I haven’t blogged a full day of food in quite some time. Originally I began this blog logging everything from the mundane to the creative. However, after realizing that doesn’t work with my busy work schedule, I decided to be a little more sporadic.
I just began working from home on Fridays so cooking, eating, and photo-taking is much easier. I used this golden opportunity to log all of my eats today.
Breakfast was my most very favorite breakfast, except instead of egg whites, I used one organic egg. I meant it to be over easy, but it was only slightly runny. I paired it with blackberries.
I’m wondering if this still is my very favorite breakfast. I’ve been eating this same breakfast a lot lately sans smoked salmon with avocado shmeared on top (I know smeared is proper, but schmeared is just more fun).
After breakfast, Brad and I “styled” Rascals ears in different ways. His ears are my favorite part so besides kissing them, we like to play with them too.
This is “over the eyes”. This would be very useful when napping on a plane. You wouldn’t even need a sleep mask.
Look at all the extra skin on his head! This is a “forward comb”.
After working all morning, I wanted to do a bit of grocery shopping, which is one of my most very favorite things to do. Lucky for me, Earthfare sent me one of their fabulous coupons like they do every week (sign up for them and you’ll see what I mean). This week’s coupon was 50% off their hot bar or salad bar. Score! I absolutely love a good salad bar, and this coupon was not going to waste.
I started off with a bed of mesculin mix and spinach, topped with red onion, carrots, artichoke hearts, tomatoes, celery, and sprouts. Then I went to the “fun” side of the salad bar to get little bites of their more interesting salads. Clockwise from top: big dollop of chipotle humus, shrimp salad, stuffed grape leaf (my favorite!), herbed sweet potato cube, marinated shrooms, Mediterranean salad. I finished with a small sprinkling of blue cheese.
This was what I left. I barely touched my balsamic vinaigrette dressing because I like to use the humus as a dressing of sorts.
I did some grocery shopping afterwards, dropped by Trader Joe’s, and Target, had a conference call, then decided I needed a snack. This is a peach, chopped and nuked for 40 seconds, topped with about 1/3 cup 2% plain Chobani Greek yogurt and about 1/2 Tbsp. almond butter.
After some more work and a 40 minute workout (20 minutes running on the treadmill and 20 minutes on the elliptical), and a shower, I was more than ready for dinner.
The new Blue Cheese Laughing Cow was at my local Trader Joe’s so you know I grabbed it and wanted to try it right away.
I decided to use it in some BST Quinoa. It’s BST Quinoa instead of BLT, because I used spinach.
Cook 1 cup of organic quinoa in 2 cups salted vegetable stock. Saute 2 cloves of garlic, spinach, and cherry tomatoes (cut in fourths). Once quinoa is cooked completely, add vegetables and 2 Blue Cheese Laughing Cow wedges. Cook 2 pieces of turkey bacon (I nuked in microwave for 1 min. 20 sec.) Chop well and add to quinoa.
My other awesome coupon from Earthfare from last week was $2 off per pound for fresh wild salmon. I’m not a big meat eat, but I love me some fish. I sprinkled these with salt, ground pepper, garlic powder, and dried rosemary and cooked on both sides until just cooked through.
This is not a good photo, but it was a delicious dish. I bought a patty pan squash a week ago at a farmer’s market and was waiting for an opportunity to use it. For those of you unfamiliar with a patty pan squash, they are shaped like an orb (like a UFO), they’re yellow, and they have a dark green ring where they were separated from their stem. I sliced them about 1/2 of a centimeter thick. Then, I dipped them in egg whites, then in plain bread crumbs. I placed them on a cookie sheet, and sprinkled them generously with salt and ground black pepper, then lightly with cayenne. I cooked them for about 20 minutes on 400 degrees Farenheit, then broiled for 5 minutes on 500 degrees.
This was such a wonderful summer meal, and I know so because Brad told me so. I squeezed a fresh-cut lemon wedge over the salmon before serving. This was my plate, although I had at least 3-4 more bites of quinoa as I was cleaning the kitchen.
Currently I’m drinking a glass of wine and half watching House Hunters. Wild Friday night huh?
I have to thank Britt for the wine. The last time we had her and the pilot over for dinner, she brought us this bottle of TJ’s Reserve Russian River Valley Pinot Noir. You know how some wines are good and some you’re like “wow, this is really good!”. Well this one is the “wow” one. It is really good. Thanks Brittney!
The no photos are courtesy of my camera or maybe my computer, which won’t copy the photo of my glass of wine and the wine label onto my computer for uploading. Hmph.
Wedding Shape-up Update:
So far I’m getting in 5-6 x a week of Jillian. In a perfect world I would get in all 7 days, but I am not perfect, and this is not a perfect world. I didn’t do it today because I just felt a little off. Maybe my salad and yogurt filled afternoon didn’t contain enough carbs? I’m so sensitive sometimes to my eating habits. Even when I’m super healthy and clean in my eating, a lack of carbs makes me feel a little “off”. The only real carb I had today until dinner was the slice of Ezekiel. Noted, well noted.
I’m also not exactly spreading my calories equally around. I have found that when I work out in the morning, I’m ravenous and end up eating all the food I packed for the day by 1 pm. But, I’m not hungry until dinner so I’m not really over-eating. I’m trying to not be so anal and listen to what I want at that moment (i.e. how hungry I truly am). This is my ultimate goal anyway, to be an intuitive eater, so why should I strive for something different to prep for my wedding?