Winner, Winner Chicken Dinner

Sometimes blog titles come easily, sometimes not. Today's title just seemed to flow, even if it is a little bit dorky!

As I've probably mentioned a gazillion times, my friend Gina and I swap daily e-mails about everything and anything food related. On one particular e-mail, she mentioned that the pieces of chicken on the blog look fairly large. My explanation is that they are from BJ's. She was curious to see how much one piece weighed, and to be honest, I was wondering myself. So, I did what any inquisitive blogger would do. I pulled out my trusty scale and weighed it. This one's for you, Gina!


Even though it's a little dark, this piece of chicken weighed in around 7 1/8 ounces. Believe it or not, this is one of the smaller pieces in the ginormous bag from BJ's.

I kept things simple and poured some garlic marinade over the chicken. Honestly, I think this could easily have been Italian dressing in a bottle with added garlic, but it was still some good stuff.


Baking away.


The finished product.

See the knife slits? Am I the only one who does this? I am so paranoid about making sure the chicken is completely cooked before removing it from the oven. I think it's about time I invested in a meat thermometer. That would at least make for a prettier presentation.

Question of the Day:

What are you up to this weekend?
I have a Christmas party tomorrow night and I'm supposed to make some sort of dessert. I'm thinking some sort of peanut butter fudge (made in a lighter way, of course!) might be the way to go.

I hope you all have a fabulous day and weekend!

Until next time!
~Anne Marie

Thankful Thursday

Hello everyone! I'm in a super mood today-the sun is shining, it's relatively warm, and it's almost the weekend. What more could a girl ask for?

There is so much to be grateful for today. The husband and I are going to our first Christmas party of the season on Saturday, and I wanted to make a lower-fat dessert option. I searched our bookcases and found some old Weight Watchers magazines that I have kept over the years. As I started to page through the magazine, I saw some interesting articles about health, recipes and wellness. I reread some pages and found myself thankful that I still kept them. This magazine is the one subscription that will never get tossed. There's countless pieces of information in each one!

This is only a sampling. The rest are in the crawl space in the basement.

I could only thumb through the pages in my most comfortable pajamas, complete with these warm fuzzy socks. I'm thankful that my feet don't have to freeze in the winter.


Cute socks+warm feet=one happy girl!

Last, but certainly not least, I'm thankful for thoughtful neighbors. Whenever our neighbor sees me carrying grocery  bags or sees the husband working on the house, he always offers to help.  I should mention that he has severe back pain and wears a brace every day. 

On Sunday, the husband and I finally faced the fact that we needed to do something about the leaves.  There were tons and tons of leaves on our lawn and our neighbor's lawn. Since we essentially share a lawn, we decided to share the task of raking, mowing and gathering the leaves. I really should have taken a before picture, but when all was said and done, our lawns were spic and span.

Our side of the lawn. See the trash bags next to the trashcan? That's only half of the leaves we raked!

The neighbor's side. He took the other half of the leaves and put them out in his trash. I wasn't kidding when I said that there were a ton of leaves on our lawn!

Sorry about the glare in the above photos. I was taking them from inside because it was way too cold to be outside!

Question of the Day:

What are you thankful for today?

Until next time!

~Anne Marie

Dippin' in the Skinny Water

My great-uncle Joe is one of the coolest guys I know. He owns his own business and is always on top of the latest trends. For about the past year or so, he's been into the product Skinny Water. According to their website, Skinny Water is packed with vitamins, electrolytes and anti-oxidants. In addition, there are no calories, sodium or sugar, like some other vitamin drinks out there.

The label is a little bit hard to read, but I thought I'd post the picture anyway.

Skinny Water comes in a variety of flavors made with their own set of "key ingredients." I've had the Lemonade Passionfruit flavor before, but I wanted to try something different. While grocery shopping at Target, I found this guy.

Raspberry Pomegranate-Crave Control.

This bottle was $1.49, which I think is completely ridiculous for a bottle of water. I promised my uncle that I would do a review on the blog, though, so I put it in my cart and moved on.

This type of Skinny Water contains Chromemate, which is supposed to maintain your blood sugar levels. I drank the Skinny Water around 11:00 a.m., when I was getting hungry for lunch, but want to wait until after noon to eat. The taste was a little bit off, but I think that's because it was a raspberry/pomegranate mix. I can't describe it exactly, but there was an aftertaste. My mom tried it and thought the same thing. While I don't think that Skinny Water reduced my cravings, it did hold me over until it was time to eat lunch. My hunch is that it's because, essentially, I drank water, which helps keep you full. The Lemonade Passionfruit that I tried before had no aftertaste, and I really enjoyed it.

I'd like to sample other flavors in the future, however it would definitely have to be on sale before I'd buy it again. In reality, I don't think that Skinny Water helps you to lose weight or maintain a healthy lifestyle, but it is a good option when you want something other than plain water. Plus, it's an added bonus that there are no calories, sugar or sodium.

Onto the next topic.....taco dip!

When the husband and I went to his mom's for Thanksgiving dinner, she asked us to bring an appetizer. My sister-in-law makes an awesome taco dip, so I thought I'd recreate my own in a little healthier fashion.

I mixed together 16oz of low fat sour cream with 8oz of reduced fat cream cheese. Once mixed, I added a packet of taco seasoning.

I put the sour cream/cream cheese mix in the bottom of a bowl and layered lettuce, tomato and shredded cheese on top.

A view from up top.



Ready to go!

I served this with some Baked Scoops, and it turned out to be a great hit! The husband's sister said that it was like crack, which I'm guessing is a good thing. Haha.

The best part of this dip was that it took about 1o minutes to make. Easy peasy!

Question of the Day:

What's your favorite appetizer?

My sister-in-law makes this amazing hot dip with brie cheese, pecans, cranberries, brown sugar and melted butter. It's one of the best food parts of the holidays!

Until next time!

~Anne Marie

Mom's Thanksgiving

Thank you for all of your advice on yesterday's post. It really means a lot to me that I have people who understand where I am coming from. It seems that I'm not the only one who can be a pushover sometimes!

Remember when I told you that my mom offered to take pictures of her Thanksgiving for the blog? Well, she did it! She took pictures of the side dishes once they were already
packaged in their tupperware containers and wanted to make sure they "looked presentable" before I posted them on the blog. She is the cutest mom ever.

Without further adieu, I present to you my mom's Thanksgiving.

My uncle carving the turkey with my cousins and brother watching. This is the same uncle that played the joke on me not too long ago.

Yummy turkey!

Grandmom helping get things together.


My mom's broccoli salad. This is the best stuff ever! There's broccoli, bacon and cheese mixed with a mayo and apple cider vinegar dressing. This stuff goes quick when it's served.

This was the first time my mom made homemade cranberry sauce. She said that everyone gobbled it up. It was a good combination of tart and sweet.

The sausage stuffing. I believe this is my grandmom's recipe. This stuff is amazing!

Thanks again for the pictures mom!

Question of the Day:

What is your favorite Thanksgiving side dish?

It's hard to pick a favorite, but I think stuffing is way up there on the list. I think it should be a year round thing in my family!

Until next time!

~Anne Marie

Monday Musings

Happy Monday!

The husband and I have the day off today. He had to work on Friday and Saturday, so we figured we'd take some time off so we can spend the day together.

Thanksgiving was a lot of fun. It was nice to see both sides of the family. We visited with Dan's family for dinner and my family for dessert. I think this was the first Thanksgiving that I didn't feel stuffed to the gills after dinner. I made a promise to myself that Thanksgiving was just another day with really yummy food. I picked what I wanted to eat and ate until I knew I had enough without feeling like the top button on my pants was going to pop off!

Dessert was another story though. My mom made homemade apple pie, cherry pie and carrot cake, and my cousin Allison made hard to resist chocolate chip cookies. I had more than my fair share of cookies, small slices of apple pie and the moo-less chocolate pie. It was all delicious, but I have to admit that I woke up Friday morning not hungry at all (which is unlike me).

My mom and two of my cousins tried the pie that I made, and they loved it! My aunt refused to try it because she new that there had to be something "weird" in it. I'll get her to come around one of these days!

So, I have a situation that happened over Thanksgiving that I wanted to share with you/ask advice about. Every year, my husband's family participates in a pollyanna. Only the "kids" are involved. I use the term very loosely because the "kids" are my husband and myself, his step-brother (who is my age) and his sister and brother-in-law. The limit is $60 per person. For the hubby and I, that obviously equates to $120 for the both of us. In addition, we get gifts for his mom and dad and his nephews. In the end, almost everyone buys something for someone.

With the husband and I on a budget, we realized that financially, it makes no sense. In fact, we could probably get away with spending $60 total on his sister and brother-in-law and his step-brother. When his family asked us if we were participating in the pollyanna this year and we said no, the brother-in-law was rather upset. He couldn't understand why we didn't want to do it, even though we told him it made no sense when everyone was buying gifts for everyone else anyway. I was ready to back down and do the pollyanna, but the husband stood his ground. Despite the uncomfortable feeling, I'm glad that he was able to stand up for what he believed in. Me? Well, I'm just a softie.

I'd appreciate any thoughts on the situation. What would you have done?

I guess that leads me to my question of the day:

Are you someone who backs down when confronted or do you stand your ground?

I apologize for the rant on the blog, but it was good to get it off of my chest! Thank you for taking the time to read my random ramblings.

Until next time!
~Anne Marie

Moo-Less Chocolate Pie

I came across the recipe for this pie on another blog, and I wish I could remember which blog it was. If this was posted on your blog, please let me know-I want to give you credit for introducing me to this amazing recipe!

Now that it's after Thanksgiving, I can finally reveal to my family that the secret ingredient in this was silken tofu. I'll let everyone know on Monday how they actually liked it. If you haven't guessed, I scheduled this post in advance. Right now, I'm most likely out shopping with my mom for some Christmas gifts.

This is the BEST recipe I think I have ever posted, no lie. You can't taste the tofu at all. It's extremely rich, so I would advise cutting a very small piece!


The only thing I didn't add was the liquor. I'm not a drinker, and my family is the same way.


The recipe can be found here.




The melted chocolate chips and tofu blended together



In the graham cracker crust


Sliced up!

Question of the Day:

What's your favorite kind of dessert?


I love anything desert related and therefore can't pick my favorite! I will say that I love chocolate desserts more than non-chocolate though :)



Until next time!

~Anne Marie

Happy Thanksgiving on a Thankful Thursday!

Hello everyone!

I want to wish you all a very Happy Thanksgiving! I'm headed to two places-my mother-in-law's house for dinner and my mom's house for dessert. I can't wait to see everyone!

In keeping with the Thankful Thursday theme, this Thursday I am thankful for the opportunity to see nature in all it's beauty.

I love being outdoors and scoping out what's around me. Catching glimpses of a sunrise or sunset makes me smile. This past weekend, the husband and I went to a state park and walked around for hours. It was awesome to be in the woods and trying to navigate our way around.

Here are a few of my favorite nature scenes that I've been lucky to witness:

Watching the sunrise on Ocean Isle Beach in North Carolina.

The hubby and I ate ice cream on rocking chairs and saw this view of the clouds

From the Ocean Isle Bridge

Sunset on our last evening at Ocean Isle Beach

The beginning of the sunset

The above pictures are from the husband and I's honeymoon. We went to Ocean Isle Beach, North Carolina and stayed in my uncle's condo. It was amazing! It's one of my favorite places to be.

I know this isn't really a nature picture, but it's one that I love. My friends and I drove from Philly all the way to Tulsa Oklahoma in the course of two days. Why, you may ask? So we could

be a part of this:

Believe it or not, my friends and I were third row in this crowd. We went to see Hanson. No joke.

Question of the Day:

What are you thankful for today?

Until next time!

~Anne Marie