I was a pig yesterday.

BUT.... I was not a TOTAL pig. Because I knew the plan all week was to have a get-together Saturday night, I banked my weekly "flex" points AND got in plently of activity points with the plan to eat a LOT and still stay within my points for the week. AND I DID IT! Not only did I DO IT UP... but I am right back to it today. In the past... I would have considered last night a big cheat or a "fall off the wagon" and just call the who weekend a wash. (p.s. I did not really have entemans valentines cupcakes, I made marble cupcakes with chocolate and vanilla buttercream frosting, but it's hard to know the points of a recipe like that, so I just used the highest points cupcakes in the ww tracker) SO yeah.... 52 points for the evening... just for reference, I get 32 a day ;-)

I made the YUMMIEST lunch today. I had read a recipe on the WW site for barley "risotto" and I LOOOOOVE barley, so I thought I'd give it a shot. My version ended up being nothing like the WW recipe... but I've gotta give them props for giving me the idea.

Here's the recipe....

Barley Mushroom "Risotto"

1 cup barley
3 cups of chicken stock or broth (I use "better than bouillon and I LOVE it!)
1 box of mushrooms (I like baby portobellos for this)
1/4 cup-ish of leeks, chopped small (or shallots, or anything oniony)
Olive Oil
Salt and Pepper

In a pot simmer the barley and chicken stock for 45" or so, until barley is cooked. While the barley is cooking saute mushrooms and leeks. I used the pampered chef kitchen spritzer for olive oil-and a nonstick pan, so I hardly use any olive oil, just quickly spritzed the whole bottom of the pan. The big thing with sauteing mushrooms is LEAVING THEM ALONE! It's so tempting to keep stirring them around, but if you do that, they won't get all nice and brown caramelizy, so stir about 3/4 less than you really want to and they should be perfect!

Anyhoo.... Once the barley and mushrooms are all done, remove the pan from the heat, dump the barley into the sautee pan, add about 3T of freshly grated parmesan and stir it all up.

About a cup and a half of this is a serving (1 cup barley, 1/2c mushrooms) and it's so hearty and filling and only 4.5 points!

I also added some chicken from a rotisserie chicken to make it heartier.

It was SO good!! I was hoping to bring some for lunch to work tomorrow, but Rick thought it was really good too and ate it all!