How I Eat. What I eat.

I have no idea if anyone is even interested in what I'm eating...but I'll tell you anyway just in case someone out there is...

My weekdays are busy. My weekends usually are too!

Because my commute is an hour each way, I drink my breakfast on the way to work (smoothie) and don't have a lot of time in the evenings to cook anything that takes longer than about 30 minutes. I do my best to meal plan and have a few recipes to do each week, and we always eat leftovers for lunch. For weekdays, I have a general formula that I follow.

Berry banana smoothie.

Breakfast: Smoothie with a small snack once I am at my desk at work (usually dry cereal with a few nuts, 1/2 cup total)
Mid-morning snack: greek yogurt
Morning: Drink tea (decaf)
Lunch: Vegetable and meat
Afternoon at work: sparkling water
At home: Snack, usually a small bowl of cereal
Dinner: Vegetable and meat
Dessert: Something small, sometimes not-so-small involving chocolate
All day, especially in the morning: Tons of water (usually 2.5-3 quarts between waking up and the time I leave work in the afternoon, not counting tea and sparkling water)

See this post for my smoothie formula.

For my morning yogurt, I usually eat ~1 cup with 1/2 cup of fresh fruit or applesauce (plain/unsweetened) or 1-2 tbsp of homemade jam.

I make all of the jam we eat using local fruits and low sugar recipes.

Lunch is usually a big salad with a little dressing and meat leftover from dinner the previous night. Sometimes I eat frozen (heated) vegetables (I prefer the chopped broccoli but will also eat mixed veggies or green beans). I usually eat 5-6 oz meat.

Snack: I love cereal. Especially with chocolate chips and nuts on it...

Dinner is usually very similar to lunch and I usually make lunches while I make dinner.

Food prep:
I shop on Mondays and that evening I usually make 2 dinner salads (for 2 nights) and salads for both of us for lunch. I try to do as much food prep early in the week as I can.

My downfalls:
-Morning smoothie--could probably have fewer calories. I really love peanut butter and a super creamy smoothie.
-I love cereal. And I always feel snacky in the evenings. I also always want dessert. I know that if I wanted to cut calories I could just stop eating as much in the evenings...but it's so GOOD.
-The occasional drink...I do like gin.
-Starbucks. Never thought I'd say that! I'm not a coffee drinker. But since I have been doing this long commute 5 days a week, I've been allowing myself to stop there once a week (last week I went twice.....). I always get a Frappuccino, usually a tall Mocha Light Frap. Sometimes I get whipped cream because that's the best part. For a while I was getting the Mocha Cookie Crumble one with fat free milk and chocolate whipped cream...but I think that was a really bad idea.
-Condiments: I could probably cut back here too to cut calories. I don't like a lot of salad dressing, but I do need at least some, and I also like BBQ sauce with grilled chicken.

Homemade yogurt ranch dressing. 

My good parts:
-Work--there is generally zero temptation there. There are no restaurants, no other sources of food (unless it's someone's birthday but that only happens 5 times a year). So what I bring is what I get!
-I drink a ton of water and rarely have caffeine.
-Since making some changes earlier this year, I eat a lot more protein and fewer carbs, and I notice that my GI tract prefers this.
-I eat a lot of veggies and lean meat and just a little processed foods (processed foods are usually cereal..which is frequently Cherrios).

So there you have it! Some info on how and what I eat.

Week Roundup: Workouts and Menu

This past week was really busy and just flew by. It's the busy season at my work, which is my favorite time of year. Never a dull moment!

I just really like this picture. Milkweed (Aslcepias) seed pod.

Here was my schedule (with workouts) for the week before/after work:

Monday: Before: Run 2 mi with the dogs, After: Grocery shop and food prep, clean house

Tuesday: Before: Run 2 mi and incorporated this workout into my morning routine (doing the non-running exercises before and after the run), After: Cooking and finish cleaning house

Wednesday: Before: Same as Tues, After: Chest and Back + Abs P90X workouts, cook

Thursday: Before: Same as Tues, After: Plyometrics P90X workout, cook

Friday: Before: Same is Tues, After: Yard work and then reeellaxxx

Saturday (today!): Ran 6 miles with Adam then 2 miles with the dogs, then did the Shoulders and Arms + Abs P90X dvd plus a ton of yard work

Here was the dinner menu: 

Monday: Chicken soup with biscuits (similar to this but I made biscuits separately and used boneless/skinless chicken breasts in the soup with more veggies)

Tuesday: Sloppy Joes (similar to this but less sugar)

Wednesday: Grilled chicken with salad

Thursday: Eggs with salad

Friday: Snacked and made green monster muffins (not sure how I feel about them yet. They are like baked oatmeal. But green and peanut buttery.)

Saturday: slow cooker pork with veggies or salad

Lunches are always leftovers.


After my workouts this morning, I made myself a smoothie. I just recently started adding spinach to my smoothies. My go-to recipe is (all measurements are approximate):

1 frozen banana, chopped into pieces before freezing
1/2 cup nonfat plain greek yogurt
2/3 cup nonfat milk
1-2 tbsp natural peanut butter
1/4 cup water
Handful of fresh spinach

And sometimes (pending on my mood, exercise, etc)

Ice
Chocolate ovaltine
Plain whey protein powder
Frozen berries

Put into blender and blend until super smooth and creamy! So good. This morning I added ovaltine and protein powder because I'd been working out for over 2 hours beforehand.

Here's a bad picture of it before it was blended:

I've been lusting after a Vitamix blender, but honestly this cheap-o old blender I have does the trick well enough.

Cranberry

It's that time...

Cranberry time. Every year for the past 6 years I've made this cranberry sauce for Thanksgiving--always a double batch because it's so good. We aren't big holiday people--most years it's just me and a few family members (this year husband and parents most likely!). Very relaxed. Still have to have the proper cranberry, though!

The recipe I use is this one from Williams-Sonoma, originally recommended to me by a friend in 2005. It's the best! Sometimes I use mandarines instead of the orange if they are available (this year we went with local oranges and apples from Apple Hill). 

I didn't can the sauce, but am storing it in jars in the fridge. So pretty!

By the way, I got a tiny bit of fame in the November issue of Sunset Magazine, because I commented on their Facebook page about this sauce and they printed my comment in their magazine (p. 10 bottom left corner).

Happy Thanksgiving!

Apple-Orange Cranberry Sauce--best ever
From Williams-Sonoma

1/2 Orange
2 cups water
1 tart apple
3 cups cranberries
1 1/4 cup sugar
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp cloves

Juice the orange (set aside juice), then use a paring knife to cut the white pith away from the orange peel. Discard the pith, and chop the orange portion of the peel into very small pieces. Place the peel into a small pot with the water, bring to a boil over high head, then cook for 10 minutes.

Chop the apple, place in a medium saucepan. Add the cranberries, orange juice, cooked peel, sugar, and spices. Bring to a boil over high heat, then reduce heat and simmer for 10-15 minutes.

Let cool, and store in the fridge for several days, or freeze. Bring to room temp before serving. Makes ~3-4 cups.

Food Lately

Been a little busy around here...no time for blogging!

But, we have been eating well.

Definitely snacking well! Adam made Chex Mix...recipe from his brain. 

I made granola, which is actually more like crunchy toasted oats (not very sweet), recipe here. This stuff is perfect to add to plain low fat greek yogurt with a dollop of jam. 

And, I made more meatballs! These are not cheese stuffed ones (like I made before) but they are my own creation based off of the cheese stuffed ones (very similar but I used shredded mozzarella instead of romano mixed in with the beef). I used four and half pounds of beef for these! We've got a bunch in the fridge and lots more in the freezer. 

And Adam made chicken noodle soup from scratch! (Even made his own stock!) Very good. Chickens were on sale so we've actually got a whole chicken in the slow cooker now to make more stock (and more shredded chicken!). 

FYI: That's not actually canned, we just use jars for leftovers sometimes. 

Tonight I made tasty (but not very photogenic) grilled cheese sandwiches to eat with pears and soup leftovers. I had two ends of bread left so I made sandwiches on both cornmeal bread and sweet white bread with cheddar and swiss. Ya!

Fig delight

Figs, fresh from the tree.

Feta.

Proscuitto. 

Broil.

Crispy. Sweet. Salty.

e a t.

Nutella and meatballs...

Over the weekend we got inspired....we made our own Nutella!

We started by toasting the hazelnuts (350 degrees, about 10-12 minutes) and
then removing their skins by rubbing them in a textured towel.

Then, we processed the nuts alone for about 7 minutes, until they started to form a paste.
We added some cocoa powder and powdered sugar.
After processing that, we added a little canola oil until the texture became more spreadable.

This is the finished product!

We both agree that ours is MUCH less sweet than store bought Nutella. And, we like ours best off of a spoon--not on toast; the flavor is not strong enough to hold up with bread, crackers or cookies. In comparison, regular Nutella tastes sickly sweet, so sweet it hurts my teeth!

After our Nutella adventure, I made these:

They are actually mozzarella stuffed meatballs and we ate them as mini-hamburgers (recommend hearty dinner rolls for buns). They were a total hit--amazing!! I got the recipe here and we highly recommend them!

Mt. Rose Weekend: Cooking

A week ago we went up to Tahoe for the weekend. We drove up to Auburn and ran and biked in the ravine, and then drove up the hill Saturday evening. We drove on Highway 267 and, just after Brockway Summit, turned off the highway and drove out the (paved!) road to Watson Lake. We found the small (free!) campground and parked the van, and then went on a short hike to the summit of Mt. Watson. The campground is totally rustic (parking spaces and fire rings but nothing else), but it was quiet and scenic, and we liked it. 

Then, we cooked! 

We baked bread in the dutch oven. I had pre-made the dough in the bread machine. 

We drank tea, and made a chicken pot pie filling to eat with our freshly baked bread.

For dessert, I went all out and made blondies (read: butter, brown sugar, a little flour), with three kinds of chips: mini semi-sweet and regular size dark chocolate, and peanut butter. Yes!

The next morning...

We drove up Mt. Rose and Adam and Brian mountain biked, and I hiked with the dogs on the Tahoe Rim Trail. We saw two deer! Big ones. And some great views: 

I loved the meadow near where we parked.

Back from vacation...

We are back from a wonderful week in Wisconsin! I'll post some pictures from that trip later. Right now, we are trying to eat healthy--while on vacation we definitely indulged on a daily basis.

So--Sunday afternoon after we got home, I made:

Salads for lunches for a couple of days...

And Monday, at work, I picked:

Which will become canned fig jam, and I'm thinking even a fancy fig appetizer! More to come this week.

GRA-nola

I made healthy granola last week, and it was actually good! A lot of times, things that are healthy aren't actually that good. Like, raw carrots. I'm just not a fan unless a dip is involved.

This granola was amazing when served on top of Fage 2% greek yogurt with a spoonful of my blueberry lime jam. (I had that for lunch three days in a row!)

I used a recipe from here but omitted the nuts and reduced the baking time:

3 cups rolled oats

1/2 cup unsweetened applesauce

1/4 cup honey

2 tsp cinnamon

Mix the applesauce, honey and cinnamon together and then stir in oats. Bake at 325 for about a half hour (check often because mine got a little over-brown and the original recipe called for 45 minutes), stirring a couple times during baking. 

Plank and deliciousness.

Might have had this for dinner.

That's chocolate chip zucchini bread with vanilla ice cream.



BTW, that first picture--the deliciousness is sitting on top of a cedar plank/log that my husband is working on in the garage. We found it while hiking in Washington. He carried it out (the man is strong!) to our van and we brought it home with us. It will eventually become a bench.

Another dinner.

Local.

Green beans from the farm garden.
Tomatoes from the farmer's market and our home garden, with basil (home garden), fresh mozzarella (store), and a little vinaigrette.
Bread--from the bread machine as always (we never buy bread anymore!)--made with whole wheat and white flower plus shredded zucchini for extra moisture!
Beef: Made by my husband! Slow cooked in port wine with onion.
Eat--beef with tomato salad on the bread. Yup.

Pickles. 

Last week I made dill pickles! We opened the first jar today while at my parents' house. They were great! I made two types: some with red peppers and some with black peppers. We tried the red pepper kind; they were perfect with just the right amount of spice. Each jar has a clove of garlic.

I'm ready to be done with pickling cucumbers now....

Quick Dill Pickles (from a canning course hand out)--this recipe makes ~3 pint jars (I made 9 jars)
2 lb cucumbers (if larger slice, if quite small leave whole)
3 tsp salt
1 c vinegar
1 c water
1 1/2 tbsp dill seed
whole black peppercorns or dried red peppers
whole cloves garlic

Wash and prepare cucumbers

Combine vinegar and water; heat. Pack cucumbers into clean hot jars. For each pint jar, add 1 1/2 tsp dill seed, 3 whole black peppers (or red peppers--I put two per jar for spicy pickles), and 1 tsp canning salt. If desired, add 1 clove garlic per jar also.

Fill with vinegar/water solution leaving 1/2 inch headspace. Seal.

Process 15 minutes.

Enjoy! Great as a snack, with burgers, on sandwiches....

Elderberry liqueur!

Elderberry liqueur--courtesy of Hunter Angler Gardener Cook!

This was very easy to make. I harvested elderberries at work last Friday and put this together over the weekend.

Just: wash berries, put in jars, add lemon peel (no white pith), fill jars with vodka. Let sit! For weeks! Then open jars, add sugar to taste (maybe about 1/3 cup for the whole batch according to the website above). Yes.

Now that I've done this, I'm considering doing other infused liquors. Citrus vodka when citrus is in its high season? Berry flavor? Peach? Hmmmm....

Garden love.

This is one day's harvest from our work garden, plus some wild-collected fruits!
On this day we collected:
-Basil
-Too many (too big) zucchini
-Small yellow crookneck squash
-Baby pumpkins
-Pickling cucumbers
-Tomatillos
-Green beans
-Red bell peppers
-Carrots!

And, we wild-collected:
-Box of elderberries!

From this so far I have made:
-The start of a batch of elderberry liqueur (takes a while--has to sit in jars; pictures to come)
-Dill pickles (pics to come)
-Zucchini yeast bread (not sweet, excellent toasted with blackberry jam!)

I will make:
-Extra tasty carrots sticks for eating raw
-Steamed green beans with butter and lemon
-Grilled squash

My coworker is also going to make pesto with the basil. Delicious!

PS This photo was taken by my coworker! Thanks!

Husband cooks.

My husband made dinner tonight! It was great.
Grilled chicken with taco spices.
Fire roasted tomato rice.
Corn.
Fresh salsa (I made it yesterday.)

Fantastic! Even better because it was served to me warm and beautifully displayed. :D Winner!

Fishy business.

We are trying to eat more fish. The good kinds. We have eaten so much wild Alaskan Salmon I don't even want more. So, we're onto mahi mahi (the Atlantic kind).

We've been experimenting with it a bit. I really like it grilled, and usually served very simply (with lemon and vegetable and starch side dishes). We did get a little bit fancier though, just recently.

My work garden has an abundance of tomatillos. I had never done anything with tomatillos before (they are unusual little green tomatoes with husks). But--it was easy!

I made this:

Mahi mahi taco (only 1 each because we only had two tortillas...) with tomatillo salsa, roasted corn, and chips and more salsa on the side.

For the salsa--I swear it was simple--here's what I did:
1. Peel husks off tomatillos and wash, cut in half.
2. Cut some onion into chunks.
3. Broil tomatillos and onion for about 5 minutes to soften and slightly brown.
4. In food processor, chop tomatillos, onion, some jalepeno, lemon or lime juice, and a handful of fresh cilantro. (Salsa: done!)
Grill some mahi mahi and corn. Serve as fish tacos topped with fresh garden (red) tomatoes and the tomatillo salsa, corn on the side, lemon or lime to squeeze, and tortilla chips to dip in the remaining green salsa.

We had this with margaritas---it was fantastic!

Cocoa-Peanut Butter-Sugar-Butter-Chocolate Chip-Fantasy-Heaven

Thanks to Picky Palate, another blog I follow, for this:

Chocolate Chunk Peanut Butter Swirl Fudgy Cookies

That was like an extra 1000 calories I took in tonight...so much for the health kick (one night off..I am actually doing well otherwise! Going to work it all off this weekend anyway...).

I'll add photos tomorrow! (Done!)

It is enough to say that they are amazing. I ate enough dough while making them that I didn't even eat a baked cookie. Made these to take to a potluck in the mountains this weekend!

Donner Lake, Granite Chief, Tahoe: Hike and Bike Sierra Weekend

Man, it has been a busy week!
I'm glad to reflect on last weekend and look forward to this one coming up.

Last Friday after work we hopped in the car and drove up to our family cabin at Donner Lake (near Truckee). This is a change for us as usually we use the cabin in the winter when camping conditions aren't ideal. It was nice to sleep with the doors and windows open in the house and not have to climb over 5 feet of snow to get to the front door!

The van hung out in the parking spot:

On Saturday morning we had a leisurely breakfast in front of the TV (the cabin has cable--WAY more channels that we get at home...although we usually end up watching HGTV endlessly...). (And yeah, that's a mattress on the floor...the pull out bed is bad and the floor mattress is only marginally better..)

The dogs hung out:

And look who we brought! Brucie!

We went for a short walk with the dogs, and then got ready to go for a bike ride. The dogs would spend the morning napping in the van while we explored the Tahoe area on two wheels! We rode from our cabin at Donner over to Truckee, rode around there looking for an elusive bike path (we found it, it was nice but short), then rode out highway 267 to Tahoe.

267 goes from Martis Valley (low) to Brockway Summit (high) to Kings Beach (lower but not as low as Martis Valley). That is one heck of a climb!! I'm glad I didn't really know what I was getting myself into! We then rode over to Tahoe City and then back to the cabin via Highway 89. Very nice, about 53 miles total. (And I gave myself bonus points for that big climb.)

The bike path we found near downtown Truckee. Good place to walk dogs!

I was out of breath while taking this photo.

After our great ride, husband ate some lunch and then left me at home with the animals to go to a truckee-river-float-themed batchelor party for a work friend. I had the afternoon to myself to rest (and, work! I had a bunch of stuff to do relating to my job as a board member/secretary/editor for a local non-profit). 

So, I set up a mini home office in this wonderful setting:

But first, I was starving. 

So I got out the ancient retro-cool blender.

And filled it with strawberries I had frozen in late spring, plus frozen sliced bananas, a little vanilla ice cream, and some milk.

Retro-cool blender still works pretty good! I'm sure this machine is older than I am.

Perfect lazy afternoon work snack. 

Views from my weekend home office (in real life there is more lake)

Weird dog chilled out in the cat bed.

Lazy dog chilled out on our bed!

The dogs and I went on a couple of walks around the neighborhood to stretch our legs. 

Relaxing neighborhood walk. Off leash!

Ahhhhhh.....so nice.

Views of Donner!

Then Adam came home. He got some snuggles from Dude:

Adorbs!

That night we made *amazing* dinner: smashed potatoes with blue cheese, 

grilled pork chops, grilled summer squash, and brownies. 

The next morning, we relaxed and I made some buckwheat pancakes, 

fresh eggs, bananas, and jasmine green tea. 

After that, husband went out to wash the van...our water at home is so hard that it coats everything with mineral grime, so washing at the cabin is a good choice since the water is much better there!

Yes, he's on top of the van. And yes, the van looks really big from this angle. And yes, the van is actually just really big.

After van washing we packed up the dogs (left Bruce at the cabin) and went for a hike out of the Alpine Meadows area to the Five Lakes Basin in the Granite Chief Wilderness.

This hike is a varied one, as we went through forest, exposed scrubby slopes, granite, and back into a green valley. The lakes basin isn't spectacular (a lot of folks don't realize they've passed all of the lakes)--but if you want to explore there are some good swimming areas. We went past the lakes onto the PCT and got some views of Sierran valleys. It was nice! There were a few mosquitos in the shady areas and around the lakes so I'd recommend bug spray of some sort if you go up there soon. 

Phlox (white/lavender) and Penstemon (pink).

Sierra valley views! Lovely.

Unfortunately this is as good as the portraits got during the weekend.

After our hike, we went back to the cabin and got Bruce and drove home. It was a very nice weekend! I'd recommend the Five Lakes Basin hike if you want to explore around some small (semi-hidden) lakes. You might want to go early, though--it was busy on the trail and we started around 9:30am. 

Looking forward to more weekends like this soon! Have a good week!