[Megan1982]

Jessica, I have a similar problem with baked goods of any kind, but when I make the muffins I immediately put each in a plastic baggie and freeze it. This seems to take the temptation away (despite not helping if I try to freeze individual brownies or cookies, etc.).

Hard boiled eggs: Place egg(s) in pot and cover with cold water. Bring to a boil. Turn off heat and cover with lid. Let sit 15 minutes, drain water.

[nelie]

In terms of your yogurt, why don't you make your own little yogurt cups with frozen fruit instead of sugary prepackaged yogurt? One snack I may have is plain soy yogurt with frozen blueberries.

I eat lots of veggies, veggies with homemade hummus is good although I can understand if you can't control yourself around it. Sometimes I'll eat plain chickpeas or roasted chickpeas as well. Today one of my snacks was a salad (chopped bokchoy, shredded carrots, cucumbers, celery, tomatoes, alfalfa sprouts, a small amount of avocado topped with galeo wasabi ginger miso dressing)

[Shannon in ATL]

I eat a lot of Kashi Go Lean as a snack - I portion it out into snack baggies and keep it in my desk. Sometimes I mix it with a little lowfat vanilla yogurt at home. I also get the mocha and chocolate flavored Trader Joe's European Style yogurt.

[WaterRat]

Hard boiled eggs: Place egg(s) in pot and cover with cold water. Bring to a boil. Turn off heat and cover with lid. Let sit 15 minutes, drain water.

After you drain the water, run the eggs under cold water so they stop cooking.

Nelie - I always buy yogurt in 1 qt containers and portion it out with my own fruit. Cottage cheese I buy the 1 pint as it tends to go sour fairly quickly. I don't know if that's because it takes so long to get it here, or if it's not continuously kept well-refrigerated, but I've found that unless I'm going to use a large amount quickly, I get better value from the pints (i.e. I don't end up throwing a bunch away.) When we had chickens, they would eat the spoiled cottage cheese (and milk) as well as veggie peelings, moldy bread, etc. Efficient little garbage processers they are.

[BlueToBlue]

Here are some of my favorite snacks. I also try to eat snacks that are high in protein, but I love carbs so you can see that some carby ones sneak in.

• Yogurt mixed with cottage cheese.
• Baked tofu. I press the water out, marinate it, then bake it. Trader Joe's also sells pre-baked tofu that is fabulous.
• Egg-white omelets. I usually make them with 1/4 cup eggbeaters and use 1/4 cup refried beans as the filling and then top with salsa. The whole thing comes in at 100 calories. My other favorite filling is spinach, sun-dried tomatoes, and a laughing cow cheese wedge.
• Quick deviled eggs. I take a hard-boiled egg and mix the yolk with dijon mustard. I also like pickled eggs. I save the juice from pickles I buy and marinate hard-boiled eggs in it. Beet pickle juice is great for this.
• Oatmeal or oat bran. Love this ! I eat one or the other almost every day. Only 130 calories for a big, filling bowl of the stuff.
• Low carb wrap with one wedge laughing cow cheese or refried beans (pop it in the microwave). If I'm feeling really decadent, I do both.
• Tuna or salmon. There are some great flavored tuna options, like BumbleBee's tuna sensations or the tuna and salmon sold in pouches. I love the Bumblebee sensations flavors. Someone else (Chicken of the Sea maybe?) makes a Cajun flavor that I also like. I usually eat it in a low carb wrap, on low carb crackers, or with toasted light bread or a mini bagel.
• Kippered herring or sardines (16g protein per serving). Usually I eat them with low carb crackers or toasted light bread or a mini bagel.
• Trader Joe's sells egg-white salad that is fabulous (they have three, spicy ranchero, chive, and salmon and dill). I eat it in a low carb wrap with spinach.
• Yogurt Vegetable Salad: 1/4 cup yogurt, 1 tsp dijon mustard, 2.5 oz diced cucumber, 1.5 oz halved cherry tomatoes (use sun-dried tomatoes or roasted red pepper if fresh cherry tomatoes aren't available), 1/4 cup chickpeas, 1 tbsp minced fresh basil or mint, sea salt and pepper to taste. This is super filling, practically a meal, and only 100 calories.
• Meg's Fiber One Muffins with nonfat cream cheese. I eat one almost every day.
• 1/2 cup Fiber One cereal. This is my go-to snack when I'm starving but I've used up my calorie allotment. It's filling and it's only 60 calories.

Another tip on the hard-boiled eggs. If you prick one end the uncooked egg with a straight pin, you won't have any problem with egg cracking when you boil it (maybe it's just me, but before I learned this trick, 50% to 75% of my eggs cracked when I boiled them).

Why is that the grocery store doesn't sell hard-boiled eggs? I know it speaks to how truly lazy I am, but I would totally buy them if they sold them.

[midwife]

I find that my boiled egg cracking ratio is high in my stainless steel pasta pot but far less in my teflon-soup pot. I didn't know that about pricking the end of the egg.

Another boiled egg tip: I buy my eggs that I plan to boil and let them sit in the fridge for a week before I boil them. They peel more easily that way than if I buy and boil them the same day.

[rockinrobin]

Okay, am I the only one who boils their eggs for 15 minutes with the heat ON?

When I salt the water, I find the eggs peel fine.

[CountingDown]

* Joseph's heart healthy pita filled with spinach, walnuts, feta, broccoli slaw and craisins (120-150 cals)
* veggies and Laughing Cow or hummus
* Lowfat string cheese and Wasa (100 cals)
* Homemade Greek yogurt and Fiber One (150 cals)
* Banana and half serving of Cocoa Roast Almonds (150 cals)
* Flatout bread with spinach, TJ Eggplant pepper spread, and lowfat feta (150 cals)
* Oatmeal with nuts - 150 cals
* MSF steak or chicken strips with Laughing Cow on a Thomas Multigrain Light English Muffin (180 cals)


Hard-boiled eggs - boil 10 minutes, let set 5 minutes with heat off, rinse under COLD water, let set in cold water 5 minutes - peel beautifully and the yolks are DONE - and yes on the salted water

[midwife]

Originally Posted by rockinrobin

Okay, am I the only one who boils their eggs for 15 minutes with the heat ON?

When I salt the water, I find the eggs peel fine.

Good to know about the salt.

I'm sure I've boiled mine for over 15 minutes with the heat on before. I'm at high altitude though so water boils at a lower temperature here.

[AnneWonders]

I try to eat what I'm feeling like for my snacks. Also my snacks tend to be big (200 cal) and my meals small (350 cal).
My snacks lately:

• yogurt
• fruit
• peanut butter on whole wheat bread
• Higher fiber cereal with soymilk
• Big latte with skim milk and sometimes a small biscotti
• Popcorn
• Granola or energy bar
• Occasionally, a single serving or 100 cal pack of something junky
• V8
• Raw baby carrots alone or with hummus or dressing
• Herbal tea with a nice cookie

I also find that the more I fuss over it, or the more special or rare it is (like say, a tiny bag of Cheetos), the better it fills me up.

I can talk myself into eating getting hungry after eating a non-protein snack--The "oh I'm going to be hungry later" is usually a self-fulfilling prophecy, but if I tell myself that this is just the perfect thing to get me through to the next meal in 3 hours, I have no issues, even if it is something like a handful of jelly beans. Sometimes I think it is more about my self-talk than the food.

Anne

[WaterRat]

Why is that the grocery store doesn't sell hard-boiled eggs?

My grocery does sell hard-boiled eggs! They're in the "fresh" food area (aka the deli where they sell salads, sandwiches, etc) in little plastic packages of 2. Outrageously expensive! Also we have a mini-mart/sandwich place that also sells them, about the same price. (I want to say ~$1.50 for 2,but I've not looked lately)

Okay, am I the only one who boils their eggs for 15 minutes with the heat ON?

No, I alternate between heat on/heat off and it doesn't seem much different in the end product. Like Midwife though I make sure the eggs are a little more "aged" though if I buy grocery store eggs here that's not usually an issue. If I get the ones from folks who have chicken, I have to let them get a little older. However these are sooo good, I usually don't hard boil them.

Hard-boiled eggs - boil 10 minutes, let set 5 minutes with heat off, rinse under COLD water, let set in cold water 5 minutes - peel beautifully and the yolks are DONE - and yes on the salted water

And yet another method. And somehow we all get hard boiled eggs.

[Leeesa]

Re: getting your eggs right, a thing I could never accomplish, UNTIL I found this little thingie that looks like a half of a hardboiled egg, you put it in with your egg or eggs, and it will tell you when they are soft/medium/hard boiled, it's magical! You can usually get them at Walmart type stores in the cooking section.

[rockinrobin]

Okay. We are too cute. We're trading hard-boiled egg recipes.

[BlueToBlue]

Originally Posted by rockinrobin

Okay. We are too cute. We're trading hard-boiled egg recipes.

In the interest of continuing the cuteness, I boil mine for 2 minutes, then let them sit in the water for a few hours, until I finally remember to take them out of the water and put them in the fridge.

Originally Posted by Leeesa

Re: getting your eggs right, a thing I could never accomplish, UNTIL I found this little thingie that looks like a half of a hardboiled egg, you put it in with your egg or eggs, and it will tell you when they are soft/medium/hard boiled, it's magical! You can usually get them at Walmart type stores in the cooking section.

I'm going to have to look for that. My hard-boiled eggs come out fine (now that I know the pin-pricking trick), but being able to perfectly time soft-boiled eggs would be way cool. I haven't had a soft-boiled egg in years and I used to love them.

Originally Posted by wndranne

Sometimes I think it is more about my self-talk than the food.

So true! But for me it's not what I eat but what I'm doing. If I'm doing something I'm not interested in (e.g., work), I can convince myself I'm hungry and that I really need to stop and eat something in about 30 seconds. If I'm absorbed in what I'm doing (e.g., shopping), I can go hours without needing a snack.

[Shannon in ATL]

Probably a silly question, but... DH has an aversion to eggs - even the smell makes him sick - so I haven't tried boiling any in the house, and haven't been around any boiling in years so can't rememeber... If I boil them, refrigerate them straight away and peel them when I get to work will there be any smell in the kitchen or the fridge?

And, sillier question - I know water boils at 212... I have a Panasonic water pot that heats water for tea, coffee, soup, etc. It brings the water up to a boil and then holds it at 208. Would that water be hot enough to boil an egg in? I doubt the pot was ever intended to be used that way, but now I'm curious...