What I ate

Taco salad does the trick

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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

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Ramblings

Confession

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So, I have a confession to make.
  
…
  

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

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

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

      

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

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

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

Here’s what went into the quesadilla burger:      

quesadilla burg fixin's

 

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:      

Shredded mini wheat, PB Puffin, Kashi Heart, Kashi Sunshine, Cheerio

 

Go. Buy. Now.

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Ramblings

Eggplant makes me ralph

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So I woke up this morning and was absolutely sick to my stomach.  Ralphing was involved.   

While laying on couch trying to fall back asleep, it dawned on me that my body was rejecting the eggplant I ate yesterday!!!  Even typing the word makes me queasy.  🙁  

For you purple veggie lovers out there, definitely give yesterday’s recipe a try.  For all you sane people out there, such as myself, try the recipe again using lasagna noodles.  

I don’t know about you, but when I’m feeling sick I crave processed carbohydrates.  Pizza, mac and cheese, PB&J… mmmmmm……  

So when I finally felt stable enough to try and eat something, I decided to make some healthified bisquick waffles.  I mixed up the following:  

  • 1/3 cup bisquick
  • 1/2 cup almond breeze unsweetened vanilla almond milk
  • 1 egg white

I poured the batter onto my little waffle maker ($8 at Target, boo ya).  The waffles seemed to take longer to crisp up than normal unhealthified waffles.  I topped them off with 1/8 cup sugar free smucker’s syrup and some strawberries I had sliced up yesterday.  

waffle love

 

It was d-e-l-i-c-i-o-u-s.  And it seems to be agreeing with my belly, so I’m heading into work shortly.  Not sure what to do about lunch.  Seriously contemplating a stop at Wendy’s…..  Hopefully my brain wins this war over my belly!  

Stats on the waffles:  216 calories, 35g carbs, 6g fat, 7g protein, 2g fiber

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Recipes

Loved/Hated Dinner

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I wanted to do something adventurous for dinner tonight — so I decided to make these stuffed eggplant rolls.    

Now, this may not sound adventurous to you,but trust me, this is a very out of the ordinary dish for me.    

Remember those meals your parents would cook when you were a kid that you absolutely hated?  You know, THOSE meals where you were forced to sit at the table until you cleared you plate?  Well, eggplant was one of those foods I just hated as a kid.  (In addition to kidney beans and fish)     

I think the last time my mom had me eat eggplant I was about 7 years old.  I can vividly remember my hatred for the weird mushy yet spongy texture.     

Anyway, back to the cookin.  I followed shape’s recipe except I used some leftover classico sauce instead of their sauce and I didn’t have any pine nuts on hand, so those were omitted.  I seasoned it up with salt, pepper, red pepper flakes, and oregano and served it up with a side of green beans.    

eggplant rolls

  

There were good parts and bad parts to this dinner.     

The good:    

  • the ricotta <3 <3 <3
  • the spinach
  • the sauce
  • the seasonings
  • the green beans
  • the ice cold glass of water I drank while eating dinner
  • the fact that my entire dinner was under 200 calories

     

The bad:    

  • the eggplant. 🙁

     

So sad!  I was hoping my palate had matured enough since the ripe age of 7 that I would enjoy eggplant.  Wrong.  One of the eggplant rolls was sliced thinner than the others, and I found that particular roll to be quite tasty.  If I closed my eyes, I could almost trick myself into thinking I was eating a lasagna noodle 😉    

After dinner, I tried to make some healthy carrot cookies, and they were a big flat flop.    

Sooooo I decided to make myself a nice shake for my late night snack 😀    

Into the blender went:    

  • 1 cup ice
  • 1/2 cup almond breeze unsweetened vanilla almond milk
  • 1 tbsp chocolate pb2
  • 1/4 of a serving IntraPro Double Chocolate Pure Whey Protein (leftover from my first ever protein shake)
 

    

  

  

   

protein pb2 shake

  

    

 Delish!    

Stats on the shake:  76 calories, 5g carbs, 3g fat, 9g protein, 2g fiber    

      

Here’s hoping tomorrow brings me better success in the kitchen 🙂   

  

 

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What I ate

(good) Case of the Monday’s

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It’s Monday, and I am surprisingly cheery today!  Even despite the gray and dreary weather we’ve got going on outside. 

nice and gray outside

 

Maybe my good mood is due to the delicious Trader Joe’s coffee I had this morning on the way to work…  That Trader Joe… Sure knows how to put a smile on my face 🙂 

Almond butter sounded good this morning, so I went with a toasted Pepperidge Farm Deli Flat  (that I had leftover from the turkey burgers) with Trader Joe’s crunchy almond butter and a little smear of Smucker’s Blackberry preserves (my favorite!  love the seeds!). 

PB & J? Strike that. AB & P!

 

Motivational poster I drew for the BF:  

 

For breakfast #2 I went with a barley breakfast bowl again, which consisted of Stoneyfield Farms Greek Yogurt, Barley, and Red Raspberries: 

 

I still have some leftover barley, so I think I’ll try and incorporate that into dinner somehow…  

Today for lunch I had a very special treat 😀  

Jarrod made me a GINORMOUS salad with romaine, grilled chicken, black beans, tomato, onion, cucumber, and carrots: 

 

He has an uncanny ability for chopping things into perfect shapes 😉 

As I’m eating my lovely salad, I realize that I haven’t really planned anything out for lunches this week.  Do you ever fall into sack-lunch-doldrums?  I know I do.  I’ll have to do some brainstorming and see if I can spice things up this week.

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