1 post, 3 recipes

POM Wonderful Super-food Smoothie

• 1 1/2 cups liquid: skim, soy, POM Wonderful(rationed any way you like!)
• 1/2 banana
• ~1 cup strawberries
• ~2 handfuls spinach
• 1 handful ice

Blend everything on high until ice is crushed and well combined.  Enjoy!

Recipe #2———————————————————————————

Panko-crusted Tilapia

• 2 tilapia fillets
• flour
• 1 egg + 2 T water
• 1 cup panko crumbs (like breadcrumbs but WAY crunchier and better)
• seasonings (I used garlic powder, oregano, salt and pepper)
• olive oil

Build an assembly line to make preparation of this super easy.  First comes flour in a shallow dish, followed by the beaten egg + water in another dish, followed by the panko crumbs mixed with the seasonings in the final dish.

Dip the fish on both sides in each of the coatings, then drop into a well-oiled pan (over medium heat).  Fry on both sides until browned, probably about 5-7 minutes per side.

I still say that pan-frying is the best way to cook any fish besides salmon.  Try it!

Recipe #3———————————————————————————-

POMosa

• 3 parts champagne
• 1 part POM Wonderful

Mix these two ingredients together and it results in one  fabulous cocktail. We’ll call it a POMosa just to be cute.  **I can see these being slightly dangerous so don’t say I didn’t warn you!

Foodbuzz Health Section

Check out the heavenly Mango Avocado salad I ate for lunch yesterday:

I saw this on the back of a sausage label and we had everything on the list so I gave it a whirl.  Remember the jambalaya?  The sausage we used was this kind. The leftovers were chopped up and thrown in with:

• Spinach
• Diced mango
• Diced avocado
• Honey Mustard
• GOAT CHEESE (this was my own addition…)

Dinner was at our Student Dietetics “banquet” which was potluck style and insanely good.  No pictures, but just think about the types of things a room full of future Dietitians would bring to a potluck… So good!

ALSO, has anyone heard of the new Foodbuzz Health Section?  I’ve been chosen as a Contributing Editor which means I’ll be doing some more detailed and structured posts relating to a different topic each month.  Thanks Foodbuzz, should be interesting!

My breakfast was supposed to be oatmeal until I realized we were fresh out of milk of all kinds… GAH! So I settled for this instead:

Ezekial cinn. raisin with white chocolate wonderful pb/banana and simply orange.  Lot’s of name-dropping in that one little sentence…

I’m so happy it’s already Thursday!  This is my last week of school before finals and I have another fun weekend coming up here.  The only thing that’s dampening my mood is the apparent allergies that I’ve acquired since moving to Colorado.  Not for sure that this is what’s going on, but my head feels like it’s going to explode at any moment and I can’t breathe through my nose or TASTE FOOD!  I know, right?  Tragic…

Does anyone know of a hollistic/natural way to relieve allergy symptoms?  I’m not into taking over-the-counter meds but I really would like some air here.  Let me know guys!

Prenatal class tonight, I’ll be sure to do a recap later on!  Have a great day.

The countdown begins

I had a Green Smoothie today for the first time in aaaaaaaaages.  It’s been too long as far as I’m concerned. And it was de-lish as usual!  I need to start remembering to make these more because I feel like they give me a nice energy boost in the morning.

It had all of the usual suspects:

• 1 cup vanilla soy milk
• 2 handfuls raw spinach
• 1 frozen banana
• 1 T flax

Refreshing!

Sorry there was no dinner post last night!  I went to a friend’s house for a cook-out dinner last minute and didn’t bring my camera.  Can you believe it’s getting so nice outside that the grill is on the mind?  Yesterday was just a great day in general.  I’m definitely going to like having all of these sports on Sundays.  What better way to spend the day?

So my  countdown to Spring Break officially begins!  This is our last week of classes until we get a whole week off to NOT think about anything school related.  What a great concept… Whoever thought up Spring Break is a genius!

Of course, my classes need to go out with a bang,  so I have 2 tests, a quiz,  and a case study due between now and Friday. Makes the celebration that much sweeter  right?

I’m off to beautify myself for the day.  Be back tonight!

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!

Eggsplosion.

So I may have just made the most random dinner of all time, but I was so hungry when I got home that I didn’t really mind.  In all honesty, I was feeling a bowl of cereal but resisted for something more balanced so I wouldn’t eat the rest of the kitchen later on tonight.  Here’s what I came up with:

Egg and cheddar on toast with hot sauce

By the way, I used the microwave method to cook the egg because I didn’t feel like washing a pan (and it’s super quick).  Apparently 45 seconds is a little bit too long because it sounded like bomb went off in my apartment and suddenly there was egg white all over the place!!!  Still turned out fine–just didn’t look pretty.

I didn’t really eat many veggies today so I also made a mini salad, topped with my favorite honey mustard dressing.

Had some OJ too…. weird.

Lunch was leftover fiesta soup which tasted even better today than it did last night.  The flavors were really intensified.  Natural lighting may have had something to do with it too.  Delicious, nonetheless.

If you’re wondering what the white stuff is, it’s Fage. You remember, the best greek yogurt there is? Well it’s also a sour cream replacement (only the plain variety, of course).  There’s some mexican cheese blend and tortilla chips in there too.  Texture heavennnnnnnnnn.

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So listen to this: I had a phone interview today for a possible internship opportunity this summer and it went really well.  However, the interviewer basically told me that although I have energy, ambition, and handled the questions nicely, my amount of experience in the specific area of this certain position is low compared to other applicants and he recommended that I work on it.  So wait a second, I’m slightly confused. How do you get experience, when you need experience to get experience?! If only I knew…

My hellish “return from vacation” week is finally coming to a close so the roomie and I are celebrating with vino sent to me straight from Wine Country!!! Much needed.

How to Makeover a Burger

I’m hosting a cooking demo that focuses on making great-tasting, healthy food that is realistic for college students to cook, so I got this recipe from my friend’s mom because it’s a twist on a traditional burger that’s moist and flavorful (a hard task when dealing with turkey).

Since I’ll be feeding this to a group of people, I figured a test run would be a good idea so I threw them together last night and they were just as delicious as I remembered!

So incredibly basic… You mix 1 lb of extra lean ground turkey breast (not just ground turkey, make sure it’s breast), 1 block of thawed frozen chopped spinach, 1 container of crumbled feta, 3 cloves chopped garlic, and 1 tsp of seasoned salt. You can change up the amounts to suit your own taste.

I made 6 burgers out of the mixture because I like to put a lot of toppings on mine, but you could probably get away with 4. After cooking the patties in a buttered pan for about 5 minutes on each side (?), I used spinach, tomato, red onion, ketchup and Dijon mustard for the toppings and some kind of sandwich thin for buns. These were great because you can really taste the filling and not just bread. Voila! There’s your easy/tasty recipe for the day…

Other photo-worthy meals of late:

Whole Foods heaven. I subbed for a friend in some doubles indoor sand volleyball (fantastic way to spend an afternoon, by the way) and used it as an excuse to hit up the salad bar for lunch SINCE I was near the city of course. That chipotle tomato soup in the top right corner was nothing short of amazing. I wish I could eat this for lunch every day.  I would be an extremely happy person!

And this is the way I do breakfast on a Saturday morning. I swear there are pancakes under that massive pile of berries! Chocolate chip ones, actually. I love weekend mornings so much.

So I won’t be able to spend as much time cooking now that SCHOOL is starting back up in two days, but I do have some ideas brewing for posts already. Hmmm…

Exciting news—-I’m officially registered for the Boulder Spring ½ Marathon!  Ahhhh

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!

A cereal kinda day

I’m back!

Thanks for all of the lovely comments on my new page… I’ve been meaning to jazz up the whole blog for awhile now, but by the time I post and catch up on my Reader, I feel like I’m on the computer too long and need a break!  Eventually I’ll have more recipes, workouts and pictures up, just not yet! On to breakfast…

This is the new Nature’s Path Optimum Power cereal I was talking about the other day… It’s the Blueberry Cinnamon flavor and I LOVE it! There are actually freeze-dried blueberries in it.  Here’s the ingredients:

Organic wheat bran, organic evaporated cane juice, organic whole wheat meal, organic soy flour, organic flax, organic puffed Kamut®*, organic flaxseeds, organic barley malt extract, organic soy fiber, organic oat bran, organic rice bran extract, organic freeze-dried blueberries, sea salt, organic cinnamon, calcium carbonate, folic acid, cyanocobalamin (vitamin B-12), tocopherols (natural vitamin E) added to enhance freshness.

Not too shabby, and it kept me full all morning.  I loved how there were so many different textures and shapes.  I would buy this stuff again for sure!
It was just a cereal kinda day.

After my internship I had this packed lunch in a cubicle in the library.  I never seem to learn that these wraps don’t hold filling well!  Regardless, it was still yummy, just a little messy.  Good thing I brought a fork!
Inside of this mess of a wrap:

• Black beans
• Mango
• Spinach
• Red onion
• Goddess dressing and Parm. cheese

Delish!

The honey Oikos was delicious as well, but had more honey than I needed.  Way too much in fact.  This is what was left at the bottom of the container after I finished it:

Yikes! No wonder why there’s 17 grams of sugar in this bad boy… However, I didn’t really mind because it was on the bottom so you could control how much you added.  I really loved the Greek yogurt/honey combo too so I would buy this one again!  Another Oikos winner!

After a fantastic workout (thank you, BodyStep!) I came home and showered, then made this early dinner because I was starving!

That’s right, more pesto!  This was a grilled sandwich with a packet of salmon, pesto, tomato, and pepper jack cheese. I wish it was bigger because I was sad when it was gone.  I absolutely love pepper jack  and I think that it was the best part! I’m telling you, pesto goes good on SO many things. I still have a little bit more left…

I snacked on a mix of raisins, walnuts and chocolate chips before step and I’ll probably be having another snack sometime soon because I’m still a little bit hungry.

This is random, but what are your thoughts on the Biggest Loser?  We’re having a debate in one of my classes, so I would like to hear your opinions!

Starting fresh.

It’s already 8:00!!!!??? Where did my Sunday go?

Today was homework-filled and I am happy to say that my Graves’ disease paper is pretty much done.  It feels so good when I sit down and hammer something like that out for about 3 hours… The time really flew.

Before I went to meet with one of my group members to get working, Nichole and I went for a nice long run/walk.  Around 4.7 miles total.  The weather was cold but sunny… perfect for running!  Then I came home, stretched, and made this for lunch:

Hard to see inside that deep bowl! But it was sort-of a Mexican-themed polenta dish… FABULOUS flavors!  Here’s what went in:

• About 1/4 polenta log, cubed
• Black beans
• a tomato
• Handful of spinach
• Jalapenos
• Red onion
• Sarah‘s guac!
• Parmesan cheese on top

This is what it looked like in a skillet… I basically sauteed the polenta and onion in some olive oil first (let them cook for about 5 minutes while chopping the rest), then dumped the rest in and shook the pan every so often.  I seasoned with salt, garlic powder, cumin and cayenne pepper.

After topping it with a hefty scoop of guac, this meal was perfect.  I tried getting everything in each bite because the flavors really mixed well together.  This will be a recipe page soon!

Later on I went to Target to get socks. $34.00 later… (You all know how that goes, right?) I ended up coming home with a new running outfit!  I finally found a running skirt that I loved and it was just 9.00!  Can’t beat that, and I got a really nice top to match as well.  Love finding sales!

I was starving by the time I came home so I whipped up the quickest thing I could find… Frozen B-nut Squash ravioli with red sauce, pesto, and zucchini.  I bought this Rosetto brand because the ingredients were minimal and it looked great in the picture on the bag.

It was o.k… The filling was practically non-existent though which should be the best part of a ravioli!  I don’t think I’ll buy this again, because it’s basically like eating plain pasta.  Actually, not as good.  I’ll stick with my WW angel hair!

ALSO I snacked on this during my researching extravaganza today…

YUM! I forgot how much I liked this flavor… Definitely top 3.  And I never buy plain cashews, so it’s a great change from walnuts/almonds.  LOVED it.  Once again, I’m amazed by the deliciousness of the LARABAR.

Time to get ready to start a new week…Have a nice night!

Spring-a-Ling-a-Ding

Happy Friday night everyone!

I hope you all had a fantastic day! SO happy it’s the weekend!

Breakfast was the last of my Whole Wheat Yogurt Pancakes with AB & J.  They held me over SO much better today! I’m not sure if it’s because I worked out later on in the morning (seems to suppress my appetite), or because I used extra almond butter but it did the trick.

I pulled out a Blueberry Oikos too, but I was full by the time I finished this so I ate it mid-morning instead…

Unfortunately, I have to admit that I didn’t care for this yogurt nearly as much as the vanilla flavor.  It was overly sweetened for my taste and the thickness just wasn’t there.  Also, I’m not sure if it was just me, but there seemed to be less in the container?  Sorry, SF but I have to be honest and I wouldn’t buy this flavor again.

I’m excited to try the plain flavor because I seem to like plain yogurt better than sweetened varieties.  I think I’ll be using it in my lunch tomorrow…

So between classes, I ate a packed sandwich while working on a presentation.  I didn’t get a picture because there was people all over and I was shy:-). I can tell you that it was a combo that you’ve seen on here before…hummus (tons!), spinach, red bell pepper, and jalapenos on whole wheat.  I just love it!

I practiced doing a sub-maximal exercise test with a few people from my Health/Exercise Leadership Skills class too.  We have to perform this on a partner for our final exam and I’m actually really nervous!!

The test involves progressively increasing intensity on a cycle ergometer and taking blood pressure and heart rate at set intervals.  Then we plug the numbers into equations and do all kinds of fun stuff…

Anyways, when I was finally done for the day, I snacked on a bowl of Great Grains (all gone now…) and a handful of carrots before Nichole and I picked up some basics from the grocery store.

Then, my room mates cooked an awesome dinner!  I present to you, Turkey Portabello Wraps:

Saute cubed turkey and mushrooms in a skillet like this:

Then roll up in a wrap with mayo, diced tomatoes, spinach, and mozzarella cheese!  We used these wraps tonight:

Inspired by a restaurant back home that we all used to go to…these are so delicious!  I’m still hungry but I haven’t decided what else I want yet LOL… Maybe ice cream?  I’ve been thinking about some good quality ice cream lately… Since it’s the first day of Spring, why not?

Enjoy your night!