Today was a big day for Jack…we left him out of his cage. All. Day. Long. For some background info, Fabio and I rescued Jack (quite spontaneously I might add) back in November from a shelter. When we first got him we would leave him free during the day while we were at work. After about a week of coming home to chewed phone chargers, TV wires, cases of wine, water bottles, and pillows, we realized we needed to cage him during the day.

While he didn’t like his cage at first, he soon grew to love his cage and would even run into it in the morning before I was ready to close the door. He is pretty cute when he sits in there waiting for me to come close him in. However, the cage is not ideal and Fabio and I are eagerly awaiting the day we can get it out of our already-small living room and let Jack roam free during the day (it’s a big cage and quite an eyesore).

Anyway, it had been a while since Jack chewed anything, so we decided to leave him out this weekend while we purchased my new car. To our delight, he didn’t chew anything all day! We decided to leave him out again today (this time for the entire day) and he was pretty good! Despite finishing off some leftover chips that Fabio threw away in the small bedroom trash can instead of in the kitchen (we’ll blame Fabio for that one) and pulling some dirty clothes out of the hamper (he always does this when we leave; I guess he likes our smell?) he was great! We will try it again tomorrow and see how he does.

Workout

Today’s workout was another good one. Jack and I went for our usual one mile jog this morning, and though it wasn’t raining hard it was definitely misting and I was drenched by the time we were finished. I almost think mist is worse than regular rain because you just wind up so wet. Bleh.

After our jog I did another Insanity warm-up from month 2. Switch kicks at 6:30 a.m. are tough, but soon my blood was pumping and I felt great! I really love the whole working out early thing. I have so much energy!

This evening I used my ankle weights to do some ab and strength workouts. It was a dreary day so there was no afternoon run, which suited me fine!

Recipe

Dinner tonight came together quickly and was so delicious. I can’t wait for my leftovers tomorrow! Yes!! We had a barbeque chicken pizza with mozzarella and chèvre cheese (which is goat cheese) and caramelized red onions. Chèvre cheese is new to me and reminded me a softer, meltier (not a word) cream cheese. The salty flavor of the cheese with the sweet barbeque sauce was out of this world good. Yum! I wanted to top this pizza with arugula but we didn’t have any on hand. This pizza is amazing served with a fresh side salad. Here’s how I made it.

First I cooked two boneless, skinless chicken tenders in the slow cooker with water and barbeque sauce. I just used plain barbeque sauce that we had around, but I was really wishing I took up my mom’s offer when she said I could have some of her homemade barbeque sauce. Why did I say no?? Oh well, the regular stuff worked fine. I cooked the chicken in the slow cooker on high for about 45 minutes and then shredded the chicken with two forks. I brushed them with some extra barbeque sauce for additional flavor.

(Fabio took this pic- sorry it’s blurry!)

While the chicken was cooking, I sliced half a red onion and cooked it low and slow for 45 minutes also. I made sure to stir it every few minutes so the onions didn’t burn, just get nice and caramelized.

Since the chicken and onions took a while, I watched Fabio wrestle Jack. This is what he does when I’m cooking:

Normal.

Once the chicken and onions were almost done, I preheated the oven to 500 degrees and spread out a whole wheat pizza crust from Trader Joe’s on an upside-down cookie sheet lined with parchment paper. As I’ve explained before, using parchment paper on top of an upside-down cookie sheet helps the crust to cook evenly and allows it to come off the paper easily.

Then I spread the barbeque sauce out thinly on the crust, and topped the pizza with the cheese, chicken, and onions.

Then I baked the pizza in the hot oven for about 8 minutes or until the cheese was bubbly and the crust was beginning to brown.

Yum! The salty cheese and sweet onions were great! Fabio doesn’t even like onions but these were so sweet that he loved them! And I really liked the chèvre cheese and will definitely use it again. You gotta try this one!

BBQ Pizza With Goat Cheese & Caramelized Onions

(Yields 6 large slices)

Ingredients

Whole wheat pizza crust
1/2 red onion, sliced
1 cup water
4 tbsp. barbeque sauce
2 boneless, skinless chicken tenders (frozen is fine)
1 cup mozzarella cheese
3 tbsp. chèvre cheese

Instructions

Place the chicken tenders (can be frozen), water, and 2 tbsp. of the barbeque sauce in slow cooker and cook on high for 45 minutes.
Meanwhile, add sliced red onions to a skillet with a bit of nonstick spray. Cook on low heat for 45 minutes, stirring occasionally.
When chicken and onions are almost ready, preheat oven to 500 degrees (or highest temperature setting).
Place parchment paper on an upside down cookie sheet and stretch pizza dough out on top. Brush top of dough with remaining barbeque sauce.
Top pizza with both cheeses.
Remove onions from heat and place on the pizza.
Take chicken out of slow cooker and shred with two forks. You can brush additional barbeque sauce on the chicken if you want (I had some left on the brush so I just dabbed the chicken with it). Place the chicken on the pizza.
Bake in the oven for about 8 minutes, or until cheese is bubbly and crust starts to brown.

Note: Be careful when you remove the pizza from the oven not to burn your forearm on the oven door. Not that I would know from experience or anything Winking smile

So, what kind of toppings do you like on your pizzas? Traditional tomato sauce and cheese, like this one? Or are you more into switching up the toppings? I know Fabio prefers regular pizza but I like experimenting…lately I’ve been loving veggie pizzas! Yum!

This is Leslie.

Hi Leslie! (Does it sound like we are in an AA meeting?) Leslie is a 2012 Nissan Versa and is MY NEW CAR!! Yayy!! How did this happen, you may be asking? Why do I have a new car? Well I’ll tell you all about it. And if you don’t care about cars (I actually don’t really care about cars either) then just come back for tonight’s post because right now I’m super excited about Leslie and probably will talk about nothing else. Sorry!

Anywho, here’s my Leslie story. It all started back in May of 2006 when my dad bought me a used 2001 Audi A4. It was a great car and lasted me a good 6 years. We had some great times together, but towards the end of the Audi’s life it started making weird noises (that I purposely ignored) and having all sorts of weird kinks (the sunroof button doesn’t work? Just turn it 180 degrees and push halfway and wait 5 minutes and it will open. Oh the interior lock button is broken? Just use the key to lock the door. The cup holder doesn’t come out? Ok, just hold it in your lap…etc. etc. etc.). Finally one day last month, I got a ticket because my insurance was messed up (the insurance listed my Virginia address but the car was still registered in Maryland) and I realized I was actually going to need to register my Audi in Virginia. That meant inspections. Which my Audi would not pass. Excellent.

After getting some quotes from various mechanics, I realized it was not going to be worth putting money into fixing my Audi (the cheapest quote I got was $875 and was only guaranteed to fix one of the problems, which may or may not allow it to pass the inspection). Also, all the mechanics basically told me I could make the Audi pass the inspection but it was probably going to die on me in the next six months anyway. I realized it was the end of an era and time to find a new solution.

After a week of weighing my options (have no car, or buy a new one) I decided to go ahead and get a new car. I don’t drive to work so I was trying to see if I could get by without having a car, but after talking to my dad I realized I would really miss having a car for times when I meet my family for dinner, take Jack to the Shirlington dog park so he can swim, drive up to NY for the weekend, visit my grandparents, etc. I’ve always had a car and he reminded me how stranded I’d feel without one.

Once I decided to get a car, I had to decide: new or used. First I was looking at used cars and really liked a 2009 Nissan Sentra that was about $13,000. I was pretty close to getting it but my dad suggested I look at some new cars since there are some inexpensive options available. I didn’t even know a new car would be anywhere in my price range, so I was excited to check it out. After doing some research, I came across a few articles explaining that the Nissan Versa is the cheapest new car for 2012 and looks just like the Nissan Sentra I was looking at! Why buy a used car when you can buy a new one for just a little bit more, with the factory warranty included?

So that’s what I did! Nissan has a special program for recent graduates so I was able to get approved for the car and even got a $500 rebate. My payments will be manageable and Fabio is going to help pitch in each month since we shared my Audi before. Now I have a beautiful new car all my own! Oh, and if you didn’t get the memo, I named her Leslie (I have no clue why I picked that name lol).