One more day 'til Friday...

Kind of a long day.  Good news: Tyler slept through the night.  Bad news: I had to be up at 7 AM for a conference call.  Go figure.

I had one of these while on the call:

Got a nice swim in today along with a sprint workout at the track.  I was absolutely starving after all that, so I inhaled this around-the-world salad.  I just threw a bunch of stuff in- spinach, chipotle chicken, feta cheese, green olives, slivered almonds, and sesame ginger dressing.  Didn't know how mixing all those flavors would go, but it didn't even matter I was so hungry.

The rest of the day I pretty much just snacked.  Had some more homemade salsa and tortilla chips, energy bar and some cracked pepper triscuits with sharp cheddar.  I guess my "supper" would be considered this piece of toast with natural peanut butter and a drizzle of honey.

Must have been enough because I had enough energy to make it through two softball games tonight.  Had a pretty good hitting night.  Next week is the tournament and then it's good-bye softball for the year.  : (

Fun Food Day

Had another late night with Tyler but oh well.  He's just a hungry hungry man.  I made up for it with a fun food day.  I know sometimes I get in a rut and have the same thing over and over, which is fine as long as it's healthy.  It's just boring for you guys.

So for breakfast I had an old favorite that I usually do almost every day, except when I don't have fresh blueberries or Greek yogurt- I had a power smoothie.  I have a little mixer that is quite similar to the Silver Bullet that you see on TV.  I fill up the bottom with frozen strawberries and blueberries then added one scoop of protein powder and filled the rest up with an organic yogurt product that is made locally.  It makes smoothies taste about 50 times better.  I usually just use water but went with this because it's soo good.

For lunch I used a leftover smart chicken breast- cut-up and reheated, threw it with some instant brown rice and dumped some homemade salsa over it.  It reminded me of doing the Standard Process cleansing program during my days at chiropractic school.  You could only have chicken or fish, brown rice and fruits/veggies.  So this meal was a staple.  I threw some black beans over mine for some extra fiber.

Should mention I had half a MOJO bar for a snack and some trail mix to get me through the afternoon.

Now for the grand showcase... grilled pizza for supper!  We haven't ever done this, so we were pretty excited to try since we both love pizza.  It's definitely going to need more experimentation, but it was delicious.

I just used a tube of thin crust pizza dough by Pillsbury, since I knew I would never get home in time to make it from scratch.    Make sure you prepare all the toppings before you get ready to grill, because you have to move fast.  I cut up 1 and 1/2 red onion and sauteed them in olive oil until they got all nice and caramel-ly.

For a protein I used an all natural chicken sausage.  It was a little too sweet, definitely go the Italian route next time.

For tomato sauce, just used the rest of a jar of spaghetti sauce that was in the fridge- it doesn't take much.  And cheese was just a pizza blend from Hy-Vee.  Sorry- no pictures of those items.

We packed everything up (including Tyler) and headed down to the grill.  We heated the grill up nice and hot, then sprayed it down with some PAM.  We decided to one at a time so we didn't screw up both.  That works well, because like I said, you have to move fast.

Tyler sat in his Bumbo (away from the grill) while we worked.  I caught him with a handful of grass in his mouth.  So he'll eat grass but not rice cereal.  Go figure.

So how did we create these masterpieces?  Throw the dough on the grill, and let it heat up.  It takes approximately 3 minutes to crisp up, if you start getting bubbles on the top it's ready to flip.  Then when you flip it, immediately place the toppings on because the other side doesn't take nearly as long.  For the second pizza, I pulled the dough off the grill then loaded the toppings before I put it back on.  That worked better.

Attempt #1

Attempt #2

You get such a nice crunchy crust... it's totally worth the hassle.  We learned you can't really load on the toppings, keeping it simple is the way to go.  The first one we made we put the cheese on last, and the second one we put the cheese on after the sauce then put the toppings on.  I liked it better the first way.

We will be revisiting this idea soon, needless to say.

That's all for today... looking forward to a productive Thursday!!

Blah.

This humidity just kills all my motivation.  I haven't worked out at all the last two days.  I haven't put anything in my nice new Craigslist desk (although it is finally clean and in place!), and I didn't even have the energy to finish all my charts from today.  It's all I can do to finish this post. I'll try my hardest!

Thank you craigslist

Not bad for $45!  Need to replace a couple handles

Didn't help that Tyler got up at 2:45am and was ready to eat.  Thankfully he went back to bed around 4 so I could sleep a little more.

Breakfast:  lemon Chobani with blueberries and coconut.  No picture since I was in a big hurry.

Lunch: spinach salad with smart chicken, blueberries, slivered almonds and Newman's sesame ginger dressing.  Also finished up the banana bread from last week.

Supper:  my master griller hubby fixed up some more grilled smart chicken, as well as grilled corn on the cob. This was actually the first time I've had grilled corn- not too bad.  It was a little tough, but I think that was the more the corn's fault than the grill's.  I also made a little salsa- threw fresh tomatoes, green pepper, banana pepper, jalapeno pepper, red onion, garlic and cilantro in the food processor.  Doesn't look too pretty, and it's kind of soupy, but it works.  Tested it out with a couple tortilla chips, but it will be delicious over some cut-up chicken and brown rice.

Using the handy dandy corn griller aparatus

Soupy salsa

Speaking of brown rice, we tried to spoon-feed Tyler again tonight.  I whipped up some homemade organic brown rice cereal.  Didn't go well, he ended up puking it all up.

To make your own baby cereal mix, grind up 1/4 cup brown rice- I used organic long-grain but you can use any rice.

Bring 1 cup of water to a boil, and add the ground up rice.  Reduce to a simmer and whisk constantly for 10 minutes.  When it was done, I let it cool a little and then thinned it out with some breastmilk.

He kind of ate a little, got a bunch all over his mouth and face, then he coughed and explosively puked it all up.  Guess we need to wait a little longer.  I'll just have to deal with the middle of the night feedings for a little bit.

Good thing he's so darn cute.

Hello incredibly long week!

This is going to be a tough week.  Our front desk girl is gone this week until Friday which means lots of work for the hubby and I.  I just got done working on charts, and there is a huge long list of things I still need to do tomorrow in the clinic.  No morning off for me tomorrow.  So needless to say, posts might be kind of short this week.

Breakfast was an energy bar from the Hy-Vee healthmart, I'm using a recycled picture here.

Lunch- I didn't have any chicken for a salad, so I had an open-faced roast beef and sharp cheddar sandwich.  Added some jalapeno mustard and spinach.  I also had a couple Doritos on the side since hubby opened a bag of those. Darn it!  Stupid salty weaknesses.  I did count though, and had less than the serving size, which was 11.  Go me.  And for dessert I had an awesome organic Fuji apple with a touch of peanut butter.

Hubby made supper- delicious grilled smart chicken (marinated in Italian dressing), steamed broccoli, and garlic rice.  Charts, blogging, pumping, bedtime.  Sorry that's all folks!

Happy Birthday Jessie!

What a weekend.  Somehow I survived, but I'll probably be a tad tired tomorrow.

Saturday morning Cheri and I started out bright and early at 6:45 AM on our bikes to ride to Delhi.  Think we went about 9 or 10 miles, and had about 10 minutes before the 5K started.  It was a nice course, had some hills mixed in, which I like.  It got pretty toasty out though, and I was dragging.  My goal was to get under 30 minutes, but I didn't make it.  : (   I ran it in 30 min 10 sec.  Not bad I guess, since we put in the bike ride beforehand.

By the way, my breakfast that morning was a black cherry almond Clif bar.  I chugged tons of water then headed to the farmer's market to get some farm fresh eggs.... but they were out!!  So sad.  I did pick up a couple peppers- green, banana and jalapeno.

After showering we took off for Chi-town.  Lunch was Quiznos, which we both love.  I especially loved my meal, had a spicy chipotle turkey Sammie, and a harvest chicken salad.  The chicken salad was amazing.  I could have just had a huge one of those.  Lettuce, honey mustard chicken, cucumbers, tomatoes, grapes, apples, dried cranberries and pumpkin seeds, topped off with a little acai vinaigrette.  I can't tell you how much I loved this salad, but I don't know if I was just starving or if it was that good.

We made it Jessie and John's house, and it was all decked out for the big party.  It was such a perfect night, not too hot and not too buggy.  They had quite the spread, forgot to take a picture of everything.  I did take a picture of my plate, a piece of fried chicken that I peeled the skin off, chinese ramen salad and a chopped salad from Portillo's. I could have had a whole plate of each of those salads. I accompanied my meal with a Sol (Mexican beer) and lime.

I may or may not have had a couple of those Mexican beers, and a big piece of the birthday cake.  Happy 30th birthday to my BFF!

The party went late into the night, and I have no idea how I stayed up so late.  I did have a s'more and some pasta at about 1 in the morning.  It was just calling to me.

Finally made it to bed and got a solid 4 hours of sleep before Tyler decided to get up.  Today was not a stellar day for meals.  I called it a "vacation" day.  Breakfast was a bowl of Honey Nut Cheerios, which was the healthiest of John's cereals!  : )

For lunch we went to Five Guy's for a burger.  It's supposedly pretty popular.  I did not know how huge the burgers were... should have gotten a little one.  You get to choose what you want for toppings- I had pretty much everything but mushrooms.  Hubby and I shared some fries.  I wasn't really impressed, didn't think the burger was that good and the fries weren't great.  Jessie and John had cajun fries which were better, but this meal just didn't sit right.  I felt like crap the whole way home.

We did stop at Hy-Vee in Dubuque again and picked up some goodies.  You'll see what we purchased as the week goes on.

You'd think once I got home I'd grab something super healthy.  Nope.  We had reheated pizza.  Oh well.  Back on track tomorrow!!


 

Chicken nacho night

Well we somehow made it through the day without our front desk gal Kelly.  I know some people say they could never work with their spouse, but we actually work well together (or so I think).  Doesn't hurt that we both stay busy and hardly see each other during the day.

So let's see... breakfast was some left-over plain Chobani that I used in the banana bread.  Oh yeah, I did have a piece of that for breakfast.  So I had the plain yogurt, added a little vanilla and honey, blueberries, chia seeds, and slivered almonds.  

For lunch I had a spinach salad- chicken, blueberries and toasted walnuts.  With the dressing. 

I've been saying all this time that I'm adding toasted walnuts, guess I can clarify on that.  I take a few walnuts and throw them in a non-stick pan on the stove and heat them up for 2-3 minutes.  It just warms them up and they get a nice flavor.  Just don't leave them in too long, like I did today.  Didn't quite burn but they were definitely some toasty nuts.

Since it's Friday and we never feel like preparing much after a long week, we went with an old favorite.  Chicken nachos!!  Since it's kind of an unhealthy option, we try to make it as healthy as we can but still make it sinfully delicious.  So we use organic blue corn chips, chopped up smart chicken, black beans (drained and rinsed), cut-up spinach and.... the cheese.  Most of the time we use some wholesome Velveeta.  Tonight we classed it up and used a new kind: queso blanco.  We melt about half a container with a can of hot Rotel.  Soooooooo good.  

Here's a pic of the ingredients, I didn't bother taking a picture of the final product because it's covered in spinach and you can't see the individual ingredients.  Plus if you wait too long the chips get soggy and that's no fun!!

Tomorrow morning should be interesting.... riding my bike to Delhi then running a 5K race there.  I hope I don't pass out.  I'll have to wait to recap everything for you, I'll be heading to Chicago for my best friend's 30th birthday party this weekend.  Chi-town!!  Be back Sunday!

Rum for breakfast?

Thank you hubby, for letting me sleep in today!  I was so energized I decided to finally use those brown bananas.  So I made coconut banana bread with a lime glaze.  And yes the recipe calls for rum, so I broke out the Captain.  While I was making it, I had a piece of toast (with Ezekial bread) and some crunchy peanut butter and a drizzle of honey.

I found this recipe on a blog I read, Our Best Bites.  It was taken from a recipe that was originally found in Cooking Light.  The original didn't have the glaze, and it had rum instead of apple juice or milk.  I thought it'd be fun to use rum.  Here's the recipe:

Coconut Banana Bread with Lime Glaze

2 C flour
3/4 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 C sugar
1/4 C (4 Tbs) real butter, softened
2 large eggs
1 1/2 C mashed ripe bananas (about 3 large bananas)
1/4 C sour cream or plain yogurt (I used plain Chobani)
3 Tbs dark rum
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 C coconut

Topping: 2 Tbs additional coconut
Glaze: 1/2 C powdered sugar whisked with 1 1/2 Tbs fresh lime juice (I used concentrate)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Whisk flour, baking soda, and salt together and set aside.

In a large mixing bowl, beat butter and sugar until blended. Add eggs and beat to combine. Add banana, sour cream or yogurt, rum, and vanilla. Beat until blended.
Add flour mixture and beat at a low speed until just combined. Stir in 1/2 C coconut.

Pour batter into a 9×5″ loaf pan that has been sprayed with non-stick spray. Sprinkle additional 2 Tbs coconut on top.

Bake in the oven for about 1 hour or until a knife or skewer inserted in center comes out clean. Note:Check bread after about 40 minutes. If the top has browned and the coconut pieces are looking toasty, cover top of bread lightly with a piece of foil. Continue baking until done.

When done, remove pan from oven. Let cool on a cooling rack for about 10 minutes and then carefully remove from pan. Whisk powdered sugar and lime juice together for the glaze and then drizzle over top. Cool for another 15 minutes before slicing.




Here's a before pic:

The batter tasted pretty good, and I didn't get a buzz in case you were wondering

And here's an after pic:

Forgot the whole part about checking at 40 minutes and covering with foil

And here's a close-up of the awesomeness:

This is a little different than my normal "healthy" banana bread that uses whole wheat flour and flax seed meal. I'll post that one someday.  This recipe is definitely chock full of sugar.  Think each slice is maybe around 200 calories.  It's pretty worth it though.  One tip: when measuring out the sugar, I almost always use just a little less than what the recipe calls for.  Chances are, you don't really need all of that sugar.  It's not one of the chemical necessities in a recipe like baking soda or eggs or oil.  Try it and see what you think.


Moving on, I did not get a picture of lunch because I ate it so fast.  Just another spinach salad with chicken, toasted walnuts and blueberries.  And my fav dressing.

Checked a bunch of stuff of the to-do list today, which felt good.  Supper was a grilled chicken breast (marinated in Italian dressing I think- hubby prepared din din) and some pasta.  Chicken was soooo good, since we stocked up on smart chicken when we were at the big city grocery store.

Definitely lacking some greenage... need to stock up on broccoli!

Had our second to last softball game tonight and sweated buckets. We won. We're doing much better than we thought we would!  We did stick around for one beer since we had a babysitter tonight.

That's all for tonight... get pumped, tomorrow's Friday!!