Happy birthday to my hubby!

Happy almost 30th birthday to my hubby!  That's right, he's only 29 today and never lets me forget that I am older.

Sorry about not posting last night, my schedule is all over the place this week.  I forgot we play softball on Monday and Tuesday night this week, then tomorrow we take off for seminars from Thursday to Saturday.

I also apologize for a couple repeats of meals.  I'm sure I'm not the only one who gets in ruts, but we really get stuck eating the same things over and over.  At least they're somewhat healthy meals.

Breakfast yesterday was one of my fav Chobani's- lemon with blueberries, organic coconut and chia seeds.  Didn't bother with a picture since you've seen it before.

Lunch was a tasty salad.  I'm not just saying that because I was starving either.  Spinach, leftover chicken, slivered almonds, banana peppers, cucumbers, grapes!, and Newman's poppyseed dressing.  Oh, and feta cheese.

After a super busy afternoon in the office, I had a quick grilled turkey and sharp cheddar sandwich on Ezekial because we had to play ball at 8:15.  Used some yogurt spread on both pieces, put 2 pieces of turkey and one of cheddar in between them, and grilled it up.

Remember the raspberry sorbet I worked on over the weekend?  It was pretty good.  Don't forget to set it out for about 10 minutes before serving so it scrapes easily.  Next time I will definitely use some extra effort and strain out the seeds.  A little gritty.

After sleeping through the whole night (thanks little buddy), woke up and felt like using my Organic Valley yogurt.  I wrote about this a couple days ago, about how I love using it in smoothies because it's almost a liquid.  You can actually drink it, so it's great for kids that don't like yogurt.  And not only is it organic, but it's local.  This company outsources to different farms across America and on the website you can actually look up the local farms that contribute to the company.  It's like a huge co-op.  Check it out.

Today I just dumped it over some blueberries and a banana.  Soupy but good.

I'll try to get back on track and get another post going tonight.  Have a wonderful day and enjoy this BEAUTIFUL weather!!

Ate the whole pan!

So that granola I was talking about?  It was pretty awesome.  No baking involved, which is great during the summer.  I put it in the freezer last night to firm it up, but had a little sample before bed.  Then this morning I had another sample.... and another... and then before you know it I ate it all.  Oopsie!  It was just so good, and I guess I had been craving a little chocolate.

Here's the recipe I used, which I adapted from here.  You can pretty much add whatever you want, be creative!

No Bake Granola

1 1/2 c oats (I used gluten-free)
1/2 c peanut butter (I used natural crunchy)
1/2 c coconut (sweetened or unsweetened- I used sweetened)
1/4 c honey
1/4 c agave nectar
2 T ground flax seed
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 c dark chocolate chips
1/4 c dried cherries

Mix together, press into wax-lined tupperware and put it in freezer.  Enjoy!

It was a little crumbly, you'll probably have to add more sugary stuff or peanut butter if you want it to be more of a formed bar.

So that was my breakfast.

Lunch was another turkey, spinach, Laughing Cow cheese on Ezekial bread.  It was good fuel for a productive afternoon.  Ran almost 4 miles!, cleaned up the dining room and organized my new desk, folded clothes and vacuumed.

 I also pureed some frozen raspberries that I have had in the freezer forever, added 1/3 c sugar and 2 T of lemon juice and put it in the freezer for some sorbet later.

My zucchini pickles are coming along- they definitely have a kick to them, since I added more crushed red pepper than the recipe called for.  I transferred them to jars, but couldn't find a lid for the third one. Why do some of the slices have big hard seeds in them?  Is that normal for zucchini?

Supper was grilled smart chicken marinated in vidalia onion marinade, and some broccoli alfredo pasta.  I made sure there was left-over chicken for some spinach salads this week!

Oh, and someone got a bath tonight.

Hope everyone had a good weekend... ready for a brand new week!

Project Zucchini Part One

I'm sure you were just on the edge of your seat waiting for a post last night... and then probably threw something at the computer screen when you found out there wasn't one!  I couldn't seem to squeeze one in since I was either feeding a child or working on charts while pumping.  Yes, that is when I write this, when I'm pumping.  4 1/2 months going strong.

Recap of yesterday:

Breakfast was another delicious smoothie.  Same exact one as Wednesday.

Lunch was this delicious salad.  I was super pumped about it because a patient brought in some cucumbers.  Nothing says summer salad like fresh cucumbers.  Also added some chicken, sliced almonds, feta cheese and dressing.

Supper was a treat of Casey's pizza.  I was thinking, I should probably call this blog Small Town Sometimes Healthy Living.  Last night was definitely not healthy, but it was easy and quick.  We brought the pizza over to some friends' house since they watched Tyler for us.  No picture, since I inhaled it.  Think I had 2 pieces of taco and 2 pieces of canadian bacon and pineapple.  I tell myself they were small pieces.



Now on to today.  Started my day off with some pineapple Chobani with shredded organic unsweetened coconut and chia seeds.

Lunch was an open faced turkey sandwich.  I used some mesquite Hormel no preservative turkey, a piece of Ezekial bread, a wedge of garlic and herb Laughing Cow cheese, and some spinach.  The cheese helps the sandwich feel a little more creamy- and not so dry.

I threw in a handful of these goodies- gluten free crackers.  Love the crunch.  I usually get the cheddar kind, but these are good as well.

So why the title of this post?  Besides catching up with this week's Project Runway- make it work!- this is what I've received from some of my favorite patients this week.  Lots of fresh zucchini!

Lots.  Now what the heck am I going to do with it all?  I've got some ideas... this is how I used up 3 of them today.  Stay tuned for part two.

2 of them I sliced up thin and made zucchini pickles.  Here's the recipe (courtesy of Cooking Light), but I won't have the verdict until tomorrow.

Zucchini Pickles

4 c 1/8 in slices of zucchini
1 c slivered sweet onion
3 thinly sliced garlic cloves

Combine in a glass bowl.  Bring 1 c white vinegar, 1/2 c sugar, 3/4 tsp crushed red pepper, 1 tsp mustard seed, and 3/4 tsp kosher salt to a boil.  Pour over zucchini, onion and garlic.  Cover and chill for 24 hours.

Notice a glass of my cooking juice in the background... it helps, it really does.


The other zucchini I cut up and used for supper.  I bought a couple sirloin steaks today and threw them on the grill for supper, made a quick brown and wild rice side, and a yummy veggie basket on the grill.  I learned my lesson this time, I steamed the carrots, zucchini and broccoli for 3/4 minutes before putting them in the grill basket.  I added some green pepper, grape tomatoes, onion and salt and pepper and threw it on the grill.  I stuffed my face, but only took about 1/3 of the smaller steak and filled up on veggies and rice.  Hubby ate the other steak- the whole thing.  What a guy.

I did try another new recipe tonight for some homemade granola bars which may or may not be vegan?  Like that matters to me... although it might scare people away if they are.  They are in the freezer firming up, so I'll let you know how they turn out.

Just a walk today, no major cardio.  Saving that for tomorrow!

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!