Panda Lunch

There's no place like home...

2009-10-21T19:58:00.000-07:00

Hey there!!

Wow, what a lazy blogger I am these days! Actually I have just been gone a lot. Two days after the chicago trip, I turned right around and drove 9 HOURS by myself to Biloxi to see my sweet husband who's at Keesler AFB right now for training. :(

*sigh* I miss him.

I have also missed all of my fellow bloggie friends! I don't know why, but when I am neglecting my poor little blog, I also neglect to read and comment on everyone else's which makes no sense. So next on the agenda is to catch up on what everyone else has been up to!

So the Chicago trip was kind of a bust. I am not even going to dignify it with a recap, LOL. Nothing against Chi town, just a lot of bad circumstances that added up to one bad trip!

However, our hotel was super fabulous and filled with art. So I did get to check out some pretty fun eye candy. Above is one of my favorites pieces. It was huge and spanned a whole wall.

One highlight was finding a Lucy store, LOVE this place. I got two super super cute yoga tops there on sale!!

Biloxi was less than impressive too, but I really was just going to see my hubby because I missed him terribly, he's been gone for SO long! There's not much to do there in Biloxi, so we drove to New Orleans twice during my trip, by the third day, he was like "please, don't tell me you want to go to New Orleans again!!" LOL.

One of my favorite things was Cafe du Monde, pretty much all they serve there is their world famous Chicory Coffee and Beignets, so he had the beignets and I had the coffee, naturally, since the fried donuts didn't exactly fit into my GF lifestyle!

I've had this brand of coffee before and hated it, but decided to try the real deal at the real place, and LOVED it!! SO good! And the hubby was quite impressed with the beignets also.

Good lordy look at the mounds of powdered sugar on those bad boys. I wasn't even tempted in the slightest. I think I got a little contact high from being close to all of that powdery sweetness, lol.

I also bought the mug for a little souvenir. I'm not much of a souvenir kind of gal, but I really thought this place was cool and wanted a little reminder.

One thing I have learned to appreciate during my travels, however is the comforts of home. Nothing can replace those things. Don't get me wrong, I LOVE to travel and experience new places, but nothing really beats just being in my own routine and having all of my own food options at my fingertips, not having to worry about if there are going to be decent options where I'm staying, etc. I was so relieved to return home and get back to my little kitchen! The only thing that will make things complete is when Kermit gets home in approx. 8 days! I cannot wait!!

One of the first things I made was ratatouille (based loosely on this recipe) I was craving warm cooked veggies and lots of them! I've been reading about the way yogis eat and ayurvedic diets, etc. And this led me to stumble upon lots of interesting reading about "balancing your dosha" basically your dosha is determined by your body type, energy level and somewhat by your personality. You can take a test here to find out what yours is. Mine is Vata. And apparently I should shy away from the raw foods and salads and stick to warm comforting foods. Um, yes please! I can live with that! However, there are very few absolutes in my diet, so I just consider this a good guideline, it's not like I'm never going to eat a salad again! :)

Which brings me to a new favorite condiment of mine that is a huge part of most ayurvedic diets...

Ghee!

I have seen this stuff in the international market before and was kind of scared of it, LoL. But when I found out what it actually was, I was intrigued and had to buy some. It's clarified butter made from bringing the butter to a boil and letting the impurities rise to the top and then those are skimmed off, leaving the purest part of the butter. My favorite thing about ghee, is that is tastes just like browned butter since it's been boiled. It's absolutely delicious and it's only 45 calories for a tbsp. and I have yet to use a whole tbsp. at a time, it usually only takes a half to add lots of flavor and richness to a dish. YUM!!

I also made a second batch of the ratatouille yesterday and this time topped it off with some avocado and marinara, who says avocado can't go with Italian food?

The fresh mozzarella I had in the fridge for a few weeks did not pass the sniff test LOL, and I was really wanting something cool and creamy to top my dish, so avocado fit the bill and it was delicious!! What a great sub for cheese since I'm trying to curb my dairy consumption!

And last but not least, I have to make mention of one of my new favorite treats. Sofia wine, it comes in these cute little pink cans with little pink bendy straws. It's a sparkling white that basically tastes like a semi sweet champagne. It's such a fun little drink! I took a 4 pack to our friends' house for dinner on Saturday and they were a hit! I LOVE these!

I will see you all very soon!

P.S. does anybody watch that show on TLC called "I didn't know I was pregnant"? LOL, I am watching it now, and the particular episode I'm watching is titled "Is that a baby in your pants?" LMAO, too funny.

Blogging on a Jet Plane

2009-10-04T05:45:00.000-07:00

Hello bloggies!

I am currently airplane blogging from the smallest plane I've ever been on! Yikes! We're squeezed in here like sardines! I'm on my way to Chicago for a mini vacay with my mom while she's on a biz trip, fun, huh!

I feel like my blog has turned into a weekly recap since I've been so busy, but that's not such a bad thing!

So here are some fun things that happened last week!

First the most exciting thing was our Nashville blogger meetup on Tuesday. We all met up at Calypso Cafe for some fun girlie time.

Right to left: Kim, Heather, Justine, myself and Mandy.

I had such a blast chatting it up with these girls and getting to know everyone better!

Mandy and I both got the Lucayan Salad, I sadly had to forgo the yummy corn muffins, as I'm afriad they don't comply with my g free diet, but I substituted the sweet potatoes which are MOST delicious!

I pretty much inhaled the sweet potatoes right away then ate just a few bites of my salad and was almost full. I had to leave room for this bad boy!

Tasti D Lite is right across the street, so you know we had to hit that up. O. M. G. This stuff was good!

We all ended up getting two of the daily flavors swirled together — Peanut Butter Cake and Latte, so good! I had mine topped with heath bar, but actually wish I had just gotten it plain and enjoyed the froyo. But it was still so yum!

Here are a couple bfast and lunch highlights from last week

Nature's Path Mesa Sunrise waffle topped with a little smart balance and some black currant preserves with a micro-poached egg and some blueberries on the side. I was stoked to find my favorite cereal was also a waffle! So I bought a box, and they were delicious! This was actually my last one! :(

I also had some french pressed coffee with almond milk. As you can see I have ruined the finish on my poor little Bodum french press in the dishwasher. I put everything I shouldn't in the DW because I'm lazy like that.

Homemade waffle smuggled from nana's kitchen, topped with pecans, maple/smart balance and some blueberries ( I was sooo excited to find blueberries at the store last week, I thought the season was done!)

also this particular morning I stumbled upon some deliciousness with my coffee. I am going to explore this idea more in the coming weeks, as I have purchased supplies to improve it. But here's what I did, I made my coffee like always, and added creamer, no sweetener at all, and then I threw a Lindt 90% dark chocolate square in there and stirred until it melted. This tasted like the most amazing dark chocolate mocha I have ever had!! It only had less than a gram of sugar in it too, so it was mostly about the chocolate and the coffee, with the slightest hint of sweetness. It was amazing! The only thing is dark chocolate really doesn't want to melt very easy, so I've purchased some Ghiradelli unsweetened coco to try that out next! I have never thought to add unsweetened or barely sweetened chocolate to coffee!

BTW, if you haven't tried that new Lindt 90%, go out and get some NOW!! It's amazing! It has 3 g of sugar per serving which is 4 squares, and it also has 3 g of dietary fiber per serving, has anyone else noticed that dark chocolate is loaded with fiber? How awesome is that? Oh, and this particular kind also has no soy! Do you know how hard it is to find chocolate with no soy!?

Not a fan of the soy, it breaks me out immediately after eating, I'm talking like overnight.

One of my lunches included a repeat of the everything in the fridge salad, a leftover GF roll, and a Kind bar. I've also been completely addicted to those chocolate mint waters here lately. I was afraid to try them for the longest, but once I did, I was completely hooked. They're really good! Not sweet at all, but really minty and slightly chocolatey. If you read the ingredients it says Mint and Cocoa Essence, whatever that is.

And here's a peek into the lunch bag of laziness.

An Amy's tamale verde, (these are actually REALLY good for lunch a la box) a pear that was WAY too crunchy but I ate it anyway, a jamfrakas bar and a cashew cookie lara.

Okay, so nobody guessed the Halloween costume, but Christie had a really good guess with Kate Gosselin, haha!

I am going as Carmen San Diego! I grew up on a pretty strict TV diet of PBS as a kid (unless I was at the grandparent's house then I watched all kinds of garbage) So Carmen was my homegirl, I absolutely LOVED that show! I am totally excited to be dressing up as her this year. So I got my red trench coat which is totally cute and I actually packed it for the Chicago trip, I've already got the knee high boots, and now all I've got left to find is a red fedora and some type of black brief case thing.

*** edited to add image in case anyone is unfamiliar with the lovely Carmen ***

I begged the hubby to go as "Where's Waldo" and he did not oblige. Instead he's going as the creepster Frank the Bunny from Donnie Darko. All I have to say is Grrrr. Not cute, honey.

We matched last year, he was Speed Racer and I was Trixie, it was totally fun, and the year before that we did not match, as he was George W. and I was a Geisha so it was kind of an international scandal, LoL. So as of right now, he's compromising and we're doing the matchy thing every other year.

Has anyone else gotten their costumes picked out for this year already? If so please share! Do you and your husband/bf/significant other dress up in matching or coordinating costumes or do different stuff? What was your most memorable costume ever? I'd love to know everyone's answers!! :)

I will definitely be getting lots of blogworthy stuff while in Chicago, so if I don't get to blog while there, I'll definitely do an update on the return flight. My girl Kristen has given me some great suggestions of things to do while there since it's my first trip!

See you soon!!

Things I Heart

2009-09-27T20:19:00.000-07:00

Hello!!! Remember me?

Wow, I feel like I haven't blogged in FOREVER!! It's been over a week. But, last week was fabulous, I got all my work done, managed to have some fantastic workouts and got in bed around 10 each night, so I caught up on some MUCH needed sleep, and unfortunately, the blog was what suffered. But it felt amazing to get finally caught up on work and sleep and actually get to work on time every morning last week. I didn't oversleep once, and I was able to actually function and not be a zombie! So it was worth it to make a few sacrifices. I am sorry for my total lack of comments on everyone else's blog too, I hope to catch up on those as well! Anyway I'm back now with some fun updates!!

Here are some things (food and non-food) from the past week and a half or so that I absolutely LOVE LOVE LOVE!!!

Skype!!!

OMG! Why have I never used this before! As much as the hubby travels, I so wish we had discovered Skype sooner!! So we have been video chatting it up while he's in Biloxi! Super fun!

ZUMBA!!

Thanks to Mandy, I tried Zumba for the very first time last Sunday and LOVED it!! I will definitely be doing this workout again soon! We had a blast while blasting some calories! It was a great workout, and the hour went by SO fast because it was so much fun! We had planned to do it again today but I was feeling a bit sick... I think from some bad tuna salad I had at Panera yesterday... yuck. So I had to drop out. But hopefully will be able to do it again soon!!

Sunshine Falafel Burgers!

Went to Whole Foods last week and found these, LOVE them! It's like hummus in burger form!

Cashew Cream!

Made my own cashew cream for my coffee since I'm trying really hard to kick the dairy habit, or at least cut way back.

This was so easy and delicious! I just soaked equal parts raw cashews and filtered water overnight and threw it in the blender the next morning and blended until smooth and creamy. Hello new coffee creamer!! I loved this, it's creaminess and taste is so similar to half and half!

Leftover Coffee Smoothies

Speaking of coffee, as I've turned over this new leaf, I have also been getting to work on time most mornings, so I usually don't have time to finish my HUGE thing of coffee that I always make, so I have been enjoying these left over coffee smoothies on the way to work. I usually just throw in what's left of my morning joe, some frozen banana and about half a scoop of vanilla protein powder. Then I just sip it on the way to work. I love this combo!!

New Larabars

Last week my day was brightened when I came home to find a package from Larabar including two of the new flavors, PB&J... um, yum! And Tropical Tart, this is also amazing!! And two old faves, apple pie and cashew cookie. Don't know who sent these, but THANKS!!

They were perfect fuel to take with to work for pre-workout snacks. I have started trying out the Y by where I work instead of driving all the way home, changing clothes then driving to the Y close to where I live. This has been working out beautifully, they offer TONS of 5:30 classes, and more variety than the one I usually workout at.

Which brings me to two more new things I love: : Kickboxing and Circuit Training!!

Yes! I tried these two classes for the first time last week and absolutely loved them both. Kickboxing kicked my booty, and I loved every second! And there's this class called ultimate circuit training which is basically plyometrics (LOVE) mixed in with some intermittent weight training and we even did a little zumba. This class was by far the BEST workout I have EVER had! I'm so doing this every week now! I have been begging my Y to offer a plyometrics class. And now I've finally found one, I am beyond excited. Plyo is one of my favorite workouts ever since I did the P90X program.

Pamela's Products Bread Mix

I tried this bread mix at the suggestion of Maria. And it did not disappoint. This was the absolute best GF bread I have ever had as far as just plain old bread goes. This tasted like the real deal. It's moist and yeasty and not crumbly at all! I love it! I can't stop eating it!! Mmmmm... carbs.

Red. wine

I found this red wine at the Woodland Wine Merchant on Friday, it's just called Red. it's a blend of Cabernet Franc, Cabernet Sauvignon, and Merlot, (I think) and maybe a Zin? I can't remember, anyway, this wine is unbelievably good! I just love red wine blends, they are where it's at for me. And for around $10 for this bottle you can't beat it!

I paired it with Friday night's dinner:

Sauteed zucchini, yellow squash and grape tomatoes topped with bruschetta and fresh mozzarella and basil,

Pictured above, with bruschetta, mozzarella and basil, below, before toppings.

and tonight's dinner which was one of my signature (everything in the fridge salads) and some Mary's crackers.

This salad was ridiculous, it had baby greens, grape tomatoes, feta, mozzarella, avocado, garbonzos, raisins, pecans, cashews, blueberries, balsamic vinegar and just a drizzle of Drew's Balsamic Rosemary dressing. Holy Yum.

Here is something I did not love:

My salad from Panera yesterday with the evil tuna salad. :( No thank you Panera.

I love Fall!! Which brings me to the last thing on my list.

I love, deciding on and finding my Halloween costume each year. We always get together with friends and have a big costume party. So tonight, I purchased the base piece for this year's getup.

I ordered the red one.

Can you guess who I am going as this year?

BTW, I really enjoyed reading everyone's answers to my last post. That was so interesting!

Who Reads Your Blog?

2009-09-16T20:45:00.001-07:00

Just a quick post today, then back to logo land a.k.a. work. I am overwhelmed with logo orders right now!! Which is fun, but also exhausting! I got to do a logo for a yoga studio last week though, so that was kind of awesome!

I have to share this mixture I had post workout on monday and tuesday this week. I have been seeing it float around the blogosphere and had to try it. Avocado and tuna! It sounds kinda weird, and looks kinda gross. But it's delicious!! I just mixed half a can of solid white albacore with about 1/3 ripe avocado and mashed it all up together. Monday I mixed in cherry tomatoes and last night I just threw it all atop a bed of baby greens, cherry tomatoes and black olives. I also had some grapes on the side. For the salad combo, I drizzled the whole thing with a little balsamic vinaigrette, no dressing needed! So good!

After that, I had a pear and some green tea. I am really trying to curb my late night snacking, and decaf green tea seems to help. I've been staying up too late trying to get work finished, and inevitably I get hungry. Yuck, I can't wait to get back on a more normal schedule!

Breakfast this morning was super simple and definitely not the hugh jass one I am used to. I am also trying not to gorge myself in the mornings like I have been with my workout schedule and sleep schedule all messed up I am having to really watch what eat. It totally sucks.

But this was actually really good and plenty filling. I also had a green smoothie on the way to work.

I just had a TJ's gluten free waffle with a little smart balance melted on top (if you have not tried these waffles, you've got to, gluten free or not, these are so good, they remind me of Eggos, and they toast up super crispy and yummy!) Then I had half a banana stuffed with ABAB and of course a huge cup of french pressed coffee with almond milk. It did the trick.

This morning while I was packing my lunch it was a super dreary and rainy day outside, so I thought packing this fresh summery lunch was just the thing to perk me up! I packed a simple salad with baby greens, cherry tomatoes from my mom's garden, a few black olives and feta, then I made a little fruit salad with mango and strawberries. I also packed grapes and almonds for snacking. This was incredibly delicious for something so simple!

I worked out chest/back/arms tonight and did cardio, and refuled with some juice I made then a pumpkin/vanilla protein powder/almond milk shake. No pics of these as I pretty much inhaled them and was in a hurry to get a shower!

Okay, so here is my big question for the day! Who reads your blog? Mandy and I were talking about this the other day over coffee, and it's something I've always wondered. Who reads your blog that is outside the "blogosphere" like just everyday people in your life.

It's something I've often wondered, and the answer is probably different for everyone. I didn't realize when I started my blog that I wasn't ready to share it with everyone. Of course I love fellow bloggers/blog readers stopping in, but it's a little weird to think of certain people that I know reading, so therefore, at least for now, I'm kind of guarded about it, which is why I don't always get pics of everything I'd like to. My mom who is pretty much my best friend has read it from the beginning, but it even took me a while to let my husband start reading, now he's a HUGE fan (right, honey?) LOL.

So, I'd love to hear everyone else's thoughts on this! Do you just let anyone and everyone in on the bloggie fun, or do you pick and choose who you tell about it?

Well, I am off to go brew a big cup of decaf green tea and get back to work! Not exactly the big carby snack I'd like right now, but whatever! :)

An Unusual Wake Up Call

2009-09-14T21:15:00.000-07:00

Hey!! I'm finally back, I missed my blog, and all my bloggie buddies!

Wow, I have been slacking here lately! Just been super busy per usual, things will slow down soon I'm sure. Anyway, most of my food was not all that blog-worthy as I've been in such a hurry these days, nothing spectacular, so I'll just hit the highlights.

This morning I was awakened to the alarm going off at 5:30 am. No, not the alarm clock... the burglar alarm. We have a friend staying with us for a while, and he came in at 5:30 this morning and didn't know that coming in through the garage also triggers the alarm. So I RAN downstairs and deactivated it, but it was too late, our alarm company had to call me to make sure everything was okay, and I told them it was a false alarm.

But my abrupt wake up call wasn't such a bad thing though, it got my tail out of bed and awake in a hurry, just in time to take the puppy on a nice long walk before the sun came up. So that was actually kind of nice!

After my walk, I had a super delicious parfait: Oikos, four big strawberries and a crumbled up macaroon on top. This has become one of my favorite breakfasts/snacks ever! I just wish blueberry season wasn't over :(

Some highlights from last week:

I got to meet Mandy from Mmmm... Meals, Mommyhood, Makeup & More! who, by the way is totally sweet and adorable in person! :) We met up for coffee on Thursday, and she is going to introduce me to Zumba tomorrow, and then we're meeting up for dinner Thursday. So I'm super excited about that! I've been wanting to try Zumba for a while, but have been a little intimidated by the whole thing, so it's really nice to have someone to go with! :)

My mom and I went to one of my favorite places on Friday, Romano's Macaroni Grill! The food photos didn't turn out too great since I was taking sneaky shots with my iPhone, but I did get a shot of my table doodling. I always have to draw on the table, at Romano's, I can't help it, it's the artist in me :)

We split the warm spinach and goat cheese salad and the Mozarella ala Caprese, it was so good and perfect portions. Plus it didn't leave us feeling too full so we were able to sneak this in afterwards:

Yes, we found happiness within. In the form of maple ice cream with pecan and white chocolate chip mixins. We just got the small and had them split it into the little baby cups, once again, perfect portion!

In other sinful and indulgent treat news: I finally gave in.

And I am not ashamed. I had a pumpkin spice latte from Starbucks. I couldn't take it anymore! I had been seeing them on everyone's blogs for a week or so, looking all delicious and what not. So I had to have one. But I ordered it with nonfat milk and asked them to only put half the syrup. I don't know why I had never thought of that before, but half was just perfect! I am SO not a big sugar person, but here lately my sweet tooth has been getting the best of me. I've got to get it in check. But anyway, the latte was delicious, and I was glad I had it. Flavored, sweetened coffee is something I do maybe a handful of times a year, so that was well worth it.

I am off to try and get some sleep. My sleep has not been that great with the hubby gone. I have been taking in tons of late night tv which is usually food network, (my fave) Has anyone seen that show called "The Best Thing I Ever Ate" ? They ask various chefs and foodies what the best thing they ever ate was. The only thing that narrows it down is they have a theme, like desserts, or dishes involving bacon, etc. I've only caught it a couple of times, but I just keep thinking: how do these major foodies decide what the best thing they ever ate was? I'm pretty sure I haven't had near the delicious variety of food these people have and I still don't think I can effectively answer that question!

What's the BEST thing you ever ate in the following three categories:

1) Dessert
2) Home Cooked Meal
3) Restaurant Meal

Here are mine (I think...)

1) ghiradelli cheesecake from cheesecake factory (I'm such an ice cream junkie anything from marble slab is a close second though!)
2) nana's enchiladas
3) melting pot fondue!

first on the agenda tomorrow, catch up on every one else's blogs! I have missed those too! See you soon!

Pre and Post Workout Pumpkin "Pudding"

2009-09-08T21:06:00.001-07:00

Say that five times fast!!

It was a very pumkin-y kind of day today. My meals today were probably nowhere near balanced, but they were none the less delicious and I ate what I craved which was pumpkin and lots of it. I had picked up a huge thing of canned pumpkin last week and proceeded to put it to good use today.

I'll start with my new favorite creation and current obsession.

After work I had decided I was going to the gym, but needed a little pre workout snack. Here is what I threw into the blender:

as you can tell it's all very precise ;)

about 3 or 4 chunks frozen banana
1 cup or so unsweetened coconut milk
3 heaping spoonfuls of pumpkin (probably about 1/2 cup or so)
dash of cinnamon
heaping tsp. almond butter
1/3 package Jay Robb vanilla egg white protein powder

I just threw all of this in the blender not knowing what would come out, but I was not ready for the deliciousness that ensued. First of all, the texture was AMAZING, it came out so creamy and thick, this might have been due to the guar gum in the coconut milk. And secondly, it really reminded me of pudding. It was SO good. It totally rocked my face off. So I inhaled it and headed to the gym for a super sweaty and wonderful workout, during which all I could think about was the pumpkin "pudding" I had before, so I had to come home and make more immediately.

I used pretty much the same ingredients except this time, no cinnamon and I added a tsp. of ground flax.

I put it in this little parfait cup, and if I could have gotten my face in there to lick it clean I would have!

Breakfast this morning was a TJ's gf toaster waffle topped with some pumpkin mixed with a little apple butter and topped with toasted pecans. OMG, so good! It was like dessert for breakfast, but not overly sweet!

before I left for work, I needed a little more breakfast in my life, and I had about half a cup of coffee leftover, so I decided to make a smoothie creation. I put the coffee, half a banana, about 1/3 cup pumpkin and some vanilla protein powder in the blender. I have been seeing those pumpkin spice lattes at Sbux here lately, and keep wanting one, but I DO NOT want all the sugar that comes along with it, so this totally satisfied that craving. It was creamy coffee pumpkin deliciousness. I was going to take it with me on the way to work, but I sucked it down before I ever got out the door.

Speaking of dessert for breakfast, yesterday morning I had made a pot of overnight oat groats with brown rice, and decided to make Kath's carrot cake oats out of it, after seeing Paige make them the other day.

I cut the recipe down to make a smaller bowl, and used less of everything, it was still sooo filling. And definitely yummy, my favorite part was the "icing" on top.

This post is totally out of order, I know... whatever!

Here is my lunch spread from today for what it's worth, it was the only meal I had today that didn't involve pumpkin LOL. Butter lettuce salad with grape tomatoes, banana peppers, goat cheese with some hummus on the side for protein and blue chips for dipping. I also added a little avocado after I took the pic. I had a pear and a key lime larabar for snackies. And lots of fluids!

I also got my daily dose of dark chocolate in today!

Hope everyone's tuesday back at work/school, etc. was fabulous!! Yay for 4 day weeks, tomorrow is already hump day! I am going to jump off and get some sleep!

See you soon!

Oh, I almost forgot, Gluten Free Gidget, one of my fave fellow GF bloggers is having a giveaway check it out!

Macaroons and Catching Up!

2009-09-06T10:58:00.000-07:00

Hello! Hope everyone is having a fabulous long Labor Day weekend so far!! I am struggling to get caught up on everything including my blogging! I'll start off with my macaroon recipe.

These are kind of a spin off of the Fitnessista's raw version, but my oven won't go down low enough to do raw and I don't have a dehydrator, so I modified. I eat these all the time and have gotten a couple requests for the recipe, so here goes!

These are SO easy to make and they only use 4 ingredients!

5 oz. bag unsweetened shredded coconut
1/4 cup maple syrup (I use TJ's maple/agave blend)
1/4 cup raw almonds
6-8 dates

Preheat oven to 350. Put dates and almonds in the food processor and process until they are well ground. Add coconut and maple syrup, process until all the ingredients are well blended. Scoop onto foil lined cookie sheet. (I use the Pampered Chef small scoop to make small bite sized macaroons, but you can use an ice cream scoop to make larger ones if you'd like.) Also at this stage you'll have to do some packing, these work best if they're tightly packed before baking, if not, they'll be a little crumbly. Place in the oven and bake until the edges and tops begin to brown (This usually takes around 10-15 minutes, I've found that this really varies from oven to oven, I just keep an eye on them)

This recipe usually yields anywhere from 14-18 bite sized macaroons.

This particular batch came out really well, I crumbled one up over some Oikos and blueberries and made a parfait it was ah-mazing!

Another way I love to eat these is slathered with AB/AB

Okay, so I've been totally lazy the past few days about blogging, plus I've been enjoying every second with the husband while he's home (he's leaving tomorrow for 7 weeks) :(

Anyway, here are some foodie highlights from my hiatus! :)

Had my first stuffed dates, holy yum these are good! Kermit (the hubs) thought they looked like the grossest thing he'd ever seen me eat which is saying a lot LoL.

Had one of my fave breakfasts:

brown rice/almond bread toasted, half with cream cheese and jam, half with almond butter/apple butter and grapes!

Had some lovely juice (also, the husband decided he is not a fan of juice)

pretty much ate my weight in pears, for some reason I've decided I am totally in love with pears this year.

Had some toasted rice bread with AB/AB, sooo good.

had my fave salad from Panera (Fuji apple chicken yummm)

still loving my Joan's GF bagels!!

And not food related, but I snapped this pic of the hubby helping me hang some mirrors I got for the living room from Hobby Lobby, I got all three for $30 because they were half price, and I got this super cute tea box for only $7! I love Hobby Lobby's half price sales!

I am off to catch up on some work (yes, sadly, I am having to do a little work from home over this beautiful long weekend) but it's better to have too much work than to have none, right!

See you very soon! I can't wait to get back to my daily posting routine, it's driving me crazy not having my blogging outlet every day!

Fun Weekend Randomness

2009-08-31T04:58:00.000-07:00

Hey guys!!

I am SO excited because the husband is coming home from Nigeria tonight!! He's been deployed there for 3 weeks and I've missed him so much.

Anyway, I've got lots of fun food updates from the weekend. I stayed at my parent's house again because I'm a big ol' baby when the husband is gone and I sleep so much better over there.

My mom is so sweet, she got lots of salad stuff for us to make salads this weekend which was perfect because that is about all I have been wanting here lately is huge fresh salads as summer winds down.

Salad number 1

Friday mom made Yellowfin Ahi Tuna Steak and we had these big fruity salads along with it. She knows I LOVE goat cheese, so she got some and of course I ate tons.

You can see my tuna steak peeking out in the back there. My grandma had made a small loaf of gf bread so we made little crouton things out of it to eat with our salads.

Salad number 2

Saturday for lunch we had these HUGE fruity salads with baby greens, blueberries, grapes, grape tomatoes, sliced pear, goat cheese and balsamic. This was my fave, I don't know why but I just love fruit on salads with goat cheese.

Salad number 3

Sunday before I headed home, we made one more salad and finished off the tub of baby greens. It had black olives, heirloom tomato, sundried tomatoes, yellow pepper, goat cheese and balsamic. And yes those croutons were a little crispy, but they were still good :)

Other random food from this weekend:

Saturday afternoon green smoothies

Sunday morning breakfast

celery/carrot/apple/pear/lemon/giner juice (what an ingredient list) it was really good!

We made my macaroons. I've had a couple of requests for the recipe for these, so my next post will contain the recipe for these little bit sized baby macaroons. They are so easy and only use 4 ingredients!

And my grandma made these amazing gf biscuits, she sent some home with me which made me happy!

She made them in a cast iron skillet, I wish I knew how to use cast iron like that.

I also got to bring home this huge batch of kale and cherry tomatoes from their garden! I'm going to be SO sad when the season is over and I can't have my fresh kale for green smoothies!

I snapped some pics of these gorgeous okra blossoms while I was in the garden. Who knew okra had such a pretty bloom?

Oh, and I almost forgot, my grandma finished my aprons! Here's one:

Well, I am off to work, I can't wait for tonight!! I have missed the husband terribly! He's only home for a little bit then he's got to leave again for Biloxi MS :( So for the next few days I'll probably be spending lots of time with him, but I'll be back as soon as I can! Thanks, everyone for still reading even though I haven't had as much time to blog as usual, I enjoy each and every one of your comments always!! I'll eventually get back to my daily posting routine, but I've got to take care of my clients right now while work is pouring in like it is.

See you soon.

She's Back! With Recap Part II

2009-08-26T19:57:00.000-07:00

Whew! I feel like the weekend is here and it's only Wednesday night! I feel that way because it's been SO unbelievably busy around here that I haven't had a chance to do anything but work! I thought we were in a recession!? I'm so glad to be so covered up with work, but I'm also exhausted. I have so missed my nightly blogging session over the past few days! But each day I only had a little extra time and it was either work out, or update my blog, so you can guess which one I chose!

On that note: check out Jodie's blog, she has posted another killer core workout that is more of a butt kicker than the first one, and I LOVE it! Seriously, if you are looking to add some core training, check these routines out, I had been working out my abs prior and these still make me sore!

Okay, first things first, as promised on my last post:

Flourless Brownies (the secret ingredient is black beans! don't tell anyone and they'll never know!!)

Since beans are a legume, they are easily substituted for flour in recipes like this one. When I saw this recipe the other day on SS&GF, I knew I had to try it. There was some tweaking involved to suit my own needs and use what I had on hand. But I think they turned out beautifully, and OH SO yummy too!!

wet ingredients:
1 can black beans drained and rinsed
2 tbsp unsweetened applesauce
2 large eggs (next time I might use 2 eggs and one extra white for more fluffiness)
1 tsp. vanilla extract
2 tbsp. butter (I always use salted butter then I don't have to add salt to the mix)
3 squares Baker's Unsweetened Chocolate (I've tried other brands and keep coming back to Baker's)

dry ingredients:
1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/4 cup sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar

optional topping: 1/4 cup semi sweet chocolate chips

Preheat Oven to 350 and line an 8x8 baking dish with foil

Melt butter and chocolate in the microwave in 30 second increments stirring in between until smooth.

Combine all the wet ingredients in the food processor and blend until smooth (there will still be small chunks at this stage) Then add your dry ingredients and blend until smooth again the chunks should have blended out and the mix will look super smooth and creamy like this:

Pour into your baking dish, top with chocolate chips and bake for 25 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.

Before

After

Cut into 16 squares, enjoy with people you love! My fam totally gobbled these up!

Like I said before I might add an additional egg white to these next time for more body, but they came out pretty darn good for a first attempt at something!! My whole family loved them, and never would have known there were beans in the recipe if I hadn't told them! They are completely gluten free and I tallied everything up, and each brownie comes out to around 115 cals! Not bad.

Menden totally guessed the mystery fabric in my last post! It is an apron, and my grandmother is making me two of them, so when they are both finished I will post them. They are going to be adorable!

Here's a sneak peak at me trying out the pattern, she made out of newspaper (that's right, she makes her own patterns, cuz she rolls old school like that!) and an early stage of the first one and also a preliminary design I laid out with chosen fabrics for the other I went through these huge bins of scrap fabric she had and picked out two sets for aprons, and she is sweet enough to sew them for me!

And lastly to finish off the recap, my mom did an incredibly sweet thing this past weekend. She gave me something absolutely priceless. She gave me the New Homes and Gardens New Cookbook (1965 edition) that had belonged to my grandmother on my dad's side. She passed away when I was 14, and when she did, my mom got her cookbook.

Inside is a treasure trove of handwritten notes and recipes she collected over the years and tucked in there between pages. Of course seeing all of those things, I was overcome with emotion, and bawled like a baby, but I was also extremely happy and grateful that my mom had given me something so special, and it's now my most prized possession. Thanks, Mom!

The Food!

Okay, so I've been completely going into withdrawals not being able to blog the past few days, but I still took pics of everything because it's a habit now! So here are a few highlights:

Tuesday night's dinner was SO good, after my workout I came home and threw together this quick salad with baby greens, yellow tomato, 1/4 avocado, feta, balsamic, and an extra little yellow tomato hummus boat on the side! I also had a much needed glass of red vino!

Tuesday's breakfast was a small green smoothie and Joan's GF english muffin toasted to perfection and topped with a little lowfat cream cheese and black currant jam.

I overslept this morning and lunch was such a throw together I had NO time to even snap a pic.

Breakfast was a quickie too: GF waffle topped with some AB and banana and the other half of the banana stuffed with more AB. I have noticed that food does not shoot that well on red plates. Has anyone else experienced this?

After work I went to the gym, did abs/legs and then came home and walked the puppy for 40 minutes (so much more fun than the treadmill)

Preworkout fuel was this lovely juice!

I'm still in love with the juicer, and plan on posting a full review soon!

After my workout, I made a dinner. I had half of a California veggie burger topped with guacamole and jalepenos, some kale chips, and a few carrot sticks with roasted red pepper hummus. It was AH-Mazing! Yum.

I am happily full, and now enjoying a glass of red wine. I'm so glad to have a little reprieve from work for a night and to be able to get back to my blog! I missed it, and I missed all my bloggy friends!! Speaking of which, I am going to sign off now and see what everyone else has been up to the past couple days!!

See you soon!

Weekend Recap Part I

2009-08-24T05:26:00.001-07:00

My husband was out of town this weekend, so I spent it at my parent's house.

Friday night started with Joan's GF Sicilian pizza for dinner, my mom and I split the tray.

Oh. my. goodness. This was so amazingly good. It was ridiculous! And half the tray was only 450 cals! Not bad for pizza.

Joan, you are a very talented lady when it comes to gluten free goodies!

After dinner we had some TJ's tart frozen yogurt!

Saturday morning breakfast was a huge gf Belgian waffle my Nana made for breakfast, I ate half and topped it with black currant jam.

Then we did some shopping, way too much shopping... hmmm this sounds vaguely like a repeat of last weekend, huh!

Then I ended up having dinner at our best friends' house that night. They made grilled chicken and garlic mashed potatoes, mmm. Another couple we're friends with was there too, and we all played scattergories and Battle of the Sexes after dinner. Let me just say, both of those games made me feel like a complete idiot, don't get me wrong, we had a blast, but those games were hard!! I didn't get any photos because sometimes it's more fun to just relax and enjoy rather than capturing every single moment for the blog, ya know!

Sunday morning breakfast was delish. I made us some Pink monsters?!

Yes they turned out pink because I used tons of strawberries. But they did in fact have fresh baby kale from the garden in them and they were absolutely delicious. They also had some Jay Robb chocolate egg white protein powder, so they kind of had a chocolate strawberry thing going on.

We also split another one of Joan's fabulous bagels with cream cheese and strawberry jam.

Later on I made a huge batch of yummy guacamole for the fam to snack on, we really like guacamole in my family!

We made a lovely pasta salad for lunch with brown rice pasta, black olives, feta, grape tomatoes, sundried tomatoes and Italian dressing.

I've got way too much fun stuff to fit into one post, so I'm going to split it into two or three, but here are some sneak peaks at what's to come!

My sweet little Nana sewed me some super cute stuff while I was there

Hmmm, What could it be? Any guesses?

And my mom and I made the best GF brownies I've ever eaten...EVER!

These little guys clocked in at only around 115 calories each and were completely flourless. They were so good and easy to make! Details and recipe to come soon!

Also, I got this

and it made me cry. Story to follow! :)

How was every one else's weekend?

I'm Still Here!!

2009-08-21T06:47:00.000-07:00

I have not abandoned the blog!! I have just been SUPER busy this week. It's been unbelievable! In fact this is just a quick throw together post on the way out the door, I am looking forward to another fun weekend of foodie bliss, though, so I'll have lots to post about soon!

So glad it's friday, is it just me or was this the longest week in history? But I am thankful to have work. It seems that everyone is in a thankful mood here lately, myself included, here are just a few things I am thankful for:

I am thankful for my sweet and wonderful husband who I love with all my heart

I am thankful for my family, and I'm especially thankful that I still have two grandparents around.

I am thankful for my new juicer that I LOVE!!

I am thankful that it's FINALLY friday, I know I already kind of said that, but really, I am so glad!

And for my best friend Ekko, I don't know what I'd do without this pup.

speaking of pups, Janetha at Meal and Moves is having a fabulous give away involving puppy pictures!! And even if you don't want to enter, check out her super cute pooch, Penelope Jane!

Here are just a few foodie highlights from the past few days:

No explanation needed on this one, just simply deliciousness.

As you can see, I've been juicing my little heart t out!

Rice/Almond bread, cream cheese, AB, jam, delicious.

Mmmmm, mango.

Be back soon!! See you then!.

My Lucky Day!!

2009-08-18T20:42:00.001-07:00

After months of coveting fellow bloggies lucky enough to make their own juice at home, I am the proud new owner of a Jack Lalanne Power Juicer!! And the best part is I got it for only $30!!! Our accountant at work had bought it on a whim, used it a couple of times and decided he didn't like juicing, so he was going to put it on Craigslist. So I said hold up!! I'll buy it!!

This morning I could not wait to try it out. I was a little skeptical about the results because this is my first time juicing anything myself. So I played it safe, I used what I had on hand: a granny smith and a gala, three celery stalks, 2 carrots and some kale. The result:

Absolutely rocked my face off!! This juice was delicious, maybe because it was heavy on the apples, I don't know. I just know it was good and I'm doing it again tomorrow morning! I can't wait to try out more combos. If anyone has any favorite juice recipes they'd like to share, I'd love to hear them!!

Anyway, moving on to the usual stuff! After I had my juice, I had this lovely breakfast. As you can tell, I like to cram as many different flavors into breakfast as possible, LoL, so breakfast was 2 scrambled egg whites with 1/2 a yolk, and a piece of brown rice almond bread split, half with AB/banana and the other half with lowfat cream cheese and black current jam. So good!

Lunch was a pretty basic salad, baby greens, pecans, goat cheese and I took some pear to slice over the top. I put some left over sundried tomato hummus on the side and took blue chips for dipping. I also took TJ's Fat Free Balsamic. (almost as good as Annie's balsamic) And I took some grapes and a plum for snacking. Still on my fruit kick!

I came home from work and had this green smoothie/sludgy thing for a pre workout snack, and because I have decided to participate in this challenge on Happy Foody's blog. It actually began yesterday, but I didn't find out about it until today,

but I DID have a green smoothie yesterday, so I'm good :) Here's a photo to prove it! This was yesterday's brekkie, I took the day off from blogging yesterday, but still snapped some photos.

Speaking of taking the day off, did anyone read this post yesterday on Ange's blog? I found it very interesting and timely because lately I have been thinking about how much time blogging is taking up and decided to relax more about it and not beat myself up if I miss a day here or there, if it's not fun and stresses me out, or takes time away from real life stuff, what's the point? I started blogging because I thought it would be a fun hobby, so I am going to keep it fun and enjoyable. So what if a couple of days go by between posts every once in a while, lots of my favorite bloggers don't post every single day and I still love their blogs!

Anyway, work was a tad stressful today, so I couldn't wait to get to the gym for a super sweaty workout. I was totally fired up for my workout, I did about 45 min. of arms/upper body then 30 minutes of walking/running on the treadmill. It was awesome, I definitely felt better afterwards.

I've kind of been taking the same philosophy with my workouts as blogging these days, I used to really push myself to get to the gym 6 days a week. And these days I am realizing more and more that I don't necessarily have to be at the gym to get a great workout. Sometimes it's okay to squeeze in a quick workout at home like abs or legs, and then take a long walk around the neighborhood! Especially with Fall right around the corner, it's my favorite time to walk, so I'll probably be walking outside more and doing the treadmill thing less. There will be plenty of treadmilling when winter gets here!

After my workout, I came home and chugged this before jumping in the shower:

So good and refreshing! I wish these things weren't so expensive!

Dinner was super yummy, I had a veggie burger piled high with guacamole and some blue chips with left over sundried tomato hummus. I could eat like this all the time!

Then I had a bowl of my new fave cereal. Nature's Path Mesa Sunrise. I love this stuff sooo much, I don't know if I will ever go back to regular corn flakes!!

Well, that's all I've got for now!! See you soon!

Best Food Weekend EVER!

2009-08-16T21:01:00.001-07:00

Disclaimer: Although this weekend might appear to be a complete over indulgent food fest from which I should have gained 10 pounds, everything was enjoyed in moderation... promise. ;-)

Here's the run down:

Friday night before dinner I did this core routine from Jodie's blog. I highly recommend it!! My abs were pleasantly sore the next day! I will definitely be incorporating this into my weekly workouts because it didn't take very long, and I felt like it was effective. I also did a 30 minute walk with the puppy around the 'hood.

Friday night dinner was sauteed zucchini, polenta fries with marinara for dipping and one small home grown tomato. My first attempt at Polenta fries was a total success. These tasted just like french fries and they baked up so crispy! They were the easiest thing ever too, I just sliced up some ready made polenta, brushed with a little olive oil and baked at 450 for 20 minutes, flipping halfway through.

I also found this new little friend on my kitchen window!! How cute is this little guy?

Saturday morning, headed over to my parent's/grandparent's house where this absolutely gorgeous delicious breakfast was waiting!

a GF waffle made lovingly from scratch by my Nana.

This is quite possibly the best waffle I have ever had, GF or otherwise. I ate half with some black currant preserves and saved the other half for later this week.

I usually do arms/upper body on Saturday morning, and thought I was going to miss my workout, but then I totally remembered that Dad has a weight machine! So I did about a 30 minute workout after breakfast.

Around lunch time Mom and I headed into Green Hills for a Trader Joe's run, so we decided to have lunch at Whole Foods while we were in the neighborhood, we did the salad bar and it was amazing as always!

So I had REALLY REALLY been wanting to try tart frozen yogurt since I've been seeing it on everyone's blog these days. So prior to our trip, I had googled it, and found only ONE place that serves it and coincidentally it was very close by Trader Joe's where we were headed anyway. It's a tiny little place called Krave. So we tried it, not knowing what to expect, and honestly... I have no words for how amazingly delicious this was. I got mine with mango, blueberries and blackberries. SO good, now every time we go to TJ's we are going to have to go to Krave to, there's no turning back now!

We came home to a dinner of green enchiladas and Spanish rice made by my sweet little Nana. I had a small portion of each and was completely satisfied.

This is one of my favorite dishes that she cooks, but really everything she makes is out of this world. I'll be grateful if I inherit even a small fraction of her cooking talent.

A few weeks back, Joan of Joan's GF Great Bakes had sent me some samples to try, so I thought this weekend at Mom's house would be the perfect time to sample the goods, since she's GF too.

So breakfast this morning went like this:

Joans GF sesame bagel (split between us) and mini green monsters with kale straight from the garden (Mom's first green monster, she liked it, even though I may have gone a little overboard on the kale and they were day-glo green!!)

And coffee of course.

I have just got to say that Joan really outdid herself on these bagels. Before I went gluten free, bagels were one of my favorite breads, and I can honestly say these bagels were one of the best I've had period. The texture was perfect, crusty on the outside, chewy and soft on the inside. I was glad we split it, but could have totally inhaled a whole one! I had mine with lowfat cream cheese and strawberry preserves.

The bagels were so good, that a couple hours later, (aka snack time) we decided to break into the cookies Joan sent me. Once again, these were a winner, definitely one of the best gf cookies I've ever eaten. These things are a pretty good size and they only have 100 calories each, which is amazing! And only 8 grams of sugar, too! We shared them with the rest of the fam who are not gf, and they loved them too!

I enjoyed mine with a small cup of coffee, my mom has the cutest dishes.

We did some antiquing/shopping, and when we got back, instead of lunch, we just decided to make a small batch of guacamole and a HUGE batch of sundried tomato hummus and snack on that with blue chips.

Late afternoon, I also grabbed some more kale to bring home for the week, and some cherry tomatoes from the garden. There is nothing better than food right out of the garden!

So eventually I loaded all my stuff up and headed home where I was full from all the munchiness that had taken place, but soon enough I was feeling snacky. So I had this:

I haven't had banana soft serve in a while, so I thought it was time. I had a few blueberries and some coconut on top.

And so ends the best food weekend ever. And I'm exhausted now!! Can't believe tomorrow is already monday, boo!

New Nut Butter Creation!

2009-08-13T19:26:00.000-07:00

I finally did it!!! I made my very own nut butter and I am such a proud nut butter mama!! I can't believe I haven't done this before! I think I mentioned earlier in the week I was getting dangerously close to being out of almond butter (I've been saving the last tiny little bit in the jar for oats in a jar, another first for me). Well no more, I am fully stocked at least for a week... maybe.

A couple of weeks back I had purchased a huge back of raw almonds on sale for $2.99 if you can believe it, and another huge back of pecans for $4.99, these bags have lasted forever and I still have half of each left, so the other day, I stumbled upon this post about homemade pecan butter. And I had never thought about making pecan butter before, but it sounded delicious!! So this morning I decided to make almond/pecan butter. I threw two big handfuls of each into the food processor, set it on the highest setting and let it do it's thing. I have read that it can take up to 15 minutes to start "buttering" but I think within about 5 minutes or so, I could already see it beginning to make butter and within 10 the whole thing had turned to creamy goodness. I opened it periodically to scrape the sides down, and the more it blended, the warmer it got and the creamier it got.

Here's the final product in the food processor.

It filled up one regular sized ramekin, minus some globs I ate off of the spoon and my fingers. This is a really really good combo, if you've got the stuff to make it, give it a go, seriously! I think the almonds offset the richness of the pecans perfectly so it's not too heavy it's just right. This is like yum x 10. And I'm pretty sure I saved some dough considering how expensive nut butters are.

On my last post I got a couple of questions about my brown rice bread, so I thought I'd give it some love. First I should mention that I am gluten intolerant and I don't talk about it all that often because I really don't let it define my eating habits, I don't look at being GF as a restriction, because it has allowed me to try so many different things that I probably never would have, and it is probably the thing that began my journey of a much healthier diet in the first place. So I'm actually thankful for it, but that is a whole other post in itself.

So anyway, I have tried lots of gluten free breads, and there are lots of good ones out there, but as far as just plain old sliced bread for sandwiches and toast, etc, Food for Life gets my vote

Pictured here spread generously with my beloved ABAB mixture :) my favorite way to eat it!

It's usually sold frozen in these little mini loaves and the slices are smaller and have more calories than regular bread. But it's also denser (and tastier if you ask me) than regular wheat bread. It's not soft, but it's not crumbly at all like some GF products can be. And the nuttiness of the brown rice is really good. I usually eat just the brown rice or the brown rice/almond variety. The white rice isn't good at all for whatever reason. Anyway, this bread probably makes the best grilled cheese I've ever tasted because it's so hearty and you can get it really crispy without even using any butter. The only drawback is the price, at about $5-6 a loaf, I can really only justify buying this stuff when it's on sale, but it is quite a bit cheaper at Trader Joes, and it's not frozen there, it's on the shelf because I guess they sell more there. So anyway, there you have it, why I love brown rice bread!

I had another first, this morning, OATS IN THE AB JAR!!! OMG why have I not tried this yet?! So sooo good and filling. I also added some blueberries and a splash of almond milk.

Lunch was enjoyed on the deck at Mitchell's deli and I actually got a photo this time, but am having technical difficulties getting it from my iPhone to the computer :( I will have to share it later. It was pretty much a standard Hugh Jass salad with everything I could pile on plus some sauteed zucchini and yellow squash from the hot bar. These folks have the food thing down, I have never had anything I didn't like from there. Plus you can't beat the atmosphere, lunch outside on a covered deck = happiness.

After work the puppy and I took a lovely evening walk filled with great smells. That's right, I said smells, LoL. I love it when the evening air is just right and all the scents just kind of hang there. A couple of houses must have had laundry going in the dryer because I could smell fabric softener, and someone was grilling out what smelled like burgers and hot dogs, and even though I'd be hard pressed to eat a hot dog these days, the smell takes me back to being a kid and I just love it, and lastly, we passed a house that had the garage door open and they must have been storing old books because there was the very distinct smell of old musty books, I don't know why I love that smell, I just do.

Dinner was this huge fluffy salad made with butter lettuces, avocado and piled high with the rest of the goat cheese that was in the container, this was my clean out the fridge salad. I drizzled it with some balsamic vinegar and Annie's balsamic dressing. I've been supplementing my dressing these days by drizzling my salads first with balsamic vinegar, then I usually end up just using half of the salad dressing as usual. And I LOVE the taste of balsamic vinegar, so it works.

I also had some BURNT sweet potato fries that were actually still pretty tasty (sprayed with olive oil and sprinkled with chili powder and cinnamon), I thought about not posting them because they weren't very pretty, but I'm trying to keep it real here :)

Speaking of keeping it real, I am completely worn out and glad tomorrow is friday, I am going to hit the sack here soon I will see you tomorrow!!

Salty Chocolate = Yum

2009-08-11T21:02:00.000-07:00

After I my breakfast post this morning, I took some iced joe to go on the way to work, I just french pressed some coffee, stuck it in the fridge, then threw some almond milk and a few ice cubes in before running out the door. It was really refreshing, and better than iced coffee that I've gotten at coffee shops.

I packed an apple, and a panda puff/almond mix for snacks, and much to my delight, I found a package of Justin's almond butter in the pantry, I am not completely without AB after all! I am not crazy about Justin's AB, but it's okay.

Me and the lovely ladies I work with decided to get out of the studio for lunch, so we went to Mitchell's deli and got salads from their amazingly fresh and tasty salad bar. No photo, as my salad wasn't very photogenic, but was nonetheless tasty. But look what we found nestled amongst the cheeses, FREE CHOCOLATE!! There's a new chocolatier here in town Olive and Sinclair and they had left free samples at the deli for unsuspecting chocolate lovers like myself.

Check out the super super super cute packaging, I cannot say enough about how cute the packaging is! LOVES IT. And the chocolate was extremely yummy too. I may have taken two samples, shameful I know. But there were two different kinds, one was just a regular dark chocolate and the other seemed to be made with a little kosher salt, and was surprisingly good. It made me think of that episode of SouthPark with the salty chocolate balls LOL

The chocolate pieces were stamped with their logo too, how cute.

After work I got a super quick workout in at the gym, I just did triceps, biceps and a little upper body.

For dinner, I knew I had enough tomato soup left over for a small bowl, and after some of the comments on my tomato soup post about grilled cheese, I couldn't take it any longer. I had to have a melty toasty grilled cheese with my last bowl of tomato soup. I took a slice of GF rice bread and half of a slice of colby jack and made a mini grilled cheese sammie. I dipped it in the tomato soup and it was absolutely heavenly. What a treat! And let me just say, that brown rice bread is out of this world delicious, I don't miss regular bread at all.

Well, I am off to bed, no red wine tonight, so hopefully sweet dreams!! See you tomorrow!

Girlish Figures

2009-08-11T05:44:00.001-07:00

Last night's yoga class was so much fun. Our instructor did a "yoga for women's health" theme where all the poses were beneficial to women's health for different reasons. Anyway, she's hilarious, def my favorite yoga teacher ever, and she gave us these handouts with the poses we were going to be doing

I just thought they were the cutest things because she had drawn little stick figures for each pose to illustrate and all the stick figures had boobs and eyelashes. The one for chair pose even has a little booty going on. How funny is that.

Yesterday's breakfast and lunch seemed fairly unbloggworthy but I'll give it a go anway,

My Van's gf waffle fell apart on me, and was cold in the middle to be honest, but was actually pretty tasty topped with a huge dollop of peanut butter/black currant jelly

Also had some french press coffee and a few panda puffs with almond milk and blueberries

I was running late (typical monday) so I threw lunch together in a hurry (it was pretty lackluster and bland) just a standard salad with butter lettuce, cuke, tomatoes and garbonzos, also took part of an avocado which ended up being too green. The best part of what I took yesterday was the grapes!

However dinner was pretty good, definitely my favorite meal of the day. I had some leftover tomato soup, and I sauteed some zucchini and eggplant to go in, and topped it off with some crushed blue chips. Pretty tasty post yoga dinner.

Dessert was a dark chocolate square with some PB, oh yes, I went there. I am low on almond butter so I've been dipping into the husband's PB jar.

I also had a glass of red wine with dinner, and a couple of weeks back, I noticed a post on the Fitnessista's blog where she said she was giving up wine right before bed because it was giving her nightmares. And last night I had the WORST nightmare, I'm talking waking up in a cold sweat kind of stuff. So maybe I'll try to start putting a little more time between my wine consumption and bed too. Definitely don't want that happening again!

I had a lovely breakfast this morning consisting of a HUGE green monster (frozen banana, frozen steamed organic spinach, 4 huge chunks frozen cantaloupe, 1/2 scoop vanilla protein powder, 1/2 peeled chopped cucumber, almond milk) And I had a piece of rice bread, half with pb&j and half with pb & banana and a handful of blueberries. I am stuffed.

In other news, the husband has started reading the blog religiously now. He's a big reader and for the longest time I wouldn't let him read because I thought he'd tease me and make fun of me (one of his favorite things to do) But he finally read it and he likes it! So everyone say hello to the husband!! Hi Husband!! (His name is Kermit)

Oh, I did get a little grief when he saw this post. He LOVES that chocolate and couldn't believe I had eaten the last two squares. And he was also appalled to find that I had been using his frosty beer mugs for green monsters sometimes. LoL

One last thing, I just updated my blog roll last night, so check it out, and if you don't see your blog there and would like to, just ask, I am all about making new bloggy friends!

Simple Tomato Soup

2009-08-10T05:05:00.001-07:00

So I had this huge bowl of homegrown tomatoes that really needed to be used up today, they were fading quickly. So I weighed my options, should I make pasta sauce, nope, I'm out of garlic. Should I make homemade ketchup? It sounded good, but how often do I really use ketchup and how long would it keep? So I settled on tomato soup. It was also a great way to get some other veggies used up in the process.

I chose to put celery, carrots, vidalia onion and a red bell pepper into the mix as well

Look at them basking there in the sunlight streaming through the kitchen window not knowing they're about to get chopped up.

I just did a quick coarse chop since I was planning on putting the whole mixture into the food processor at the end anyway.

I threw them into the pot with a little olive oil, and added some salt and pepper. Once they had sauteed a little, I added a tiny bit of water and turned them down and covered to simmer while I went to work on the tomatoes.

(I also enjoyed some hummus and cucumber while cooking and had a double dose of Tazo Zen in my Swamp Thing mug!)

I boiled the tomatoes and plunged them into ice water to remove the skins then I just chopped them into quarters and threw them into a separate pot with a little water to stew. When they had cooked down I ran them through a strainer to catch all the solids and seeds, etc. and then the liquid and the cooked veggies all went into the food processor for a couple of minutes.

Once I tasted the soup, I added a tiny bit more salt, and it was good to go. There is nothing complex or overly flavorful about this soup, it's just simple tomatoey goodness.

I enjoyed a bowl immediately with a little diced avocado and some blue chips on the side. And I would be lying if I said I didn't have a couple more bowls after that. It was pretty tasty!

Have a wonderful monday, see you after dinner!

Super Busy Sunday

2009-08-09T09:34:00.000-07:00

Quick post this morning, as I am working to finish a website with a tight deadline.

Yesterday's workout was great, I did about 45 mins. of strength training, focusing on triceps, biceps and shoulders. I discovered preacher curls for the first time, loved them, def one of my new faves, my biceps are actually a little sore this morning, which is amazing since I work them all the time!

Then I had an hour long sweat sesh on the treadmill, I usually only do 30, but a whole hour felt really good. I caught up with the Real Housewives of Atlanta while doing so :)

When I got home, I replenished with this:

Not my fave, but I knew it was loaded with electrolytes which I needed.

I was absolutely starving, but I grabbed a shower first, then had this:

home grown tomato with tuna salad (albacore, plain yogurt and a squeeze of lemon juice) and a Hugh Jass salad with baby greens, home grown sweet peppers, baby heirloom tomatoes and avocado topped with Annie's balsamic.

You would think this would have filled me up. It didn't. So I then had a piece of brown rice bread with some ABAB. OMG, so good.

Still a little munchy before heading off to the store to do my grocery haul, so I had a container of unsweetened applesauce with some blueberries. I must have eaten a half a container of blueberries yesterday!

I also had my last two G&B's dark chocolate squares :(

We had a UFC fight night over here last night, so I pretty much sipped wine and snacked on tortilla chips and fruit instead of a proper dinner. Oops.

In between my deadline crunch and lunch with the inlaws after church today, I've got to find a way to use some of this abundance of home grown produce people keep giving us!!

I've got this huge bowl of tomatoes that need to be used today! I think I might turn these into tomato soup!!

And our friend Paul brought us these gorgeous zucchini and squash from his garden last night! I'll have to find something fun to do with these!

Breakfast this morning was this:

A slice of rice bread with almond butter and black currant preserves (I made a little AB&J sammie after I snapped the pic), 1/2 a banana with some ABAB, grapes and french press coffee with almond milk. Soo so good. I am stuffed!

Lost Angel Mischief? Yes Please.

2009-08-08T06:00:00.000-07:00

Yessss. The weekend is finally here, I thought it might never come!

Last night the husband and I had a little date. We stopped by Belk and finally got his birthday gift, he picked out a golf outfit, which he looked smashing in, I might add. And I picked up a new skin care system from Clinique that I am super excited about. I don't feel like I've been taking good care of my skin here lately, and it's been breaking out a little here and there, so I got the new 3 step acne kit to try, so far I love it, I used it last night and this morning

And as an added bonus, it's free gift time at Belk, so I also scored all of this, check out the cute bag! LOVES IT!

We had dinner at Ruby Tuesday, of course I had the salad bar, and I also had this:

The name sucked me in and I knew I had to try it, it's called Lost Angel Mischief Blend. I love red wine blends, and this was probably one of the top 5 I have had, I absolutely loved it, I have to find a bottle of it now! Also, I love how Ruby Tuesday is trying to get all upscale with the little wine carafes, how fun! I waited tables at RT during college, so their new upscale attitude is kind of hilarious to me because it was like redneck heaven when I worked there.

Anyway, moving on, we watched The Ugly Truth, it was pretty good, but not as funny as I thought it would be, but very entertaining and fun nonetheless.

And since Marble Slab was right across the street, we (actually I) just had to stop by and have this creamy delicious treat:

It's sweet cream with chocolate chips mixed in, I got two spoons, but the husband wasn't much help, as he's not the ice cream fiend I am, so I ended up eating most of it.

Breakfast this morning went like this:

Van's GF waffle topped with blueberries drizzled with a little Maple/Agave

Plain yogurt with vanilla protein powder stirred in, topped with more blueberries

a plum, because I am craving so much fruit these days! I don't know if my body knows summer is winding down, and is trying to get in as much fruit as humanly possible, but I've been eating it nonstop this week!

That's all I've got for now, I am headed off to the gym here in a few. Happy weekend!!

Two Day Recap/Food Porn

2009-08-06T20:23:00.001-07:00

Okay, so I went AWOL yesterday, I was a busy busy bee. I had a HUGE logo order to finish and work had to come before blogging. Anyway, here's what I've been up to:

Had a most delish green monster, my new fave combination:

Cucumber Melon Green Monster:

1/2 fresh ripe juicy pear
4 pieces frozen cantaloupe
handful baby kale
1/2 frozen banana
1/2 scoop vanilla protein powder
1 cup US vanilla almond milk
1/2 small peeled cucumber

found out from foodnfit that yesterday was national waffle day, and I did not have a waffle for breakfast... the horror! As much as I love waffles, how could I miss this!? Oh well, there's always next year.

wondered if Yogi was smoking some of his tea leaves

made a perfect knockoff of Longhorn's Strawberry Pecan salad complete with my homemade maple butter pecans, Yum-O

Did some P90X legs — got unbelievably sore, heck yes.

Had some macaroons with ABAB... absolutely scrumptious

Got an absolutely gorgeous bunch o' produce from a sweet little man that works in the same building as me that has a fabulous garden. (Those peppers are the best!)

Prepped some maters for freezing

had a yummy post workout snack (garden tomato stuffed with my special tuna salad)

Turned some eggplant, bruschetta and pizza toppings into mini pizzas for me and the hub's dinner

His pizzas (with colby jack and turkey pepperoni)

My pizzas (with goat cheese)

So so so yummy, and easy, just brush eggplant with olive oil, bake at 350 until soft, then add toppings and bake until melty. Nom Nom.

Also had some wine

and some chocolate

caught my Halo Kitty chewing the fake plant again LoL.

Whew, am I glad tomorrow is friday!!!

Oh, I almost forgot, entered Paige's giveaway!! Go enter... right now!! There are PB&J Larabars (and other good stuff) up for grabs for Pete's sake!!!

Cantaloupe and hummus for dinner?

2009-08-04T21:05:00.000-07:00

Wow, I am sore from yesterday's ab ripper. It's amazing because I've been working my abs out 2-3 days a week for a while now, but there's still nothing like ab ripper. I'll definitely be doing it more often. What's even more amazing is how sore my legs are!

Today began with a delicious breakfast of a Van's gf waffle topped with ABU and some banana and strawberry slices on the side. I also had a Yogi green tea, it was kind of a dreary morning, and green tea sounded good!

I knew it might be somewhat of a long day at work, so I packed extra stuff. I'm pathetic, I'm so worried I might have to go like a whole hour without food so I pack all these little snacks LoL.

This is a habit I've picked up since working in such a deadline driven job, you never know when you're going to get stuck late working on a project.

I took a green salad with garbonzos and blueberries, and some Annie's balsamic and maple butter pecans for topping, I totally forgot goat cheese though! Some blue chips, a pear and Panda Puffs.

But today turned out to be not such a long day after all, and I was able to hit the gym pretty soon after work. I did triceps, biceps and shoulders followed by 30 min. of walking/running on the treadmill. Total cals burned on the treadmill: 375, not too bad for an easy night.

I also incorporated some workout moves I saw in this month's issue of Shape. I'm not usually one to copy stuff from fitness mags, but this month featured Jada Pinkett Smith, and I just think she is amazing! This is actually a really great issue.

After my workout, I came home and munched on some hummus and blue corn chips.

Then I cut up this huge beast of a cantaloupe, look how it dwarfs the cutting board! I froze most of it for smoothies, but I also ate quite a bit as I was cutting it, until I was stuffed to the gills. Probably not the best dinner, but I am happily full now and ready for bed!

See you tomorrow!

No more sugar puhleeeeeeease!!

2009-08-03T19:25:00.001-07:00

Sooo, mine wasn't such a bad monday, how was yours? And now we're one day closer to the weekend already!!

Breakfast this morning was a Van's GF waffle with ABAB, half a banana, and a teensy weensy drizzle of maple syrup, then I had a small bowl of yogurt mixed with a little vanilla protein powder and some blueberries, and the other half of the banana with more ABAB. Yum.

Oh, and almost forgot, I had this, (macaroon baby with AB) x2

Man, I was a hungry girl this morning. More than normal.

I then packed a lunch as I rushed out of the house LATE! I made a quick spinach salad with two of my heirloom roma tomatoes, garbonzos for protein, feta and a spoon of roasted red pepper hummus. I also took a plum, some grapes and two baby macaroons. I'm not gonna lie, it was pretty good. ;)

I came home fully planning on going to yoga and doing my typical workout, but I had a major headache and some yucky allergy stuff going on, not to mention I had TONS of stuff I needed to take care of at home, most importantly, a hungry hubby! And I think I did a complete overdose of sugar over the weekend and this morning, because by lunch time, I was feeling like absolute poo, and I was craving anything but something sweet, I could have killed a bag of tortilla chips or anything super salty. I am definitely going to make a conscious effort to cut way down on my sugar the rest of this week, because I feel sooo much better when I don't eat a lot of it.

I was starving when I got home, so I made what was meant to be a green monster, but, I think the Fitnessista refers to these as sludges, I put strawberries in so it turned a funky color! It was good though.

Aaaaanyway, I didn't want to totally miss my workout, so I suggested me and the husband do this:

OMG!! We almost died, but we did it. We have had the P90X DVDs for a while, and we finished it a long time ago. Let me tell you, these DVDs are not for the faint of heart, but they work. I really would like to start incorporating at least one of them into my weekly workout routine because they are butt kickers! I have been working my abs out and this was still killing me to do, it's like supersets x10.

So after that, I made dinner, for the husband, I made chicken legs in the skillet with Annie's BBQ sauce, green beans, and sweet potato fries. No pic, as he gobbled it up much too fast, I was thrilled that he loved the Annies BBQ sauce, it was all I could find that didn't contain HFCS.

And for me, half a sunshine burger — my last one in the box :( with some Annie's BBQ, some sweet potato fries and a little steamed spinach with goat cheese. Oh so good. and filling, and definitely satisfied the salty food craving.

During dinner we watched a new show called the Goode Family, it was pretty funny. I'm usually at the gym and miss all the TV, which is fine, but it was kinda fun to veg out in front of the TV for just one night. Now I'm watching Dating in the Dark, and I am NOT impressed. Reality television has gone way down hill. However, I'll still continue to watch my real Housewives on the treadmill, such a guilty pleasure.

Well, I'm off to catch up on a little work before hitting the sack, I'll leave you with a pic of my overweight, yet precious puppy, Ekko. She thinks she's people. LOL.

Is it Monday already?

2009-08-03T05:21:00.000-07:00

Wow, this weekend was a blur!! Went by way too fast. But it was fun. It was the husband's birthday yesterday, he's 26 now like me, so he has to stop calling me old :D

Saturday I got up early and got in a great workout: arms/shoulders and then it was shopping/birthday shopping with mom all day which was super fun, but we were worn out by the end of the day.

We stopped at Panera and I had this:

I splurged and got a sweetened green tea because that's the only kind of iced green tea they had aaaaand it was sweetened with some kind of honeydew flavor, I was super thirsty and didn't want water for some reason. It was worth it.

I didn't find the husband's bday gift I was looking for, but I did get this super cute tea cup:

and I completed my set of vintage crock pots, with the addition of the orange one. I don't know why but I just love these things, I think they're so cute.

Sunday I did the usual grocery haul, and though I didn't come in under budget like I was hoping, I only went $1 over!! I'm making progress! And I feel like I got a TON of stuff for the money I spent.

Check out the size of that canteloupe! It was one my unplanned buys but it was only $1.88!!

Once again this week, I planned meals, and I made a list. I have to go to two stores to find everything I need, so I made two lists once again, and at each store, I allowed myself two things that weren't on the list. It's inevitable that there are going to be impulse buys, but setting a limit keeps it in check.

I also got this big bag of fresh kale from my sweet little Nana's garden, check it out:

beautiful.

I made macaroon babies, this time I modified the recipe just slightly, and added 1 tbsp ground flax, a couple of shakes of cinnamon and a dash of vanilla. I have to say they were good before, but this made them better. I tried to cut down on the maple syrup, but they didn't hold together, so I had to add the entire 1/4 cup.

I also made some more maple butter pecans (aka crack), OMG, soooo good. I'll use these babies on salads this week.

Then the husband and I went out with our besties to a restaurant we'd never been to before for his birthday dinner. I didn't get pics b/c the lighting was so dim, but the atmosphere and food were both amazing. We had a great night out. It was a nice ending to the weekend. I can't believe it's monday already!!! But at least there's yoga to look forward to tonight!

bloggy world, meet ABAB

2009-08-01T05:27:00.000-07:00

Okay, so I have been making this mixture for quite some time, and I think I have blogged it before, but I want to officially recognize how freaking good this stuff is by giving it it's own post, it's a mixture of almond butter and unsweetened apple butter, I make it quite often as a topping for lots of stuff, it's great with bananas, oats, cereal, and especially waffles, I also like to dip celery and carrots in it!

I don't have a name for it, but I guess for now I'll call it ABAB. I'm not saying I invented this or anything, because I'm sure it's been done, but I just wanted to bring it to light, because it's so amazingly good!

usually for a small batch, I just take one tbsp of each and mix it up in a ramekin, here is the finished product:

I guess you could mix it up in larger batches too, it's just equal parts of both.

So breakfast this morning went like this:

nanner sammie with ABAB

corn flakes with huge juicy raisins, almonds, flax and US choc almond milk

and a cup of US apple sauce with blueberries

Yum!

Well, I'm off to the gym before heading with mom for a fun girls day and b-day shopping for my hubby. See you soon!!

Friday night randomness

2009-07-31T20:37:00.001-07:00

This lovely friday morning began with an equally lovely green monster!! I haven't had one all week, so I was excited to whip one up, this one was pretty basic, but totally yummy, here's what went in:

1 med. frozen banana
2 big handfuls steamed organic spinach
1 handful mixed frozen fruit
1 scoop vanilla protein powder
1/2 cup coconut milk - what was left in the carton :(
1/2 cup choc almond milk

I put it in a bowl because I thought it was thicker than it ended up being, I also topped it with blueberries, but they sank to the bottom, LoL, it was still super yummy, like green breakfast soup with blueberries floating around.

Then before I left the house, I had a small bowl of corn flakes with choc almond milk and a big handful of cherries, look how huge these guys are!!

I wish that I could have gotten photos of my lunch, but they just didn't turn out, I did the salad bar from our favorite deli that is just down the road from us. It was so fresh and good, and they had lots of fun stuff on the bar like heirloom peppers, yum!

I stopped at the Turnip Truck, the cutest little health food store ever, also right down the road, after work to pick up some stuff for the week, look at these gorgeous local mixed tomatoes I got:

I also got tons of snacky stuff, so when I got home, I managed to almost spoil my dinner while I was cooking, just tasting everything I got, I can't help it!

sampled some roasted red pepper hummus, they make it fresh there, absolutely delish

On that note, I think I may have found the holy grail of chocolate there as well!!

Green and Black's 72% baking chocolate, it's perfect because unlike some other dark chocolates it's only got 110 cals per serving (4 squares) and it's only got 5 grams of sugar, I can totally live with that. I recently found out that anything over 5 grams of sugar spikes your blood sugar, so I have been trying to be more aware of that. Anyway, the important thing is it tastes GOOD! Yay! The unsweet chocolate is still growing on me, but I don't love it just yet, but this is a good stand by.

So friday is the night that I always try to cook something fun for our dinner in instead of out, (new tradition) but today I was totally indecisive about what to make, so I called the husband on the way home, and asked him what he was in the mood for. And I want to tell you, Hell has officially frozen over, because he requested a repeat of the vegetarian tacos I made earlier this week!! Yay! This made me so happy!!

He also announced during dinner that he only wants me to get the blue corn taco shells from now on, and that on a scale of 1-10 beef tacos are a 10, but these come in close at 8.5! Yay! I will make a healthy eater out of him yet.

Here are the beans with the taco seasoning

and check out his plate, he loves the sour cream in the squeeze bottle that I bought him, he thinks it's like the coolest thing ever LoL

I was craving something Italian-esque though, so I just made two diff dinners, no big deal, do it all the time. Here is my mish mash, I don't really know what to call it, except divine. This was the most satisfying meal I've had in a long time, it was pretty easy too, I just grilled a couple of slices of pre-made polenta in a little olive oil, and steamed some carrots, a baby zucchini and some spinach at the same time, then I put all of that in a bowl and topped with marinara, a few black olives, a couple of my colorful tomatoes, and my favorite part, GOAT CHEESE!!! It was so fresh and creamy and just delicious. There is something so good about spinach and goat cheese together. All the flavors in this dish were so bright and fresh! love love love.

Before sauce:
After with sauce and yummy toppings:

I enjoyed a glass of red wine with it, so good.

And I may have had some of this afterwards (x4)

Well, bloggy friends, I am off for tonight, I'm looking forward to a girls' day with my mom tomorrow, and I've got to do some birthday shopping for super special husband type person, that should be fun, I'll let you know what we get into!

A little dessert never hurt anybody!

2009-07-30T21:12:00.001-07:00

Well, I finally finished off the rest of the oats this morning, they were fabulous with a little almond butter and unsweetened apple butter on top. I also enjoyed some Yogi green tea, so good.

So now that the oats are gone, what will I have for breakfast tomorrow? We shall see, maybe a visit from a familiar green friend? Sounds yummy!

After breakfast I caught up on a little freelance work before leaving for the day job. One thing that has returned along with my love of the gym and all things fit, is being hangry all the time, so I used my empty oats bowl to have a little post brekkie snack of some cornflakes with coconut milk, blueberries and a little ground flax.

Who the heck gets hungry after eating oatmeal? Me, I do. I'm very hungry in the morning, or maybe it's hangry, I'm a bottomless pit in the morning and then it kind of tapers off throughout the day. I don't always post every single snack, etc., but I usually have a substantial breakfast, followed by a light snack right before leaving the house, or on the way to work, and sometimes both. Then usually another light snack before lunch. I don't feel bad about how much I eat in the mornings because I usually make up for by eating lighter as I get less hungry throughout the day. It works well because I'm a HUGE breakfast fan and I am completely not opposed to having two breakfasts sometimes or having breakfast for dinner. I think I could eat it all day.

Lunch was a little something different, kind of a southwest twist on my salad, I topped it with cucumbers and black beans, and took some spicy guacamole made with salsa verde for dressing as well as half my sunshine burger from last night. So delicious and filling. I also had Mary's crackers and fruit, but they ended up being an afternoon snack.

Then for a pre-workout snack: some more cornflakes with blueberries and coconut milk

I got home from work SO late, it was almost 7:00 p.m., but I told myself I was not going to let it be an excuse to miss my workout, even though the dishes were piling up in the sink and I had a million reasons to stay home. I hit the gym and did legs and abs all super sets to save time, then did 30 min of glorious cardio 10 min. on the stairmaster (my new fave cardio beast) and 20 vigorous minutes on the treadmill. Once again, it felt good to sweat and get a good burn in. Loving being back in the groove!!

When I got home, I replenished immediately with this:

Like I mentioned before the sink was literally piled so high with dishes, that it was overflowing onto the counters, gross I know, but homegirll has been busy this week!! So, cooking dinner wasn't exactly an option. Tonight's post workout meal was nothing glamorous, purely post workout fuel. But you know what, it was actually really really good!! I made my favorite version of tuna salad using a can of albacore mixing with a little plain non fat yogurt and a couple squeezes of lemon juice and ate that with some Mary's crackers and half a granny smith apple and some AB.

A little later on, I decided I deserved a "little dessert" it's been a rough week. So I had a teeny ramekin with some green and black dark choc ice cream and half a glass of pinotage. The perfect ending to the day!!

One last thought for today... TGI almost friday!!! Bring on the weekend, I can't wait!

Mushroom Farmin'

2009-07-29T20:46:00.001-07:00

I had some Yogi green tea with breakfast this morning, I love how Yogi has the little sayings on the tea tags!

Breakfast started out basically same as yesterday because it was so delish, I couldn't wait to have it again, and I still had oat groats left from the big pot I made earlier in the week. Once again, they were ah-mazing! I took lots of pics because I just thought they were pretty

One before toppings with just some choc almond milk

After adding ground flax, 1/2 nanner, some blueberries and ABU

One just for fun with Halo Kitty in the background checking things out — she looks annoyed, she's like "why are you taking so many pictures of your oats again, you weirdo?"

Sorry if I seem overly excited about oats, it's just that I haven't had them in a really long time because of the gluten thing, and I was ecstatic to find out that I could have oat groats, so I'm sure the new will wear off soon and I won't be taking eleventy billion pictures of them, but for now, I am in love.

Apparently we are mushroom farmers now, we had this little crop of mushrooms come up in our yard (I'm sure they're poisonous, or I'd chop those bad boys up in some pasta LoL) So anyway, these darn things like triple in size every day, it's crazy to watch them grow, so I took some pics this morning.

Look, this big one is taking over that little one, they're out of control! The weird things is, ours is the only yard on the block that has these things! when I got home from work this evening, the husband had plucked them and threw them out, I was a little sad, I was hoping to see how big they would get!

I packed a pretty yummy lunch today here's the spread:

baby green salad with grapes, black olives, cucumber, goat cheese (LOVES IT!) and I took some avocado to chop on top and some Annie's balsamic.

I also took some lovely fruit for snacking and a Think Green blueberry noni bar, these are pretty tasty, kind of reminded me of a blueberry muffin.

My little lunch bag was so full I almost couldn't get it zipped!

So the other day I saw this great Slow Cooker Chicken Cacciatore recipe on the Fitnessista's blog that she made for her pilot, and I thought it looked super easy, and since I had the ingredients on hand, I thought I would make it for the husband and that way he could come home to a nice dinner, and I could hit the gym!

I seared two chicken breasts in a little olive oil and seasoned with s/p, then I put them in the slow cooker, topped them with a whole container of sliced mushrooms (from the store, not from our yard LoL) some chopped celery and onions and stuck it all in the fridge over night, then this morning I just popped it into the slow cooker and let it cook all day on low.

I served it on top of some left over rice from Monday night's dinner

He loved it!

I had a bite, it was pretty yummy! So since I did two chicken breasts, I just popped the other one in some tupperware for his lunch tomorrow, how much easier does it get? I think I am about to make good friends with the slow cooker!

After my workout, I came home and was feeling the need for some major protein, so I made this:

A banana protein shake/smoothie (not sure which one) It was sooo good though, it had half a frozen banana, US coconut Milk, a few pieces of frozen mixed fruit, 1 whole scoop vanilla protein powder and a couple piece of ice. It was amazing, it really hit the spot after my workout! It tasted just like a really good banana milk shake!

I also made an egg white scramble with a little spinach, some diced avocado and some goat cheese, and ate that with some Mary's crackers, I also made a half of a sunshine burger, but halfway through my meal realized I was getting VERY full, so I put it up for tomorrow's lunch or dinner.

Also, somebody got her workout groove back...

It's meeeee! Yes, I am so happy I had an absolutely fabulous workout today, it didn't feel forced, it felt wonderful, I got a really good pump with my weight workout, then I did 30 min of cardio and it felt soooo good to burn some calories and sweat!! I also found out that my gym is starting a boot camp on week nights beginning next week, and since I was wanting to switch things up anyway, I think I'm going to give it a try, we'll see how it goes, I've never done a bootcamp before. Has anyone else ever participated in one of these type of programs? Just curious.

Veggie Tacos and 100% Cacao

2009-07-28T20:31:00.000-07:00

Wow, breakfast was good! I am LOVING the oat groats, this morning I had them with a little US choc almond milk, topped with half a banana, some blueberries, ground flax seed and some ABU, so so good!

Lunch was this beautiful fruity beast of a salad:

I also took along 1/4 avocado and some of my maple butter pecans for topping. I drizzled it with some Annie's balsamic and It was glorious.

I came home and had a TON of stuff to catch up on around the house so sadly, no gym today (more about that later)

But it gave me a chance to make these great veggie tacos for me and the hus. He was a trooper I've gotta say, tacos are one of his favorite foods in the whole world and to go veggie to him is almost sac relige! These were super easy, I just rinsed a can of black beans and heated them on the stove over medium heat then added a little water and half a package of the taco mix that came with Garden of Eatin' blue corn taco shells. Then for my taco (I just had one because I had been snacking all afternoon, but I def could have had two, they were delish) I made some quick guac with 1/4 avocado and a little salsa then garnished with a couple more slices. The husband opted out on the guac, and topped his with lots o' cheese, sour cream and taco sauce. He ate three and seemed to like them. Actually with the taco seasoning added to the beans, I couldn't tell much diff, but I'm sure he could. I will definitely make this super easy dish again. I paired mine with a half a glass of pinotage!

On a funny note, the husband saw me eating the unsweetened chocolate I bought this week which I am actually learning to love and appreciate for it's rich darkness, and he was intrigued. So after dinner, he's in the pantry rummaging around and here's how the conversation went:

Husband: Hey, I want to try some of your chocolate
Me: Ummm, you know it's unsweetened, right?"
Husband: Yeah... I wanna try it.
Me: Okay, knock yourself out
Husband: (Takes a bite while smiling, smile quickly fades) Why would you eat this??? OMG! Why?
Me: Bahahahahaha

Update on the Forever bags:

As you can see after four days, the bananas in the forever bags are actually still green while the others are getting spotty! Pretty cool!

Okay, so as I mentioned before, I am in a little workout slump. It's funny because Angela at Oh She Glows has been blogging about this for a couple of days, and I can totally relate (except for the fact that I did not just run a 10 mile race!) But I had to take last week off because I was sick, it was the longest I have taken off since I've been working out consistently since January. And though part of me can't wait to get back to my routine, part of me is super demotivated from my week off! What's up with that? I have been back to the gym twice now and both times I felt all weird and like I was an outsider and didn't belong or something. It's a bizarre feeling. I am such a gym junkie that this is totally foreign to me. So I've decided to try a few things to get my groove back.

1) I am going to switch up my entire workout schedule to make things more interesting and hopefully add some muscle confusion.

2) I am going to take a notebook with me and keep records of what I do each time to track my progress and also keep me on track.

3) I am going to get one of those arm bands for my iPhone so I can listen to music while I am doing weights, and I am going to invest about $15 or $20 in some new workout music from iTunes.

I think this should do the trick because I'm excited about it already!

What are some things you do when you're in a slump to try and get back in the swing of things?

And the winner is....

2009-07-27T21:41:00.000-07:00

So I did a little research and apparently oat groats are safe for people with a gluten sensitivity, because they are the whole oat berry, and they are not processed on shared equipment like the rolled oats. Yay!!! So I happened to be at Whole Foods yesterday, and just had to grab about a half a pound from the bulk bin to try.

I found this really great recipe where you combine 3/4 cup oat groats, 1/4 cup short grain brown rice (which I love! and happen to have on hand) and 4 cups water, you bring that to a boil, turn it off and leave it over night. Then the next morning you turn it back on and continue cooking for about 15-20 mins and it makes this beautiful porridge type stuff.

I coulnd't wait to try the oat groats out, so I made the mixture and this morning I had a little tasting, I made three mini bowls and each one contained different ingredients. In the first bowl I put a little apple butter and almond butter, in the second I put a tiny smidge of butter and some maple/agave syrup, and in the third, just the oat groats with a little coconut milk. The winner by a knockout:

Apple butter/almond butter most definitely!! Holy Yum! I forgot how much I love oats!

Another super fun/tasty thing I whipped up last night: Maple Butter pecans to go on my Longhorn knockoff salad. I couldn't find a good concise recipe for these, so I made it up. I took a small 2 oz. package of pecans, toasted them in the oven at 350 on a foil lined cookie sheet for just a few minutes, then I took about a half a pat of butter and maybe two tablespoons of maple/agave syrup and a little salt and stuck that in the microwave for 30 seconds until the butter was melted, then I stirred in the toasted pecans until they were well coated and had absorbed the liquid, then I spread them back out onto the cookie sheet, turned the oven off and let them sit in the oven overnight. This morning, when I took them out, they were perfect!! I suspect these would also be good coated in powdered sugar. Did I mention these things are like crack? They seriously almost all disappeared this morning.

They made the perfect addition to my knockoff of Longhorn's strawberry pecan salad, I had all the ingredients except the strawberries (go figure, the strawberries were looking a little rough this week, so I didn't buy any) The salad included baby greens, halved grapes, mandarin orange sections, my maple butter pecans, feta and balsamic. It was good even without the strawberries, I also had some Mary's crackers with it, I ate at my desk today because I was at the studio alone, so I just worked through lunch.

Other random snackiness:

took this for a mid morning snack, these were on major sale, so I bought one for each day this week, today's flavor: chocolate pomegranate power, meh, it was okay, not my fave, I think the apple noni is my favorite one of the think fruit bars.

Before bed, I have gotten into the habit of eating a small bowl of cereal, and today's cereal included a drizzling of ABU, holy cow, how am I just now learning about ABU! I saw on HEAB's blog a couple of days ago, she made PBU, and it linked back to the original PBU recipe , OMG, genius!! So good!

Speaking of bed, I am going to go get in mine!

POP Chips

2009-07-27T20:34:00.000-07:00

Pop Chips!

These are interesting little snackies! I like them a lot. And I am not really much of a chip person, but I like the super crunchy texture these have as well as the flavor! I absolutely loved the salt and pepper (my personal fave) my husband shared this bag with me and loved it!

I took the other varieties to my parent's house so they could help me try them out and I could get some other opinons. The original were good, the barbque flavor was GREAT, and I don't even like BBQ chips! Now the sea salt & vinegar was the only one that fell a little short for me, and maybe it was just a bad batch because I've heard others who love them, but I wasn't a fan of this one.

But for the most part these are a delicious semi guilt free snack, clocking in at only 100 calories for a single serve bag, you can feel good about inhaling one!

Product Reviews

2009-07-27T20:12:00.000-07:00

Here is where I will post all of my product reviews. In some cases, the people at these companies have been so kind as to send me product to try and review on the blog, in other cases, I was just trying out a new product and felt the need to share a review, I hope you'll find them useful! Don't hesitate to ask questions!

Joan's GF Great Bakes

POP Chips!

Joan's GF Great Bakes

2009-07-27T19:51:00.000-07:00

Let me just first start by saying that before I went GF I was a HUGE baking fanatic, I baked almost every weekend, cookies, brownies, cakes, you name it. Then when I found out I had a gluten sensitivity all that pretty much came to a halt. I had to find alternative ways of baking, and sometimes, I just don't feel like gathering all the different flours it takes to make something good. Enter Joan's GF Great Bakes!! Joan really has the gluten free baking thing down. The lady clearly knows what she's doing in the GF kitchen!

Chocolate Chip Cookies

I'm starting with these because they are my favorite since I have such a huge sweet tooth.

These are absolutely to die for. They are moist and chewy. They rival any glutenous chocolate chip cookies out there for sure. I often pop one or two in the oven after dinner for me and my non GF husband, who by the way loves them just as much as me, and he's a super snob about GF stuff.

Sesame Seed Bagels

My second favorite thing: because back before I was GF, I absolutely loved a good bagel. Many days I remember just having a bagel with cream cheese for my lunch if I was on the run (not the most nutritious lunch, I know, but yummy and convenient) Anyway, these bagels are so amazingly good, no one would ever know they are gluten free. They are chewy and soft on the inside and crusty on the outside, and they taste amazing. They are so good spread with a little cream cheese and strawberry jam. I can't wait to try the other varieties!

Sicilian Pizza

Who doesn't love a good hunk of pizza? Well I had pretty much convinced myself that I didn't. Simply because I really missed pizza and there are not that many good gluten free options out there. So I convinced myself I didn't really care for pizza any more. Well all of the old familiar feelings came flooding back when I tasted Joan's Sicilian Pizza. The crust is so good and seasoned to perfection with a wonderful soft, chewy texture (just like I remembered!) and the sauce is amazing! This pizza totally knocked my socks off. My dad who isn't gf tried some and was blown away!

English Muffins

These are just a super tasty easy breakfast and just like Joan's other products they taste just like the regular ones! These are amazing toasted under the broiler so that all the nooks and crannies get crunchy and then topped with some cream cheese and jam, or just plain with a little butter or margarine, so good, easy and tasty.

I seriously don't have one negative thing to say about these products. I've been gluten free for about 3 years, and I've had my share of crumbly brick like gluten free baked goods. Well there is none of that to be found from Joan's bakery! I was so excited when I tasted her products because I didn't think baked goods of this caliber existed in the gluten free world! Thanks so much Joan for making such a wonderful treats. You've got a customer for life here!

Visit her website here: www.gfgreatbakes.com

Grocery Shopping Success!!

2009-07-27T07:43:00.001-07:00

I've been on a little hiatus because our internet router went out and the husband has been trying to get it working again, but it gave me time to compile this post. Anyway, I thought I'd start the post today with a picture of my Halo kitty pondering the mysteries of the green monster. She's still not so sure about it. Of course this is right before she went back to chewing on the plant behind her, so maybe she shouldn't judge.

Anyway, am I the only one that usually comes home from the grocery store feeling defeated and disappointed? I absolutely LOVE grocery shopping, I have since I was a kid, I was always tagging along with my mom or grandmother, it was one of my favorite things. I don't know why. Anyway, it still is one of my favorite things to do, except here lately, I've been really unorganized and it's been taking it's toll on my grocery budget and our meals. I end up coming home feeling like:

1) I know I didn't get everything I needed for the week and will probably have to go back at some point
2) I really don't have any ingredients that make sense for meals the rest of the week, just a bunch of random stuff that sounded good at the time
3) I've pretty much already spent my grocery budget and then some

It's usually all of the above.

So this week, I tackled it with a plan. It's a bit complicated at my house since my husband and I usually don't eat the same thing, or I eat a modified version of what he's eating, etc., so a plan is really necessary in order not to over spend and still have plenty of meal options on hand.

I made myself sit down and focus for about 15 minutes, to come up with meals for both of us each day of the coming up week then I made my list from that. I also usually have to go a couple of different places to get everything I need, so I broke my list up accordingly.

My weekly grocery budget is $100 and I did end up going a bit over at $124, but I also got some things that will last into next week, and hopefully I will spend less then and even it out. And since this is still less than I usually end up spending without a plan of some sort, I don't feel bad about it. And my overall goal is to get really good at this organization thing and start coming in under budget, so we're taking baby steps here.

Here are just some of the meals I planned for the week:

For Both of us:
vegetarian chili (I had beans and some of the stuff in the pantry already)
chicken salad and curried chicken salad

For The Husband
Turkey sausage with seasoned rice and veggies
Grilled chicken and veggies

For Me:
Lots 'o salads per the usual with some new additions like homemade candied pecans! :D
a new breakfast to try: oat groats!
Also lots o' fruit (hey, sometimes in the summer months fruit is a meal!)

I went two places: Kroger where I usually get most of my groceries and they have a great selection of natural foods that though usually a bit over priced is livable. And Aldi, where I get most of my produce because it's just so darned cheap and usually pretty fresh, and pantry staples like canned goods, etc. once again because of the cheap thing.

Here are the Kroger goods: Here I spent a total of $82.68 and saved $29.37
(If it seems like all of this shouldn't add up to the total, I should also mention that there are a few pricey items that are not pictured such as dog food, toiletries, etc.)

I felt pretty good about it because they are having this sale going on where if you buy any 10 of a certain list of items, you get $5 back, and the vitamin waters are on the list, so since the husband is drinking the 10/cal vitamin waters like they are going out of style, I bought 20 of those and basically ended up getting them for 50 cents a piece! I also had lots of other Kroger plus savings which I realize can be kind of a scam sometimes, but I'm wise to how it works, so I feel good about my savings total.

Here is what I got at Aldi: total $41.36

I pretty much stuck to my list here except for a few things like these cherries, how could I pass these up at $1.99! They are huge and gorgeous! And they are super tasty too!

I also probably could have kept my budget down if I hadn't been in the mood to try so many new things, here are some of the things I am trying for the first time this week:

100% unsweetened dark chocolate (HEAB says its good) she was right, but I think it will take some getting used to. So far, I like eating it best shaved over top of my Green & Black ice cream with a little piece on the side for garnish. I think this defeats the purpose of unsweetened, but I'm easing into it LoL.

Unsweetened chocolate almond milk (never tried it always wanted to) this is a great addition to my green monsters! Also makes a good coffee creamer!

Herdez Salsa (mostly for the husband but I tried it too) the Fitnessista said this was the best salsa, and she was right, this stuff is awesome, my husband is addicted to it already, my suggestion, buy the big can, I am going to next time. You've got to find it where the authentic Mexican stuff is.

Another new thing this week is Forever Bags, I actually picked these up last week at Big Lots, I got a 25 pack for $5, so I figure if they don't work, I'm only out $5, and if they do, awesome!

The pack comes with a few different sizes of the produce bags, bread bags, meat bags and cheese bags. I'm actually a little wary of the meat bags, but will probably get plenty of use out of the rest, it says each bag can be reused up to 20 times!

Here's what I put in this week:

Two baby cucumbers and some bell peppers

I also put some baby zucchini into one and for my bananas, I split them up to do a little experiment, half the bunch will sit out on the table, and the other half will be in the bag and I'll see what the difference is in a few days.

I'm off for now, but I'll leave you with some random food shots and pictures of my Halo kitty:

What'chu Talkin' Bout Google?

2009-07-23T18:40:00.000-07:00

TGI almost Friday!!! I know I will have only worked three days this week, but it's been one of those weeks anyway, so I am looking forward to the weekend!

I thought I'd start today's post with something totally random and funny.

Today I was fiddling with my blog background (I am trying to add my own background) and I can't seem to get the size right so I decided to google the problem and the browser I use does a thing with google where it suggests phrases based on the first few words you type. So I began typing "why is my" I was going to type "why is my blog background too small" when google hit me with a whole plethora of suggestions which I found hilarious especially the first one, check it out:

Now I'm guessing google bases these suggestions on popular searches, which is even more hilarious. Just thought I'd share, it was too funny to keep to myself!

Anyway, on to the foodie.

This morning started a little differently than usual. Yay for variety! I had a container of greek yogurt (so so creamy and good) with some fat juicy blueberries and a tiny drizzle of maple/agave. Heaven in my mouth.

I was a little headachy and thought maybe coffee would help, so I made about a half a cup in my French press, and put some coconut milk in for creamer, but it was not happening, the coffee was thin, and I don't think coconut milk makes good coffee creamer, but I might be wrong, it might have just been bad coffee. I dunno,

anyway, I ended up doing my new mix of vitamin water + emergen-c, I cannot drink that emergen-c stuff straight, I've got to mix it with something and vitamin water seems to do the trick. So I downed that, got ready for work, then made a lovely green monster to drink on the way in to work, here's what went in:

2 big handfuls lightly steamed organic spinach
1 small frozen banana
1 small steamed carrot
1 Tbsp. almond butter
1/2 scoop vanilla protein powder
coconut milk until well blended

I don't usually put AB in my GMs, but I loved the flavor it added! I'll definitely be doing it more often, plus what better way to get some healthy fat into your breakfast! Yum!

Here's the lunch stash:

Salad contained
Organic Mache blend salad greens
blueberries
garbonzo beans
avocado
feta
I used Annie's balsamic dressing just a little, it didn't need much

I also took some almonds for snacking and a half ounce of dark chocolate.

You can also see my green monster in the back there in a to go coffee thing.
So I drank that on the way in, and then when I got to work, my coworker had made a blender full of another delicious looking smoothie concoction that I just had to try about a half a glass of. It was GOOD.

She was in a liquid food mood today, so after lunch for an afternoon snack, she made us some green juice also. It was very tasty as well: spinach, parsley, celery, a little ginger and lots o' lemon and green apples just like I like.

Yet another day of missing my workout, I felt almost fully recovered today except for a pounding headache that wouldn't quit! And I wasn't about to take any more ibuprofen, but I did stop on the way home from work and grab a bottle of tylenol at the suggestion of the lovely Menden.

I had a zbar on the way home from work, then I proceeded to munch on a bunch of random things while I made my usual veggie pasta dinner. This one was a little different than usual though because I used steamed asparagus, which was a really good addition.

This batch contained:

2 eggplant veggie "meatballs"
garbonzo beans
steamed asparagus
steamed carrots
several black olives
feta
tomato basil pasta sauce
It was unbelievably good for something so simple and easy to prepare!

After dinner I had a half a glass of pinot and yet some more dark chocolate. I can't get enough dark chocolate here lately. I go through phases with it.

Well, I am going to jump off and get a little work done before the hubby gets home and it's time to watch some recorded SYTYCD. Have a great night and a great friday!!

Back to the Grind!

2009-07-23T05:18:00.001-07:00

So yesterday I did NOT want to get out of bed, but I knew I had to and I had to go to work and face the pile of stuff that had likely been accumulating since my two day hiatus.

Breakfast was the super comforting combo of organic short grain brown rice with coconut milk and apple butter, the creaminess of apple butter and coconut milk make it taste like I added butter! I also had a half a banana with some almond butter.

Here is what I packed for lunch:

Panda Puffs (aka crack) to munch on during my drive in to work, a salad containing baby greens, baby cucumber, blueberries, garbonzo beans and feta (not pictured 1/3 avocado) I took the rest of my Panera fuji apple dressing left over from sunday, it was a good addition to this salad. I also packed ibuprofen which I am learning to hate because my stomach is such a mess now, some Emergen-C, and a key lime Larabar (my favorite!) Oh and some yogi tea!

I also stopped on the way in to work and got a green juice from the juice bar, which was super delish, however there is no photo, as it was raining and I was just trying to make it to work without getting soaked at that point!

Needless to say, I was pretty full until lunch time! But by the time it rolled around I was just ready to take a break, work was intense. And I was still in recovery mode.

So I got home, still didn't feel like going to the gym :( but it gave me a chance to make hubby and I some delicious dinners. Before dinner I had a container of Okios yogurt with some blueberries, hoping the yogurt would help heal some of the damage all of the ibuprofen had done! I drizzled it with a tiny bit of maple/agave.

Here's what the husband had for dinner:

1 Perdue perfect portion chicken breast seasoned with Montreal Chicken, half of a turkey sausage link, green beans and a baby corn on the cob. He was extremely pleased with this meal mainly because it included sausage as a side dish :D

Here is what I had:

Half of a sunshine burger (I am loving these!!) steamed asparagus, and some guac. After I took the picture I mixed up the guac and realized I needed some blue corn chips. It was pretty fabulous. Oh, also not pictured: I had about 1 oz dark chocolate for dessert!

We watched some So You Think You Can Dance and called it a night like old people. It was actually pretty nice to rest and relax!

Must Love Apples

2009-07-21T15:41:00.000-07:00

Yesterday for an afternoon snack, I cut a big hunk off of an apple to slather with some almond butter, and it turned out in the shape of a perfect heart. Cute huh?

I wrapped the rest up for the hubby to munch on with some PB when he got home. We all know how much men love heart shaped food! :D

I was still feeling pretty lousy at this point and it proceeded to get worse throughout the evening so much so that I ate my dinner in two installments. I ate a little, and then wasn't hungry any more so I took some ibuprofen and we started watching The Unborn, after an hour or so, I felt better and was hungry, so I finished the rest of my veggie pasta. I've been in kind of a rut here lately. Green monsters for bfast, salads for lunch and veggie pasta for dinner, but hey it works and it cuts down on complicated meal planning.

On my list of things to do are to make time for meal planning and also rearrange my workout schedule for muscle confusion. I've just got to have solid plans for both of these or I'm lost.

Speaking of workouts I am really beginning to miss my workout!! I haven't worked out since Saturday, this sucks! Hopefully I can get back at it tomorrow.

I ended up taking today off as well because I still felt really sickly with body aches, fever and chills, so I went to the doc just to make sure I didn't have the flu or something. It was a negative on the flu, and he said just to take it easy and whatever it is will probably just go away. So I guess I'll be dragging myself into work tomorrow no matter what, I can't keep staying home, although it's been kinda fun, I get to capture photo moments like this:

and do some much needed catch up on some freelance I've got going on.

After I left the doctor, I stopped off at the store for some immune boosting stuff hoping that maybe if I just bombed myself with a bunch of stuff I'd feel a little better.

Here's the stash:

Two oranges for vitamin C and just cause they're yummy, Yogi Green Tea with Triple Echinacea (I love this tea and drink it even when I'm not sick, it's really good hot or iced!) A vitamin water 10 with triple antioxidants, and most importantly (I'm hoping) some EmergenC, I've never tried EmergenC before, but it seemed like a good blend of stuff, lots of electrolytes, and immune boosters, and all the B vitamins for extra energy.

So when I got home, I made this EmergenC Orange "Mojito" thingy, LoL, who says getting better can't be kinda fun.

I just muddled a few orange slices with some fresh mint in the glass and then added the powder, water and ice. It wasn't great, but it was drinkable, I downed it pretty fast.

Breakfast this morning was of course a green monster

What went in:

small frozen banana
small steamed carrot
two big handfuls of steamed organic spinach
a cup or so of unsweetened coconut milk
scoop of vanilla protein powder

It made one big one and one small one, I love when that happens!

I did try something different this morning for my mid morning "snack" it was more like a meal. Anyway, I was craving a bowl of hot cereal (comfort food I guess), but didn't have any GF oats, so I made some brown rice and tried blending it with some coconut milk. It didn't really blend like I was hoping, but it was good anyway. I added just a tiny bit of maple/agave syrup, some cinnamon and some AB. I had a small bowl and then went back for another, it was so good!

A little after that, I was craving something salty, so I made a little small thing of guac and ate that with some blue chips. For lunch, I wanted more guacamole, so I threw together a quick Mexican salad with greens, black beans, olives, garbonzos, half a sunshine burger and topped it with guac. Very filling and yummy.

Today's question, what do you do when you're feeling under the weather to try and recoup?

a case of the Mondays...

2009-07-20T12:04:00.000-07:00

Yup, it definitely sounds like somebody's got a case of the Mondays. After waking up this morning feeling absolutely horrible, like I was coming down with something, I decided to do something I NEVER do, and call in sick to work. Luckily, my boss was totally cool about it.

So I woke up and after getting the husband successfully off to work, I made some brekkie.

I had the extra pancake that my GF pancake mix made yesterday and topped it with just some AB and some unsweetened apple butter (sooo good)

And to go with it, I just made a mini green monster consisting of just half a frozen banana, a small handful of kale leave (the last of mom/nana's garden kale) a scoop of vanilla protein powder and then proceeded to add unsweetened coconut milk until I had the right consistency. It was yum.

I then did some dishes, started some laundry and generally just loafed around the house for a while trying to feel better. Around 10, I had this:

panda puffs with fresh blueberries and coconut milk followed by some carrot sticks with the AB/AB mixture, yum again! But still not feeling totally great.

I decided I needed to go ahead and walk the puppy and maybe then I'd feel better. So we walked for about 45 minutes, I did some more dishes/laundry/general cleaning and by this time, I was feeling even worse. Shoulda taken it easy I guess. So I got a shower and made some lunch:

Half a sunshine burger quick guac (1/4 avocado and salsa) some Mary's Crackers (shhh, these are supposed to be for the husband, but I see why the Fitnessista calls them "Mary's Crack" LoL) and a failed attempt at making some zucchini chips, I either need more patience, or a dehydrator, these tasted great, but they were certainly not "chips" They were a little soft.

After lunch I was still a little hungry, so I made some banana soft serve (yes it was a little melty) and topped it with fresh blueberries! It was fabulous of course, but I still feel icky. I'm here curled up on the couch with my laptop catching up on some at home work today, so we shall see how the rest of the day goes! I do not have time to be sick!

Whoa! What happened to the weekend!?

2009-07-19T21:29:00.001-07:00

Well it was a glorious weekend, but it came and went WAY too fast! Most of the things I had planned didn't happen, but it was still a nice weekend. It was in the 70s most of the weekend, and my weather app on my iPhone actually posted a severe weather warning, citing "unseasonably cool temperatures" how funny is that!

Saturday morning started with this of course:

then some carrot sticks and AB while I loafed around the house finishing up some work for a client before heading to the gym.

My workout included triceps, biceps and shoulders, and I skipped cardio because the husband and I were supposed to run. I called him after I got done with my workout and he was on the way to Panera Bread. (He's on this new diet thing I don't quite understand, but I'm liking it) So I opted to just meet him there because they have one of my favorite salads in existence, the Fuji Apple Chicken salad and after seeing it on Paige's blog the other day, I had to have one! I had them put the dressing on the side this time because they always put too much, and they gave me two containers, and I only used one, so I brought the other one home because that dressing is so amazingly fabulous! :)

Love this salad so much!!!

So anyway, the plan for the rest of the day was after Kermit got done with the yard work and I got done with the grocery shopping we were going to go for a mid day run (it was like 73 degrees) and then I was going to pack a picnic dinner and we were going to head on over to Arrington Vineyards for some wine and music.

Well, he did the yard, we didn't go running, I went grocery shopping, I prepared and packed up our dinner, and got all dolled up for a fun evening out, and then we hopped in the car for Arrington, by this time it's 8:00, where the day went, I have no idea. So I got on their website on my iPhone to get the address so we could GPS it, and noticed they are only open till 9:00 on Saturdays! It was a super bummer!!

Somewhere in there I also found time to walk the puppy!

So we turned around, put the food in the fridge and went to Longhorn where I had my beloved Strawberry Pecan salad. Oh how I love this salad, and it's only around for a limited time. If you haven't tried it, you've gotta! It's a bed of greens topped with strawberries, glazed pecans, feta, mandarin oranges, and grapes, it also comes with onions and raspberry vinaigrette, but I always get it with no onions and no raspberry vinaigrette, and have them put balsamic on the side. It's a pretty decent sized salad and it's only $4.99!! I think you can add chicken for a little more, but I never do, I'd rather spend the extra on a glass of Canyon Road Chardonnay which pairs perfectly with this salad.

Sunday morning, Kermit wanted to go to church, this made me happy! I got up and made us breakfast, which I really enjoyed since breakfast is my fave meal of the day and we hardly ever get to enjoy it together. For me, I whipped up a GF pancake which I topped with a mixture of AB and unsweetened Apple Butter then sliced a half a banana on top of that and drizzled just a tiny bit of Maple/Agave on top. It was heaven. Kermit requested turkey sausage and eggs.

After church we met his fam for lunch at Longhorn where I ordered my salad and they totally messed it up by putting the raspberry vinaigrette all (aka HFCS) all over it, and I didn't really want to make a huge thing about it in front of his family and all, plus I was STARVING because I hadn't eaten since breakfast and it's pretty unheard of for me to go from breakfast to lunch without a couple of snackies!! Anyway, it was pretty awful, I didn't even eat it all. So when we got home, I immediately had a big bowl of Panda Puffs with banana and AB, super yummy!

Dinner was absolutely my favorite part of the weekend, the husband was being really sweet and agreed to have a "picnic" dinner with me in our new living room at the coffee table since we missed out last night. So we got out all the food I had packed and had our dinner by candle light in the living room with NO T.V. it was so nice.

After dinner, I had this: (it looks like a lot, but it's actually in a small ramekin, it's probably about 1/4 of a cup)

and he had this (part of the new diet)

Like I said, I don't really understand the new diet, but I love it because he's says he's not doing sugar, wheat flour, or any other white starches like potatoes, etc.) So we've been experimenting with lots of healthy foods this weekend to see what he likes. I also made him some GF cornbread muffins so he can have some type of bread. I have been a busy bee this weekend buying him all types of foods to try, I am trying not to be too overly excited and scare him LoL. But I have actually gotten my super sweet (crap eater) husband to eat Mary's Crackers and to switch from regular peanut butter to the Smart Balance kind (baby steps, I will totally convert him to almond butter someday!)

These cornbread muffins were super easy, I just used 2 cups white corn meal, 1 cup unsweetened apple sauce, 1 egg, a little salt, 1 tsp. baking powder and then added milk until the batter looked right. I baked them at 450 for about 10 minutes. They are heavy and not sweet at all, but pretty good for just a nice rustic type cornbread.

And he's a total soda and sweet tea fiend so to help him make the transition to plain water, I got him some of those 10 calorie naturally sweetened vitamin waters, he loves those too! We shall see where this goes or how long it lasts. The cool thing is he's pretty much eaten gluten free with me all weekend, and not even realized it. How awesome would that be if he ate more of the same foods as me! It would sure help out on the grocery shopping.

That's all for now, I'm exhausted just typing all of this, I'm heading to bed now. I can't wait to see what's in store for Yoga tomorrow!

Green Grass

2009-07-17T20:18:00.000-07:00

My grass is pretty green...

How about yours? I was just thinking today how we are such a society of greener pastures. The grass is always greener somewhere else, yet most of us are so fortunate with what we have and we don't even realize it because we're too busy looking over the fence at the other side. I know especially when reading someone's blog, you're getting a little peak into their daily life and it's easy to start having thoughts of "why can't my life be like that" or "their job looks like so much fun" and so on. I know I catch myself doing this from time to time. And when I stop and examine things, I've got a great husband and family, a great house (even if it does need some updates here and there!), and I absolutely love my job, there is no reason for such sillyness!

Okay, off my soapbox and onto the food!

Breakfast was a super thick creamy green monster I had to eat it with a spoon. I love it when they come out like that.

I used:

1 large handful of fresh kale
1 small frozen banana
a few frozen peaches
1 cup unsweetened vanilla almond milk
1 scoop vanilla protein powder

I also had half a granny smith apple and some AB.

I was an absolute zombie this morning, I haven't gotten good sleep all week. And you know what sounded really good? Coffee. I gave it up over a month ago and have been really happy without it, but I always told myself if I wanted it, I could have it, but I just wouldn't let myself get back into an everyday habit where I have to have it or I get a headache.

So I pressed about a half a cup and poured that into a half a cup of almond milk. It was divine.

Lunch was eaten out and scarfed down way too quickly to blog. But I had a green salad from a local deli along with a half of a white corn polenta cake with bleu cheese from the hot bar. Ah-mazing!! I want to recreate the polenta bad! Only with goat cheese instead. Anybody know where to get white corn grits? Can't seem to find them anywhere.

I had sundry snacks throughout the day, it was a very snacky friday.

Then of course it was time for our friday night dinner-in date! Yay! So I made a couple (okay four) stops on the way home from work. First stop: the Turnip Truck, a little mom and pop natural food store close to where I work.

Here, I got a big carton of So Delicious unsweetened coconut milk (I plan on using this instead of my usual Almond Breeze this week) I also got a couple of tubs of organic green salad stuff for 99 cents each!! And I got some sunshine burgers which I hadn't tried yet, and some no sugar added apple butter... mmmm. Oh, and my new favorite pasta, the quinoa fusili was on sale, bonus!

Next, it was off to Woodland Wine merchant which is conveniently located almost next door to the Turnip Truck. Here I got a couple of bottles of wine for the week: a bottle of Pinotage (my new fave red) and a bottle of organic reisling.

I then stopped at Aldi and grabbed a container of Goat cheese, some mushrooms and my fave Tomato Basil pasta sauce, then it was off to Kroger to try and find some type of Italian sausage for the husband to go with the pasta I was planning to make. It's not as bad as it sounds, as all four of these places are literally so close you can see them all at once. So I didn't find what I was looking for at Kroger, but got sidetracked in the produce section eyeing some peppers I thought might be good mild peppers for our salads. So I asked the somewhat over zealous produce guy if they were hot and he said he didn't know, but there was only one way to find out. He then proceeds to go to the back and cut one up, he brings me a slice and has a slice for himself. I politely took the hunk 'o pepper and ate it, and he at his. And at first I was pleased, it tasted like a banana pepper. But slowly we both began to realize these peppers were muy caliente!! I thought for a second my mouth might actually be bleeding. I grabbed the rest of what I was there for, checked out and ran for my car so I could down the bottle of water I had in there! Wow, did that ever teach me a lesson, I'll never ask about peppers again!

So I came home and promptly got to cooking. I got the pastas on, sauteed the mushrooms with a little olive oil and I threw some garlic and wine seasoning from the melting pot in there (so good on everything!) and once those were done I threw a half a sunshine burger in the pan with them to get heated through for my pasta.

So while everything was simmering, I threw us a couple of quick salads together with just some of the greens I got at TT and some goat cheese, Kermit had Italian dressing on his and I had Annie's balsamic, soo sooo good. I missed goat cheese and I'm thrilled that Aldi carries it now, it was only $1.99!!!

Our pasta was super delish. His had spirals, sauteed mushrooms, tomato basil sauce and parm.

Mine had: GF fusili, half a sunshine burger, sauteed mushrooms, tomato basil sauce and parm. I was absolutely delighted with the sunshine burger. I love the ingredient list and will def be buying those again, it also made a really good addition to my pasta. I enjoyed all of this with a glass of pinotage.

After dinner we were stuffed, we had plans to watch a movie then go for a late night stroll, but we just ended up vegging out in our new living room and chatting with some wine, that was nice too.

Once my food had settled, I had some of this:

the husband opted out, his loss.

It's forecast to be an absolutely glorious weekend here, I am so looking forward to it. I think the husband and I might go for a run tomorrow. We have never run together, so it should be fun! We shall see.

One Day Living Room Makeover

2009-07-16T18:25:00.000-07:00

Hello!!

I am so excited right now because we just got a whole new living room set. Even better it was hand me downs so we didn't break the bank!

I have taken before and after photos, but you'll have to see todays eats first!

Since I finished off the macaroon babies yesterday, I had half an apple with some AB to accompany my GM.

I had an absolutely glorious green monster today. It didn't turn out as green as usual, I really don't know what causes that, I usually stick to the same basic ingredients. Anyway, it was delicious as always. I used one of the husband's frosty beer mugs... shhhh. I think he would feel violated if he knew I was drinking healthy green things from his beloved frosty mugs! Tee Hee

For lunch I packed the other half of the sweet potato from last night, and a simple salad with just greens, carrots and an avocado. I also packed carrot sticks for munching, and a couple of green and blacks dark chocolate pieces.

Mid morning snack was a key lime pie Larabar, I think this is my new fave Larabar.

Dinner was one of my favorite and most simple meals another variation of veggie pasta!

Here it is before the sauce so you can see all the stuff:

With sauce, and accompanied by wine :)

What went in:

handful of GF fusili pasta made with quinoa
medium steamed zucchini from nana's garden
medium carrot steamed
1/4 cup tomato basil pasta sauce from Aldi (LOVE that place for pantry staples)
generous sprinkling parmesan
2 Dominex Eggplant "meatballs" (so good) I steamed these from frozen with the veggies.

I also had a glass of Merlot/Cab mix with dinner and some Green and Black's dark choc for dessert

"New" Furniture!!!!

So I knew we were getting our best friend's living room set because he's getting married and moving to a new house and getting all new furniture but I didn't know when we'd be able to move it all to our house. I thought we were moving it today, but when I called the husband after work he said we couldn't do it today and I was sad. Then when I got home I noticed his Jeep was backed into the driveway which he never does... hmmm, interesting. So I walk in the front door, and I have a completely new living room!! Yay!! It was a surprise! The package includes: Sofa, Loveseat, Coffee table, two end tables, two lamps and an area rug. Pretty sweet. And the best part is it's barely used and he's a neat freak anyway, so it's like new.

We rarely used the living room before because we spend most of our time in the bonus room, so we haven't been motivated to fix it up. There were these awful mismatched couches in there one of which was soooo ugly that it had to be covered with a slip cover that didn't halfway fit. Ugh, I hated for it to be the first room people saw when they walked in even if we didn't use it. So now I feel like our little house is more complete! And we'll def be using the living room a lot more often now.

This was the awful couch beast that was soooo ugly it had to be covered at all times:

Before (this is really embarrasing):

After:

Before:

After:

Before:

After:

Yay for hand me down furniture!! Okay, I think that's enough bloggy business for one day, back to work, then bed. TGI almost friday!!

Happy Happy Hump Day!!

2009-07-15T20:09:00.000-07:00

I started the day with a day-glo green monster lol. It came out super bright green.

Here's what went in:

1 big handful of fresh kale
1/2 frozen banana
1 cup almond milk
1/4 cup TJs canned pumpkin
3/4 scoop vanilla protein powder
ice

It was super good.

I also had this week's usual addition 3 macaroons and some AB. I always eat one of the macaroons while I'm making the GM :)

I packed a super tasty lunch:

an "everything" salad with some avocado to add and a couple of pieces of dark chocolate for dessert. I also packed some carrot sticks, strawberries, cherries and almonds for snacking.

After work before my workout, I polished off the remaining two mini macaroons and had half a banana with some AB.

Tonight I did triceps, biceps, some light shoulders and chest and back. Then I did 10 minutes on the step mill and 20 on the treadmill. It was super hot in the gym again today so I just did what I could, I was pouring sweat when I left, not such a bad thing though!

Before I left for the gym I threw a sweet potato into the oven so it would be ready when I got home. So my post workout dinner was this:

An almond milk/vanilla protein shake, half my sweet potato and half of a cucumber with some mashed avocado for dipping. Nothing fancy, but it was GOOD!

Well I'm off, gotta get some work in before bed time. The husband and I are watching a super scary movie (The Haunting in Connecticut), I have a feeling I might be wound up for a while before I'm able to go to sleep!!

one food for the rest of your life?

2009-07-14T19:57:00.000-07:00

No brekkie photos again today, sometimes they just don't turn out. But I had a delish green monster with some macaroons and AB.

Broke away from the studio for a few mins to grab a green juice before lunch, it was fabulous. (That's a pomelicious smoothie for my boss to the right)

I pretty much packed exactly the same lunch again today as yesterday except I drizzled it with this new dressing I found called Hendrickson's, which touted itself as an old family recipe blah blah blah. Anyway, it looked interesting. At first glance it looked like the perfect natural dressing, no canola oil, no msg, nothing artificial, and only 70 calories per serving, it was mainly made with olive oil and vinegar. So come lunch time, I drizzle about 2 tablespoons over my salad, stir it up and take a bite. HOLY MOLY this stuff is good!! I had chopped up lots of cucumbers in my salad and there was actually some dill mixed in with the baby greens I used, and the acidity of the vinegar in this dressing made it taste almost like really fresh pickles had just happened in my salad!

So I pretty much inhaled the salad and I kept noticing how sweet it tasted. I didn't think there was sugar in this dressing, but I just kept noticing the sweetness, so I had to take a second look at the ingredients. Sure enough, the second or third ingredient was sugar. I then took a peek at the sugar content which was a whopping 17g per serving! Whoa! I'm not saying I'm not going to eat it again, but I am definitely going to use it very sparingly from now on!

I was so excited to hit the gym for the tuesday workout that I missed last week. I did abs, legs and 45 mins. on the treadmill during which I ran for about 10 mins at 6mph. It was super hot in the gym today again or I probably would have run longer.

So yesterday I saw Gena's cream of zucchini soup and rembering that I had two home grown zucchinis I knew I had to try it. So after my workout I came home and proceeded to make it with as many of the ingredients I had on hand. Here is what I used:

1 medium zucchini
1/2 avocado
1 teaspoon braggs (I didn't have white miso, this was my sub, also I didn't add salt
a few kale leaves
because this is salty enough)
1 cup spring water
juice of half a lemon
drizzle of olive oil

I just gave it a whirl in the blender and it came out gorgeous just like the photo on Gena's blog!

So what was the verdict?

I liked it a little ; )

After dinner, I thought I'd try the banana soft serve (my new obsession) again, this time I added cinnamon and some strawberries I'd processed in the food processor. Of course this was super yummy. I did kind of feel like I had an entire dinner of baby food though, but I'm sure my tummy is thanking me for all the super digestible food!

A few days ago, on HEAB's blog, she answered a reader's question: if you had to pick one food to eat the rest of your life, what would it be? Heather answered Tortilla chips, which I must say is a good choice, as I do love me some tortilla chips, too, but I believe I'd have to go with bananas, I eat one every single day, sometimes two, and I have never gotten tired of them, I could definitely live on them. Especially since I've been introduced to banana soft serve, LoL.

What would your one food be?

Marvelous Monday

2009-07-13T19:52:00.000-07:00

This was pretty much the best monday ever! Why can't they all be like this?

I started the day with a fabulous Green Monster, a couple of macaroons with some AB and a handful of raw cherries, so good. Pictures didn't come out so good, no pic.

I packed a lunch, I am on a roll with this and loving it!

I chopped up some garden fresh cucumbers and a huge banana pepper over a bed of baby greens then shaved some carrots on top and threw some garbonzo beans and feta on top of that. I also packed 1/4 avocado, some cherries, strawberries and carrot sticks. I drizzled it with a little Maple Grove Ginger Pear dressing, so fresh and summery!

Work was great, not too busy, and I got to leave early because I had to pick up and deliver some print to a client. (I love those days)

Yoga was AH-mazing!!! I practice what is called ashtanga yoga (power yoga) which I absolutely love because it's relaxing but it's also a great workout. But tonight our teacher informed us we were doing Yin yoga, where it's all about relaxing holding the poses a long time and melting into them. It was unbelievable. I loved it so much, I wish I could do that once a week in addition to my regular practice. I didn't even do weights afterwards like I usually do, I was so deeply relaxed I just decided to ride it out the rest of the evening and not cut it short with a strenuous workout. Sometimes it's nice to let your body just rest and relax.

So since I came home a bit early, I decided to give the raw banana soft serve another go since I botched it the first time. I thought it would be a good treat after yoga. So I had a half of a HUGE banana in the freezer and I threw it in the food processor this time (not the blender lol) and I topped it with a couple of sliced strawberries. There basically aren't any words for how delicious this was. It totally rocked my face off. Ice cream has always been my weakness and now I feel like I can have it any time!! Awesome. I can't wait to play with the recipe, maybe add some cinnamon and almond butter.

I also had some plain steamed veggies, very simple and tasty.

Weekend recap

2009-07-12T14:34:00.000-07:00

So the weekend started out Saturday morning with a glorious 6 mile walk on my favorite trail, after which I refueled with a zbar and coconut water on the way to the gym where I did biceps, triceps shoulders and 10 minutes/46 floors on the stair master.

I didn't have a very big breakfast before the walk and I swear having a small brekkie messes me up the rest of the day. I was pretty much hungry the rest of the day, and proceeded to snack and munch all the way up until dinner where I then consumed way too much red wine.

Yup, that was all me.

This morning I woke up with a headache, what surprise! I ate a banana with some AB before heading over to mom's to hang out and pick some more kale for my smoothies! I also had a huge iced green tea and lots and lots of water trying to recoup from last night's faux pas.

When I got to the parent's house, my sweet little nana had prepared a huge stack of GF waffles, I topped mine with some TJs Apricot preserves. Super yummy and filling.

After breakfast, my mom and I headed out to the garden to pick some kale and there were also two zucchinis that were ready to pick, bonus!

We had to run to WMart to grab some stuff and when we got back we had this:

that's right, I took a page from the Fitnessista's book and had a small portion of REAL ice cream and it was such a good treat. It was Sbux Java chip and it was fabulous, worth every calorie.

I came home and noshed on some brown rice sushi that i got at Publix yesterday.

And I couldn't wait to have a GM with some of my freshly picked kale!

Isn't it gorge?

I also decided to make some more macaroons. This time, I figured since I can't techinically do raw anyway, I would just go ahead and bake them at 350 degrees. I also used my Pampered Chef small scoop to make smaller cookies. They came out pretty good. They look a little crispy around the edges, but they are soft and chewy inside. They only took about 7 minutes to bake. I used the same recipe as last time, but I reduced the maple/agave blend to 1/4 cup this time and that was plenty. Very tasty and cute. I like cute food.

Well, I better get back to work, the weekend is fading fast and I've still got lots to do!! It's good to be busy!

Friday Night Din

2009-07-12T14:10:00.001-07:00

Dinner with the husband on friday was fabulous. So the actual main course didn't turn out all that wonderful, it was kind of meh. But there were enough other good things to make up for it. For starters I had a glass of Robert Mondavi Pinot Noir, it's a really good red for the price.

For the husband I picked out a white merlot as he likes his wines chilled and super sweet. He was pleased.

While everything was simmering I fixed our salads which were one of my fave parts of the meal. Mine had baby greens, garden fresh cucumber, strawberries and feta drizzled with a little Annie's balsamic. Kermit's had baby greens, cucumber, some sliced garden fresh banana pepper, feta and Italian dressing. My salad was so good.

Like I said, the meal was nothing to write home about but it was okay. Just some wild caught salmon pan cooked with some garlic and wine seasoning from the melting pot, some steamed Italian green beans and sauteed new potatoes.

Dessert was most def another contender for my fave part of the meal. I got these little chocolate souffles from TJs. They come in their own little ramekins and you just pop them in the oven and they bake up into these beautiful fancy little souffles. So easy, and cheap too! I think the box of two was less than $5, you pretty much can't beat that especially since you get ramekins out of the deal!

I topped mine with some more strawberries and Kermit had some ice cream with his.

After dinner I convinced him to take a late night stroll with me and the puppy, I think by this time it was around 10:00 p.m. I loooove late night walks, and it was really a nice finish to the evening.

TGIF... seriously.

2009-07-10T04:59:00.000-07:00

Friday has finally arrived!! I am so excited for the weekend. I had a bowly breakfast this morning, I just went ahead and put my Beta Beast into a bowl, I pretty much used the same ingredients as yesterday but I added one more carrot. I also tried HEAB's suggestion of freezing the pumpkin, great idea, Heather! It came out super bright orange, I love it!

I also had one of my muffins with some AB in a bowl because I'm silly like that.

Well tonight should be fun because it's kind of a new tradition at my house that the husband and I do dinner together on Friday nights since most week nights we end up eating separately and usually don't eat the same thing for dinner. So on Friday nights I've been coming up with meals that we can both enjoy together and I usually stop and get a bottle of wine that we'll both love. (I am a HUGE wine person, and he's not so much, so it's a challenge finding wines that he likes, but I'm always up for it!)

So I've got some beautiful wild salmon thawing during work today. Now I've just got to come up with some ideas for sides and I usually do some type of small dessert.

I'm thinking we might have some Italian Green beans as one of our sides. I've got what we call here in the south a "mess of beans" LoL so I really need to figure out some ways to use them, and will probably end up freezing some.

Well, I'm off to work for a busy day, can't wait for tonight!

Beta Beast v 2.0

2009-07-09T19:12:00.000-07:00

This morning's breakfast was definitely my most fave this week. Here is what went in this time:

1 small frozen banana
2 large carrots steamed and cooled in the fridge over night
1/4 cup canned TJs organic pumpkin
1 cup unsweetened vanilla almond milk
2 generous shakes cinnamon
1/2 scoop vanilla protein powder
a few ice cubes
teeeeeny weeeeeny sprinkle of madagascar vanilla (just like one drop of this, I could definitely taste it though)
blueberries (for topping not for blending)

The frozen banana definitely made this better as well as using a bit more carrots and pumpin than yesterday, and the vanilla gave it a super creamy taste. I topped it with fresh blueberries and mixed them in as I ate it because I knew their flavor would get lost in there if I blended them. This was like yum x 10. Amazing.

I had to be at work super early, so I took a muffin to go and ate it there.

Short blog today, didn't have time to track everything as we were very busy at work, but I do want to mention one of my latest addictions since I gave up coffee about a month ago, I am in love love love with Tazo Zen tea unsweetened and iced from Sbux. I also make this at home sometimes just using the Tazo zen from the store, but this morning it was just easier to stop and grab it on the way to work. This is my most favorite green tea blend because it's got very light subtle hints of lemongrass and spearmint, it's very refreshing.

Tonight's workout was a blast, I did abs and legs then 10 minutes on the stairmaster (my new fave cardio machine) on which I did a mile and 20 minutes on the treadmill at a 6.5 incline 4.5 mph. It was super hot in the gym today, that was about all I could muster, but I felt like I got a good burn in.

I came home and had a blender disaster trying to make raw banana ice cream, it was edible, but not blogworthy, it basically ended up being banana soup and I mixed in some blueberries. then I had some badly overcooked egg whites and a quarter of an avocado, none of it was pretty, but it got the job done. LoL!

Something Different

2009-07-08T20:10:00.000-07:00

So after many many mornings of green smoothies, also affectionately known as green monsters, I have let myself run out of green stuff mid week this week! Oh no, what's a girl to do? I had lotsa carrots and I also still had some TJs canned pumpkin, man that one can lasted a long time! So I was thinking how about something orange for bfast! So I present to you, the Beta Beast:

It was absolutely AMAZING. Here is what went in:

Half of a large banana
1/4 can TJ's canned pumpkin
about 2 medium sized carrots steamed (had these in the fridge from the night before)
2 very generous shakes of cinnamon (this was essential)
1 cup almond milk (unsweetened vanilla)
1 scoop vanilla protein powder
a few ice cubes

So good. It was very thick and creamy I had to eat it with a spoon. It definitely seemed decadent. I enjoyed it with a muffin and some AB.

I will be making another one tomorrow morning I might play with the ingredients a bit. I'll definitely be using a frozen banana next time, as they make everything so much better.

Between bfast and lunch munched on a Bumble Bar I had picked up at WF this weekend. I have always wanted to try these and never have. The verdict? Meh. It was okay, the nutritionals were great, the taste was a little bland. As you can see it was basically just sesame seeds and flax seeds, there were also very occasional cashew chunks in there. It was edible, but probably not something I'd buy again.

Lunch was a highlight. I am so loving packing my lunch. It's forcing me to use what's in the fridge and pantry, in new and different ways. For example, this morning, I had some leftover garbonzo beans and GF fusili pasta from last night's dinner, but not enough for a whole pasta dish, and I really wanted a salad. So I topped my salad greens with the beans and pasta, added some grapes and feta and packed an avocado to slice into the mix when I got to work. I also took some Annie's balsamic dressing. This is not a salad I would typically make, but you know what? It was probably one of m fave salads EVER! And this girl has had some salads in her day! It was so very mediterranean and yummy, it was one of those meals I didn't want to end, and it was just a leftover hodge podge salad. Pretty cool.

I snacked on cantaloupe this afternoon, and then stopped off at Fresh Blends after work and before my workout for a little pre workout green juice, good call, so much better than yesterdays experiment with the juicer, I'll leave it to the experts. When I got home I also had a half a banana and some AB before hitting the gym.

I was so ready to get back to my workout, I was miss cranky pants yesterday because I had to miss it!

Dinner was a quick throw together post workout:

2 large egg whites with a little salt and cayenne, half an avocado mixed with some salsa for a quick chunky style guac and some Garden of Eatin' Sesame Blue chips (these things are addictive) It was a super satisfying post workout dinner.

After dinner, my body was still craving some post workout carbs, so I had a little cup of Whole O's GF cereal with some blueberries and almond milk in my little vintage strawberry cup, I love it!

Same Salad Different Day

2009-07-07T20:37:00.000-07:00

For bfast, I had this week's usual , green monster and a muffin with pumpkin and almond butter. The highlight was that I had used up my Maranatha AB and got to break into the TJs, nothing against Maranatha, but TJs is def my fave over all. Oh, TJs Almond Butter, how I've missed you! Tomorrow morning should be more interesting because I'm all out of green stuff for GMs! I'm thinking about making something a bit more orange with some leftover steamed carrots and pumpkin though! Hmmm... we shall see.

Midmorning I snacked on a Jamfrakas bar, if you haven't had these, you've got to try them. I used to get them at Kroger (my get by store for in between Whole Foods/TJs trips) but they stopped carrying them some time ago, so now I only get them at Whole Foods. Anyway, the Chocolate Cosmocrisp is the best. They are gluten free and have a very short ingredient list, they're made by the Larabar people. And (not that I'm counting!) they only have 100 calories. You can't beat it.

My coworker and I tried to recreate the green juice from Fresh Blends, it looks the same, but the taste was not quite the same, it was a ginger BOMB, it was a little on the spicy side, I like ginger, but in small doses, this was not my cuppa tea.

And for lunch I pretty much had an exact repeat of yesterday's salad, this salad makes me very happy. I had a macaroon for dessert... one word... yum. Although, I don't think I made my tummy very happy because we were so busy today that I ate while I worked and that is never good for digestion :( so I followed up lunch with some green tea.

I ended up having to skip my usual tuesday night workout, abs, legs, and cardio to catch up on some freelance design work at home :( but I guess I can't complain for being too busy in this crazy economy!

But the good thing was this gave me a chance to make one of my fave dinners!

Veggie Pasta!! I make lots of variations of this, here is what this one contained:

GF Quinoa fusili pasta with steamed carrots, garbonzo beans, tomato sauce, avocado and feta. And I also added an extra special treat which I tried for the first time, kale chips!! If you've never tried these, you've gotta do it! They were amazingly yummy, and so easy.

I just laid them out on a cookie sheet, heated the oven to 375 drizzled a little olive oil on them and baked for 10 min. They were so light and crispy, I'll def be making these again! I also had a glass of Pinot Noir, my fave.

Happy Yogini

2009-07-06T21:04:00.001-07:00

This morning began with the most delish Green Monster: Halo, our kitty was extremely curious as to what this green concotion was. Hmmmm. I also had my favorite breakfast addition of late of the GF blueberry pumkin muffin with AB and some extra pumpkin for slathering. I've got to say after having this breakfast for a few days in a row, this is one of the most filling breakfast combos I have tried. I am usually very hungry all morning long until lunch, but this actually holds me all the way until lunch time, I just ate a small snack this morning of some raw nuts before lunch to keep my metabolism going, but I wasn't hungry.

This morning's GM included:

1/2 scoop 365 vanilla protein powder
1 cup almond milk (unsweetened vanilla)
1/2 cup canteloupe
1 frozen banana
1 big handful lightly steamed organic kale courtesy of mom :)
and ice of course

It was glorious.

I also did something I haven't done in a long time this morning, I packed a lunch. I have been very disorganized in this department here lately. I've been flying by the seat of my pants so to speak :) I've just been going into work with no plans for lunch, then I usually end up buying lunch or worse, making a last minute trip to the grocery store for lunch ingredients. This is wreaking absolute havoc on my budget!! So this weekend while at Barnes and Noble I was perusing this book about a family that is super budget savvy and they feed their family of 7 on $350 a month!! That's amazing, and they attribute it all to meal planning. So anyway, I was inspired, and I thought about all the food that I let go to waste every week, or the weeks I don't buy enough food because I am tired of over buying, etc. and I decided I was going to pack a lunch with ingredients found in my fridge. And I'm planning on doing this the rest of the week, and this weekend going into my grocery shopping with something that resembles a meal plan, even it's loose.

So here was my "everything" salad made from stuff found in my fridge.

Baby greens with herbs
1/4 avocado
some shaved carrot
several tiny sweet grapes
several perfectly ripe fat juicy blueberries (this was a good addition!)
1/3 cup garbonzo beans for protein and yumminess
sprinkle of feta on top

I topped it off with some ginger pear dressing that I still had in the fridge at work. I also took a macaroon for dessert and some cantaloupe and carrot sticks for snacking.

I was soooo much happier eating the lunch that I brought instead of buying lunch somewhere. I think I can stick to this new plan as long as I always bring food that I'm excited to eat.

It was absolutely delicious! I love fruity salads!

I will however most likely continue to eat lunch out on Fridays because that's kind of a tradition at the studio and I love our Friday lunches, but I think four days a week will make a huge difference, we'll see.

After lunch, we needed a little escape before returning to the grind, so we hopped on over to Fresh Blends, a new juice/smoothie bar down the street, and I had this FABULOUS green juice, I think it was called Green Supreme, it had Granny Smith apple, lemon, spinach, kale, ginger and celery. Sounds appetizing right? Well, it was amazing!! I definitely see a new addiction in my future.

Before yoga, I came home and ate a half of a banana with some almond butter, and a macaroon also slathered with some AB. I'm a fan of power snacks before working out.

Yoga was so much fun tonight, we did lots of new stuff and we worked on inversions at the end, I did two headstands and a handstand, we also did splits up the wall, which was new, LoL, you actually do a forward fold up against the wall, then you just take one of your legs and slide it straight up the wall behind you, it's crazy, but I was actually able to do full splits this way. I followed yoga up with some weight training, I did triceps, biceps, shoulders and traps.

I came home and promptly made a banana protein shake with half a banana, 1 cup almond milk and 3/4 scoop vanilla protein powder. Lovely and delicious it was.

I also had some watermelon left over from the fourth and a granny smith apple. Sometimes the best food is just the most simple.

I think all together, I probably could have had more protein today, but I did snack on raw nuts throughout the day, so hopefully that helped.

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