cucumber – Fervent Foodie

So simple, so tasty.

August 17, 2011 5 Comments

For as much as I like to go out to eat, and boy do I like to go out to eat, I too enjoy having a simple tasty meal at home. Tonight’s dinner was just that. So simple, so tasty. Since I talked myself out of running this morning (I guess I learned nothing from yesterday’s post), I wanted a quick and light dinner so that I could spend some quality time with my tenner shoes this evening.

After a quick fridge inventory, I decided a turkey wrap was the feature entre of the evening. 1 whole wheat Flat-out wrap, 4 ounces of Boars Head Turkey Breast, 2 tbsp Trader Joes creamy original hummus (MY FAV!!!!), some tomatoes, onions, and cucumber:

P.S. cucumbers are my new favorite vehicles for loading up with hummus. So friggin good… why did I not discover this combo sooner?!

I also had some lazy-gal’s cucumber salad on the side:

Since I go out to eat quite a bit on the weekends, during the week I shoot to eat as healthy as I can. The key for me is that “healthy” still has to equal tasty. If it ain’t tasty, I ain’t eatin!

It’s a wrap: 324 calories, 30g carbs, 9g fat, 39g protein, 13g fiber

As I sat on my balcony devouring this delicious dinner, I started thinking about how varied my meals are throughout any given week. Tonight I was feasting on a simple wrap—and Saturday night I feasted on French cuisine. Is it just me, or is it kind of crazy how much food there is to taste and experience in the world? It just kind of astounds me! I have problems. I know.

Speaking of that French Cuisine, Saturday night after Jamie, Vanessa, and I saw Harry Potter, we took a stroll over to Café Monte to get our grub on. I wonder how you say “grub” in French…? Grubeaux?

We had a bit of time to spare before our reservation, so we used a bit of it to oogle over the dessert case.

And then their expansive breakfast menu (must come back for breakfast soon).

Then headed to the bar for some cocktails because that’s what any self respecting lady does on Ladies Night Out.

Hello orange dress Smile

The restaurant was really cute inside and reminded me of some of the places I visited during the week I spent in Paris in college.

Speaking of that week, the one main thing I remember about Paris was how rude the people were and how much I hated the food. The only French word I’d learned was “poulet” (translates to chicken). So at every restaurant I visited I‘d scan the menu for poulet, then use the point and repeat technique to order my meals. Poulet. Poooooolettttttttt (insert rapid menu tapping here). No wonder the people hated me Winking smile

Luckily, the folks at Café Monte were very hospitable and also very knowledgeable about the menu items. Plus the menu was in English, so I didn’t have to search too hard to find the chicken dishes

Since I had a Living Social deal for the restaurant (Boo.Ya.), we decided to get crazy and order the cheese fondue for our appetizer:

Give me a loaf of bread, and I’m a very happy lady. Give me a loaf of bread AND a tub full of melty cheese and I may kiss you and beg to be your sugar mama. Do not be alarmed.

For our dinners, I went with the Chicken (poulet! pouuuletttttttt!) and Wild Mushroom crepes, Vanessa got some crazy looking fish dish (the Trout Amandine), and Jamie got the Lobster and Crab risotto:

I think we were all pretty happy with our meals. My crepes were really tasty, and I especially enjoyed the juiciness of the pulled chicken breast against the creamy madeira sauce. If the dish would of included sundried tomatoes it would have been a show stopper. That’s probably not very “french” though, huh?

After dinner, we decided it would only be proper to cap our night off with coffee and dessert. After nixing the desserts each of us weren’t feeling, we were left with the winner.

Carrot cake:

I’m not sure what carrot cake has to do with French Cuisine, but it was pretty darn delicious. Especially with the coffee!

On a side note, I really enjoyed the Harry Potter movie! There were some parts that were a bit cheesy and child like–but I had to keep reminding myself that these were SUPPOSED to be kids. Even though Harry had a 5 o’clock shadow and six pack abs and Ron and Hermione we making out every time they had five seconds to get a quick grope in these were the KIDS I’d been following for the past 10+ years… they’d just grown up a bit. *Sigh* … haven’t we all?

Fitness, What I ate

Run and done(ish)

June 28, 2011 6 Comments

The low down: This week marks week four of my self-proclaimed Kick the Knee Pain running program. I started off this new program with intervals of 2 minutes walking 1 minute running, and each day I run I bump my run interval time up by 1 minute. Sunday I completed 3 intervals of 8 minutes running and 1 minute walking.

Status: Other than some mild tightness in my knees, I haven’t had any knee issues so far!

Contributing “Success” Factors:

Buying new running shoes BEFORE starting to run.
Running primarily on softer surfaces (trails, paths, etc.)
NOT running every day and giving my knees a chance to recuperate
Being conscious of my natural tendency to heel-strike and focusing on NOT
Strength training. Building up the muscles in my legs and my core supposedly takes stress of the knees.

Conclusion: Boo ya.

*Note that stretching is not on the list above… feel free to leave angry comments about the importance of stretching. Maybe that will get it through my stubborn brain.

Short-Term Goal: Be at 30-minute running only intervals (i.e., no walking) with no knee pain by August 15th.

And now on to more exciting things… like this lovely tuna wrap I had for dinner Smile

Isn’t it perdy? This was a quick hodgpodge I threw together after work and consisted of:

1 can chunk tuna in water, drained
1 tbsp light HELMANS mayo (none of that miracle whip crap )
1/4 cup chopped red onion
1 small dill pickle, chopped
Handful of romaine lettuce
Handful of grape tomatoes
S&P
Dried Dill
1 light Italian Flat-out wrap

This made for one gynormous wrap, that I basically inhaled. Along with some cucumber salad:

This should be called the Lazy Girl Salad. It consisted of 1 sliced cucumber, some white vinegar, and some dried dill. Easy peasy!

Tomorrow is Wednesday! And for the 92nd week in a row, I’m going to attempt to NOT forget it’s What-I-Ate-Wednesday. I even put a reminder in my phone Smile

Question of the evening: How do we feel about my giant head on the right hand side of the page?

Recipes

Healthified Gyros & Tzatziki Saucziki

June 23, 2010 8 Comments

Tonight, I had a craving for gyros. Mmmmmm…. Can’t remember the last time I had one of those.

The task at hand: satisfy this craving as healthfully as possible.

I decided to go with ground turkey for the meat to stuff my gyro. I combined the following ingredients and formed a meat “log” which I cooked on the george foreman grill for about 7 minutes.

5 ounces 99% lean ground turkey
sprinkling of dried oregano, S&P, garlic powder, onion powder, dried parsley, red pepper flakes

Then I sliced the meat into long strips and placed atop a Joseph’s Low Carb Pita:

And topped it off with the KEY component of any gyro: Tzatziki Sauce! I mixed up the tzatziki sauce about an hour before grilling the meat. It consisted of:

2 tbsp Oikos plain greek yogurt
1 tsp lemon juice
2 tbsp grated cucumber
S&P, Dill weed
1 clove garlic, minced

Tzatziki ingredients in the bowl:

All together now!

I used some of the leftover cucumber to make a small cucumber salad (sliced cucumber, dill weed, white vinegar):

YUM!!! This really hit the spot! I do want to note that the meat was a little on the dry side. I personally didn’t really mind because I doused it in the yummy Tzatziki sauce. Next time, I’ll either add some of the shredded cucumber to the meat or try shredded zucchini and/or onion.

Stats on the gyro: 278 calories, 24g carbs, 4g fat, 39g protein, 7g fiber

Despite this delicious dinner, the night did not end on such a happy note:

What’s that, you ask? Ohhhh… that…. Whelp, that’s my iPhone, chilling in some rice, because I apparently dropped it on my way in the door and let it sit outside in the rain for three hours. 🙁

Hopefully this rice trick I found on google with do the trick and suck all the water out!

QUESTION OF THE EVENING: What was the dumbest thing you did today?

P.S. to respond to this question click the little blue button that says “Leave a comment” … look right below this line… just a little further… You can do it! 😉

Recipes, What I ate

I got eggs on the brain

June 11, 2010 6 Comments

TGIF!

It’s Friday, and I’ve got eggs on the brain! I think my body was upset with me for not taking the time to make eggs yesterday–so I decided to have them for breakfast AND lunch to make it up to myself!

This morning, I took a look in the fridge to see what I could throw into an omelet. I decided to go with 1 egg, 3 egg whites, splash o’ skim milk, chopped up red and yellow peppers, black beans, salsa, and spinach. Kind of an odd combo… but throw some hott sauce on there and you’ve got a Mexicomelet!

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA — peppers and beans

This was very yummy and very filling. I should have topped it off with salsa, green onion, and a small dollop of sour cream (duh!) but that didnt dawn on me until I was half through devouring it. Next time!

B#1 Stats: 206 calories, 20g carbs, 6g fat, 23g protein, 9g fiber

For breakfast #2 I SLAMMED a Dannon Blueberry Greek Yogurt with some blackberries and 1/2 a 100 cal pack of Emerald’s cocoa roast almonds crushed on top.

Greek yogurt is just amazing. How did I live without it?? This was my first time trying the cocoa roast almonds–and I’m a big fan. Went perfectly in the yogurt.

B#1 Stats: 175 calories, 17g carbs, 4g fat, 18g protein, 3g fiber

Today’s lunch menu: EGGS.

When I was young, my mom used to take me to a restaurant called the Sandwich Board. Their egg salad sandwich had about 13 eggs and 2 pounds of bean sprouts on it, and I absolutely loved it! So today for lunch I decided to make my own egg salad sandwich.

I had light mayo in the fridge, but I really wasn’t feeling it. So, I decided to try and make a healthified egg salad consisting of 1 egg, 3 egg whites, 1 tbsp fat free sour cream, 1 tbsp mustard, green onion, salt, pepper, and dill weed served up with sprouts, tomato, and red onion in 1/2 a Joseph’s Low Carb Pita.

This was a quite tasty first stab at healthy egg salad. Note for next time: double up on the seasonings, less sour cream, more mustard (as if it wasn’t yellow enough already).

Egg Salad Pita Stats: 225 calories, 20g carbs, 6g fat, 23g protein, 5g fiber

On the side I had a dill pickle spear and some cucumber salad (cucumber, red onion, dill weed, and white vinegar).

On the agenda this weekend are the following:

Give the elliptical a go (and hope my knee holds up)
Flat bread pizza using Joseph’s lavash bread
Make a breakfast cookie (been dying to try these — it’s like a food blogger phenomena)
Make a lightbox
Post a bunch of clothes I don’t wear on ebay and hope for high bidders 😉
Make a barley breakfast bowl
Finish watching season #1 of Will & Grace, start on season #2 😀