Back on Track!

Happy Tuesday! In going along with getting back on track, Saturday evening was spent at Trader Joes buying healthy food (you know, after our sushi dinner!), and Sunday was spent prepping healthy food for the week. I turned on some music, and spent a few hours in the kitchen prepping some meals:

·    Crock Pot Chicken and Mushrooms

·   Spicy Beef Udon Soup (tasted awesome on Sunday for lunch... not so  much for dinner tonight. WAY too spicy!)

·   Washed and cut all the lettuce for the week for salads

·   Washed a bag of kale and made Kale Chips

·   Baked Beer bread (mostly for Walter)

·   Buffalo Chicken Salad for Monday’s Lunch – I saw an easy buffalo chicken dinner made here, and wanted to try and recreate it on my own! I threw a chicken breast in water and boiled it up, pulled it apart (put some aside for Molly’s birthday dinner), and added franks red hot. Walter and I tasted some, and it was excellent! I threw it in a Tupperware with lettuce, onion, black beans, and low fat ranch for lunch. It was DELICIOUS! I want to make a whole batch now!

It feels so good to have healthy meals waiting for me in the kitchen for the week. I feel so ahead of the game now!

Monday's Eats:
Breakfast - Whole wheat bagle thin with banana and Dark Chocolate Dreams Peanut Butter - SO GOOD!!!

Lunch - My awesome buffalo chicken salad. I seriously want to mass produce this buffalo chicken and eat it every day forever!

Dinner - Pizza! We got a pre made flatbread pizza dough from Trader Joes for about $3 already seasoned with sea salt and italian seasoning i think?

We brushed the crust with olive oil, and topped the pizza with sauteed mushrooms and onions, goat cheese and shaved parmesean. It was DELICIOUS! I also left some plain to see how the flatbread tasted on its own. It was good! We ended up dipping it in ricotta and olive oil. The dough was crispy on the outside, and doughy on the inside. So good, and dinner was cooked and on the table in about 15 minutes!

Today's Eats:

Breakfast - a luna bar and a yogurt. The Luna Chocolate Peppermint Stick bars are my fave! Some of the other ones can be a little bland.

Lunch - Salad with walnuts and craisins, and leftover pizza

Dinner - Spicy Beef Udon Soup - not a fan reheated. Its a shame too, because I was craving it for weeks! At least i got my fix on Sunday when it was fresh and not too spicy!

Superbowl Sunday: the game

My superbowl was pretty laid back this year. I stayed home and watched with Walter and his dad. For eats, we had dinner, and then apps! We started off with a pizza and sausage bread – I had ½ a slice of pizza and 2 small slices of sausage bread. Then, during half time we moved on to the good stuff… the apps!

Walter and I hit up Trader Joe’s earlier in the day, and we picked up 2 dips we thought would be good:

Trader Joe's Taco Seasoned Beef, Bean, & Cheese Dip

I threw this in the microwave for 5 minutes, and was done! It kindof looked like a TV dinner, but tasted awesome! This was everyones favorite.

Trader Joe's Creamy Spinach & Atrichoke Dip

This one I threw into a bowl, and microwaved for 3 minutes. Also delicious, and by the time I was done, I thought the dips were equally good. But I am always a sucker for spinach artichoke dip!

We had both dips with a bag of multigrain tortilla chips, and i had 2 servings! Both dips were demolishesd by the time the 3rd quarter started.

Before the superbowl, i did a little meal prepping for the week by making another batch of my Chili Mango Chicken. It seriously could not wait another day, because my mando was on it's way out and the chicken was sitting in the fridge since thursday, waiting to be cooked! Here is the exact recipe, since I didn't write it our last time:

Chili-Mango Chicken

1 pound boneless, skinless chicken thighs cut into ½ inch pieces

1 Tbsp cornstarch

1 Tbsp low-sodium soy sauce

¼ Tbso sesame oil

½ Tbsp peanut or canola oil

1 red onion, chopped

1 Tbsp grated or chopped fresh ginger (I used dried, and it was fine)

2 cups sugar snap peas

1 mango pitted, pealed, and chopped

1 tbsp chili garlic sauce

Black pepper to taste

1.       Combine the chicken, cornstarch, soy sauce, and sesame oil in a mixing bowl and let sit for 10 minutes.

2.       Heat the peanut oil in a wok or large skillet over high heat. Add the onion and ginger and cook for 1-2 minutes until the onion is translucent. Add the sugar snaps and stir fry for 1 minute, using a metal spatula to keep the veggies in near-constant motion. Add the chicken, along with its marinade, and stir fry for about 2 minutes, until the meat begins to brown on the outside. Add the mango, chili sauce, and black pepper, and stir fry for 1 minute longer, until the chicken is cooked through and the mango has softened to a near sauce-like consistency. Serve over brown rice.

Makes 4 servings – 280 calories per serving – 8 g fat – 410 mg sodium

Happy Monday!

Superbowl Sunday

Happy Sunday! I was shocked to wake up to the sun beaming through my window... I almost forgot what it looked like! Since I last posted, I completed week 2 of the Couch to 5K program! I went to the gym Thursday night and Sunday, and I feel great! I think I will start week 3 tomorrow morning before work.


Yesterday I had a cheat day - Walter and I went to the International Great Beer Expo in Secaucus with some friends. Despite the weather, we had a great time! We tried many types of beer, but my eating wasn't the best :(


My eats have been pretty standard since I last posted on Thursday:


THURSDAY
L - Chili over salad
D - Salad topped with a black bean morning star burger, tomato, avocado, hot sauce, and ranch


FRIDAY
B - Yogurt w/granola and pear

L - Grilled chicken sandwich on ww bread with roasted peppers, lettuce, and basil mayo (whoops!) with soy crisps
D - One (!) slice of pizza


SATURDAY
B - A monster orange and breakfast sandwich: ww english muffin, an egg, roasted peppers, lettuce, balsamic, laughing cow cheese wedge. (recipe to follow)
S - Handful of Puffins Cereal, 1/2 granola bar
L - soft pretzel, 2 bites of Walter's cheese steak
D - tons of beer, a chicken finger, some disco fries, spinach artichoke dip


SUNDAY
B - English muffin w/apple butter
L - 1/2 Qudoba burrito bowl with rice, black beans, peppers, onions, pulled pork, mild salsa, guac.

AMAZING BREAKFAST SANDWICHES
I wanted to go through the "step by step" and ingredients in my breakfast sandwiches I have been raving about lately. For this one, I changed it up a bit, which made me realize the ingredients to my favorite sandwich!

For bread, I use these Thomas light multi grain english muffins. I take one and throw it in the toaster...

They only have 100 calories each and are really good!

Then I spray a small pan with Pam, and cook an egg over easy. I actually poke a few holes in the yolk and then flip the egg, because I don't like a runny yolk. If you do (Walter), you don't have to flip the egg.

Here are my toppings for this sandwich. Lettuce, roasted peppers, a laughing cow cheese wedge, and later - balsamic vinaigrette dressing.

 Once everything is done, assemble, and EAT!

 My favorite breakfast sandwich by FAR includes the following:

• English muffin
• Over easy egg
• Laughing cow cheese wedge
• Tomato
• Avocado
• Cilantro
• Hot sauce

These sandwiches are easy to make, and taste great! The sandwich I made above had 300 calories including the orange on the side. I think these are a perfect weekend breakfast, because they break up the oatmeals and yogurts of my life, and i look forward to eating them all week! 

After breakfast, Molly and I played for awhile. She tried hiding from me, but i found her...

 There she is!

 Here she is chewing her favorite red ball:

 And posing with it. Doesn't it look like she has a mustache?!

I actually had to throw that ball away, because she started tearing little pieces of plastic off and eating it. I now owe her a new favorite ball. Happy Super Bowl watching!

Weigh in #7

So I decided to move my weigh ins to Thursdays to match with the Biggest Loser challange at work. It seemed silly to have 2 weigh ins on 2 different days of the week, and no time to bounce back from the weekend since my weigh ins are on Mondays. Sooooo..... I only lost 0.2 pounds. (and when I weighed myself in at work, I lost 0.6 pounds... wierd huh?!)

Total weight loss: 0.2 pounds

Weight Loss Remaining: 42.6 pounds

This week snacking totally got the best of me, while working from home I snacked WAY too much! If chips are there… I will eat them. I need to remember this and have more willpower! Plus, let’s be honest, I pretty much ate like shit all weekend (except for those breakfast sandwiches, those were awesome!) I was talking to V about this, and she told me to limit cheese and carbs. So I am going to try very hard to do that, and limit cheese, carbs, and SODIUM! Sodium is a sneaky one too.

Since I was home yesterday, I prepared a crock pot chili during my lunch break! I will post the recipe and book it came from later, it tasted pretty good! It was a white turkey chili, I think I prefer regular chili with black beans, tomatoes, chili powder, ect. Here is what it looks like:

 And here it is over a salad for dinner, which I also packed for lunch today:

WEDNESDAY

L – Salad w/grilled chicken, artichoke hearts*, roasted red peppers*, feta cheese, balsamic vinaigrette

S – Chips and hummus

D – Turkey chili over mixed greens with salsa, balsamic vinaigrette, and asiago cheese

THURSDAY

B – Balance Bar

S – 2 Clementines, light n fit yogurt, sprinkle of granola

*The artichoke hearts and roasted red peppers are in water (not marinated in oil). The artichokes have 10 calories each, and the peppers have 5 calories per serving.

Alright, back to work! Have a great day!

Recipes: Week 2

I wanted to share the recipes I made for week 2 of my 2011 goal of 2 recipes per week. I am actually making my crock pot recipe right now, so I will post about it when i taste it and make sure its good :)


Last week, I made a Grilled Shrimp with Mom's Avocado-and-Orange Salad that I found in Food & Wine Magazine (link above). It was SO GOOD! Walter and I made it on Tuesday, and then ate the leftovers on Wednesday. 

The shrimp had a marinade that included ornage juice, hot sauce, and mint, and it was delicious!

 The side salad consisted of avocado, orange slice, tomato, onion, hot sauce, cilantro, olive oil, and lime juice. It was also delicious! Here it is all together:

 Here are the leftovers we saved for the next day. The trick was cutting enough avocado for dinner the first night, and when we brought it our the next day, we cut up the rest of the avocado to make sure it was fresh!

We both agreed it was more of a summer dish, since it was so light and refreshing. I will definately make this again when it gets warmer!

Another dish Walter and I made this week was the Spicy Shrimp and Vegetable Stir-fry I found on Self.com. We wanted to make a quick and easy dinner with whatever we had in the kitchen, so we used the above recipe as a guide and used our own veggies. Here are the ingredients for the recipe:

• 1/4 cup low-sodium soy sauce
• 1/4 cup sake
• 2 tablespoons sugar
• 1 tablespoon dark (toasted) sesame oil
• 1 tablespoon chopped garlic
• 1 tablespoon finely chopped or grated ginger
• 1 cup large-diced red bell pepper
• 1 cup large-diced green bell pepper
• 1 cup large-diced onion
• 1 cup cubed cabbage
• 1 cup sliced carrot
• 1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes
• 24 large shrimp, shelled and deveined
• 
  

Substitutions: For the stir fry sauce, we used all of the ingredients exactly but omitted the sake. It tasted great! For veggies, we used 1 1/2 cups of green pepper instead of a cup of red and a cup of green. We substituted the cabbage for broccoli, and still used the onion and carrot. we only had about 10 shrimp, so we just used what we had. It turned out to be medium spicy to me (probably mild for most people). You can vary the spice level by using more or less of the red pepper flakes. We ate it with a side of jasmine rice. I forgot to take a picture of it though :(

Finally, I guess I created my OWN recipe!!!! (Insert your shock here) I absolutely LOVE the quesadilla explosion salad from chilis, but it is one of the most unhealthy meals out there. It has a whopping 1400 calories and 88 grams of fat if you order it as is. Check out all of Chilis nutrition facts here. I used to order this salad ALL the time, which is why i need to loose weight! The other night, i was playing around not knowing what I really wanted to make for dinner, and out came a salad that tasted just like the quesadilla explosion! Here is what I used (I don't have exact measurements, because i just eyeballed everything):


First, combine the following in a pan (makes 2 servings):

• Chopped pepper and green onion (about 1 cup total)
• 2 servings ground turkey (i used a pre-packaged jennie-o turkey burger and chopped it up as i cooked).
• Chili powder
• 1 serrano pepper
• 1 can black beans, rinsed and drained

For the salad (makes ONE salad):

• 2 cups romaine lettuce (or whatever you prefer)
• Diced tomatoes
• chopped fresh cilantro
• 2-3 tablespoons of salsa
• drizzle of ranch dressing
• 2 tablespoons of Ken's Creamy Balsamic Vinaigrette with Honey salad dressing

I think it was the mixture of the salsa, ranch, and balsamic, but it tasted just like the real quesadilla explosion dressing! I ended up eating this for 3 meals! (Once with Shrimp) Of course, I forgot to take a picture of this too. I need to get better about that!

Right now, there is adobo chicken cooking away in the crock pot, and I am off to *attempt* to bake some beer bread!

2011 Goals

I know we are almost done with the second week of the year, but I wanted to outline my goals for 2011 so I can hold myself accountable and keep track of them!

1.       Make at least 2 NEW recipes per week for a total of 50 per year (since I started a week late). This should include 1 crockpot meal per week.

2.       Run 1 mile without stopping

3.       Run a 5K

4.       Lose 50 pounds

5.       Complete the 200 situp challenge

6.       Track my calories

7.       Get organized!!! (finances, email, calendar, apartment)

8.       Go the gym 12 times per month (3x a week)

I will keep my progress on these goals updated throughout the year, so stay tuned!