Goat cheese makes everything better

Um yeah. You know that giant log of goat cheese I told you I bought after the Whole Foods trip last weekend?  Or maybe I didn’t… but regardless, it’s almost gone.  Seriously, I can’t find one thing that this stuff doesn’t taste good on!  The picture above is today’s lunch—my all time favorite veggie burger topped with goat cheese on a bed of spring mix with yogurt honey mustard dressing.

Lunch was pretty light due to my mid-morning Vivanno… Tried the Strawberry one today and it was pretty good.  Doesn’t hold up to my tried and true Chocolate Banana, but it’s definitely tasty and filling.  It’s gotta be the added protein powder!

Breakfast:

Sub-par at best.  Waffles just don’t do it for me but we are out of EVERYTHING in this apartment right now.  I’m headed to Colorado Springs for work tonight until Sunday so there’s no sense in going grocery shopping.  No milk or eggs in sight so I had to resort to the freezer. Blah.

I feel like it’s been forever since I’ve blogged… 2 whole days YIKES!  I promise to take some sweet photos this weekend because I’m going to a really cool event that I don’t know many details about.  Looking forward to getting a long weekend and having a legit excuse to leave town for a couple of days.

Have you guys tried this LARABAR?

If you love dark chocolate and coconut it’s probably going to be you’re new favorite thing in the world.  I ate it a few days ago but it was just too good to overlook…

Speaking of chocolate I think I’ll go find some… and then finish my Nutrition Through the Life Cycle case study so I can hand it in and be DONE for the week.

I’m also observing a Teen Prenatal Nutrition class tonight because I’ll be helping out with it over the summer so it should be pretty interesting.

And UNC’s STRONGMAN/STRONGWOMAN competition is tonight!!!!!! Weather permitting of course… let’s hope these clouds hold off until tomorrow when I’m out of town:-)

Have a great weekend!

The perfect pre-workout meal.

Fridaaaaaaaaaaayyyyyyyyyyyy!!!! I had a really good day today.  Nothing super out of the ordinary happened—I just felt happy from the moment I woke from my deep sleep at 5:30am.  Started my day off with a nice little workout sesh which always seems to improve my mood by 100… ate this before I left the house:

This is pretty much the perfect pre-workout meal.  Filling, but not so much that I feel weighed down, easily digestible, good ratio of carbs fat and protein.  It’s easy to modify based on the intensity and duration of exercise too.  Example: If I’m doing a long run (6+) I eat the whole bagel instead of just half, and have a banana instead of the OJ.

And it’s also yummy.

Workout:

• 5 min treadmill warm-up
• BOSU squat and press
• Switch Lunge
• Stability ball wall squat
• Chest press, flies, push
• Step-ups
• Seated row
• Bicep curl w/pulse
• Bench hops
• Tricep dips
• Hamstring cable kickbacks
• Upright row to shoulder press
• BOSU crunches, side-to-sides, oblique twists, toe tappers
• Swimmers

Remember when I used to post workouts all of the time?  Maybe I need to start that up again…

Moving forward, Lunch was a new favorite Amy’s variety that I came across at the organic food store last week:  Lentil Vegetable.

Veggies make everything better. This was a great find.  I’ll definitely be buying it again!

The perfect pre-happy hour snack:

Not really sure why… I suppose any food is the perfect pre-happy hour snack!

Time to go beautify myself for the evening.  Have a fantastic weekend!

How-to fully enjoy a day in the mountains

Step 1: Pack a good lunch.  Include a substantial snack so your hunger doesn’t control when you have to stop for a break.  Clif Bars are great for skiing (convenient, delicious, dense)… and I give this Carrot Cake flavor that I had on Saturday an A+

(veggie wraps + fruit)

Step 2: Lay out clothes the night before. We usually leave the house between 5:30 and 6:00 am on ski days, so there’s no way I would be coherent enough to remember everything I need if I wasn’t already packed and ready to go.

Things to remember:

• Base layer (I have a slight obsession with anything Under Armour)
• Comfy pants + a Fleece
• Warm socks (these Smart Wools are my fave)
• Hat & Mittens
• Snow pants & Jacket (Remember my favorite purchase in 2009?)
• Goggles (In love with these)
• Skis, Boots, Poles
• Season Pass
• i-Pod (can’t leave home without it)
• Lunch
• Coffee for the road

That seems like a lot when it’s all listed out like that.  Kind-of is.  Told you it’s important to pack the night before!

Step 3: Stop at the Bux.  Starbucks to-go is a necessity.  The Vivanno has become a staple in this apartment for SKI DAYS, early work mornings, long work days, late-night studying, hangovers…hmmmmm so basically all of the time.  I can’t fight the power of espresso!

Step 4: Take tons of pictures.

Nothing wrong with self-portraits.

The views are impossible to capture on camera!

Step 5: Ski as far away from the main lodge as possible. Seriously, the conditions are completely different elsewhere, usually much better.  The lines are shorter too.

Step 6: Drink a beer.

Preferably a Colorado micro-brew.   Fat Tire if you want to be cliche.

Opinions on Trader Joe’s

Homemade Broccoli Cheese soup!!!!!  I’m liking this whole “having food waiting for me when I get home” for all meals of the day.  Buddy (Jess’s brother) made this last night so we would have it for lunch/other meals throughout the week and it’s really really good.

I had chips and salsa on the side because we rarely buy chips anymore and I’ve been craving them like mad.

Mid-afternoon/pre-boot camp snack–1/2 Fage, granola, walnuts, raisins, cinnamon and agave:

And pure comfort food for dinner:

Spaghetti, homemade garlic bread, and salad with TJ’s Goddess dressing aka my favorite dressing ever.  I just read an article that says 80% of Trader Joe’s products are sold under their label but aren’t made by them.  News to me!  This dressing is one of those products supposed products and the ingredients are EXACTLY the same as Annie’s Goddess (which is double the price).  It can’t be proved that this for sure, of course, but it’s easy to guess which brands make what.

Check out the article here to find out which other products made the list. Read the comments at the end too, they’re pretty thought-provoking.

I personally love the style of Trader Joe’s.  They sell all of the foods that I like but at reasonable prices (prime example, almond butter). I’m convinced that anywhere you can get good-tasting $2 bottles of wine just can’t be bad.

Some may argue that it supports the “big box” corporations, but I think they follow good business principles and they seem to be environmentally conscious and community involved.

Opinions on TJ’s?

p.s. I think the Bachelor is a toolbox

How to Jazz-up a boring meal.

Best canned soup ever:

I love everything Amy’s, but this is by far my favorite item she makes.  Buy it now!!!! I lugged my can opener from home so I could make this for lunch in between clients at work.  YES, I definitely will carry a can opener in my backpack all day if need-be.

Had this on the side…

And a slice of Ezekial w/laughing cow too (no picture because it was grabbed on impulse when I was on my way out the door).

Mid-morning library snack:

Dinner was salmon, sweet potato fries, and broccoli–all jazzed up of course.

We’ve been on a serious roll in the kitchen lately because this was another great meal.  Here’s how to make a boring meal flavorful without adding tons of junk…

Salmon—Marinate it in something before baking.  I used a mixture of balsamic vinegar, dijon mustard, and maple syrup tonight.  It was the perfect mix of sweet and savory and the fish was really moist.  Bake at 400 degrees for 12-15 minutes and broil for a few more minutes at the very end to get a nice crust.

Broccoli—Ahhh yes, broccoli.  That vegetable that everyone loves to hate.  That’s because usually when it’s served, it’s an overcooked and mushy mess of a side dish with no seasoning.  Try adding lemon juice and cream cheese for an extra kick.  We used spinach and artichoke flavored cream cheese because we had it on hand and it was pretty amazing.

Sweet potatoes—I’ll admit that we cheated a little bit on this one because we used store-bought Alexia brand fries.  BUT, it’s really easy to create these on  your own for way less $$$.  Slice potatoes into fries, microwave for 5-6 minutes and coat with oil, salt and pepper, and chili powder.  Stick them under the broiler for about 5 minutes on each side and you’ve got fries in 15 minutes.  Not so hard, hm?

Coffee is brewing and I’m getting ready to do some major studying for the rest of the evening.  I was at work for 7 hours straight today!!! And even after being in a gym for that long, my only “formal exercise” was an abs class led by my friend Jon.  It was TOUGH.  And I’m actually beat just from being on my feet all day.

Gah! I wish I could just lay on the couch all night but I need to finish some stats homework instead.  Yay.  I’m ready for a hardcore nutrition schedule…  I’m so over lib eds.

Wish me luck on staying productive.  I’ll need it!

Need some serious “me time”

Afternoon post??? Yes I did.

Here’s what I snacked on mid-morning:

and

And some green ginger tea because it’s FREEZING today!  The weather is starting to remind me of back home in Michigan.  We’re actually getting a decent amount of snow.  Winter does happen here after all…

Lunch

I packed both my own and Jessica’s lunch today… I’m such a good wifey! Ended up having enough time to come home to eat which explains the plate.  I made tuna wraps with spinach, sundried tomato, avocado, and dijon mustard.  Pretty delicious combo if you ask me.  Oh, and a pink lady (the best!) apple too.

I’ve decided that me having to work tomorrow is a blessing in disguise. It forces me to stay in G-town for the WHOLE weekend (no skiing, no roadtrips to Denver or Boulder…nada).  I am in NEED of some “me time”. Seriously.  I’ve been pushing certain things to the side in favor of school/work/fun for awhile so I can’t wait to just chill for a couple of days.

And because I’m semi-obsessed with lists (don’t judge):

5 ME things to do this weekend:

1. Wake up without an alarm on Saturday morning and make a really good breakfast.
2. Bake something
3. Manicure and Facial (no need to pay someone, these I’m doing myself!)
4. Long run (9 miler)
5. See Valentine’s Day!

5 “not-so-ME, but important nonetheless” things to do this weekend:

1. Study biochem like it’s my job
2. Clean the apartment—really, really well.  We have 3 different out-of-town guests that will be in and out of our place next week!!
3. Hit up Target for some necessities (and consequently, spend money on things I don’t need)
4. Laundry
5. Catch up phone calls.  I’ve been bad about this lately!

Weekend in the Mountains

Winter Park was SOOOOO much fun yesterday!! Both Jessica and I agreed that it was definitely one of our best times up so far, if not the best.  I really feel like I’m starting to improve and it was snowing all day long so the powder was fantastic!  Plus we were with a group of about 10 so that always makes it more fun too.

First of all, Dear John was just OK.  I felt like the leads had great chemistry and wow Channing Tatum was looking chiseled.  But I didn’t care for the actual love story all that much.  Not bad, but definitely nothing spectacular either.  Definitely teared up a couple times.

Saturday we were up bright and early at 5:00am and I had an oatmeal from Starbucks for breakfast on the road.  We were in line for the lift before they even opened so we took the first ride up!

Lunch was this fabulous Elk Stew from a restaurant on the Mary Jane side of the mountain…

along with a giant bloody mary which was delicious!  Need to get my veggies in right?

And the table shared this basket of house-made chips with chipotle dipping sauce that we have been absolutely obsessed with since trying them for the first time a few weeks ago.

They’re so addicting!  I have to physically move them across the table to stop myself from eating the entire order.

After lunch, we skied without a break until the lifts closed at 4:00pm!  The temperature was so moderate and perfect that we never even got cold.  I also have some really great gear and I was thinking I would do a separate post on it just because I really think enjoying skiing is tough if you’re always cold.  Investing in some more expensive clothing helped me out a ton.  Would anyone be interested in a post like this?

Anyways, after leaving the resort, we dropped our stuff off at the hotel and got ready in lightning speed to go grab dinner.  We decided on a grill across the street that was famous for there steaks.  EVERYTHING on the menu was organic and looked great but I went with a steak salad with homemade bleu cheese dressing.  Honestly, I couldn’t bear to post the picture that I have because the restaurant was dark and it was just way to fuzzy.  Sorry!

I just now got back from a superbowl party and let’s just say I ate my fair share of snack food including this taco dip that I made:

Does anyone else have a problem when it comes to chips and dip???? I seriously can’t stay away.  Oh well, the party we went to was a ton of fun and we got to hang out with some people from work.   Chips for dinner once in awhile won’t kill me.

I’m more than ready to eat a day’s worth of wholesome food tomorrow.  Oatmeal in the morning perhaps?

Another weekend down.  Bring on Monday!

Back home… ready to make some moo-lah

Hellooooooo peeps!

So it was pretty sad to come back home after such a wonderful vacation, but I’m more motivated than ever to work hard this summer so I can afford to take advantage of all of the amazing things in Colorado when I move.

I’m not quite sure when I start work yet, but I’m waitressing at a really nice restaurant about 30 minutes from my parents house and I love waitressing so I’m excited!

Other things I’m looking forward to right now:

• I’m going to be “Auntie Leanne” ANY DAY now.  The due date is May 14th!
• My BFF/future roomie’s graduation on Memorial Day weekend
• The 4th of July (and K‘s birthday of course!)
• Camping for 2 weeks with the family at the end of July.  I’ve never missed a summer since I was born!
• Hopefully the Chicago 1/2 marathon on August 2.  I haven’t signed up yet, but I started my official training yesterday!
• My brother’s wedding is August 15
• Moving day is August 17!

Some food pics from the last few days (I’m in the process of converting my parent’s food stash hahaha…)

PB oats w/fresh strawberries

Tuna on an Arnold’s sandwich thin + fruit salad

Salad w/Annie‘s Woodstock (Amazing!), roast, corn on the cob

Lemon LARABAR… one of my new favorites!

Chicken, brown rice, fresh green beans seasoned with dill.  Can you tell the difference between my college student dinners and my parent’s? LOL

Vanilla ice cream w/fresh strawberries and dark choco chips!

There’s ALWAYS ice cream in this house, so it could get dangerous! I’m livin’ large! LOL

I’m hoping to get my training plan up soon, so stay tuned for that.  Since the internet at my house is incredibly slow, I’m blogging from a coffee shop in town and I think I’ll try to do this every couple days or so.  It’s way to hard to upload pics otherwise.

Hope you all have a wonderful week!

What things are YOU looking forward to this summer?

Cinco de Mayo fun

We went to a fabulous Mexican restaurant in town to celebrate Cinco de Mayo last night!  Along with too many Margaritas, I had the Blue Corn Enchiladas.

This was a really heavy meal, but the waitress recommended it and I made sure to stop eating before I felt completely stuffed.  I had about 1/3 of the actual enchiladas, 1/2 the rice, all of the black beans, and all of the lettuce and tomatoes and I topped it all with spicy salsa.

After dinner, my step-dad and I made some friends with the guys in the booth next to us and we ended up having another drink and talking with them.  They gave us the low down on the city!

Backing up to breakfast, I had some cereal and fruit at the continental breakfast because they didn’t have too much to pick from.  In the car I snacked on this:

BARNEY BUTTER!!! I finally tried it and I loved it!  The roasted flavor is pretty amazing. I don’t think I’ll ever spend the money to get a jar because I like TJ’s better, but I’m glad I finally tasted it.

Finding somewhere to eat lunch took forever because there wasn’t very many towns to stop in when we started getting hungry.  We split a Clif Bar to tide us over, then we ended up at a Pizza Hut buffet which was fine with me because I loaded up on salad and had a piece of veggie pizza. I didn’t end up eating the hawaiian one.

Today is apartment hunting day, so hopefully the next time I post, I’ll have a home for next school year!  The town is great!

Straight outta Nebraska!

Hello, hello! Blogging from a wonderful hotel in Nebraska right now.  It’s so warm here!

Obviously we don’t waste any time… At the lovely hour of 4:00 am, my step-dad and I were off on our road trip with our to-go coffee mugs and luggage.  I was thinking that I would sleep for awhile, but after we got going I was just too excited and we chatted away for the next couple of hours until we stopped for breakfast at a Perkins.

From here, we slowly moved southwest across the country and I was loving the new scenery because I can’t remember the last time I traveled by car out west.  It was pretty flat, but with lot’s of farms, windmills, cows, and green grass!

We stopped at Panera in Iowa for a late lunch because I needed to take care of something on my computer and I knew they had wireless… plus I just love the place so I reasoned that it was absolutely necessary that we eat there!

John called it a “chick place” when he was talking to my mom later on haha… Not really his style, but I ordered for him and I think he liked it!

This is the You Pick 2 meal… 1/2 of a Mediterranean Veggie + Forest Mushroom soup which I really liked!  I think it was new?

I also had one of their fantastic lemonades… a totally worth it splurge considering the fact that I was over-dressed and sweating in the car. This just sounded SO good and it didn’t let me down:-)

After lunch we decided to hammer out about 4 more hours before stopping for the night so tomorrow would be shorter.  I snacked on some of this homemade snack mix to tide me over.  Well, mostly boredom, but some hunger I guess.

Neither one of us was super hungry for dinner, so we just went somewhere close and ordered light.  It was a BBQ place of some sort so I built a meal out of sides… This is a baked sweet potato, BBQ baked beans, and fire-grilled veggies.

The veggies and sweet potato were demolished pretty quickly, but the beans were just so-so… Not enough beans and too much overly sweetened sauce.  It ended up being enough food anyway.  The place had great atmosphere too, so that’s a plus!

I’m excited to get there tomorrow because I want to see what this place is all about!  The car ride has gone by surprisingly fast, maybe because I have some new reading material…

This book is FABULOUS! A graduation gift from my brother and his girlfriend (ahh they know me so well!), it has great explanations of cooking techniques, incredible pictures, and recipes that don’t have 100 ingredients.  I definitely read this from cover to cover today and was drooling the entire time!

Time for me to hit the sack, tomorrow should be another long day and it’s Cinco de Mayo!  I’m thinking a Margarita is definitely in my future… Goodnight!