Waist Deep in Waffles

Now that the RD exam is done and behind me, I finally have FREE time to explore new hobbies and revisit some interests that haven’t gotten much attention lately.

One of those interests is cooking. Cooking for the past few months has been more about convenience and less about experimentation. Many a day has ended with a quick and easy egg-centered dinner, wolfed down in minutes so I could rush off to study. Since the exam ended on Saturday, I have thought so many times to myself… I get to cook again, oh the things I could make!

In honor of my culinary excitement, I ventured off to Trader Joe’s today for a major food haul. The nearest TJ’s to me is 40min away, so when I go, I make it count. My cart was filled to the brim when I was done, some highlights of my loot:

• Individually wrapped goat cheese medallions
• Lobster ravioli
• Vanilla and chocolate organic hemp protein powders

Lots of delicious meals ahead.

Speaking of delicious meal, lunch was pretty fantastic..

Salad w/ grilled chicken, chopped apple, reduced fat cheddar cheese, walnuts, craisins, and red bell pepper over a bed of romaine w/ balsamic dressing. Used half the apple in the salad and the other half was eaten for dessert with Peanut Butter & Co Cinnamon Raisin Swirl peanut butter.

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This afternoon, I got busy in the kitchen making waffles. I was waist deep in waffle ingredients for hours today. Made two delicious varieties. No pictures yet. They’re going to look much better when I jazz them up with some toppings! (Cinnamon Raisin Swirl, you will be seen again) Though I will share with you some of the amazing ingredients involved:

• oat bran
• ground flax seed
• protein powder (brown rice and hemp)
• peaches
• raspberries
• pecans
• walnuts
• cocoa powder

I love making batches of waffles, freezing them, and reheating in the toaster oven. I think they taste best that way, and smothering them in extraordinary toppings doesn’t hurt. Stay tuned for when these babies make their debut later this week!

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Within an hour of finishing the waffles, I was back at work in the kitchen making dinner. Tonight’s dinner was inspired by broccoli slaw, which has been sitting in my fridge for days and desperately needed to be eaten. I don’t know why, but the first idea that came to mind was shrimp fried rice. Odd, since I’ve never eaten the dish, let alone tried making it!

I started with white onion and broccoli slaw cooking on the stove with sesame oil. Once the onions were nicely caramelized, I added frozen peas. Simultaneously, I popped an instant multi-grain medley cup in the microwave. Next in the pan was fully cooked shrimp and two tablespoons of egg whites. When the whites were fully cooked, I brought it all together by mixing in the grains and tossing in low-sodium tamari.

It’s not the most colorful dish, and the picture isn’t the best, but it was really tasty.. and an excellent use of that slaw!

And a bonus picture of last night’s dinner: Grilled Chicken Caesar Salad complete with grilled romaine lettuce. Paired with a glass of wine, it felt like gourmet dining at home.

——–

Back to work in the morning after four days off. Thankfully, I’ll have waffles motivating me to get out of bed.

A Dunker’s Dream

Happy Friday!

No gym this morning, everyone needs a rest day. Went into work early. Packed my breakfast — kashi goLean + banana + 1T almond slivers + skim milk.

Ate lunch:

Surprise! It’s a salad. Spinach, red pepper, tomatoes, carrots, red onion, reduced fat cheddar, craisins, chopped walnuts, light balsamic dressing with a side of kashi crackers.

 

I snacked on a fiber one bar, peach, and grapes.

 

Oh, and I worked too! It was actually a pretty good day. I work at a hospital and today I had an experience with a patient where I really felt like I made a difference in their care. It was wonderful. 🙂

 

——-

Came home. Studied.

OK.. procrastinated by watching TV and perusing the internet. Then I studied.

Dinner tonight was aDunker’s Dream.

 

 

No. Not Dunkaroo’s.

 

But this tasting plate full of dunk-worthy foods.

Broccoli + light parmesan peppercorn dressing, carrots and pita with hummus, and apple w/ peanut butter.

Dunkaroos was all this meal was missing.

-Michelle

Guilty Pleasures

As usual, this morning started with an early morning gym session: 30min ARC trainer, back, abs. I’m so looking forward to running weather this fall, I miss running so much. But, at the same time, I’m really not ready to give up my summer — I feel like it’s barely begun! I guess that’s what happens when you start working a full-time job.

Food Stuff:

Breakfast: scrambled egg + white w/ salt and pepper, steamed broccoli, apple, toasted sandwich thin w/ smart balance

All I needed was some cheese and every food group would have been represented in my breakfast! I knew that I wasn’t going to get any veggies at dinner, so I made sure to include some in my morning meal.

 

Lunch: salad w/ spinach, carrots, tomatoes, red pepper, red onion, peach, feta cheese, pecan pieces and balsamic dressing.

This salad variation was inspired by a sinfully delicious grilled peach salad I’ve had several times at a local restaurant in my town. The restaurant’s salad comes with goat cheese. Wish I had goat cheese to use today, but feta sufficed.

I’ve been packing salads for my lunch at least 90% of the days I’ve worked this summer. I just love fresh produce so much in the summertime – I can’t get enough.

Snack #1 (planned): mini whole wheat pita, carrots, 2 T hummus, grapes

Snack #2 (unplanned): 1 1/2 slices of chocolate cake, 2 T (minimum) of Nutella

Stressful day at work + readily available chocolate + having the office to myself for the last hour of my day = CAKE AND NUTELLA NOM NOM NOM.

I gotta say — it tasted GOOD.

Dinner:

[unpictured]

Kashi goLean cereal + skim milk.

See why I didn’t take a picture?

Yep, one boring meal. But it was perfect for two reasons.

1. I needed something quick and simple. I didn’t have much extra time to work with once I got home today, so this meal came with just the right amount of prep time : 30 seconds.

2. It was super light, an excellent compliment to my very rich afternoon snacking.
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Now that I’ve worked, studied, and eaten my fill, I am lounging on the couch waiting for one thing.

My latest and greatest guilty pleasure. I’m loving this season of The Real World. I can’t remember the last time this show held my attention past one episode, but this season is juicy. I’m also particularly fond of one cast member, Robb:

Isn’t he so handsome?! He’s got all the qualities I like in a guy: tall, fit, hipster while maintaining his masculinity, and the tattoos/piercings don’t hurt. Apparently, Robb goes crazy in tonight’s episode. I can’t wait.

Other guilty pleasures?

As I mentioned previously, eating peanut butter straight out of the jar with a spoon.

Carly Rae Jepsen — I don’t care how many times I hear Call Me Maybe, I still sing along every time it comes on the radio, and I love her new song with Owl City “Good Time”

People.com, E News and celebrity news in general. Particularly celebrity fashion, and I do enjoy watching an adorable celebrity romance blossom. But if I never heard about K Stew and Rob Pats ever again, I’d be a very happy woman. My love for all things celebrity gossip has a limit.

Facebook creeping. It never gets old. We all do it. Don’t lie.

What’s your guilty pleasure?

10 Things I Love About Peanut Butter

It’s Tuesday, but it really feels like it should be Thursday. Can I really only be two days into the work week? At least tomorrow is Wednesday, which means we’re getting over the hump!

AM gym session included a heart-racing 30 min on the ARC-trainer (the last 5 minutes were particularly ferocious) and ~25 min of leg exercises. I am particularly fond of leg days for one reason: jumping lunges. They are totally torturous  invigorating. They are one of those exercises that you feel for hours (or days) after, a tell-tale sign of an exercise that means business.
I worked up quite an appetite at the gym and knew that only two things could satisfy it: a smoothie and peanut butter.

Behold:

Smoothie: frozen peach, frozen banana, frozen strawberries, skim milk, 1 T brown rice protein powder, 1/2 T coconut oil. Ezekiel toast w/ Smuckers natural peanut butter.

The smoothie was particularly peachy, just what I wanted. But the real star was the peanut butter.

Who could resist this??

I’m still drooling over it. I’m a pretty big fan of peanut butter for a number of reasons:

1. The ooey gooey, stick-to-the-roof-of-your-mouth, texture. Yum.
2. It’s so versatile. Like your favorite pair of fall boots, peanut butter goes with almost anything and can adapt to sweet, salty, or savory situations.
3. It’s part of my all-time favorite packed lunch to take to the beach: PB & J. (I think PB&J’s taste even better on the beach… maybe breathing in the salty air enhances the taste? Or maybe everything is just better with sand between your toes and waves on the horizon.)
4. Peanut butter and chocolate. Enough said.
5. It’s rich in protein and healthy fats and is a good source of niacin (function: proper fat metabolism, regulate blood sugar levels) and manganese (function: healthy bones, thyroid, and blood sugar levels)
6. Stirring a freshly opened jar of natural peanut butter definitely counts as an upper body work out. Am I right?
7. It’s a major theme in two of my favorite blogs: Peanut Butter Fingers and Peanut Butter & Jenny
8. Smooth or chunky, you can’t go wrong.
9. Interesting fact: I once had to dress as peanut butter for a high school theater skit. Apparently dressing in a brown t-shirt and brown shorts with a sign “peanut butter” safety-pinned to your shirt qualifies as a peanut butter costume.
10. Eating peanut butter straight from the jar on a spoon is among my top 5 guilty pleasures. (<–future blog post?)

———

Work was work. Somewhere amid the day I consumed lunch:

Salad w/ spinach, carrots, tomatoes, red bell pepper, Boar’s Head ham, Swiss cheese, Ken’s light honey dijon dressing. I never eat deli meat, so this was a rare treat — and what a treat indeed. Ham, Swiss, and dijon mustard is such a killer combination.

Lunch was followed by chocolate birthday cake. Not my birthday, a co-worker’s. V brought in chocolate pudding cake for J’s belated bday celebration. It was very simply dressed – only powder sugar, no icing – and it was gooooood. It took every bit of willpower I had to stop at just one piece.

Later I also munched on carrots, grapes, mini whole wheat pita, and hummus. Good, but cake was better. 😛

——-

Dinner was prepared while catching up with my grandma on the phone.

Whole wheat pasta w/ fresh basil, garlic, olive oil, Parmesan cheese — broccoli — Trader Joe’s sundried tomato chicken sausage. I practically licked the plate it was so good.
After dinner I studied. I’m taking a big test in less than two weeks (more details on that to come) — so my days all follow a similar schedule: gym/work/study/sleep. At least I can mix things up with the food I eat! So looking forward to getting my life back soon.

Since I’ve checked gym, work, and study off my daily to-do list, I’m now left with sleep. Don’t mind if I do.

– Michelle

Rise and Shine

I get up pretty damn early to go to the gym everyday. 5:26am wake up call. My morning routine goes as follows:

• Wake up at 5:26am to sweet tunes streaming from my iPod dock
• 5:27am: I think to myself “Oh, but I want to sleep. All I want to do is sleeeeep.”
• 5:30am: I think to myself “OK, I know I want to sleep, but I this is my gym alarm. I should go to the gym.”
• 5:35am: I think to myself “Does sleeping in feel good? Yes. Does it make me feel like rock star? No. Does going to the gym feel good? Yes. Does it make me feel like a rock star? Yes.” Decision made.
• 5:35am-6:20am: Sip on coffee, check e-mail/facebook, look at Pinterest Fitness page for inspiration, and listen to pump-up music on Spotify (recently it’s been Killers or Maroon 5, ya dig?)
• 6:20am: scramble to throw on clothes, sneakers, fill my water bottle, grab my gym bag, and out the door.

By 6:35am I’m working out. Sure, if I could get my booty in gear quicker I could sleep in more, but I like my routine. 🙂

Today was a great day at the gym. 30min on the arc trainer — killin’ it to the sounds of Rihanna, Pitbull, and Katy Perry. My cardio playlist is one big guilty pleasure that I just love boppin’ to!

Cardio was followed by weight training.. my favorite! Today was arms and it felt so goooood.

I go to Planet Fitness because it’s close to home and cheap. It gets the job done, but because of it’s reputation for being a lunk-free zone (lunk being your typical muscle-bearing, water gallon totting, weight dropping dude) — there’s not a lot of eye candy sight-seeing to be had. There is one cute guy though, we’ll call him gym guy. We apparently go by the same AM schedule because I see him there quite often — including today. One day I’ll talk to him. He’ll tell me how impressed he is by my confidence with free weights, I’ll tell him how great I imagine he looks without a shirt on, and we’ll fall madly in love.

Kidding. But he is good to look at. 😉
—–

 

Breakfast this morning was inspired by two peaches that were 1 day away from the trash can.

This picture does not do the peach situation justice — these suckers were awfully wrinkly and sad looking. The original plan was to make a smoothie w/ two peaches plus some other goodness.

 

 

But peaches are deceptive. They’re all small in the palm of your hand… but start chopping them up and an endless pile of peachy goodness appears. Obviously too much for one smoothie, so I froze half for tomorrow and then got to work on today’s creation.

 

Clockwise from the peaches:   peaches + frozen banana + frozen strawberry/mango/pineapple + 0% plain chobani + coconut oil + Trader Joe’s Super Red Powder

 

Equals =

 

Deeeeeeliciousness. In my favorite smoothie-approved cup.

What’s the in Super Red powder, you ask.

It’s basically a whole bunch of awesomeness pulverized into powder. It helps take the edge off the plain greek yogurt (surprisingly with all the fruit, the sourness of plain yogurt is still too strong for my liking).
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Then I went to work for 8.5 hours. Boring. But I did snap a shot of my lunch:

I could put a farmer’s market out of business with the produce I tear through in a week. This salad included: spring mix + red pepper + red onion + carrots + edamame + Cabot 50% reduced fat cheddar + craisins + slivered almonds + Ken’s Lite Balsamic Dressing. It was delightful.

Work snacks included: almonds, Kashi crackers, baby carrots, and a 90 calorie fiber one bar. (not a big fan of fiber one products, but when sweet cravings hit, you’ll go for anything!)

—-

After work I went for a grocery haul. Picked up the following:

Produce:

• Peaches
• Grapes
• Bananas
• Spinach
• Tomatoes
• Baby carrots
• Slivered carrots
• Red bell pepper
• Broccoli crowns

Grains:

• Kashi goLean cereal
• Kashi Pumpkin Flax granola bars
• Kashi Chocolate Chunk cookies
• Whole wheat mini pitas

Dairy:

• Chobani 0% plain
• Organic skim milk
• 50% reduced fat Cabot cheddar
• Cage-free eggs

Other:

• Hummus x 2
• Peanut butter
• Coffee

My grocery bills are kinda ridiculous. But I don’t buy shoes, I buy produce. Fair trade, right?
—-

By the time I was home and groceries were put away, I was starving. I had dinner on my mind all day. It starred this guy:

 

I found this a few grocery trips back and had yet to try it. The ingredients: water, brown rice, wheat, quinoa, barley oats, sunflower oil, soy lecithin, salt. Cook time: 1 minute. Perfect weeknight grain dish, if you ask me.

And it was an excellent companion to the rest of my dinner:

 

Grain medley, kale chips, and a wild-caught salmon burger. It totally hit the spot.

 

Now I’m off to enjoy a glass of cold milk & a Kashi cookie, followed by studying for a few hours.

Ciao!