted of the following:

1. Organize the pantry
2. Organize the bathroom products
3. Check for mold in bathroom
4. Vacuum furniture
5. Change bedding (which I did Friday to combine it with laundry day)
6. Organize wardrobe

As I'm still newly married, organizing the pantry just consists of moving around all of the spices, tupperware, and dishes that I continue to collect as I get better at cooking. I also took the time to look through everything under the bathroom sink and throw away everything that I don't use or that is old. I also found some mold on the bathroom ceiling (yuck!) so I took care of that. And I'm a pretty organized person and so organizing the wardrobe for me consists of making sure there are no stray hangers lurking around, picking up everything that may have fallen on the closet floor, and making sure everything is season appropriate.
Also, as I go about cleaning out my pantry, I combine as much stuff together as possible. For example, I take all the Crystal Lite packets and combine them as much as possible into one container. I also like to use the old containers for other storage purposes around the house. I used my leftover one today to put all my brushes for painting in my craft bin!
Monday continues the daily cleaning plus the "deep" cleaning of the living room.

Laundry Day

So today is Friday, and as I am completing my daily chores list that I mentioned yesterday, I am also completing LAUNDRY DAY! Now, doing all of the laundry all in one day works for me because it's just me and my husband. Therefore, we typically only have 3-4 loads a week, making it simple to complete in one day. I will have an additional load today because I'm washing all of our bedding, which I do once a month. Right now the detergent that I'm using is the Great Value Original Clean and it works great as far as I'm concerned. We usually don't have too many tough stains to work out, though, so it's not hard to please me.


Something that I'm looking forward to doing is using a version of all the DIY laundry detergents that you see on Pinterest.
I'm waiting until my current store bought detergent runs out (waste not!) to buy the ingredients for the powder version that you see to the right. Also, because it's the last weekend of the month, tomorrow will consist of all of my monthly chores (which hopefully will be expedited by the help of my wonderful husband).

Daily Cleaning

One of my New Year's Resolutions was to make a house cleaning schedule and STICK TO IT! Thus far, I've been able to do just that (it helps that I'm only working part time right now). I thought I'd share what my cleaning looks like on a daily, weekly, monthly, and quarterly basis. Also, I love to test out homemade cleaning products (the goal is, after all, to clean the house on a budget). I also include home organization and decluttering in the cleaning process because a clean home is an organization home. I've gotten ideas for cleaning schedules from many other places and have simply personalized it to my own house and time schedule. Basically, I do the same daily cleaning 5 days a week and then pick different rooms of the house to do "deep" cleaning once a week. My daily cleaning schedule looks like this:

1. Make beds
2. Declutter rooms (put everything where it's supposed to go)
3. Quick sweep bedrooms, living room, and kitchen
4. Wash dishes
5. Clean out the cat litter (my favorite)
6. Wipe down counters and table (my cat likes my kitchen surfaces)
7. Quick wipe down of sink and toilet

This routine can take me anywhere from 30 minutes to an hour depending on what day it is (the house is always messier after the weekend) and how many dishes I have to clean (which is usually a lot because we don't eat out often). The "declutter rooms" step always seems daunting to people, but it you do it every day, it really doesn't take much time.

Also, since today is Thursday, the master bedroom and guest room get "deep cleaned." I put the quotations because it's not like I'm on my hands and knees scrubbing, they just get some extra attention. So their "deep cleaning" includes

1. Mopping the hardwood floors (with my spray mop)
2. Vacuuming the rug
3. Dusting the dressers, night stands, and desk
4. Wiping down the mirror
5. Disinfecting

See? Not much extra work for a clean room if you've done the daily tasks right before.