Recipes

Shrimp & Bean Tostado

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YOWZA!  Delicious dinner alert!  In my continued effort to use of more of the leftovers from last night’s dinner, I decided to make a tostado for dinner.  A Tostado is an “open-face” enchilada that you can order at pretty much any Mexican restaurant.  The base for the tostado is a flat hard-shelled taco shell, and it is topped with a variety amazing traditional mexican ingredients. 

First thing first, I need to crisp up my tortilla.  I sprayed a little cake pan with some cooking spray, and then tossed a Mama Lupe low carb tortilla into the pan.  I rubbed the tortilla around in the cooking spray on both sides, then popped into a 415 degree oven.  I cooked the tortilla for about 6 minutes, flipping halfway through. 

Mama Lupe gone crispy:

Meanwhile, I got to work on the shrimpies.  I sprayed a saute pan with cooking spray, seasoned both sides of the shrimp with McCormick’s Mexican blend seasoning, Cayenne pepper, and some black pepper.  Then I tossed them into the pan with a few drizzles of lime juice, and cooked them until opaque.

Next I heated up a 1/4 cup of Old El Paso Fat-Free Refried Beans in the microwave and smeared them on top of the crispy tortilla. 

Come to mama… Mama Lupe that is 😉

I also heated up some of the leftover grilled veggies from last night’s dinner (this was approximately 1/4 cup red onion, 1/4 of a green pepper, and 1/4 cup zucchini).  Once heated, I added the chopped up shrimp and about 1 tbsp of chopped fresh cilantro and gave it a good mix. 

Poured the veggies and shrimp onto the bean loaded tortilla and topped with 1 Sargento Light Mozzarella string cheese that I had cut into sticks:

Into a 415 degree oven for 5 minutes until the cheese was nice and melty… Try not to drool on your keyboard 😉

Ohhhhh yes.

But that’s not all! 

I topped the tostado off with some shredded lettuce, 1/4 chopped red onion, 1/2 a plum tomato, a few banana peppers, and 2 tbsp fat-free breakstones sour cream. 

Yeah that’s right.

Check me out:

Soooooo f.r.i.g.g.i.n. delicious…

The entire time I was eating this I kept thinking “why does this taste SOOOO good?”  

A.)  Cilantro

B.)  Spicy Shrimp

C.)  Beans?? 

D.) VEGGIES GALORE??!?!?

Nope.. It’s actually E.)  All of the above! 😀

Stats on dinner:  323 calories, 36g carbs, 6g fat, 29g protein, 10g fiber

  

Time to get my pack on for the HLS!!!  Anyone have tips for packing light??  I’m trying to avoid checked luggage fees at ALL costs…

 

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What I ate

Tuesday GFNBW, OO, BCW!

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After my big b-day dinner last night, it felt especially good to get my run in this morning.  Today marks the completion of week #4 of my interval training plan!  I can’t believe I’ve made it this far, and still no knee pain.  I’m really looking forward to signing up for some races once I’m back to running a 100% of the time!

Here are my Runkeeper Pro stats for the interval:

3.04 miles in 32 minutes.  Not too shabby, given that I was power walking for 12 of the 32 minutes.  Next, I’ll be doing 3 10-minute intervals of 7 minutes running and 3 minutes walking.  Part of me is excited for this bump in run time, and part of me is nervous!

I’m not sure how they calculate the calories burned in this app since it never asked me to input my height, weight, or sex.  Pretty sure it’s not accurate, but at least the GPS function works!  Can’t really complain since it was free 🙂

Breakfast #1:  GFNBW

Grilled Fruit and Nut Butter Wrap!  These always make me smile 🙂

Today I spread 1 tbsp Trader Joe’s Crunchy Almond butter atop a Mama Lupe’s Low Carb tortilla along with some sliced strawberries and blueberries.

Then I grilled the wrap on the George Foreman grill, wrapped in foil, and enjoyed the deliciousness at my desk at work:

Stats on B#1:  193 calories, 18g carbs, 12g fat, 9g protein, 8g fiber 

Breakfast #2:  OO

For my midmorning breakfast I had… surprise surprise – overnight oats!  I switched up my usual mix by adding blueberries.  I know, really pushing the boundaries here.

I swear I’m going to get more adventurous with my overnight oats! I’m going to miss these creamy morning treats on vacation:

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

Lunch:  BCW

I had planned on making a new dish using the leftover crabmeat from  my birthday dinner, but I was short on time this morning so I quickly grabbed the fixin’s for a buffalo chicken wrap.

That consisted of:

  • 1 Mama Lupe’s Low Carb Tortilla
  • 3 ounces shredded chicken
  • 2 tbsp plain Dannon Greek Yogurt
  • 1 tbsp Franks Red Hot
  • Sprinkling of Black Pepper & Garlic Salt

I had the wrap cold this time, and it was DELICIOUS.  Reminded me of the buffalo chicken dip Jarrod and I always make for get togethers, only about three thousand times healthier!

Stats on Lunch:  166 calories, 8g carbs, 4g fat, 28g protein, 4g fiber

Tonight

The Man Candy comes home tonight!  His flight is only three hours delayed…  Oh well.  Tomorrow we’re heading southward to Charlotte, NC!   Roadtrip! 😀

Last night, Jarrod finally got in a Belgium Waffle:

That is RIDICULOUS.  I’m jealous!

Speaking of the man candy, you may be wondering why on earth I call the BF that.  Early on in our dating, we were out at a local bar and my dad happened to show up!  I was unsure whether or not Jarrod would be comfortable with me calling him my boyfriend, so I introduced him to my dad as my “man candy” (i.e., manly eye candy)…  Totally less awkward than calling him my boyfriend, right?!   Hahaha… well the nickname just sorta stuck.  My family still refers to him as my man candy.  He is pretty easy on the eyes afterall 😉

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What I ate

Cold and crunchy Monday

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It’s Monday!  Woot. 

😉 actually today has been a pretty decent Monday thus far.  The office is super quiet since many of my coworkers opted to use our floating holiday today.  I decided to bank mine and take my birthday off (next week) instead.

Hope you all have a fabulous fun/food/framily filled weekend!

The PB2 Giveaway ended last night!!!  Read further for the lucky winner 😀

Breakfast #1

It’s been so hot these past few days, that I was craving something super cold for breakfast this morning.  I decided a fruit smoothie would be the ticket to cooling things off.  I threw the following into the blender:

  • 1/2 cup Almond Breeze unsweetened almond milk
  • 1/2 cup Trader Joe’s Vanilla Greek Yogurt
  • 1 cup fresh frozen strawberries
  • 1/4 cup blueberries
  • 1 packet Truvia (Stevia) all natural sweetener

Once I blended everything up, I opened the fridge to put the almond milk away and saw a lonely half-empty bag of spinach sitting on the shelf begging to be eaten. 

I’ve read lots of posts on the “green monster” smoothies, especially on Julie’s blog, but I’ve never tried one myself… Until today that is!

I grabbed a handful of spinach and threw it into the blender and gave it a good pulse. 

Yes, that is spinach you are seeing

The result:

One huge smoothie with “monster” flecks:

This was surprisingly tasty!  You can’t specifically taste the spinach itself, but it gives the smoothy a hearty fullness.  It also cuts on some of the sweetness of the fruit, so I was glad I used a whole packet of truvia.  I think I’ve officially jumped on the green monster bandwagon 😀

If you’re intrigued — check out the Green Monster Movement.

Stats on the Green Monster:  197 calories, 37g carbs, 2g fat, 12g protein, 6g fiber

Breakfast #2

O…. O…..   mmmmmm…. haven’t had overnight oats in a few days, so I went with the go-to OO Combo: 

  • 1/2 cup oats
  • 1/2 cup Almond Breeze unsweetened almond milk
  • 1 tsp brown sugar
  • sprinkling of cinnamon
  • fresh strawberries

All stirred up:

Overnight oats… oh how I’ve missed you :-*

Stats on the oats:  208 calories, 38g carbs, 5g fat, 6g protein, 6g fiber

Lunch

Keeping on with today’s cold theme, I thought I’d add a little crunch to my lunch with a nice salad.  Last night, I threw together a monster salad that consisted of:

  • 1/2 bag fresh express romaine
  • 1 roma tomato
  • 1/2 cucumber
  • 1/4 cup white onion
  • 1 serving baby carrots
  • 1 link of Jennie O’s hot turkey sausage

Topped it all off with 2 tbsp of fat free ranch dressing:

Stats on the Monster Salad:  295 calories, 28g carbs, 10g fat, 22g protein, 7g fiber

And the winner of the PB2 Giveaway ……………

Drumroll please……

Based on the random number generator, the lucky winner is:

Monique at She’s Going the Distance!!!

  

Thank you guys for taking the time to post on my blog!  I really love seeing what you guys have to say, and as cheesy as it may sound (who doesn’t love a little cheese?) it really brightens my day 😀

Monique – please send your mailing address to:  ferventfoodie@gmail.com

Everyone else – you can purchase PB2 online at www.netrition.com.  Since it’s flat rate shipping, I’d recommend getting some Mama Lupe’s low-carb tortillas, Joseph’s low-carb pita, and some carba nada pasta 🙂

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Recipes, What I ate

Something old, something new x2

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Breakfast #1

For breakfast this morning I was craving one of my standards:  dippy eggs and potatoes.  So, I cooked up 1 egg over easy, heated up some of Jarrod’s special cajun oven potatoes, and a Thomas’ multi-grain english muffin. 

Served up with a dollop of ketchup, of course! 😉

Delicious as always!  Sometimes you just gotta go with the tried and true.

Stats on breakfast #1:  219 calories, 39g carbs, 6g fat, 12g protein, 9g fiber

 

Breakfast #2 = Healthified Low-Carb Waffles

I recently picked up some Bob’s Red Mill Low-Carb baking mix, so I decided to try and make some low-carb waffles this morning.

I mixed up:

  • 1/4 cup Bob’s Red Mill Low-Carb baking mix
  • 1/4 cup + 1 tsp Almond Breeze unsweetened almond milk
  • 1 egg white
  • Sprinkling of cinnamon

Poured the mix onto the waffle iron, and let it cook for about 10 minutes.

Meanwhile, I mixed up half a serving of PB2 and made it a little on the runny side (for drizzling!).  I also microwaved 1/4 of fresh frozen strawberries.  Once nice and hot, I added a sprinkling of Truvia to sweeten them up and a drizzle of Smuckers sugar free syrup.

All together:

This was a good first stab at low-carb waffles!  Next time, I think I’ll add half a packet of the truvia to the actual waffle batter and also 1/8 tsp of baking powder to help the waffles perk up a bit.  Definitely gonna play with this idea some more!

Stats on just the waffles:  126 calories, 12g carbs, 3g fat, 18g protein, 5g fiber

Stats on waffles with all the fixins:  170 calories, 21g carbs, 4g fat, 21g protein, 6g fiber

 

Larabar success!!

Yesterday, I was feeling adventurous (albeit hesitant) and decided to try the Peanut butter & Jelly Larabar that I’ve been neglecting for the past week due to Larabar Fail #1 and Fail #2. 

Every other larabar I’ve tried to date, I’ve taken 1 bite and tossed the rest.  I actually enjoyed this one!  Wow!  I’m so surprised!  And I LOVE the simple ingredients:  Dates, Peanuts, Unsweetened Cherries, and Salt.  Still keeping an eye out there for the coconut and key lime flavors…

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