My Patio Container Garden - a fun way to get some exercise!

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My stacking compost system

I started my seedlings indoor in November

Last year I started composting, which makes me feel like a responsible citizen of our earth, and, honestly, it’s kinda fun! Like a science project!  

My grandson got me interested in growing veggies and herbs on my little patio soon after, so I started late fall 2022 with some seeds he gave me and then the grow bags he gifted me for Christmas. 

I bought some seed starter containers, a grow light, pots, fertilizer, a greenhouse, etc etc.  Once you get started it’s hard to stop finding things to buy! I’ve been watching YouTube videos and reading books and I’ve learned a lot!  Not everything is working out, but some things are taking off.  

My patio greenhouse

I am having success with a cherry tomato plant (my first two tiny tomatoes are almost red!), romaine lettuce sweet snap peas, parsley, sweet mint, basil and rosemary. 

Sweet mint, romaine, trimmed back pepper plant 

Cherry Tomato 

Snap peas

Rosemary

My radishes came up as skinny red strings, 😿 so I’m trying again now that the weather has warmed up a bit (I’m in Phoenix). 

My radishes were a fail! 

I don’t get as much full Sun as I need to grow many things, so I figure this season will teach me what I should spend my time on. And whatever I have success with, I’ll keep growing! I’m really enjoying it, and it keeps me busy…..and when I’m busy, I’m burning calories and not eating! 

Bread and Butter Cucumber Radish Slaw

​This veggie slaw is so good it is almost addicting. Very low in points too! I have “bread and butter” in its name, because it reminds me of bread and butter pickles with its slightly sweet taste. 

“Bread and Butter” Cucumber Radish Slaw

Servings: 5 cup servings

Points per serving : 1

Ingredients:

1 large cucumber

I bunch (7-8) radishes

1/2 cup thinly sliced red onions

1 cup thinly sliced or julienned carrots

1 cup water

1/3 cup vinegar

3-4 T Sugar 

1/2 teas salt 

Fresh mint leaves, 2 or 3

Directions:

Julienne the cucumber and radishes by slicing thinly, then stacking the slices and cutting into strips. Mix with carrots and red onion and place into large jar or bowl with tight fitting lid. Combine water, vinegar and sugar or sweetener. Pour over veggies and refrigerate overnight. 

Note: First batch I sliced all veggies using my small food processor and then cut into strips. Second time I used the bagged julienned carrots in the produce section because I decided it’s too hard to julienne carrots. Worth the extra cost to me! 

Save the brine once you’ve finished all the veggies to make another batch. I’ve used my brine three times now! 

Optional:

Add juice from canned pineapples, oranges or other fruit

Add organic nectar or Splenda in place of sweetener.  Increase vinegar or sweetener according to your preference.

 Leave out the mint if needed, but if you aren’t growing mint in your garden or window sill, try it!  Super easy herb to grow and propagate.   

New Favorite Snacks

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Okay, no matter how good we’re being about our eating, we need snacks, right? Over the past few months I’ve found a few new, low WW point snacks, that get me through the evenings watching TV. Of course, there’s popcorn. At zero pts for air popped it’s hard to beat, but I need variety. My two new favorites are:

Snacklins: 

The company describes these delicious devils  as impossibly crunchy, remarkably airy crisps. And that’s true! They are plant-based and 90 cal per snack size bag. I buy the larger bags at Sprouts, so I can’t eat the whole bag, but for a serving of 25 chips they’re 3 points for me, which is great! And, It’s not like there are 25 little puny chips sitting at the bottom of a bowl either, which is often the case with other bagged snacks (say pretzel sticks). These are big chips and I always feel very happy when I look at that full bowl that I get to eat. They come in barbecue and nacho at Sprouts, but it looks like you can get others online, such as teriyaki, Chesapeake Bay, sea salt and vinegar, and Cinnamon churro.  My favorite is Nacho right now but I haven’t had all of them.  I love these crunchy nibbles! I just wish my grocery store would stock them.

Arrowhead Mills Cereal Puffed Corn: 

I guess it might seem weird to just eat cereal like a snack, but I’ve done this all my life, with no regard to calories or points.  I love Arrowhead’s puffed rice as a snack now too, but their puffed corn has become my newest favorite.  I can only find them in my area at Sprouts.  This cereal is 1 point for 1 cup and I always fill my bowl with two servings. It’s addictive though, so beware…..always measure  and don’t eat out of the bag (which you would never do, right?) 🙂

I firmly believe it’s important to keep my snacks around so I won’t go off the rails when I get the nibbles, so I do. A trip to Sprouts is a weekly event for me.  

Well, have a good WW week….it’s Snack time!  

23 pounds and still losing…..

Hi everyone! Just an update....I'm now 23 pounds lighter than I was in April when I re-joined. Yay! I think this plan of going for the steady loss rather than quick loss may work for the long run this time. I'm looking forward to my favorite sweaters and sweatshirts being even baggier! That looks so much better when you're thinner, doesn't it? More later!

New WW Plans

I recently re-upped, signing up for the annual fee of $198. I was paying $20 a month before I discontinued, thinking I could go it alone. I can't! I'm hoping that by signing up for a year, I'll find a way to maintain and not go off the rails! Here's hoping! Also, please note that I've had this blog for so long that WW has gone through several plan changes and most of my point values on recipes aren't correct or don't make sense because everything is personalized now. Please forgive this irritation and enter the ingredients in your recipe builder. Today I received my order from WW for their Iced Cinnamon Puffs and mini bar variety pack. I've already lost 5 pounds my first week back. Feels good! What do you think of the new plans/options?

Can You Be an Ethical Consumer and a Weight Watcher?

Over time I have gradually cut most meat out of my diet.  I’ve eaten mostly chicken or fish for years whether I’m actively tracking or not, But I’ve also become more aware of the ugly underbelly of our food industry, especially when it comes to the treatment of living creatures and slaughtering them so we can eat their bodies.  I’m not here to convert you, but if you watch enough documentaries on the subject, you might feel the same. 

Having said that, it’s not always easy to eat a sustainable diet while you’re counting WW points. In some ways, it helps because you are cutting out (or at least reducing) things like cheese and other dairy foods. In fact I love Almond milk (1 point per cup) and it’s lower in purple points than nonfat dairy milk (3 points). But if I want to make tapioca pudding, almond milk doesn’t cut it. It gets all weird as you are bringing the pudding to a boil. 

Also, eggs are zero points on purple and so are potatoes, so often, a low point breakfast for me is homemade hash browns and scrambled eggs. If I want toast I also eat two slices of Sara 45 Calories & Delightful whole grain bread (2 points, purple)  I’ve eaten plant based burgers for a while. Two good brands with low WW Points are Gardein and Morningstar (3 purple points)  but there are lots of  others I haven’t tried, and it’s easy to make your own.  I plan to post reviews of some WW recipes in the future. 

I tried “Impossible Burger” recently and it is honestly delicious!  I like it better than real ground beef!  It is lower in points than real beef, but not as much as I expected (6 points for a 3 ounce burger) and higher than the other veggie burgers, so be sure to check the points before consuming! As far as looking and tasting like a real meat burger, however, Impossible Burgers beat the others hands down!

Impossible Burger with shredded zucchini and sliced green onions added

So in some ways, being an ethical consumer, and losing weight on WW may seem like a conflict, but with proper planning, you can do it. For me right now, I’ve decided not to eat anything with eyes....no animals, fish, chicken etc. But I feel like eating eggs and milk products is a sustainable way to eat. However, I can’t stand the idea of a bunch of chickens locked in cages laying eggs for me, so I buy organic, cage free, pasture raised chicken eggs. Similarly, I want to picture cows happy on a farm, grazing in a pasture, and then milked for the products I end up eating. There are health reasons NOT to drink cows milk, but that’s a topic for another post! 

If you’re interested in watching a few eye opening documentaries, here are a few to check out:

Netflix: 

What the Health

Cowspiracy 

SeasPiracy 

Watch for:

Food, Inc 

Covid Vaccination

 Have you gotten your vaccination yet? I am now a month past my second dose, and I feel so good and safe now. It really was a breeze. Set up online, drove up to the vaccination site in the Cardinals Stadium parking lot, got my poke, and drove home! Easy peasy! No negative reaction after the initial dose, and only a slight reaction after the second. I describe it similar to the way I feel when I think, hmmmm, I might be coming down with something. But then the next day all better! I hope you all get yours!

Get vaccinated, Stay safe and track your points!