It's THURSDAY!

Let me tell ya, that first week back from holidays is the WORST!

Especially when you husband is still off and you are not!

This week has dragged on F-O-R-E-V-E-R!!!!!

Plus, all of my good intentions for food have gone downhill this week!

I have decided to forgo the food diary details for the rest of the week and focus on it again for Monday!  I know, that is not really the attitude to have, but that does not mean I am giving up and pigging out this week, I just want to report on a week that has me real focused without the distractions of holidays in there.

I tried a new recipe tonight for lunches.

I have looked and looked at this recipe on Pinterest for quite some time, but never went further than the picture. But today, in my attempt to make a healthy lunch each day, I thought I would try it, as it would give me an alternative for protein without TONS of calories.

I was a little nervous, because I intended to make my own changes for this. I am not usually very good at that....subbing in my own things and have it turn out, but I would say it was not too bad.

Here are my changes and some photos of the Mini Chicken Pot Pies I made:

First off, gather your ingredients (I forgot a few things, like cheese and eggs, but you get the idea).  The original had you cooking your own chicken and using only chicken broth, plus some veggies.  I instead bought a cooked chicken from the grocery store and also wanted to add some Cream of Chicken soup

I chopped up all the chicken and almost had enough...I ended up with about 10 oz.

I lightly cooked some onion in a little bit of margarine and mixed together 1/2 cup of Cream of Chicken Soup and 1/2 cup of Chicken Broth.  I combined the mixture with my chicken and then added that to my frying pan with onions.  I let that simmer away for about 5 minutes and let it cool.    I also sprinkled in some garlic powder, onion powder, thyme and fresh pepper.

I then grated some Light old chedder and added it to the chicken mixture once it was good and cool.

I then mixed up the biscuit mixture.  It consisted of 1/2 cup bisquick, I substituted the 2 eggs with egg substitute.  Two reasons for this...one, I had it in the fridge and have never used it before, so I wanted to know how it would work out.  Second....using it allowed me to cut out about 120 calories, which would make up for the added calories by using the Cream of Chicken soup.   Add 1/2 milk too.  I again also added a bit of garlic powder, onion powder and thyme.

Once they were assembled and baked, as per the original recipe, they looked like this:

They smelled really good while cooking and I had to sample the one that fell apart when it came out of the oven...not bad...I forgot to add salt and I felt they did need a little bit.  They did not come out of the pan too easily, but that's ok.  I am hoping they will freeze well.

If my math is correct, each one is 114 calories. Perfect for my lunch budget and it's something different!

As for lunch today, well, why don't we take a quick peek at to what I took:

I have a couple pepperoni sticks, some almonds, cheese string, grapes, pretzels, mini rice cakes, cucumber and dip.

This is my "breakfast" dish.  It has a Fibre 1 bar, greek yogurt, 2 peaches and a chocolate pudding.  The pudding was for lunch, but it didn't fit in the lunch dish...not that it really matters when you eat it....the result is still the same.  I did not end up eating the peaches....but I need to start...they will spoil soon!

So, what was in your lunch?  Any recipes you want to share for an awesome little lunch?

Until next time,

Amy