Playing catch-up.

It sure is tough to get back into the swing of things after taking a long weekend and missing 2 days of school… I think I’m finally almost there.  I’m taking a short break from the books to recap some things from the last couple of days.  First off, check out the new kicks! Saucony Pro-Grid Triumph 7.

Yeahhhhhh boy.

These are ones I’ve been wearing for the last 2 or so years, but the newer model and a flashy new color scheme.  I’m in love.

I got in a decent 5-miler today but for some reason my achille’s has been bugging me lately so I didn’t take it very fast and I definitely took a couple of walk/stretch breaks because I didn’t want to push it.  Blah.  I’ll admit, I feel really slackerish on days like these but I know it’s the safe thing to do.  Slow and steady, right?  I can’t believe I just said that….

Anyways, here’s what I had for food yesterday and today:

Tuesday

Cinnamon puffins, pumpkin granola, vanilla soy, a banana and the star of the show, this new find from TJ’s.

Yum.

Lunch was a veg sandwich stand-by.  I rarely go home for lunch, so when I actually have the time, I make sure to utilize the toaster oven (melted cheese makes everything better!).

Sabra roasted garlic hummus (the best), muenster cheese, spinach, sun-dried tomato, bell peppers, and cholula on ezekial bread.

And this salmon that I threw together for Tuesday’s dinner may just have to end up on the recipe page because it turned out pretty amazing…

I used my new peanut butter from Hell’s Kitchen.  So moist and flavorful!

Wednesday

I don’t know what it is about greek yogurt, but when I have it for breakfast it seriously holds me over better than anything else–even oatmeal I think.  This morning was no different… I ate at 6:00am and didn’t even thinking about lunch until 12:30ish when I had my first break.  That’s some serious staying power.  Check it out:

Fage is the best greek yogurt there is.  I’m not sure why they haven’t jumped on the organic train yet, but it’s as creamy as frosting and has 20 g of protein and 25% of your daily value of calcium in just one serving.  I would imagine that this is a weight-loss patient’s dream food.

I like it with granola, fruit, melted peanut butter and some agave nectar for just a little bit of added sweetness.  Yogurt and granola may possibly be the best food combination there is.  Onward!

Lunch was a veggie wrap, and some dried mango but my picture is nowhere to be found.  I know I took one!!!!! Strange…

And last but not least, this homemade Chicken Fiesta Soup.

Jessica’s mom made this for us when her family came to Colorado for Thanksgiving and we raved about it so she gave us the recipe (simplest soup recipe ever!).  We finally decided this was the week we were going to make it.  Ingredients?

• can of black beans
• can of refried beans
• jar of salsa
• frozen corn
• whatever broth you have on hand
• shredded cooked chicken breast
• 1/2 box spanish rice + seasoning packet

That’s all!  Love this recipe.

Time for me to get ready for a phone interview that I have tomorrow afternoon.  Hmmmm should be interesting.  Night!

A veggie kind of day

I’m thinking about a gazillion things right now, so bear with me if I’m a little all over the place.  I’m just SO EXCITED for my trip tomorrow I can’t even stop smiling!!! I’ll back up to lunch/dinner…

The Cheba Hut was SO GOOD. I had to take a picture of this sign above the register because the place was hilarious… everything followed this same relaxed theme.

Once we got inside we found out that there’s actually a party going on there tomorrow night and they’re having a ranch chugging contest.  Can you imagine???? The first one to down 24 oz wins $100 and free subs for a year.  I don’t think I could ruin my taste for ranch though.  It’s just too good!  I would totally be up for going to watch if I was going to be in town though because all New Belgium beer is on special for $1 ALL DAY.  I’m not sure if any of of you have tasted the deliciousness that Fat Tire is, but let me tell you, it’s pretty darn good.

Anyways, I decided to go with the Magic Mushroom sub and I was really happy with what I got:

The mushrooms were marinated in some sort of teryaki sauce that was really good, and it also had pineapple, green pepper and pepper jack  cheese on toasted wheat bread.  The bread was great too!

After it came out of the toaster, I was given the option of lettuce, tomato, sprouts, cucumber, pickles, black olives, jalapenos, honey mustard and parm cheese.  I told him to throw it all on there.  Hey, when it comes to sandwiches, I don’t mess around. It’s all about the veggie love.

Dinner was this canned Amy’s soup because we don’t have much for food in our apartment right now.  This is what happens when you’re getting ready to leave town…

The whole “No” chicken noodle thing holds true to Amy’s all-vegetarian line of food products.  I never thought to buy this flavor before because I figured it would be just broth and noodles (boring), but was happy when I read the ingredients list:

Tofu and leeks? Nice…  It honestly didn’t have that much flavor but was just what I needed to warm me up without leaving me feel stuffed.  I’m still a little empty so I may need some ice cream cereal or something a little later.

But I should probably get to packing.  We’re leaving bright and early tomorrow morning, and I will have one heck of a long day after that.

I’m hoping I can find something decent for breakfast… slim pickings in this place.  Goodnight!

Convenience foods

Happy Thursday!

Last night, I relied on some delicious go-to items for a quick and filling dinner.  Amy’s soup (Lentil) and a salad with Annie‘s gingerly dressing.  My two favorite foodie ladies!

For breakfast today, I went with a smoothie because I didn’t have a ton of time to get ready and coldness just sounded SO good…

I went with:

• 1 banana
• vanilla soy milk and skim (about 1 1/2 cups total)
• 1 scoop AB
• 1 scoop Mocha Hot Cocoa powder (Ghiardelli)
• cinnamon

Off to BIO lab… Have a nice day!

I see snow in my future.

I definitely won’t be surprised if I wake up to my car covered in white flakes–supposedly we’re getting hit tonight.  As sad as I am to see the warm weather go (I was just laying outside by my pool this weekend!), I can’t wait to see what it will be like to spend winter somewhere besides home.  Skiing in the mountains will be so amazing!!

Lunch-

This is a “quick” quesadilla which means I just put LC & Pepper jack cheese on a tortilla, fold in half and microwave for 30 seconds.  Perfect every time!

I dipped it in Amy’s tomato soup (the best canned tomato I’ve had), and had a crunchy salad on the side.  This was a super satisfying lunch!

Dinner-

Ravioli stuffed with spicy beef and sausage.  It’s a Buitoni Reserva flavor that we picked up at the store this week.  I didn’t think it was out-of-this-world good, but definitely tasty!  I roasted the broccoli with some dill weed and that was quite the combo.  I heart veggies.

Early morning workout tomorrow, better get to bed!

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!

This is how you clean the fridge.

Hey there!

I hope everyone’s hump day was superb and went by as fast as mine did!  I couldn’t be happier that it’s Thursday tomorrow… I feel like it was just the weekend!!

If you haven’t noticed already, I enabled comment threading in the discussion section so you can now reply to other people’s comments.  This can make it a little bit easier to answer questions and things… Just a little something extra I guess.

ALSO, I noticed that Miss Julie GoLean gave me a Kreative Blogger Award today! I’m excited because it’s my first Thanks, Julie!

RULES: List 7 things that you love, and then pass the award on to 7 bloggers that you love! Be sure to tag them and let them know that they have won. You can copy the picture of the award and paste it on your sidebar letting the whole world know…you are Kreativ!

1. Watching a good movie on a Saturday night… in my PJ’s!
2. Mini-vacay’s with my best friends.
3. Les Mills classes
4. The morning… Breakfast + tea + Today show = happiness
5. Blogging
6. Learning about nutrition/fitness
7. The 4th of July. We do this holiday up GOOD in my hometown!

I’m tagging Leah, Erin, Sarah, Melissa, Ashley, Lindsay, and Gina!

On to my day of food…

Walnut, Raisin, Flax oats w/brown sugar with a side of the last two pieces of my Veganomicon Banana Bread!

Lunch was this packed sammie of pesto (the last of it), tomato, spinach and Dijon mustard.  I threw in a honey Oikos and a banana too.

I snacked on some pecan pie LARABAR goodness (which was DE-LISH!) after Step to tide me over to THIS dinner…

Homemade White Bean and Vegetable Soup. I threw everything I wanted  to get rid of in the pot and it turned out great! Here’s what went in:

• 1/2 onion
• 2 cloves garlic
• 2 zucchini
• 1/3 large bag of spinach
• About 10 baby carrots
• 1 can diced tomatoes
• 1 can great northern beans, about 1/2 cup of black beans
• Fresh basil
• dried oregano & thyme, salt and pepper
• About 2 cups of water?

I’ve never really had great success with soup besides chili so I was excited that this tasted good!

Pepperjack cheese quesadilla on the side for dipping… YUM!  I loved this meal…

I think my chem exam went well today.  One less thing to think about, but there’s always something to fill that void:-)

Good night!

Indian Lunch

So I’m so happy to say that my Chem exam is over and done with! I can now take a little bit of a break from it, at least until next week… I think it went well, but I’ll have to wait and see…

Food review time!  After my internship office hours this morning, I came home and studied a little bit before I broke open a new can of soup that was on sale this week, plus one that I’ve never tried.

This was REALLY good!  Very comforting and warm which is just what I was craving.  The flavors were spot on and I also liked the fact that it was really filling! I had 1/2 the can, threw in a piece of buttered whole grain toast and some grapefruit to add some variety and the meal was really satisfying

Sadly we don’t have any authentic Indian restaurants in my neck of the woods, but this cuisine has a big place in my heart because I actually went to India last year at this time (actually it was this week exactly! Weird coincidence??).  It was one of the greatest experiences in my life for sure.  I wish I could post some pictures, but I don’t have any on my laptop so I will have to do that another time.

Anyways, I always grab a few cans of Amy’s soup when I see that it’s on sale and this is definitely a flavor that I will repeat.

My other favorites include:

• Chunky Tomato Bisque
• Cream of  Tomato
• Lentil
• Butternut Squash

I’ve tried the reduced sodium version of one before (can’t recall which) and I didn’t care for it.  Now I usually just stick with the regular versions and keep processed foods to a minimum for the rest of the day.

What are your favorite cuisines? Besides Indian, I also really like Asian foods (SUSHI!).

Tomorrow is Thursday and one step closer to the weekend!!
See you in the AM:)