A whole day of FOOD

Guess who forgot her camera cord at home today???  That’s right, one fervent-frazzled-foodie 😀

That’s ok, now I get to take my time with this lovely Thursday post, rather than rushing through a lunch-time blog session!

Today should have marked Day #1, Week #6 of my interval training plan… But unfortunately during my run in Charlotte Tuesday morning I started to have some knee pain 🙁

I haven’t had any problems throughout my entire interval plan.  I think the pain was probably caused by having to run on the sidewalks in the city in combination with the TON of walking we did on vacation. 

When I woke up this morning, I was still feeling a little pain in my knee.  I think I’m going to forgo running outside for a week before attempting to pick up on my intervals again.  Hopefully that will be sufficient time for me to get right back on track.  Until then, I’ll stick to the low-impact elliptical. 

Can’t believe tomorrow is Friday already!  Love short workweeks–even if it has been a hectic one.  You can always gauge my level of overwhelmsion at work by the cleanliness of my desk.  Case in point, today  my desk looked like it might try to swallow me whole at any moment:

Breakfast #1

Leftover’s from the scramble I made Tuesday night:

This was tasty, but I was really craving some eggins with turkey sausage.  Think I’ll have to pull some of my Jennie O’s out of the freezer tonight!

Stats on B#1:  141 calories, 13g carbs, 1g fat, 19g protein, 3g fiber

Breakfast #2

Long-awaited return of OVERNIGHT OATS!  Missed these guys so much on vacation!  I actually contemplated packing OO supplies to take on  my vacation, but once I saw the exorbitant amount of food I packed I decided against it.  I also nixed bringing the immersion blender and almond milk to make smoothies… haha 🙂

Last night, I mixed up:

  • 1/2 cup uncooked quick oats
  • 1/2 cup Almond Breeze Unsweetened Almond Milk
  • 1 tsp brown sugar
  • sprinkling of cinnamon

This morning, I topped the overnight oats with fresh strawberries and blueberries:

GLORIOUS!

Speaking of overnight oats, I get a whole lot  of questions on how to make these.  If you’re intrigued, check out my Overnight Oats Addition to the Foodie Q&A Page.  Also check out the recipe page for some ideas on what to put in your overnight oats!

Stats on B#2:  200 calories, 36g carbs, 5g fat, 6g protein, 6g fiber

Lunch

While making last night’s dinner, I threw and extra chicken breast on the grill for my lunch today.  I was feeling a little saucy 😉 so I decided to make up some healthified buffalo chicken.

This time, I used the following:

Lucky for me, this mixture made enough for 2 wraps so I saved the other half for tomorrow.  I put the buffalo chicken on a Mama Lupe’s low carb tortilla:

Then topped with some tomato and onion:

I was super excited for lunch ALL day today… couldn’t wait to devour this spicy treat.

Last time I made this buffalo chicken salad, I used a lot less sauce.  I think I prefer it extra saucy 🙂

On the side, I had a jumbo salad with romaine, tomato, onion, banana pepper, green pepper, and 2 tbsp Ken’s Steakhouse lite Italian Romano dressing:

Stats on Wrap & Salad:  302 calories, 34g carbs, 9g fat, 28g protein, 10g fiber

Dinner

While trying to decide what to make for dinner, I came across a bag of calabacita veggies in the freezer:

This reminded me of my shrimp quesadillas, which sounded likes a fabulous idea for dinner. 

Here’s what went into the quesadillas:

First I carefully sliced a Joseph’s low-carb tortilla in half, then I topped it with a quarter of the bag of steamed calabacita veggies, a thinly sliced light mini baybel cheese round, and three large grilled shrimp that I had seasoned with lime juice, S&P, garlic powder, onion powder, cumin, and red pepper flakes:

I put the other half of the pita on top of my masterpiece and grilled on the george foreman for 4 minutes until the cheese was melty and the pita was crispy.  Then I topped with 2 tbsp Breakstone’s Fat Free sour cream, 1/2 a plum tomato, 1/4 cup red onion, and some banana peppers:

I love it when a meal is healthy and tastes AMAZING like this one did.  Look how yummy:

On the side, I had 1 cup each of roasted broccoli and cauliflower:

These veggies were seasoned with Black pepper, garlic salt, and onion powder.  I placed them on a baking sheet coated with cooking spray and gave them a good toss before roasting in a 415 degree oven for 15 minutes.  Y-U-M.

Next time I make quesadillas I think I’ll sub in some pinto beans for the shrimp and make a vegetarian quesadilla with TONS and TONS of veggies…. mmm can’t wait! 🙂

Stats on the quesadilla & fixins:  296 calories, 34g carbs, 6g fat, 24g protein, 69g fiber

Stats on the roasted veggies:  55 calories, 11g carbs, 0g fat, 4g protein, 5g fiber

All together now:  351 calories, 45g carbs, 6g fat, 30g protein, 11g fiber

Late-Night Snack

Post-dinner snack tonight was a delicious fruit smoothie.  I put the following into the blender:

  • 1/4 cup plain Stonyfield Farms Fat-Free Yogurt
  • 1/4 cup Almond Breeze Unsweetened Vanilla Almond Milk
  • 1 packet truvia
  • 1/2 cup fresh blueberries
  • 1 cup spinach
  • 1/4 cup frozen blackberries
  • 1/2 cup ice cubes

 Blueberry bliss:

How can healthy foods taste so darn good??  Still baffles me!

All together now:  101 calories, 23g carbs, 1g fat, 6g protein, 5g fiber

Special Surprise

As you may recall, the BF was out of the country for work on my birthday, and the day after he returned, we headed to Charlotte/Charleston.  On vacation, he told me my present was “too big” to bring to Charleston, so I’d have to wait til we got home.  He also expressed some worries that I wasn’t going to like the gift…  Uh oh…  😯  

All I really wanted for my birthday was a night out in Charleston and a cupcake — (which I got several times over on vaca!), so I wasn’t too worried about the gift.

Last night was THE NIGHT.  I sat down with two nicely wrapped presents.  I was super excited to open them, albeit slightly apprehensive.

Here’s what was in the packages:

If you are like me, you’re probably wondering what the heck I’d use two travel guides to New Orleans for.  Maybe you are quicker at gathering the facts than me…. but for those who aren’t:  WE’RE GOING TO NEW ORLEANS IN OCTOBER!!!!  How awesome is that?!?!?  Flights and hotel are already booked!  Now all I have to do is research all the best places to eat 😀

 

QUESTION:  What’s the best surprise and/or birthday present you have ever received?

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July 12th

Happy day of birth to me!

Today’s morning started off with:

That’s a card from dad and a card from mom 🙂

Last night, I cooked up some of my low-carb waffles.  I’ve been tweaking the recipe little by little, and each attempt gets better and better!

This time I mixed the dry ingredients in one bowl:

  • 1/4 Bob’s Red Mill Low-Carb Baking Mix
  • 1/8 tsp baking powder
  • 1/8 tsp cream of tartar
  • 1/8 tsp cinnamon

In another bowl, I whipped an egg white light and frothy.  Next, I added 1/4 cup of Almond Breeze Unsweetened Vanilla Almond Milk and whipped the two of them together. 

Then I slowly and gently mixed in the dry ingredients and added another tsp of almond milk, and cooked them up on the waffle iron for 10 minutes.

At work this morning, I popped the waffles in the toaster then topped them off with some fresh frozen strawberries and blueberries that I heated up in the microwave and some Smucker’s Sugar free syrup.

 

These waffles just keep getting better!  They were definitely fluffier.  Definitely tasty.

Good news/bad news: 

Good news is it’s birthday and vacation time!  Bad news is, I’ll be doing little-to-no cooking over the next week or so :-/

I’m going to keep my blog updated with all the delicious foods and restaurants I get to try, and also my attempts to eat healthy while out of town!

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Pita Pizza & a Green Monster

Some nights I am really amped to try out a new recipe…. And some nights, I just want pizza.  Tonight was one of THOSE nights. 

I decided to use a Joseph’s Middle East Bakery Low Carb pita as my base.  I topped that off with:

  • 1/4 cup Classico Fire Roasted/Tomato Garlic spaghetti sauce
  • Sprinkling of garlic powder, onion powder, dried parsley, dried oregano, black pepper, and red pepper flakes
  • 1 ounce thinly sliced grilled chicken (leftover from the batch I grilled up sunday night)
  • 1 light babybel cheese sliced into four super thin discs
  • 1 tbsp fat free ricotta
  • thinly sliced red onion
  • a couple thinly sliced cherry tomatoes

Popped it into a 400 degree oven for 15 minutes.  Then, I topped it with some chopped basil from the back yard garden:

I served the pizza up with a side salad that consisted of romaine, cherry tomatoes, red onion, banana peppers, and 2 tbsp Ken’s Steakhouse Lite Northern Italian dressing with Basil and Romano:

The salad was delicious.  That Ken sure does know a thing or two about dressings 😉

And the pizza was..  in a word… Umm…. YUM.  Ok, that’s two words, but regardless this pizza really hit the spot:

Soooo goood!!!  Why don’t I make pizza more often?!

Check out this huge banana pepper I’ve got growing in the back yard:

He might have to go on my next salad 🙂

Stats on the pizza: 197 calories, 20g carbs, 6g fat, 20g protein, 5g fiber 

Stats on the salad:  97 calories, 13g carbs, 5g fat, 3g protein, 4g fiber

All together now:  294 calories, 33g carbs, 11g fat, 23g protein, 9g fiber

 

I’ve previously eluded to the fact that I’m a messy cook.  Given the simplicity of my dinner tonight, you’d probably assume that my kitchen would be in pretty good shape.  Whelp, you’d be wrong! 

Take a look at this monstrosity:

I wish I were kidding.  Can you imagine the disasters I could create if I had a big kitchen?

After dinner, I couldn’t wait for late-night snack time to roll around.  I decided earlier in the day that I’d make up a green monster smoothie for my snack to give me lots of energy for my run in the morning.

Threw the following into the blender:

  • 1/2 cup Almond Breeze Unsweetened Almond Milk
  • 1/4 cup Oikos plain Greek Yogurt
  • 1 packet Truvia (stevia) all natural sweetener
  • 1/2 cup fresh frozen strawberries
  • 1/4 cup fresh blueberries
  • 1 cup fresh SPINACH
  • 3 ice cubes

It’s green.  It’s delicious.

Mmmmm…

Thankfully, the green monster gave me the energy I needed to clean up that disaster kitchen:

Stats on the green monster: 105 calories, 18g carbs, 2g fat, 9g protein, 5g fiber 

Blog Updates

I recently updated my About Me page to incorporate some comments I had posted on the blog.  I also added a Foodie Q&A page where I plan to keep a running list of questions readers ask.  And as always, I am continuously linking all my recipe posts to the Recipe Page.  This page is actually getting pretty long, so I think I’ll be reformatting it in the near future.

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Tuesday Tastes Good

Today marks Day #3, week #3 of my interval training plan!  I am just flying right along….. Which does make me a little nervous.  I keep waiting for another knee injury to surface… Hopefully with good stretching and elevation while at work I can continue to work my way back up to running the entire time.

I’m really hoping to be able to participate in the Healthy Living Summit group run in August too…  We shall see 🙂

Breakfast #1:  Just-sayin-no to muffin(tops)

I had a breakfast meeting at Panera this morning for the Knowledgeable Network of Women in Akron.  In a previous life, I would have been PUMPED for a muffie and/or bagel from Panera…  Coffee cake?  Bring-it-on.  Nowadays I just stare longingly at these delicious treats through the glass case and drool…. 

BUT there is good news!  Panera carries Stonyfield Farms yogurt!  So, I ordered up some of that with fruit (no granola though) and a TALLLLLL coffee 🙂

Breakfast #2:  Giving low-carb waffles a second go

I made low-carb waffles for the first time last week, and I was really excited to try them again.  There’s lots of things I’d like to play around with, but for the sake of determining what works and what doesn’t I only changed a few minor things this time around.

Last night I cooked up the waffle batter below for 10 minutes on the waffle iron:

This morning, I popped the waffles into the toaster, then topped ’em off with some fresh/frozen strawberries/bananas/blackberries that I heated up in the microwave along with some PB2 (added extra H20 fo’ the drizzle).

YUMMMMMM…..  So tasty, even though the texture is not quite what I want.  Guess I’ll just have to keep on experimenting.  No complaints here!

Stats on waffles with fixins:  206 calories, 31g carbs, 4g fat, 21g protein, 8g fiber

Lunch

Lately, I’m pretty much obsessed with hummus and spinach sandwiches of any variety.  It’s not just me either.  I made a wrap with hummus on it for the BF over the weekend, and he seconded my desire to rub it all over my face and marinate in its deliciousness.  Hahahah… 😉

Today’s wrap consisted of:

Heavenly 🙂

Stats on wrap & sliced yellow pepper:  295 calories, 23g carbs, 10g fat, 24g protein, 8g fiber

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Something old, something new x2

Breakfast #1

For breakfast this morning I was craving one of my standards:  dippy eggs and potatoes.  So, I cooked up 1 egg over easy, heated up some of Jarrod’s special cajun oven potatoes, and a Thomas’ multi-grain english muffin. 

Served up with a dollop of ketchup, of course! 😉

Delicious as always!  Sometimes you just gotta go with the tried and true.

Stats on breakfast #1:  219 calories, 39g carbs, 6g fat, 12g protein, 9g fiber

 

Breakfast #2 = Healthified Low-Carb Waffles

I recently picked up some Bob’s Red Mill Low-Carb baking mix, so I decided to try and make some low-carb waffles this morning.

I mixed up:

  • 1/4 cup Bob’s Red Mill Low-Carb baking mix
  • 1/4 cup + 1 tsp Almond Breeze unsweetened almond milk
  • 1 egg white
  • Sprinkling of cinnamon

Poured the mix onto the waffle iron, and let it cook for about 10 minutes.

Meanwhile, I mixed up half a serving of PB2 and made it a little on the runny side (for drizzling!).  I also microwaved 1/4 of fresh frozen strawberries.  Once nice and hot, I added a sprinkling of Truvia to sweeten them up and a drizzle of Smuckers sugar free syrup.

All together:

This was a good first stab at low-carb waffles!  Next time, I think I’ll add half a packet of the truvia to the actual waffle batter and also 1/8 tsp of baking powder to help the waffles perk up a bit.  Definitely gonna play with this idea some more!

Stats on just the waffles:  126 calories, 12g carbs, 3g fat, 18g protein, 5g fiber

Stats on waffles with all the fixins:  170 calories, 21g carbs, 4g fat, 21g protein, 6g fiber

 

Larabar success!!

Yesterday, I was feeling adventurous (albeit hesitant) and decided to try the Peanut butter & Jelly Larabar that I’ve been neglecting for the past week due to Larabar Fail #1 and Fail #2

Every other larabar I’ve tried to date, I’ve taken 1 bite and tossed the rest.  I actually enjoyed this one!  Wow!  I’m so surprised!  And I LOVE the simple ingredients:  Dates, Peanuts, Unsweetened Cherries, and Salt.  Still keeping an eye out there for the coconut and key lime flavors…

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