BSI: Eggplant and a Meme

My son was on the ice at 6:30am this morning. You can bet that I wasn’t at the rink today! I was up earlier than usual for at Sunday, though. My hubby brought me home an extra large pumpkin spice tea so I sipped on that while browsing the net.



We were leaving at 9ish to go out to the farm, but I still wasn’t very hungry with all that tea sloshing around in my belly so I made a smaller than usual bowl of oats for breakfast at around 8:30am.



-2/3 cup water
-1/3 cup Quaker oats
-1/2 mashed banana
-cinnamon
-sprinkle of chopped walnuts



Everything about it was great except for that fact that I wasn’t really hungry for it yet. I didn’t want a repeat of yesterday’s random eating so I was trying to focus on a more “scheduled” day of eating so that my system doesn’t get all confused and skid to a halt! Meh. On a brighter side, my MIL put out some homemade banana bread that I was able to leave alone because I was still full. Normally, I’d of been all over it! Sitting here now though, I kinda wish I had a piece. It looked really good!!

Meg over at Megan’s Munchies tagged me with a meme! How fun! Here are the rules;

1) Link back to the blog that originally tagged you
2) Post the rules on your blog
3) Tell your readers 6 random things about you
4) Tag 6 other blogs and link back to their sites
5) Leave a comment on your chosen blogs letting them know they’ve been tagged
6) Let your tagger know when you’ve posted your entry


So, here are 6 random things about me!

1)I HATE walking barefoot on wet tile. Be it on a pool deck or my own bathroom...YUCK!
2)I’ve been a payroll clerk for 7 years now. No big deal except that I failed math twice in high school!
3)I am absolutely PETRIFIED of spiders!!!!
4)Until 4 years ago, I never ate breakfast…..unless you can count a cup coffee...
5)I’ve always wanted to be a surgical nurse
6)From the ages of 12-15, I was a candy striper and loved every minute of it. I logged well over 1000 hrs!

There you have it! Now you all know me a little better. :) Here are the 6 blogs I’ve chosen to tag;

Itzys kitchen
What I ate yesterday
Whole foods whole me
Lighter Portions
The Fitnessista
Bacon’s Blog

Hope you all have fun with it!! I think this is traveling through blogland like wild fire, so I apologize if you've already been tagged!

Believe it or not, I still wasn’t very hungry by lunch. My stomach was just starting to let me know that food would be required in the near future. I ended up making a salad with some corn, mushrooms, shredded carrot’s, some swiss cheese all drizzled with Tuscon salad dressing. I heated a raspberry Pumpkin muffin for a side...



This is just what I needed. After I took the picture, I topped the muffin off with a blob of Cool Whip free. Yum! Through the course of the afternoon, I randomly munched down 2 Halloween chocolate bars. The candy stash is almost gone...thank God!

Oh! I almost forgot! I ate a small snack last night while watching Law & Order. It was about a third of a cup of dry YogActive cereal. This stuff rocks...no joke.



The weather was not doing very nice things today! It pretty much rained slush all afternoon which made it a very good day to just chill out and get started on my BSI entry. Now, I have a confession to make. Although I love my veggies, eggplant is not one of them. In fact, I really don’t like eggplant at all which is sad because it’s a beautiful vegetable! It has a pleasing shape, it’s my favorite color…I’ve always been determined that someday I would enjoy this poor vegetable. So, this challenge was perfect for me! Here’s what I came up with!

Eggplant Ravioli

-1 Tbsp olive oil
-1 onion, chopped
-2 cloves garlic, crushed
-1 Tbsp fresh basil
-2 baby eggplants, peeled
-1/2 cup ricotta
-1/4 cup Egg Beaters (or 1 egg, beaten)
-1/4 cup parmesan
-1 1/2 cup all purpose flour
-1 cup WW flour
-1 cup hot water
-2 cups prepared marinara sauce

*heat oil in pan and add onion, eggplant & garlic. Cook over low heat for 10 mins
*set mixture aside to cool
*in a large bowl, mix both flours and water, stirring with a wooden spoon until a ball forms. Cover and let sit for 10 mins.
*put eggplant mixture in food processor (or magic bullet) and blend together leaving some chunks. Combine in a bowl with basil, ricotta, egg & parmesan cheese. Mix well.
*Divide dough into 4 pieces and roll into a fairly thin rectangle on a lightly floured surface.
*using a tbsp at a time, drop filling in a row about 2"apart down the rectangle. Fold dough over top and using a round cookie cutter (or glass) cut cirlce out to form ravioli.
*drop ravioli about 7 at a time into a pot of boiling water. When they float to the top, they're done.
*heat 2 cups marinara in a large pan while the ravioli are boiling. Place ravioli in sauce as they come out of the water.
*heat through and serve!

The filling....



Ready to jump in the pot:



Steaming away. Notice how some have floated to the top....they're done! :)



All sauced up!



The Spark People recipe calculator puts these pockets of love at;

61 calories
1.3g fat
1.0g fiber
2.5g protein

I have tried eggplant grilled, roasted, as a dip, marinated, fried and I have NEVER liked it....until this recipe that is! These guys were terrific and filling. My whole family loved them and even went back for seconds. When I told my hubby the the BSI was eggplant, he told me that I wouldn't be able to make a good recipe with it. I proved him wrong tonight!! Nobody even knew that I had used eggplant and I didn't say a word until dinner was over and the pot was empty! Yipee!

I also made haddock fillets. I sprayed some butter on them, sprinkled salt and pepper and salmon spice on them and popped them in the oven for 15 minutes. They came out just perfect! What a great dinner we had tonight!



Well, I must hit publish as I'm running out of time to submit the recipe to Meghann!

Bye for now!