Pillsbury Artisan Pizza Crust with Whole Grain Review and Giveaway #MyBlogSpark

All of you busy moms are going to appreciate this one. Have you tried Pillsbury’s Artisan pizza crust with whole grain yet? If not, you are missing out.

Not only is this pizza crust easy to prepare, it bakes to perfection. Crisp, yet moist and flavorful. Mmmmm! Hubby and I were both impressed with the taste, texture, and flavor of this pizza crust.

So let’s start from the beginning. The dough comes in the standard Pillsbury refrigerated packaging.

After opening it up, the dough will roll out into a rectangle shape.

At this point, the dough is very thick. We like our pizza crust thin—so I rolled it out. You stick it in the oven to crisp for a few minutes before adding your toppings.

I picked out form fresh ingredients to top the pizza and stored them in the the handy food storage containers that General Mills sent with this package.

Put the toppings on, and bake!

Like I mentioned before, this pizza turned out absolutely wonderful.

The nutritional information isn’t too bad, as far as pizza crusts are concerned. Is this recipe full of clean and nutritious ingredients, no. But it’s a convenience food—not something I would use all of the time, but something I would use when I’m in a hurry or just need a break.

There are 190 calories for 1/6 of the crust, but I never cut my pizza into six slices, usually 8—so that would be about 143 calories per slice, before toppings. Plus, this dough was so easy to work with, that I was able to cover the 15.5” Farberware Pizza Crisper that General Mills sent me. We had plenty of leftovers!

You can find more information about making a Farmer’s Market Pizza with fresh ingredients here.

And use this coupon to take $1.50 off of your Pillsbury Artisan Pizza Crust with Whole Grain.

And now for the part you’ve all been waiting for…

The giveaway! Here’s the prize pack:

• A VIP coupon for one FREE Pillsbury Artisan Pizza Crust with Whole Grain
• 15.5" Farberware Pizza Pan
• Food Chopper with Storage Containers
• Silicon-grip Oven Mitt
• Retail Value: $64

You will love the pizza crisper just as much as the pizza dough!

By leaving a separate comment for each entry, you can have multiple chances to win.

1. Tell me what fresh ingredients you like to top your pizza with.
2. Visit the Pillsbury website and tell me which pizza recipe you’d most like to try.
3. Follow Pillsbury on Twitter.
4. Follow A Journey to Thin on Twitter.
5. Tweet with a link to the giveaway, mentioning @Pillsbury and @AJourneyToThin.
6. Pin this blog post on Pinterest—leave me a link to your pin.

Giveaway ends May 6th at 5 p.m. central. Winner will have 5 business days to respond before a new winner will be chosen. You must leave your email address so that I can contact you.

Disclosure: The prize pack, information, and giveaway have been provided by General Mills and Pillsbury through MyBlogSpark.

First Bike Ride of the Year

How I have missed our long bike rides! Last summer, it was so horribly hot that we didn’t get too many long bike rides in. Our last ride was on the beach in Florida—and that was wonderful. This weekend, hubby fixed my bike tire, did some maintenance, hooked up the bike rack, and we were off for our first bike ride of 2013!

We went to a local forest preserve that we had never biked through before. We biked about 7 miles. Not a long ride, but it was wonderful to be out in the sunshine.

Since it has been so cold this spring, there wasn’t a whole lot of life in the forest. I took a few pictures, but not too much was photo worthy quite yet!

Here are a few shots from our ride:

We want to get new bikes this year. We’ve been riding some used bikes we bought from a friend for $100 a few years ago. They really don’t fit us. We want to shop around before making our purchase.

Do you have a bike you love? What model is it?

I did it

Well I did it. The weather was in the 50’s today and so I headed outside for a run. Yippee!

The goal was to run 1 mile, which is basically a jaunt down our paved path. This is going to be my base mile. I now plan to run more consistently and I want to improve. I have a big 5K coming up in a couple of months that I want to be able to RUN in.

And boy was it HARD! But, immediately when I started running I felt joyful. That lasted all of about 2 minutes when I became angry. If I hadn’t been running, I probably would have kicked myself, asking myself why I was doing this.

But I persevered and I did it. I ran the whole way. The once unconquerable mile. It’s good to know that I at least haven’t lost that amount of my fitness level. I’m glad for that.

I’m not sure when I hit 1 mile because my Garmin decided to die after about the 3rd minute of my run. I know the path is slightly over 1 mile, and it took me 13 minutes, pretty much on the dot. A slow jog, but a jog nonetheless.

I’m proud of myself.

Now let’s see what else I can do.

Pompeian Grape Seed Oil and BlogHer Food '13 Contest

This post brought to you by Pompeian. All opinions are 100% mine.

Most of us use Olive Oil these days, which we know is a healthy oil with numerous benefits. Have you ever used grapeseed oil? Grapeseed oil has similar health benefits to olive oil, but is more versatile to cooking due to its light taste and high smoke point.

You can find Grapeseed oil used in this delicious looking recipe for Smoky Fried Chickpeas.

 

Don't they look delicious? Looks like a low calorie, healthy, and clean snack. I definitely need to switch up the oils that I cook with every once in a while because I typically use olive oil, and occassionally coconut oil

Pompeian and Hungry Girl are challenging bloggers to create a recipe, substituting either Pompeian's Grapeseed Oil and Pompeian's OlivExtra Mediterranean Blend. The winning blogger will receive an all-expense paid trip to BlogHer Food '13 in Austin, Tx June 7-8. The winning recipe will be featured with Pompeian throughout the event.

Simply blog about your recipe using pictures of your yummy dish, head over to Pompeian’s Time to Change Your Oil Facebook application to share the link to your blog post, enter your contact information and click submit. This will qualify you to win the all-expense paid trip! I know I've always wanted to attend a blogging convention- why not give it a try?

Take one of your stand by recipes that uses butter or another oil and substitute it with grapeseed oil or Pompeian Olive Oil, share via you blog, and enter to win!

Tell me why you'd like to attend BlogHer Food '13.

Self-Love: To be Healthy and Happy again

Today I’ve been thinking about this journey in a little different way. This has been prompted by my ever growing hatred of the scale. I’m tired of focusing on numbers. It’s not really the number that I want to see, it’s about how I want to feel.

I want to feel confident, athletic, slender, pretty, stylish, healthy, radiant, and happy. I really don’t care what number is on the scale—I just want to feel good about myself.

So instead of approaching food and healthy living with the “will this make me gain weight or lose” attitude, I want to try to approach healthy living with a “will this be good for me” kind of attitude.

It’s really about self-love. Can’t I find enough self-love to eat foods that are good for my body most of the time? Can’t I find enough self-love to get myself moving? Can’t I find enough self-love to stop berating myself?

One of my biggest battles lately has been self confidence. I pretty much lost it all when I gained back some of the weight I had lost. When I leave the house, I feel like I just want to hide myself. I compensate by wearing clothes that are looser and hide more. I feel safe that way.

But this makes the entire process so much harder. I look in the mirror and only see my flaws. Instead, I want to focus on the things that I like about myself. Looking at myself in the mirror and focusing on my flaws is not good for me. It’s not good for my health, and it doesn’t change anything.

I’m going to go back to the basics and work on liking myself again. I had started to like the woman I was becoming. I felt so strong, so determined, and so successful. Today, I feel the opposite of all of those things.

But I know I can do this. I can be healthy and happy again. Just one positive thought at a time.

First 5K of 2013 and Giveaway Extended

On Saturday, hubby and I participated in our first 5K for 2013. Two of my friends and co-workers were supposed to participate but one got sick the day of the race. So, I walked with my other friend since she would be by herself and this was her first 5K. This was totally fine because I haven’t been running at all, and while I could have run/walked, it was probably more enjoyable to walk. This gave hubby the chance to run his first 5K solo. And he was speedy!!! So proud of him and amazed at his ability to go so fast with no training!!

Here’s a photo of us before the race.

It was a little chilly and in the 30s. It was ok, except for when we had to walk into the wind. This was the smallest 5K we’ve ever participated in—a very small group of people but boy were the organizers good cheerleaders! We got lots of high fives and cheers our way.

The whole atmosphere motivated me to want to get running again and do some more 5Ks. Oh, if the weather would just get nicer! We still have snow in the forecast! I want to make some big changes because what I’m doing now isn’t working.

Oh, and I guess my friend and I were on the news walking the 5K. lol. I tried to find it online but I couldn’t find it. Bummer!

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Have you entered to win the digital magazine subscription yet? I’m extending the deadline until tomorrow 5 p.m. central!

Digital Magazine Subscriptions Giveaway!

This weekend, Zinio is offering 30% off of subscriptions to the Fitness Magazine digital edition. You can get 10 issues for $10.49!

Zinio dubs itself The World’s Largest Newstand, showcasing over 5,000 digital magazines. The magazines can be accessed on iPad, iPhone, Android mobile phones and tablets, laptop or desktops.

For this weekend only, Zinio is also offering 30% off of digital editions of Better Homes and Gardens magazine and Parents magazine.

And even better, Zinio is providing me with a free subscription to a digital magazine of my choice, and NINE of my readers with a digital subscription of your choice! I think I’ll go with the Clean Eating magazine! But there are lots of magazines for women and sports related magazines to choose from too.

To enter, leave a comment telling me which magazine you want to win and your email address. You can Tweet about the giveaway, mention it on FB, or Pin this post for an extra chance to win. You must provide in a link to the giveaway in however you choose to share. Enter a separate comment for each entry. Giveaway will end Monday 4/22 at 5 p.m. Cental.

The 30% off discount is valid through 11:59 a.m. EST 4/22/13.

A hungry day

This morning I weighed in for the first time in about a week. My weight was slightly up from the last time I weighed, but manageable. If I stay on track, I can have the weight off by next week. Why is it that I can pack on the weight so quickly? Ugh.

For breakfast, I ate oatmeal with fresh strawberries and skim milk.

I hopped on the bike for 20 minutes, burning 128 calories. It’s something.

While working, I sipped on coffee with natural creamer.

It was another rainy day again! Lots of people have flooded basements. We had probably an inch of water in one basement room—but we don’t keep much in that room, so not a big deal. It always happens when we get a lot of rain.

I was so hungry by my break time, probably due to the lack of protein at breakfast. I ate a mini KIND bar. I think I’ll order the full bars next time—they are more satisfying and worth the calories.

And popped some popcorn with coconut oil.

I always burn it. lol

For lunch, I ate leftover chicken enchilada soup with a slice of Ezekiel toast topped with pumpkin spice cream cheese. I saw this in the store the other day and had to buy it. So good!

I brought a smoothie back to my desk. I used strawberries, fresh mango, and a banana. It was super delicious!

I could not stay awake during the afternoon. It was terrible. My eyes kept closing as I was trying to work! I think it was the rainy weather.

On my break, I ate a corn tortilla with turkey and Swiss on top. I was so hungry and trying not to eat any “binge” type food.

I also ate some dates.

And brought more coffee back to my desk.

That got me through the afternoon.

I am heating up leftover homemade pizza for supper. I’m also going to steam some broccoli. I definitely need more veggies since I am missing my salads lately!

I’ve done pretty well today, although I have been hungry for most of the day! I’m going to end here since I have a busy evening planned—again! I just want to stay home and relax one of these days! Next week should be much more low key, so it’s coming.

Have a great day!

Back with a Picture Post

The good news is that we’re half way through the week. It has been a busy and tiring week for me and I am ready for the weekend to get here!

After my long day yesterday, I decided to sleep in a little longer this morning and I woke up feeling much better. I really need my sleep.

For breakfast, I ate Ezekiel toast with peanut butter and sliced banana, a glass of skim milk, and an egg.

While working, I drank my coffee, which I forgot to take a picture of!

I had a KILLER headache this morning. I’m thinking it was the weather. I didn’t know if I was going to make it through work. It was that kind of headache.

Over my morning break, I ate a mini KIND bar.

I brought some Triscuits back to my desk with me. I was hungry!

And after that, my headache disappeared. Strange.

I used my break to get supper in the crock pot—and then I had to smell its deliciousness for the rest of the day! Made me hungry!

For lunch, I shredded leftover pork loin, added BBQ sauce and ate it on a sandwich thin with Swiss cheese. I also ate leftover veggies.

We are out of lettuce—salads are usually my go-to lunches. I used up the lettuce yesterday!

I also ate an apple with peanut butter.

I brought back some more coffee with me. It was such a cold, rainy day and the coffee tasted especially good.

On my last break, I ate pineapple.

For supper, we ate the chicken tortilla soup from the crock pot along with a dinner roll with 100% fruit jam. I found this recipe on Pinterest. I eliminated the piles of cheese it required, doubled the beans and corn, and added spices. It turned out very good!

I brought in a peach cobbler from the freezer that I made back in June with fresh Missouri peaches. I ate some of that for dessert.

Yummy!

Tomorrow is the day that I step back on the scale and I’m a little scared. But who knows…maybe it won’t be so bad. It isn’t like I’ve just gone crazy with my eating—it’s just the not knowing what I weigh that messes with my mind! I am expecting a gain of some sort, but I tend to think negatively about such things.

Whatever it shows, I pick up where I left off to weigh in next Wednesday! My mental state was a lot better this time around without weighing myself.

Check in and staying sensitive

I just wanted to check in and say hello. I should be back with a picture post tomorrow—I’ve just been busy!

I had to wake up at 3:30 this morning to cover an event for Jobs #2 and #3, worked all day today for Job #1, and now I have another event for Job #2 this evening. And I’m just ready to go to bed!

Because of TOM, I am not weighing in this week and haven’t for a few days. It’s just not worth the mental battle. I will weigh in on Thursday as my start. I’m not just going all out and eating what I want or anything, but I haven’t been perfect! Just taking it one day at a time.

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There has been so much sadness in the news the past couple of days. That can really wear you down emotionally. There was the bombing yesterday, and then today a bomb was found in a nearby town here (thankfully it didn’t go off), and two school busses crashed in another incident. Besides minor injuries, the kids were ok, but just hearing about this stuff gets me all anxious. All in two days.

And I believe in God and have complete trust in Him. It’s not that. It just seems that EVERYTHING bothers me more than it used to, or maybe the world is just getting worse, I don’t know. The more I see violence and hatred in the world, the more it bothers me to see it in movies, and so—I don’t watch them if they contain any of it. I guess that’s a good thing. I don’t want to become desensitized, but I also don’t want to let it make me too anxious. Turning off the news isn’t really the answer either—this is just the reality of the world we live in.

These events always bring me back to center. They remind me of the real purpose of life. They make me want to hold my hubby closer and a little tighter. As much as we wish they weren’t, they are teaching moments. They snap our eyes wide open to see life for what it is. Life ends. Make the best of it while it’s here.

It also makes you think about how trivial some of the things are that I stress about. If I were to die today, my weight certainly wouldn’t be my biggest worry—yet I let it consume me sometimes. I need help with that. I’m trying to find that balance between being mindful and making good decisions, and being happy in my own skin too—because life is just too short. Being healthy is important—but it’s not THE most important.

I know what’s important to me, and I want to treasure those things.

This post kind of morphed into a look into my mind right now. Thanks for listening!

Thoughts

I started off with a post as normal this morning but my plans quickly changed this afternoon with the news of the Boston Marathon tragedies.

I read quite a few runner blogs out there and I know there are many of you who are probably personally affected by this, or know those who are. My thoughts are with all of you.

Hold your loved ones close.

Weigh in day

I weighed in this morning and lost 2.6 lbs.! I’m VERY happy with that. It was a good week. I tried some new things, doing this MY way, relaxed a bit, and it seemed to work this week.

For breakfast, I ate Ezekiel toast with PB and banana. I also drank skim milk.

I’ve gotten into a routine during my mornings this week and I’m enjoying it. I’m up an hour earlier since hubby is home, so that gives me more time. Up with hubby, make breakfast, pack his lunch, send him off. Then I do laundry, dishes, and anything else that needs my attention. Then I sit down to read, catch up on blogs, or any other work that needs done. I get a lot accomplished!

While working, I drank the last of the coconut coffee.

Look what I got in the mail today.

I ordered a couple of boxes online. These are the mini-bars. I ate one of those on my break.

I got an email from KIND today, actually. I bought their Groupon a whole back and I guess a lot of customers were unhappy with the terms, so they’re sending each of us 2 of their new bars and also sending a coupon code for 50% off their bars up to $250!! I will be taking advantage of that…not $250 worth, but a good amount!

I also ate raisins.

Another hungry day!

I made some tea.

For lunch, I cooked up some leftover stir-fry (asparagus, onions, and shrimp) with egg whites. Looks kind of gross, but it wasn’t!

I also ate fresh strawberries with a drizzle of chocolate sauce.

Today was such a rainy and dreary day. When I look outside, I think it looks like pictures of Ireland I’ve seen. Such green grass, gray skies, and rain falling down. Someday I want to visit Ireland!

On my break, I ate AE Dairy Clementine Greek yogurt.

An orange.

And brought back coffee with creamer to sip on for the rest of the day. I was so cold!

For supper, we ate leftover baked ziti and a slice of light toast with butter and garlic powder.

I also ate a side salad with lettuce, cherry tomatoes, avocado, feta, 1/2 a boiled egg, homemade ranch, and bbq sauce.

Yes, it tasted just as good as it looks!

And another chocolate angel cupcake with Cool Whip frosting.

We still have 6 of these left. They’re never ending. haha

I am juuust slightly over my calorie target. In my rules, that’s a good day! I do feel like I eat very healthy and nutritious foods. I guess I’m not doing too bad after all. I’ll give myself a little pat on the back for that one.