turkey burger – Fervent Foodie

TGI Freakin F!

June 25, 2010 4 Comments

Today I feel like a chicken with no head. Let me recap the last 24 hours in 13 key points:

1.) Went shopping for new pants after work yesterday, ended up buying three shirts. (I still consider this a success)

2.) Ate a Luna Chocolate Peanut Butter Protein Bar for energy before my interval training.

This was pretty tasty. It had more of a candy-bar like feel to it than the normal Luna Bars, but I think the taste of the regular bars are better than these protein bars. Worth a shot, definitely better than the Larabar Flop earlier in the week, but I’ll stick with the regular Luna Bars from now on!

3.) Got locked out. Super.

4.) Dinner consisted of a cold leftover turkey burger (luckily I had brought this with me to work and subsequently took it with me shopping). Yes, I took the burger into the mall… Haha 🙂

5.) Phone died (again). Super!

6.) Completed Day 3 of interval training. Whoop!

7.) Set alarm clock (since phone is broke).

8.) Turns out alarm was never changed for daylight savings. Woke up 1.5 hours late. Super.

9.) While making coffee, realized I never unplugged the george foreman after making my breakfast wrap yesterday. Wow, Mary. Wow.

10.) Ate a Blueberry Bliss luna bar on my way into work. And it really was blissful! Things started to perk up after that.

11.) Got to work 1 hour late. Craaaapppppp…

12.) Strawberry Oikos Greek Yogurt with blueberries and Bear Naked Maple Pecan Granola 🙂 Yummmm….

13.) Takeout lunch from Jimmy Johns. It’s starting to feel like Friday now 😀

Giant beach club unwich, no mayo, add onion and giant pickle:

Me after finishing my grub:

Blurry, but at least I’m smiling!

*deep breath*

In through the nose, out through the mouth….

😀

Plans for the weekend:

Get my frickin phone fixed
Yard Work (obviously)
New digital camera!!!! YAY!!! Super excited about this one.
Fun with friends Saturday night
Try new recipes? I sure hope so.
R&R? Mandatory.

QUESTION OF THE DAY: How do you turn your day around when you start off on the wrong foot?

Recipes

Hot Caprese, Jalapeno Turkey Burgers, and Dessert!

June 22, 2010 10 Comments

One of my all-time favorite things to eat is caprese salad. For those who have never had it, it usually consists of tomatoes, fresh mozzarella, olive oil, balsamic vinegar, and fresh basil. It’s so simple and amazingly delicious.

After my Jambalaya! success last night, I decided to try the recipe for Hot Caprese in the July/August 2010 issue of Clean Eating Magazine.

I used their basic ingredients, but modified it to keep it a little healthier (and also to bring it down to a single–albeit it large–serving).

1 cup grape tomatoes
1 tsp balsamic vinegar
1/2 tsp olive oil
S&P
1 clove garlic, minced
1 light babybel cheese
fresh basil

Mix all the ingredients (except the cheese and basil) in a bowl, then pour onto a piece of foil that has been sprayed with cooking spray. Wrap into a pouch, taking care to ensure all edges are sealed so that no liquid seeps out. Poke a few holes in the packet to let steam escape, then pop into a 350 degree oven for 20-25 minutes, until the tomatoes have started to burst and let their juices go.

Next, I carefully poured the liquid out of the packet and topped the tomatoes with a cubed light babybel cheese round. Close the packet back up and make sure to leave space between the cheese and the foil so that the melted cheese does not stick. Cook for an additional 5-10 minutes until the cheese is melty.

When the tomatoes were finished cooking, I poured them out onto my plate and topped with fresh basil that I grew in my very own back yard! 🙂

To go along side the tomatoes, I cooked up two Jalapeno turkey burgers that consisted of:

10 ounces 99% lean ground turkey
1 clove garlic
1/2 a small zucchini, grated
1/4 cup white onion, chopped
S&P, RPF, Onion powder
1/2 a jalapeno, seeds removed, chopped

Once the burgers started cooking, my nose could tell that the little jalapeno was gonna add some kick to the burger. So I decided to top the burger with some tomatoes, onion, and cool fat free sour cream atop a Pepperidge Farm 7 grain deli flat.

Sooooo tasty!

Word to the wise — use more seasonings on the tomatoes than you think you need. I’ll def bump it up next time.

Also, I definitely want to add some fresh herbs to the jalapeno turkey burger next time. Possibly cilantro or flat leaf parsley.

Stats on Dinner: 387 calories, 46g carbs, 7g fat, 47g protein, 7g fiber

Post-Dinner

After dinner, I completed Day #2 of my interval running/walking plan. I was able to complete all 5 intervals of running without any knee pain! Yay! 🙂

After exercising, I threw half of a peach onto the george foreman grill for about 6 minutes. Then I topped it with some plain greek yogurt I had sweetened with 1/2 packet of truvia and a sprinkle of cinnamon and cloves.

This was quite tasty! But let’s be honest, I was thinking about ice cream the entire time. Definitely need to give this a shot with the good stuff.

Other thoughts before bed

For those of you who have hopped on the Greek Yogurt train (gimme a whoop whoop!), and even for those of you who haven’t this FitSugar link gives a few different ideas on how to switch up your normal yogurt routine.

I’m trying out some new things for breakfast and lunch tomorrow…. this should be interesting 🙂

Oh yes! I tried the Oatmeal Luna Bar today, and thought it was pretty darn tasty!

Not my all time favorite flavor, but overall I was very pleased with my afternoon snack. It definitely tasted like an oatmeal cookie. I went to a grocery store by work tonight rather than my usual store, and they had a huge selection of Lara Bars. So I picked up a few of those to try out 🙂

QUESTION FOR ALL YOU SILENT READERS OUT THERE: Have you tried overnight oats yet? If so, did you love them as much as I do? If you haven’t tried them, what’s holding you back?

Ramblings

Confession

June 15, 2010 6 Comments

So, I have a confession to make.

…

Before we get into that matter, let’s recap lunch and dinner:

As posted earlier, I was ill-fated this morning so I decided some pizza for lunch would help me come around.

Lean cuisine cheese pizza with leftover gionino’s hot sauce… Pretty darn close to the real thing:

If you haven’t tried hot sauce on your pizza, I am begging you to give it a try!!! Soooo good!

On to dinner. Things just keep getting better! I don’t mean to brag, but hot damn my dinner was good! (said with midwest hillbilly accent while simultaneously throwing in an arm jab)

I had a leftover turkey burger from the weekend I wanted to use up, but I wasn’t feeling the typical ketchup and mustard fixins. So I decided to make a quesadilla burger — and let me tell you it was glorious!

Here’s what went into the quesadilla burger:

The sauces I used were 1 tbsp fat free breakstone’s sour cream, 1 tsp (AKA all I could scrape from the container) of Trader Joe’s Jalapeno Cilantro Hummus, and some Frank’s red hot. I threw it all in between a Mama Lupe’s Low Carb tortilla I had ordered from Netrition.

I also decided to take a second stab at turnip fries. This time, I cut them into larger wedges and cooked them at 450 degrees for 35 minutes.

I threw the quesadilla burger on the waffle iron (that’s right, waffle iron) to crisp up the tortilla and heat everything through. Why dirty the george foreman when the waffle iron was just sittin there begging to be used?

All together on the plate:

Not the most appealing photo, but trust me this quesadilla burger was awe-inspiring.

The turnip fries still didn’t have the fry texture I was shooting for. Crunchy? No. Tasty? Yes. I actually preferred the smaller skinny fries we made last time over these. Could be because the larger fries reminded me of the rooty texture of you know what.

Dinner Stats: 298 calories, 23g carbs, 9g fat, 36g protein, 9g fiber

On to what you are all really here for: the confession.

About a week ago, I discovered what may be the most amazing cereal on planet earth. I have secretly been enjoying sporadic handfuls of this glorious cereal since then, yet I have not posted anything about my discovery on my blog!

Well here it is.

Barbara’s Peanut Butter Puffins.

Lets take a few moments and discuss why this cereal is utterly amazing.

First the limited list of ingredients (which is pretty darn good for a cereal).

Second, one serving is only 110 calories, 23 carbs, 2g fiber, 6g of sugar, 3g of protein!

Third, the taste is pure peanut butter amazingness.

Fourth, the puffins are shockingly large. For comparison purposes:

Go. Buy. Now.

Recipes

Turnip Fries!

June 12, 2010 5 Comments

Tonight I was craving burgers and fries! Or at least a healthy version of them. So, we decided to cook up turkey burgers and turnip fries! That’s right, turnips.

I had a few snacks while shopping for groceries this afternoon:

Some Skinny Water (note the clearance sticker)

The Skinny water was pretty good and no after taste (always a plus!)

Also downed a White Chocolate Macadami Luna Bar:

This is my favorite of all the luna bars I have tried. Felt like I was eating dessert!

For the turkey burgers, I used this recipe as my guide but modified it slightly. Here’s what our burgers consisted of:

1 lb 97% Fat Free Ground Turkey Breast
1 small zucchini, grated
1/4 cup red onion, grated
1 clove garlic minced
Salt, black pepper, red pepper flakes

Now on to the fries! I don’t believe I’ve ever consumed a turnip before. I went to the local produce market to pick them up, and once I walked in the door I realized that I had no idea what I was looking for! After some deliberation, I picked up what I thought were turnips, and asked the nearest employee if they were, in fact, turnips. After a huge smile appeared on her face, she let loose a belly laugh, then told me I had picked up beets–which are not turnips for those who were wondering. 😛

With turnips (AKA not beets) in hand I headed to the kitchen to get to fry makin. We gave the turnips a good scrub, then cut then up into thin strips. We were hoping this would speed up the cooking process — next time I’ll go for bigger sticks (more like steak fries size) since the turnips shrink up considerably while cooking.

We seasoned the turnip fries with salt, black pepper, and cajun seasoning. The first batch we cooked at 450 for about 40 minutes (again — hoping to get things mover fast since we were starving). These turned out good — but were not really crispy (even though some of them were burnt). The second batch we threw in at 350 degrees for 50 minutes.

The second batch didn’t really turn out crispy either–I’ll need to play around with the cooking temperature on these guys to get it right. Despite the lack of crisp, they were definitely tasty and definitely healthier than potatoes! They reminded me of the kind of fries you get in a big sack at Five Guys Burgers (minus the grease of course).

Will and Grace time!