Rambling Babushka: Pitiful Pumpkin "Pie"

Are you READY for Thansgiving? I AM! Well sort of. I love getting together with the family to eat, drink some fine (cheap) wine and enjoy each others company. Even though we're Hungarian, we celebrate it every year. We fell in love with the Holiday as soon as we moved here back in 86. Any reason to feast with people you love is brilliant in my opinion!

I love turkey so much! Even if it doesn't love me back!

You know what else I love? A SHORT WORK WEEK! YAY! I won't even lie, I was a bit frazzled today. I was expecting it though. This is usually a very busy week at work so I came prepared. My arsenal included never ending cups of coffee, soothing music at my desk, plenty of water to keep me hydrated and a tasty yogurt mess for breakfast.

4 oz. cup of Oikos
1 banana, sliced
a few cinnamon alphabet cookies from Trader Joe's, crumbled
2 tbs sugar free apricot preserves
1 packet of splenda

Ooey, gooey deliciousness! I like this flavor combo as well. Just the right amount of sweet from the preserves and the touch of cinnamon from the cookies was perfect!

I got a lot of things done after breakfast. GLORIOUS! I managed to archive a lot of older projects and get them off of my current to do list. I love doing that! I do a lot of this at the end of every quarter and especially towards the end of the year. I like starting fresh in January!

Lunch today was a bit, uhm, different. I basically made a big old mess of green beans.

1 bag of microwavable green beans (easy as pie)
1 serving of Crab Delights
2 tbs of salted Soy Nuts
Spray Butter to season

Sounds weird I know but it's delicious I promise. Well delicious to me because I LOVE green beans with spray butter. I ate about half of this plate. I don't know what I was thinking. That was way too much food for one sitting.

Ann and I never left for a break today. Too much to do and not enough time to get it all done as is. So I just kept on working away.

My afternoon, pre-workout snack today was SO SCRUMPTIOUS! This was my first time trying the Peanut Butter & Company brand. Ann talked me into buying the Dark Chocolate Dreams variety a while back and I finally opened it this morning. I decided to try it with a nice honey crisp apple. HOLLY MY GOODNESS!

SO GOOD! CHOMP... CHOMP... CHOMP...

Then I dove right back into work. But for HOW LONG IS THE QUESTION! Not that long my lovely friends. Not that long at all. We usually receive an email every year telling us that we can leave at 3:00, however, this year, no email came.... BAH!!!! I was all caught up with my work so my coworker and I discussed it and because she was cool with it, I took off at about 3:20 instead of 5:00. (REBEL) YEAH! I felt so bad, Ann still had work to do and stayed behind. BUMMER!

I found myself heading to the gym..... alone..... for the first time since Ann and I joined..... DA DA DAAAAAA!!!!!!! I was a bit anxious but couldn't figure out why.

With all of this extra time on my hands I decided to really BUST OUT a good workout before the DREADED and EARLY weigh in tomorrow morning. As you know, I usually weigh myself on Friday mornings. However, the idea of stepping on the scale post Thanksgiving feasting just seemed like an idiotic idea. So tomorrow it is! Oh how I hope it goes well. The last two weeks have been a disappointment to say the least! Here's what I did at the gym today.

Treadmill (20 minutes, 1.11 miles)
5 min. at 3.2 speed
5 min. at 3.4 speed
5 min. at 3.6 speed
5 min. at 3.4 speed
Bike (20 minutes, 7.2 miles)
Level 5, Random Setting, 137 calories
Ab Machine
70lb x 20
80lb x 20
90lb x 20
Rotary Torso Ab Machine
30lb x 20 (per side)
40lb x 15 (per side)
Leg Raise Reverse Crunches
x20
x20
Oblique Twist with Bar
x150
Barbell Curls
20lb x 20
25lb x 18
30lb x 12
Tricep Cable Pulldown
40lb x 25
50lb x 25
60lb x 20
Hammer Curls
7.5lb x 20
10lb x 20
12.5lb x 10

Hot damn, I was tired. I started at 3:45 and was done by 5:15. Not bad, not bad at all.

I hurried home so I could get a head start on some of the dishes that I was in charge of for tomorrow. I planned on making both the healthy pumpkin pie and the cranberry sauce tonight. The less I have to do tomorrow the better!! I also planned to clean the house up a bit. Both of Nicks' brothers were coming over tomorrow to hang out before heading to their dads' to eat and I wanted the place to be clean. Because of all of this running around, I decided to keep dinner simple. Cereal sounded nice and easy. I know, lame right? It was tasty though. I received my free, mini sample box of Kashi Go Lean Crunch the other day and decided to try that tonight.

I mixed in some Kashi 7 Whole Grain Honey Puffs as well.

Then I added a sliced banana and a cup of Vanilla Almond Breeze. YUM! It's been so long since I've had cereal.

Now for some PRE-Thanksgiving dishes. Time to party in the kitchen!

Cranberry Sauce

2 bags fresh cranberries
1 cup water
1 cup POM
Zest of one orange
Juice of one orange
8 packets of splenda
1/4 cup golden raisins

I simmered this for about 20 minutes. That's it. Nice and easy AND delicious!

Healthy Pumpkin Pie

For the crust I simply crushed two 100 calorie bags of cinnamon graham crackers and poured them into the bottom of a pie pan.

Then for the bottom Cheesecake layer I blended the following together.

1/2 package (4oz) fat free cream cheese
1 tbs vanilla almond breeze
2 packets splenda
1 bin of fat free Cool Whip

I poured this into the pie crust. Then I made the top pumpkin layer with the following.

1 cup Vanilla Almond Breeze
2 packets splenda
2 packets (1oz) fat free vanilla pudding mix
1 can (15 oz) pumpkin puree mix
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp nutmeg
dash nutmeg

Now for the 'SLIGHT" tragedy confession. I was following a recipe which made NO MENTION of perhaps putting the bottom layer into the fridge for a bit to let it set up before adding the second pumpkin layer. So I just added the pumpkin mixture right away. WELL, the cheesecake layer was TOO soft and the pumpkin was too heavy. The cheesecake started pushing towards the top all the way around the pie pan and the pumpkin started sinking in the middle. Oh well. It will taste good no matter how insane it looks. Look at it, looking all sad in my fridge! BAH!