Turkey | Healthy and Sane

Celebrating Easter with yard work

April 4th, 2010

… and Vietnamese sandwiches. More on that in a bit. First there was breakfast!

I love leisurely Sunday mornings. Today I was craving a special breakfast that involved NUTELLA. I am certain this would not be BFL approved. It was, however, Elina approved.

Whole wheat wrap with 1/2 banana and nutella

Gooey… mmm (I ate 3/4ths of this because it was too good not to share with Adam).

Oikos + 1/2 pear

Yum! This delicious breakfast fueled me for some yard work. Ok, more like patio work. We had some serious brick work on our hands. Hi, Adam!

That’s quite the pose.. I know you’re digging the outfit too.

What am I doing here?

Ok, seriously – who’s taking these pictures?

We did need to eat at some point.

LUNCH

I threw together every veggie we had in the fridge, sauteeing some spinach, mushrooms and chickpeas first.

Sauteed baby spinach, mushrooms and chickpeas, fresh bean sprouts, carrots and avocado

+ 2 cookie dough balls for dessert (this pic x2)

My sister-in-law also stopped by with the kids. They’re growing up so fast!

Oh yes, back to the yard work….

How do you like our new steps?

We worked for hours and hours but it looks awesome now! I’ll take some pictures once we’re done with the entire space. The next project will involve planting some flowers.

SNACK TIME

Ww Tuscan Pane with baba ganoush. I can’t get enough of the stuff!

And as much as I wanted to just veg on the couch, it was then time to make dinner. I had big plans!

DINNER

I’ve been planning on making Adrienne’s turkey meatball banh mi sandwich for nearly 3 months. I mean she said this was the best sandwich she’s ever had. How could I not want to make it? This weekend it had to happen. I’ve waited long enough and I knew I’d get some brownie points from the hubs for this one.

I followed the recipe carefully but omitted the onions and scallions, and used 1.5T of dark soy sauce + some lime juice instead of fish sauce (I thought we had it but I couldn’t find it). I also kept my portion a bit smaller (smaller baguette piece, way less spicyt mayo, 4 meatballs out of 30).

This was FANTASTIC!!! So many layers of spicy – our mouths were on fire but we were smiling while chugging water. It was actually quite simple to make but I was so proud. I can’t believe I made something so complex tasting and delicious. It’s going on our “favorites” list for sure!

Great dinner, major progress on our patio. I’d say this was one successful day. How was your weekend?

Oh – I also wanted to mention that since I’ll be away in Aruba this Friday-Tuesday, if anyone would like to write a guest post, I’d be happy to post it during this time (or any time if you can’t meet this short-ish deadline). Let me know!

[Edited to add: Just as an FYI, I had some chocolate covered edamame + roasted almonds a little while after dinner since I got hungry again.]

Birthdays and soup

March 11th, 2010

I’m writing this post a day late due to CEiMB rules of Thursday recipe sharing. You see, it’s my mom’s birthday today (Happy Birthday, mom!!!!!!!!!!!) so we’re going out to dinner tonight. That means that I made my featured recipe of the week on Wednesday but I’m posting it on Thursday so we’re all good On that note, let’s start with dinner, shall we?

DINNER

This week’s CEiMB’s recipe was chosen by Grandma’s Kitchen. I rarely make soups so I was actually excited to be “forced” to make Ellie’s lemon chicken soup with orzo (recipe is on page 86 of The Food You Crave and has been retyped here). The idea of a lemony soup sounded so fresh and appealing to me. Adam wasn’t too psyched but once in a while he has to eat things for the love of the blog (plus I know what he’ll really hate and I wouldn’t serve that to him)

So chicken + lemon sounded delicious but onions and celery did not. For some reason most soups call for carrots, onions and celery as the only veggies. Given my hatred for the 2 latter veggies, I was determined to replace them with veggies I do like… but what would work in chicken soup? My twitter friends helped me out with this dilemma (follow me on twitter if you don’t already!). I decided to add a pepper, some frozen corn and baby spinach. I also realized I had some leftover cooked wild rice so I nixed the orzo for the rice. Since I wasn’t cooking the orzo in the soup (and my rice wouldn’t absorb much of the liquid), I also cut the amount of chicken broth to 4 cups in total. I guess at the end, my soup did not resemble that of Ellie’s much… although I did still use chicken + lemon.

Here are all the goodies!

The soup was lacking in flavor a bit so I added extra lemon juice and a dash of cayenne pepper to add depth and a bit of spice. Much better! I really liked how the egg made the soup a bit creamier. I’ll use that trick in my next soup adventure! What’s your favorite kind of soup?

[Rewind]

BREAKFAST

TJ’s european style yogurt, chia seeds, mango, muesli + TJ’s nutty American trek mix

My favorite trail mix is back at TJ’s!!!!! It’s been gone for probably a year (I thought it was discontinued) so I almost squealed with excitement when I saw it at TJ’s a few days ago. I bought 2 packages – just in case.

Best yogurt bowl I’ve had in ages. Amazing!!

LUNCH

The yummy eats continued with an amazing sandwich. TJ’s ww Tuscan pane with pesto, turkey, mozzarella and tomato. All ooey, gooey…mmm

Steamed brussels sprouts + a pickle for some added veggie love

And an impulse V8 juice I spotted at the back of the fridge. I love this juice but need to get used to the low sodium kind.

SNACKS

Mid-afternoon I snacked on a Zbar (brownie flavor) and an orange and after dinner this guy was very much enjoyed…

Whole wheat Tuscan pane with roasted garlic hummus and avocado

Definitely lots of deliciousness all around.

I skipped my workout for the day because my mid-morning meeting ran into lunch and I missed my spin class. I had no motivation to do my own thing so it turned into a rest day. I used the extra time at night to research Haiti relief programs and chose to donate 100% of my February blog earnings to the National Nurses United. Every dollar donated is used to send volunteer nurses to Haiti.

Happy Thursday… and please wish my mom a happy birthday in the comments. I know she’ll feel the love.

[Back tomorrow with a restaurant review]

Helping Haiti

February 11th, 2010

My 5-year old nephew came home from pre-school last night and said this to his mom: “Mommy, you should stop going out to restaurants so we can have more money to donate to Haiti!” How cute is that?

Adam and I already donated to several relief programs. The most delicious donation came through the Bake Sale for Haiti. Last week I received some yummy peanut butter chocolate chip cookies that I bid on and won. Today I got another package with brownies prepared by Stan (he has no blog but generously donated his time and baking skills for a good cause). Thank you, Stan – the brownies are really fabulous!! I am expecting some granola bars in the mail tomorrow as well. Donations can be so delicious!

So yes, I feel like my small family of 2 has done just a little to help a good cause, but I want to do a bit more. I’ve decided to donate 100% of this month’s blog proceeds to a Haiti relief program (I will do more research over the coming weeks and will mention the exact program the money will be donated to). So now is your turn to help! Click away on my blog, press the refresh button a few times, spread the word about this so others can come here and get a few clicks in. Any page views from February 1 through February 28 will count. The more impressions I get, the more I can donate to a Haiti relief program at the end of the month. It will cost you nothing! Thanks, guys!

Now onto today’s eats…

BREAKFAST

Yesterday’s breakfast pizza really hit the spot. I decided to give it another go with different toppings this time. Today’s breakfast pizza was topped with Barney Butter, nonfat yogurt, pear slices, Zoe’s granola and pecans

It got a little too crispy, but still SO good! We may have a new breakfast favorite around these parts

[393 calories, with coffee]

MID-MORNING SNACK

Barney Butter stuffed banana… not really a looker this time, but definitely a delicious pre-run fuel!

[127 calories]

WORKOUT

On my training schedule today was “4 miles fast.” My ankle felt fine again so I decided to make it happen. I was a bit nervous on my way to the gym. Why do I get nervous before my runs? Such a strange feeling! I guess I don’t want to disappoint myself. I started with a 15 minutes abs class and then got on the treadmill. I wanted to average a 7.0 mph pace. I warmed up at 6.5, then went to 6.8, 7.0, 7.2, then down to 6.8, and up to 6.9, 7.0 and 7.1 (alternating inclines from 0 to 0.5 to 1.0) and then down again to 7.0. 6.9, 6.8, 6.7, 6.5. It was a really hard run!! I wanted to give up so many times. My head was doing most of the psyching out and I just kept on mentally picturing finishing strong and how proud I’d feel after I’m done. I knew I was in a good enough shape to handle 4 miles. And oh yes, I felt proud upon finishing!! I definitely did not average 7.0 but the inclines made the run harder than if I stayed flat at 7.0 the entire time. I love workouts like these!! Tomorrow on the schedule – yoga at lunch, an interval run after work. Should be interesting…

LUNCH

V8 tomato soup + TJ’s Reduced Guilt fillet of sole with butter beans & spinach

Now this was definitely the ugliest lunch of all lunches. I took close-up shots but I’ll spare you. Not pretty. The filet of sole was also SO bland. That’s what majority of Americans (and apparently TJ’s chefs) feel healthy food tastes like. Very disappointing. You and me know that healthy food can be flavorful and craveable!! The soup was pretty yummy; I also had 2 AK MAK crackers with it and this portion of lunch was definitely better than the fish.

As I was finishing the above pictured eats, my brownie package arrived. I couldn’t be happier!! I dug right in and shared a bunch with some co-workers. We were all happy campers. The brownies were crispy on the outside, soft on the inside – lots of choc chips inside as well. So so yummy. It was hard for me not to keep digging into the box. I did ok there for a while.

[all together = 464 calories... I assumed 160/brownie]

MID-AFTERNOON SNACK

3T hummus + baby carrots

[93 calories]

DINNER

Star ingredient of dinner:

It’s a mixture of artichokes, olive oil and garlic. I’m in love! Dinner’s panini had a few spoonfuls of the artichoke antipasto, turkey, laughing cow cheese and dijon mustard on TJ’s ww Tuscan pane

+ a garlic sour pickle for good measure Pickles are vegetables, right?

[345 calories]

And then I opened the box of brownies to show to Adam….. and ended up eating another THREE!!! Not my proudest moment.

[estimate: 480 calories]

I put one in my lunch bag for tomorrow and the rest went in the freezer.

Total calories consumed: ~1930. I wish it was lower, but I’m probably around break-even for the day with my calorie burn at the gym so I’m not beating myself up over it either. The brownies were goooooood

Have you made any charitable donations lately?

Celebrating Easter with yard work

Birthdays and soup

Helping Haiti

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