Mary – Page 61 – Fervent Foodie

Busy Bee & I miss running

June 17, 2010 17 Comments

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Recipes, What I ate

Just trust me on this one…

June 17, 2010 No Comments

Breakfast #1

I think we all know I adore eggs for breakfast. No arguments here. Bad news is I sometimes can’t find the time in the morning to whip them up. I’ve been wanting to try cooking eggs in the oven for a while, so last night I decided to give it a go. I mixed up my typical scrambled egg mixture: 1 egg, 3 egg whites, S&P, Red Pepper Flakes (RPF?), and some Frank’s Red Hot. I poured the mixture into two miniature ramekins, and popped in a 350 degree oven for 26 minutes.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA — How cute are these lil guys?

They look like little egg muffins! Little eggins! 🙂

This morning, I decided to turn the lil eggins into a wrap. So I pulled a Mama Lupe’s low carb tortilla out of the freezer, heated that puppy up, and topped it all off with some ketchup.

That looks like an eggin massacre…

Portable and delicious!

These eggins are just so cute! What I really like about this cooking method is you could make a whole muffin tin full of lil eggins! If you had friends over for brunch, everyone could toss in their mixins of choice! Love this idea! Who’s ready for a brunch party? 😀

Breakfast #2

Recently, it was brought to my attention that peanut butter may make an amazing mixin for greek yogurt. Today my friends, I put this to the test.

I mixed up 1 Dannon vanilla greek yogurt, 1 tbsp JIF peanut butter, and 1/2 a serving of crushed Emerald’s cocoa roasted almonds.

The result?

Friggin’ deliciousness! This reminded me of a peanut butter cheese cake for some reason. Some crushed up nilla wafers on top would have been fabulous. Let’s just say I licked the container clean, and it’s not exactly easy to reach the bottom of a yogurt container with your tongue. But I made it happen. 🙂

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Lunch

Alright… Here’s where the just-trust-me factor comes in.

Let me preface what’s about to go down on my blog with the following: I wanted to try something new for lunch today.

Repeat it with me: I wanted to try something new for lunch today.

I’m going walking with my sister after work, and knew I was packing a chicken sandwich for dinner. Soooo, I was leaning toward the other white meat AKA tuna fish for lunch (NOT a fan of pork, and therefore it is NOT the other white meat in my life). You may recall that I have a long jaded relationship with fish (case in point: my fight with fish). Tuna happens to be the only fish I have found to date that I actually enjoy.

So Tuna it was.

I subsequently noticed I had some cottage cheese in the fridge that was nearing the end of its useful life.

I decided to google tuna + cottage cheese + recipe just to see what might turn up.

I clicked on the very first link: Tuna Salad Sandwich Recipe

Internal debating ensued.

Do I really want to try tuna fish mixed with cottage cheese? Could it possibly be good? I was hesitant, but I decided to give it a go.

Into the bowl:

1 5 ounce canned solid white albacore tuna, drained
1/4 cup fat free cottage cheese
salt, pepper, dried parsley, celery seed, dried dill
small squirt spicy brown mustard
1/2 tsp lemon juice

At this very moment, you are probably disgusted thoroughly intrigued by this concoction.

I added some chopped up tomato, red onion, and banana peppers right before serving. In an effort to keep my carb-tooth (located directly next to the sweet tooth) under wraps, I served the tuna salad up in a red pepper instead of your typical sandwich:

Me and the tuna pepper:

Up close:

I know those cottage cheese chunks look a little funky, but rest assured my friends, it was down right tasty!

Stats on the tuna pepper: 218 calories, 18g carbs, 2g fat, 36g protein, 4g fiber

Recipes

Shrimptastic Dinner

June 16, 2010 1 Comment

I’ve been eyeballing this recipe for Shrimp and Zucchini Pasta for over a week, so I decided to make it for dinner tonight. I used the Skinny Taste recipe above as my starting point, and scaled it down to one serving. I also omitted the olive oil and used extra chicken stock in its place.

I haven’t had pasta in a while, and just the thought of eating it made me want a HUGE plate. So I decided to peel the zucchini into thin pasta-like strips (rather than cubing as per the recipe) to really bulk up the pasta feel.

I also used carba nada pasta. I just love the stuff!

I tasted the veggie/sauce mixture, and decided it needed a little extra oomph. So I added about a tbsp of balsamic vinegar and a liberal dusting of red pepper flakes (I like it hot!).

Take a closer look:

My mouth was on fire after finishing this delicious pasta! I had to eat a couple frozen grapes to cool things off 🙂

Stats on the pasta: 342 calories, 49g carbs, 2g fat, 29g protein, 9g fiber

Here’s a few shrimptastic recipes I’ve stumbled upon that look like things I need to try:

Dinner is done, but I’m headed back to the kitchen to make BLD for tomorrow (breakfast, lunch, & dinner)… more about that tomorrow!

What I ate

Taco salad does the trick

June 16, 2010 4 Comments

This morning started off on the right foot: Trader Joe’s coffee for the road as I headed to a breakfast meeting for Akron’s Knowledgeable Network of Women.

Check this guy out, he thinks he lives at my house:

I also have a stray cat who calls my side porch home. I’ll take these guys over the possum who had a brief stint in my backyard :-/ Ugh, possums are so creepy!

On my way to the breakfast meeting, I started to recall the days where I loved breakfast/lunch work meetings. The more the better! Bring on the free food! Pass the rolls! Dessert? I’ll take one of each, thank you! Nowadays I dread them. It’s so hard to make healthy choices when you have no idea what the restaurant is actually putting in the food. Unless I’m at a chain restaurant that posts the nutritional data online, I have thee hardest time picking out the healthy choices on the menu. It can be downright frustrating!

Today’s meeting was at a small locally owned restaurant, so I was left to fight the battle on my own. I went with a plain english muffin (no butter, thanks) with blackberry preserves and a bowl of fruit. What I REALLY WANTED was the strawberry stuffed french toast… Maybe I’ll attempt a healthified version this weekend 🙂

Check out the KNOW by clicking here. I always encourage people to get involved and do something that is outside their comfort zone. That’s exactly why I joined the KNOW a few years back. I HATED networking events and always felt uncomfortable entering a room full of unknowns. I’ve made drastic improvements since then.

For breakfast #2 I decided to go with my newly declared indulgence: Dannon Vanilla Greek Yogurt, blackberries, and 1/2 a serving of Bear Naked Maple Pecan granola.

Stats of B#2: 190 calories, 31g carbs, 2g fat, 15g protein, 3g fiber

Lunch

I really didn’t have a plan of attack for lunches this week. While scrounging around in the freezer looking for hidden treasures, I found some frozen lean ground beef I had cooked up with taco seasoning a while back. So I decided to make a taco salad using romaine lettuce, tomato, onion, banana peppers, and black beans (STILL trying to use these up from the stuffed peppers I made last week!). Topped it all off with some hot sauce and some fat free breakstones sour cream.

The best part of eating salads for lunch is you can consume an enormous amount of food and still feel good 😀

Stats for the taco salad: 326 calories, 32g carbs, 10g fat, 29g protein, 9g fiber

Ramblings

Confession

June 15, 2010 6 Comments

So, I have a confession to make.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Here’s what went into the quesadilla burger:

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

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

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

All together on the plate:

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

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

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

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

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

Well here it is.

Barbara’s Peanut Butter Puffins.

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

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

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

Third, the taste is pure peanut butter amazingness.

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

Go. Buy. Now.