Luna Bar – Page 3 – Fervent Foodie

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?

Recipes, What I ate

The best guacamole recipe EVER

June 20, 2010 15 Comments

Jarrod and I wanted something delicious for dinner, so we decided to try this recipe for Chicken Fajitas. We followed Skinny Taste’s recipe to a T, except we also made some brown rice to mix in. The recipe doesn’t say how long to marinate the chicken, so we let it go for about 30 minutes.

We both felt what threw this meal over the edge to amazingness was the guacamole we made to go with it.

My recipe for guacamole adapted from my Chipotle days in college:

What I ate

Early bird catches the corn dog

June 19, 2010 1 Comment

It’s Saturday, and you know what that means. Yard work!

You’d think for as much time as I devote to my yard, it’d be in pristine shape…. Oh what a pain in the ass homeownership is the joys of home ownership 🙂

There is one specific area of the yard that I leave completely untouched. You can see I have quite the crop of poison ivy growing:

I hit up the Home Depot this morning to pick up some spray to (hopefully) help with my poison ivy. Did you know Home Depot opens at 6am??? I leaned this little nugget of information when I called them at 7am to see when they opened. 6am? Those customers must be hard-core home improvers.

Before I got to work in the back yard, I cooked up my favorite egg breakfast: 1 dippy egg & 3 egg white scramble with S&P, Red Pepper Flakes, and Frank’s Red Hot. I always add a splash of liquid (usually skim milk or water) to the egg whites to help them stay fluffy. Also, toasted up a Thomas’ multi grain english muffin on the side.

Stats on breakfast: 218 calories, 28g carbs, 6g fat, 22g protien, 8g fiber

After chowing down, I headed to the yard.

Until last summer, I was one of those people who thought I wasn’t allergic to poison ivy. Well, that is until I accidently weed wacked some of it. I really didn’t know what poison ivy even looked like, so I was unaware of the horrible mistake I had made and basically let myself marinate in the poison ivy juices all day while I worked away in the yard. This resulted in what I will call a immobilizing infestation of poison ivy all over my legs. Since then I will not go near the stuff.

Today, I put on pants and long sleeves (despite temps in the mid 80’s) just so that I could approach the “infested area.” My luck, I’ll get poison ivy on the only part that was left exposed: my face 🙁 I’m sure I’ll have nightmares about that tonight!

I’ll have to post some before and after shots once I get it all finished (which will be never sometime soon).

After all the yard work, I was starving!

Sometimes I just get cravings for weird foods. Case in point, today I had a sudden craving for a corn dog! I can’t remember the last time I had one, but something triggered the corn dog eating machine deep inside me. So, I decided to try and make a healthified version of a corn dog. Even typing “healthified corn dog” makes me scoff. How ridiculous sounding is that?

I had some frozen Jennie-O turkey sausages in the freezer and also some Joseph’s Lavash bread, so I pulled them out to defrost before hitting up the yard early this morning.

I cooked up 2 turkey sausages – 1 for the “corn dog” and 1 for a healthified jambalaya recipe I’m going to try later in the week. Once cooked, I wrapped 1 turkey sausage in 1/2 a Joseph’s Low-Carb lavash bread, stuck in on a skewer, and threw it back on the grill.

Ridiculous, I know…

Once the lavash was crispy, I pulled it off the grill and served it up with a big squirt of mustard.

Ok – so it’s not exactly a corn dog, but eating it off a stick sure made it seem like one and it definitely hit the spot 🙂 I’m a BIG fan of Jennie-O’s hot turkey sausage.

Corn dog stats: 210 calories, 7g carbs, 12g fat, 22g protien, 3g fiber

BTW – yesterday while volunteering I had a Smores Luna Bar – and I wasn’t a big fan. It wasn’t bad tasting — just didn’t remind me of a smore AT ALL. Definitely the least favorite of all the flavors I have tried to date. I also had a few bites of a Chocolate Cherry Bear Naked Grain-ola Bar. It was OK – but again, I wasn’t super impressed. Apparently I was hard to please yesterday…

What did hit the spot, however, was the Gioniono’s pizza we had for dinner:

Still trying to decide what to cook up for dinner tonight… Suffering from foodie’s block.

Fitness, Ramblings

Busy Bee & I miss running

June 17, 2010 17 Comments

Tonight has been one of those nights where I haven’t stopped moving since the moment I got off work. Walked in the park with my sister, grocery shopping, mowed the lawn, laundry… and it’s after 9 and I’m pooped!

Tomorrow I am volunteering with the United Way of Summit County for the Day of Action. I decided I’d try and pack some healthy snacks to take along since I know they will be providing us with some unhealthy temptations. (I’m sure I’ll succumb to at least one 😉 )

Walking in the metro parks this afternoon really got my desire to start running churning again. I would consider myself an active person since I’ve played soccer since elementary school, and I just generally enjoy being outside and moving around. A few months back I decided to start running and I loved it! I felt like I had found a new passion. Running first thing in the morning really energized me for my day, and I felt absolutely great. But unfortunately I injured my knee. Still not entirely sure what happened there. The doctor tells me “some knees just aren’t made for running.” I’m not ready to accept that. I hate doctors. But that’s a different blog for a different day.

I stumbled upon this website which gives a plan for building yourself up from walking to running. Stamina is not my issue — I can run 5K no problem (well before the knee issues began that is). I think what I need to focus on is not stamina but strength.

The Plan (3o minutes per day, 3 days per week):

Week #1: Two minutes running/four minutes walking
Week #2: Three minutes running/three minutes walking
Week #3: Four minutes running/two minutes walking
Week #4: Five minutes running/three minutes walking
Week #5: Seven minutes running/three minutes walking
Week #6: Eight minutes running/two minutes walking
Week #7: Nine minutes running/one minute walking
Week #8: Thirteen minutes running/two minutes walking
Week #9: Fourteen minutes running/one minute walking
Week #10: Run the whole time!

I guess the worst that could happen is my knee will hurt, and I’ll have to stop. I think I’m going to give it a shot! I’m just hoping the knee can handle it. Also, how the heck do I keep track of my time in 2 minute intervals? Maybe there’s an iphone app…. Haha.. of course there’s an app 😉

As of yet, no big plans for the weekend and no new recipes scheduled for experimentation. But I did find this little message in a treat I had earlier this week:

Now I have to do something new! I’m really funny about messages like this, or even messages that come in fortune cookies. I often carry them around in my wallet as a reminder to think positively and enjoy everyday. Somtimes you just need a visual.

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!

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