What I ate

A friendly dinner

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So last night, I hit up a local farmer’s market with two of my friends/coworkers, Jessie and Tim.

We were in search of inspiration for something to make for our friend’s dinner we scheduled what seems like 5 months ago….  All because you have to be VIP to get on Jessie’s calendar  …  Not pointing fingers or anything…

We did a loop around the market, to check out the goods:

After a mini-powwow on our findings, we decided to go with fajitas for our friends dinner. 

We ended up going with:

  • 2 green peppers
  • 1 lb of mixed lettuce greens
  • 1 green zucchini
  • 1 yellow zucchini
  • 2 ears of corn
  • 1 candy onion (basically a mild onion, but we were all super intrigued by the name)

We divided the remaining necessities for our fajitas amongst us, and each of us left to grocery shop/scavenge for food in our fridges/pantries.  Us accountants are so dang efficient sometimes 😉

First thing I did when I arrived at Tim and Jaci’s house was spread all the ingredients out on the counter. 

I guess I’m not capable of cooking unless I’m surrounded by a big fat mess 🙂

Jessie got to guac makin’ while Tim supervised:

I tended to the veggies:

Tim got his grill on:

Jaci got her shred on:

Then we feasted:

Here’s one with the flash for easy viewing:

Yeah, I ate that. 🙂  And it was goooooooooood!

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Recipes, What I ate

Healthified Chicken Parmesan Sub

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What’s better than a dinner that only takes 15 minutes to get into your belly?  A dinner that only takes 15 minutes AND is healthy AND tastes delicious!

Lately, I’ve been craving bread.  Buns, muffins, bagels, pizzas, you know the deal.  So tonight, I thought I’d make a healthified chicken parmesan sub.

I topped a Joseph’s Low-Carb Pita with a 1/4 cup of Classico Fire Roasted Tomato Garlic Pasta sauce (leftover from yesterday’s pizza), and 3 ounces of grilled chicken (leftovers from the weekend).  I added some red pepper flakes, dried oregano, black pepper, and garlic powder.

Then I thinly sliced a light mini babybel cheese round into four thin discs and tossed that on top along with some banana pepper rings:

In another pan, I added 2 cups broccoli and a ¼ cup of garbanzo beans (leftovers from the couscous garbanzo bean salad).

Everything into a 415 degree oven for 15 minutes.

Beautiful.

So friggin’ tasty:

 

I love roasted veggies

 

Melty and amazing

So is it still considered a chicken parmesan sub if I didn’t use any parmesan?  Chicken Babybelesan sub perhaps 😉

Stats on the sub:  228 calories, 13g carbs, 7g fat, 33g protein, 5g fiber

Stats on the broccoli/beans:  110 calories, 22g carbs, 2g fat, 8g protein, 9g fiber

Altogether:  338 calories, 35g carbs, 9g fat, 41g protein, 14g fiber

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Recipes, What I ate

Pita Pizza & a Green Monster

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

He might have to go on my next salad 🙂

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

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

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

 

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

Take a look at this monstrosity:

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

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

Threw the following into the blender:

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

It’s green.  It’s delicious.

Mmmmm…

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

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

Blog Updates

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

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Ramblings

Foodie who is anti-food?

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All throughout my life, I’ve been a big eater. 

Eating minimal food throughout the day so that I could engorge at dinner was commonplace for me for many years.  Family members would tease me about always being the first person in the cookout buffet lines, and the first person to go back for round #2.  I’ve been a foodie for as long as I can remember.  I just love food.  Yes, my world basically revolves around it.  Yes, that may mean I have issues… but I’m ok with that 🙂

Over the past year, I’ve changed a lot of my old habits.  Nowadays, I take the time to plan my meals out in advance so that I’m sure I’m giving my body the fuel it needs to chug along throughout the day.  And I try as hard as I can to not over do it in one sitting.  I HATE that sickly full feeling you get when you overeat.  (Despite other changes I have made, I am still always the first in the buffet line…  watch out, I throw elbows 😉 )

Never in my life have I even been called a person who is “not really into food,” until today that is.  I was incorrectly classified today after I suggested a place with “healthy options” for lunch, and then proceeded to only eat 1/2 of my ginormous plate of food.  I must say, I was a little taken aback.  Dare I say, I scoffed in the commenter’s general direction.  I LOVE FOOD.  LOVE, I say, LOVE! I just try to incorporate as many healthy choices into my day as possible. 

Does that make me anti-food?  I think not!

 

Breakfast #1

I had a leftover link of Jennie-O Hot Turkey sausage from the weekend I wanted to use up, so I decided to make a double batch of scrambled eggs. 

I mixed up 8 egg whites, S&P, red pepper flakes, and some water and got my scramble on.  Once the curds started to form (least attractive word ever), I added some splashes of franks red hot to the eggs and dumped in the diced up turkey sausage.

I also roasted up some broccoli to go along side. 

2 days’ breakfasts & minimal effort.  Love it!

B#1 Stats (1 serving = 1/2 of recipe above):  174 calories, 8g carbs, 5g fat, 24g protein, 1g fiber

Breakfast #2

As I was preparing to make my overnight oats last night, I stood in front of an open cabinet pondering what I could possibly put in my oats to mix things up.  Then a little voice inside me said.. you know you want the same exact oats you made for Monday.  And guess what, that little voice was right.  🙂

  • 1/2 cup uncooked quick oats
  • 1/2 cup unsweetened almond breeze almond milk
  • 1 tsp brown sugar
  • cinnamon
  • fresh strawberries

Heaven.

B#2 Stats:  208 calories, 38g carbs, 5g fat, 6g protein, 6g fiber

Lunch

Lunch today was courtesy of Aladdin’s Eatery.  I went with the Jasmine’s Favorite Plate (plain)–which according to the Daily Plate only has 400 calories.  I find that hard to believe, given that the plate of food they brought me was overfloweth with food.  What do you guys think of that website?  Reliable?  Not reliable?

Anyway, the Jasmine’s Favorite is “a fresh mix of cooked beans, vegetables and rice seasoned with a blend of herbs and spices,” and it was DELICIOUS.

I wasn’t able to take a pic of everything, but here’s some of what was leftover:

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Recipes

Couscous Garbanzo Bean Salad

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I found a recipe for Couscous Garbanzo Bean Salad in the July 2010 issue of Cooking Light, and while I was making last night’s Southwestern Tabbouleh, I realized many of the ingredients were the same in the two recipes.  So, I was SUPER PRODUCTIVE and mixed up two servings of tonight’s dinner ahead of time.  Boo. Ya. 🙂  I was also pretty amped to use some of the Rice Select Tri-Color couscous I picked up last week (and used in my Chicken Couscous Salad).

I put the following into a bowl, then covered with a lid to steam:

  • 1/2 cup couscous
  • 1/2 cup boiling water
  • 1/4 tsp salt
  • 1/4 tsp black pepper
  • 1/16 tsp cinnamon

 Meanwhile, I mixed up the dressing:

  • 3 tablespoons lemon juice
  • 1 clove minced garlic
  • Dash sugar

Then, combined the following into a bowl:

  • 1 tbsp chopped mint
  • 1/4 cup chopped green onion
  • 1/16 paprika
  • 1/2 can chickpeas/garbanzo beans/whathaveyou 😉
  • 12 cherry tomatoes
  • 1/4 cup reduced fat feta ounces feta
  • S&P & red pepper flakes
  • 1/4 cup red onion

I combined the couscous and dressing with the other ingredients, then left in the fridge to overnight.

I was really craving roasted veggies, so I decided to only have 1/2 a serving of the couscous salad (a quarter of the recipe above) with a hodge podge of veggies that I tossed with 1 tsp olive oil and S&P and roasted in a 400 degree oven for 20 minutes.

I realized tonight that I’m really not a big fan of fresh mint 🙁

 

With every bite of couscous I thought to myself, man this would be really tasty if it weren’t for the mint… I ended up throwing some Frank’s Red Hot on there for good measure 🙂

The roasted veggies were so delicious:

If you’re a fan of mint, give this recipe a shot.  Otherwise, sub in cilantro or basil or go for the Chicken Couscous Salad instead!

Stats on 1 serving of couscous garbanzo bean salad:  317 calories, 50g carbs, 4g fat, 14g protein, 5g fiber

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