Saturday

Breafast for dinner the night before was so yummy, I did the big English Breakfast for Brunch.

English Breakfast Tea made with skim milk

Ironic to eat my Lean Cuisine at home, rather than at work this past week, but, so is life.

Here it is an real life with some green beans added.

Then I went Ethnic for dinner.

I think it looks prettier in person, especially with the salad.

Then I tried to make homemade chai for dessert.

It was pretty good, but I mis-estimated how much milk/water to add.

Then the last of the gluten free cookies--I stayed up to watch SNL (Neil Patrick Harris hosted, very funny. I especially liked the Actors with Two 1st names sketch.)

Friday Dinner

Veggie Soup

Breakfast for dinner

Flex Here I Come

We had a bit of a tea tragedy in the parking lot--all over the hood of my car and on the parking space next to mine (blissfully empty), my morning Black Tea went kaboom. Very sad. I had a couple of the pictured blackberries above with my yogurt (honestly to get rid of them).

Seriously, my office is an evil place--we went to Cracker Barrel after four boring hours going over the work plan. I ate 1/2 of the above--well, maybe a bit more of the mashed potatoes and green beans, but 1/2 of the chicken was left and I didn't finish the carrots. I drank water with lemon.

Next week I will be back on flex, meaning 1/2 hour lunches and NOT going out to eat every damn day in a small town in the South (aka, no organic co-ops here). I will say this, it was damn good and more importantly, I'm still going to the gym, which will make it the third time this week. Every second counts...

Thursday, Jan. 8, 2009

Breakfast was the "now" usual of Greek Yogurt (Chobani Blueberry) and Blueberry Walnut Granola with English Breakfast Tea.

Mid-morning snack of sharp white cheddar cheese. These are the same as string cheese in terms of calories, but they actually have, gasp, flavor. Unfortunately, they aren't carried at the Kroger close to my house, so I need to buy two or three packages at a time when I get them. I'm now out.

1st and only day this week I didn't go out with my colleagues--pictured above is some celery I ate dipped in hummus, a clementine, and Lean Cuisine Chicken "Fried" Rice. Its probably my favorite LC's. $1.78 baby!

I still felt hungry an hour or so after lunch, so I had a Luna Bar.
Then I was starving before the gym, so I had a Kashi bar--I guess all that rich eating got me used to way more calories as a standard fare. I'm having to "shrink down" I guess. I think eating an apple would have been better, but I forgot it.

Then, after the gym (elliptical 2.2 miles and 330 calories for 33 minutes; plus shoulders, arms, chest, and thighs), I had a Black Bean veggie burger on a piece of gluten free toast and veggie soup with water. Actually didn't care to have the last two cookies! Crazy, thought about it, then thought: I'm not hungry and so I do want them. They didn't haunt me as cookies usually do.

This Week Thus Far

Above is Sunday's brunch--gluten free toast, fresh black berries, two eggs over easy with a bit of cheese sprinkled on top.

Snack/Lunch, Greek Yogurt on Sunday (big breakfast).

Dinner, salad and red beans over brown rice.

Monday, 1st breakfast back at work--Chobani Greek Yogurt, Bare Naked Granola (Blueberry Walnut) and Black Tea (English Breakfast Tea) with 1/2 & 1/2 with 2 packets of Splenda.

Team building lunch at O'Charlie's--I had the pecan chicken salad with balsamic dressing.

Dinner, 4oz steak (Laura's Lean Beef--no hormones or antibiotics), mashed potatoes, and eggplant--I sauteed the eggplant with a bit of white wine (not a good idea, made them acidic). I had some merlot to go with, though I didn't drink all of it pictured.

Gluten Free Chocolate Cookie, new discovery; very good.

Tuesday, added 1/2 a banana to the yogurt and granola. Breakfast tea.

I forgot to take a picture of my lunch, but after I took a picture of it on the menu--sort of, image above is tilapia, I had wood fire grilled salmon with broccoli and mashed taters. I also had 2 cheese biscuts--despite the gluten (they're so good). Another team building lunch? Yeah, the lunch habit is getting expensive--luckily I'm on flex next week, so it'll be better then to stick to a budget.

Salad Tuesday evening.

Some more red beans and rice

Wednesday yogurt, strawberry instead of blueberry today.

Again, forgot to take a picture of lunch--though it was Culver's, so not healthy at all (fish sandwich and onion rings with diet coke). Above is dinner, which was salad with chicken and light blue cheese dressing. I also had some veggie soup not in the picture. I made a delicious batch of it Sunday, but hadn't tried it until Wednesday--again, giving half away to the parents and freezing 1/4 for later, as with the Chili a couple weeks ago.

Two, gluten free cookies.

Exercise Stats:
Wednesday--Elliptical machine, 33 minutes; 2.21 miles, 360 calories, resistance between 6-8.

Home Improvement III

The 1st week of break, I was covered in goo for four days (wall paper is evil) and the second week of break, I was covered in paint--but the results are work it. Here are some before and after pictures of my kitchen.

Dingy wall paper above the cabinets. I was really hard to get it all down!!!

Once the wall paper was removed, I found a mint green with a yellow line all around the kitchen.

Here is a view of the aqua in the kitchen, the crimson flowers on the fresh white on the arch way between the living room and the kitchen, and a bit of the golden yellow in my living room--I think the colors work well together.

Here's a view of the aqua with the shelves I've painted white, and started to stencil with the flowers--they are almost finished.

I'm going to get a tension rod and put two shower curtains between the kitchen and the laundry nook, my mother thinks we should get doors, but I think that that could be really hard to deal with (no one in the family is mechanically oriented). I thought I took a picture of the overall kitchen with the table in view and so forth, but I must not have because its not on the camera, I'll do that tonight.

So: home improvements sucks during the doing, but its worth it in the end (especially if you have wall paper circa 1983 in your kitchen).

Chili

Chili is a great Winter dish--warming, seasonal, and hearty. I made a vast batch of chili and shared half of it with my parents recently and here's how to do it yourself. 1st off, you should know that I belong to a Food Co-Op, specifically Good Foods Co-Op. From Good Foods website:

A Co-op is a different way to do business. Co-ops bring people together to own and control their enterprises and to meet their mutual needs. Regardless of the goods and services provided, the management structure used, or other details, all co-ops aim to meet their members' mutual needs.

A co-op is a member-owned, member-controlled business that operates for the mutual benefit of all members and according to common principles established for cooperatives. Although definitions of co-ops vary, they all contain the following elements:

• Co-ops are owned and controlled by their primary users (shoppers).
• Co-ops operate democratically.
• Co-ops are businesses, not clubs or associations.
• Co-ops adhere to internationally recognized principles of co-ops.

Good Foods Co-op is part of a larger, international community of cooperators-750,000 co-ops worldwide with 725 million members. We are credit unions, electric and farm co-ops, cable TV co-ops and health care co-ops, food and childcare co-ops-all consumer-owned businesses that have built a base of consumer trust. Cooperation works!

As a member, I can get all kinds of interesting foods (particularly a bizillion types of beans) and ethnic foods, as well as local and organic foods. When you can make a chili out of more than just kidney or pinto beans, you are helping to preserve the biodiversity of the planet by keeping these interesting beans in demand and you are broadening your nutritional resources for your own cellular growth, repair, and maintenance (you are what you eat). Anyway, I took 1/3 of a cup of ananazi, adzuki, black turtle, flagolets, and 2/3 a cup of dark red kidney beans.

I rinsed them in a hand held colandar.

I added 3 cups of water per 1 cup of beans and added two knorr vegetable bouillion cubes. Then I let them heat on low in the crock pot for most of the day.

In a separate skillet, I browned some turkey sausage and ground turkey breast (oops, way more expansive then plain ground turkey, $2 more in fact. I don't think that the ground breast, despite being lower in fat, is worth the price hike, especially since turkey is already a low-fat meat). I also sauteed some onions in a little bit of extra virgin olive oil (organic from the co-op) and some red wine that's been on the counter a while (its sort of between wine and vinegar, but it adds body to onions). I added the meat, the onions, one can of diced tomatoes, some red pepper flake, some Italian herbs (oregano, marjoram, rosemary, basil, thyme, all dried), and some taco seasoning to the slowly cooking beans once the beans were soft and ready to eat (but not over-cooked). I let it simmer on low in the crock pot a bit longer to marry the flavors. I then turned off the crock pot and let it cool before putting the contents into plastic containers (half for my parents, half for me and I froze four servings for me). I'm not entirely sure how many servings this officially made according to sites like Calorie King, but I divided it up into about 18 servings on my own.

Here's the first dish, with a bit of fat free sour cream and skim milk. It was (is, I still have three servings in the freezer) delicious.

Profligate Blogger No More

Okay, I'm back, sorry for the absence. I really want to try to make this blog a go, so I will do better. I was still taking tons of pictures of what I ate and what I cooked over the past few weeks, so I'll post a few of those, share a recipe, and show the progress in my kitchen. Here's some stuff I ate over the holidays: