Happy New Years!

I'll be taking a break for a few days from blogging since I'll be away this weekend!  But I'll try for a recap when I get back.  Happy New Years!

Very quick recap of yesterday.  I had a "heavy eating" day and felt stuffed by the end of the night.  Ugh, hate that feeling.  

Falafel + Lentil Soup for Lunch

Salad, Baked Cheese Ravioli, and Garlic Bread for Dinner

Bites of banana bread were taken throughout the day!

Easy Chocolatey Banana Bread

Good morning! As I mentioned before,I made banana bread last night.  I had two very ripe bananas so I called my mom and got the recipe.  I made a few minor adjustments like using some whole wheat flour and adding white chocolate chips, but otherwise, it's the same.    

Easy Chocolatey Banana Bread

Ingredients: 

• 1/2 cup butter, completely softened
• 1 cup sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1 cup whole wheat flour
• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 2-3 ripe bananas
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 1 cup chocolate chips
• 1/2 cup white chocolate chips (*If you don't have any on hand, just use 1 1/2 cups chocolate chips)

1. Preheat oven to 350. 
2. Grease a large loaf pan (or 2 mini pans). 
3. Mash bananas in a bowl and set aside
4. Mix all other ingredients together, except chocolate chips.  You can use a mixer, but I suggest just using the lowest setting because it's important not to overmix for a good texture. 
5. Stir in chocolate chips. 
6. Pour in pan. 
7. Bake for 50- 60 min. 

The bread turned out great, duh!  I love banana bread and I think the white chocolate chips are perfect in here. 

Right out of the oven. 

Look at that chocolate :)

This morning, I obviously used the banana bread as an oatmeal topper. 

In the bowl: 

• 1/2 cup oats, vanilla soy milk, water
• spoonful of ground flax
• couple drops of vanilla
• cinnamon
• squirt of agave
• 1 slice of crumbled up banana bread
• walnuts

I also had some chai this morning with vanilla soy milk.  

Well I had some issues sleeping last night so today should be interesting:)  I'm going to my mom's right after work, so it may be a late post tonight. 

Munchaholic

Hello!  While my chocolate chip banana bread is in the oven I thought now would be a good time to catch up on the day.  Since I've had the major munchies lately, I prepared myself by bringing snacks with me to work- I've been slacking on this lately which is always a bad idea for me.  If I'm hungry, I will find food.  And that could lead to some less healthy choices.  

MORNING SNACK

Around 10:30 I pulled out my pre-portioned bag of sweet potato chips by Food Should Taste Good.  I think the portion size was something like 12 chips?  Whatever it was, that is what I put in my bag.  

LUNCH

I heated up my leftover veggies from last night (roasted zucchini + red peppers) and put them in a half a pita with some goat cheese.  YUMMMM!  This was so delicious! 

I also had a perfect pink lady apple and some greek yogurt with pumpkin butter stirred in. 

 

AFTERNOON SNACK

My second snack was a peanut butter and chocolate chip granola bar by Quaker.  It was pretty good at keeping me full for a while.  

When I got home from work I made my way over to the gym and got on the treadmill for about 35 min.  I'm really sore from lifting yesterday... I guess it had been a while!

DINNER

I was super hungry by the time I was done working out and new I was lacking in the veggie dept at home so I decided to just pick up some subway on the way home.  It'd been a while since I did that, too!  

My sandwich was on 6" wheat (They were out of 9-grain honey out, my fave!) and I put on:  american cheese, lettuce, tomato, onion, green pepper, and.... AVOCADO!  Yes, my subway has avocado and I love them for it!  I also love them for offering caffeine-free diet coke! I also got some cheddar sun chips- I have a hard time resisting them lately! 

Well I'm going to chill and watch some TV while my banana bread bakes! 

Alarm Clock Mishap

Ooops!  I set my alarm for PM instead of AM so I slept a little late today.  So happy I still woke up at a normal time and noticed it was getting light out.  Since I'm running late, I am going to cut to the chase.  

Breakfast:  3 Egg Whites with colby jack on a Whole Foods High Fiber Pita (never saw these there until yesterday!).  I also had a clementine on the side and a glass of vanilla soy milk.  

I also drank coffee from my new coffee mug with my sister, Hillary.  Thanks Hillary!

Have a good day everyone!

Bottomless Pit

Well I'm officially in my bottomless pit stage of the month.  I had the munchies all day long.  I ate my lunch really fast today and forgot to take a picture.  But I had a PB&J, a clementine, cottage cheese and a piece of dark chocolate.  Like I said, I just couldn't reach satisfaction so I bought some sweet potato chips (Food Should Taste Good) and a handful (or two) of those and a granola bar later on.  

I stayed late at work and missed my spinning class that I was sooo excited for!!  Oh well, gotta do what you gotta do right?  I went to the gym anyways, but it was a short trip because I didn't bring my ipod (there was no stopping me for spinning when I packed my bag).  I did do about 20-25 min of upper body.  

Dinner: 

I had a salmon patty (last one!) on an arnold thin with goat cheese and a side of roasted zucchini and red pepper.  These were the only veggies I had on hand and I think they were going to go bad soon if I didn't use them up! 

Dessert was a MUST!  Here's a pic:

I had a Kashi waffle with PB and chocolate and white chocolate chips.  I also ended up having a glass of vanilla soy milk with that.  

OK I'm going to shower and relax the rest of the night!  

Back at it!

Good morning.  I feel like I've been away so long.  Hope everyone had a good holiday weekend.  I had a great time!  For breakfast I decided I needed breakfast soup (smoothie in a bowl with granola).  Fruits and vegetables have been missing from my life the last couple days so I was craving them this morning.  This breakfast feels really refreshing after a weekend of heavy food. 

In the bowl- I didn't measure anything so these are estimates: 

• 1/2 cup TJ's plain nonfat greek yogurt
• 1/2 cup skim milk
• 1/2 cup frozen berries
• spoonful of almond butter
• spoonful of ground flax
• 1/3 cup of granola (mixed pecan and pumpkin)

I don't know if I'm ready to go back to work, but I'm really excited for spinning tonight!  Have a good day. 

My Christmas Post

Merry Christmas Everyone! This morning my sister came over for our traditional Christmas breakfast of biscuits and cinnamon rolls.  I know this isn't very balanced, but I'm OK with this holiday tradition.  

Biscuits: 

Cinnamon Rolls: 

I signed up to bring dessert to my sister's for dinner so I made these Reese's Fudge Cookie Bars.  This was kind of dreamed up by Chris.  I was telling him what I was thinking about him and he suggested some substitutions for some ingredients and I thought they were great ideas so I decided to go with it!

First, preheated the oven until 350.  Then, I took one tube of cookie dough and lined the pan: 

After that was ready, I put 2 T butter, 1 can sweetened condensed milk, 2 tsp vanilla, and 1 bag of chocolate chips and melted them together over medium heat. 

Then I poured that over the cookie dough crust. 

On top of that, I put chopped up Reese's peanut butter cups and crumbled up pieces of cookie dough (1/2 tube). 

Then I baked it for about 35 min and ta-da! 

Cut into small pieces because this stuff is rich! But oh-so good!  Luckily, everyone liked it tonight! And I set some aside for Chris when I see him tomorrow so he can try his brilliant idea!

So for the first time ever, Christmas was not at my mom's.  My sister had dinner at her place and her boyfriend's family came.  This was the first time meeting them so that was fun!  There were a couple appetizers, but the one I stuck with was the pizza dip with fritos.  

The pizza dip is basically cream cheese mixed with oregano, topped with marinara, then mozzarella.  Bake it and your done! It's so simple, yet sooo good!  Fritos are always served with it at our functions. 

Here's my dinner plate: 

On my plate: 

• Mac and cheese
• Applesauce jello
• cheesy baked potatos
• apple kugel
• spinach casserole

For dessert, I had a piece of the Reese's creation and a taste of my mom's cookies that she makes every year.  Spritz cookies and M&M cookies.  

Well I have a bad headache and have to get up early so I'm off to bed!  I probably won't post until Sunday night since I'll be in South Bend the rest of the weekend.  

Bring on the Food!

Well I know I'm a little behind, sorry about that!  I came home yesterday from work with the worst headache!  I had to skip my dinner plans because it hurt so bad.  So I'm going to catch up now.  Let's back up a little...

Wednesday night (Dinner and getting ready for my work holiday lunch)

I spent many, many hours in the kitchen that night.  Chris and I made dinner together ( I told him this was my dream come true!) and I made latkes for my coworkers the next day.  

The menu:  

• Farfalle with 4-cheese marinara sauce
• garlic bread
• chicken (for Chris) 
• roasted green beans (leftovers reheated)

Chris's chicken: 

Chris stirring the pasta: 

My plate: 

Then because I got a new baking sheet (Thanks Chris!)....

We made these... 

The Making of the Latkes

I have never made these before.  It was quite the laborious process!  

• First I had to use a grater and shred 4 potatoes ... by hand, because I don't have a food processor!  
• Then I combined the potatoes with a finely chopped onion.  
  
• You have to drain as much excess liquid from the mixture as possible in a strainer
• Mixed in 2 eggs, 3 T of flour, and salt and pepper
• Then I just covered the two pans (to save time) with a little oil (this is different than the usual 2 inches to deep fry)
• Then just pan fry little flattened scoops of the mixture, and then let them cool on a paper towel 

The frying: 

The cooling: 

Look a heart!

I think they were a hit!  People seemed to like them at lunch.  I brought the traditional applesauce, and Irene brought some avocado so I tried that combo out.  It was excellent of course!

Here's my plate: 

And dessert!  Evelyn made this AMAZING cheesecake!  I have no idea why it was so good, but good work Evelyn!  

We also exchanged presents.  We did secret santas.  Look what my secret santa got me :

How perfect is this!  Thanks sooo much Evelyn!  This was so thoughtful! I'm really excited to dig into this!  And thanks Vivian for the coffee mug!!

Stay Tuned For More

Good morning!  So I was in the kitchen for HOURS last night.  Because I was so exhausted after all of that, I decided to postpone my post!  But I will be posting it later!  It should be good, too!  Chris cooked for the first time!!  And I made latkes for the first time!  

Today's breakfast was quick and easy.  I had some cinnamon shredded wheats with PB &A.  Apparently this is my go to breakfast when I'm running a little late or am just feeling a little lazy.  

Off to work for my first dress down day since I started this job.  Hooray!  To all of you with the day off, I'm very jealous! 

Blogging in the Dark

Good morning.  I'm sitting in my circle chair in my room where I always do my blogging, but I'm being nice to Chris and blogging in the dark.  Well not completely dark, I just don't have the big lamp light on so it is just dark-ish.  

Anyways, breakfast is a very yummy bowl of oats: 

In the bowl: 

• 1/3 cup oats, skim milk, water
• 1 banana
• 1 spoon of ground flax 
• 1 small spoon pumpkin butter
• 1 spoonful of almond butter
• small handful of pumpkin granola

Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader?

I think I am! We're watching the show right now and the only ones I'm getting wrong are the english-related ones.  Apparently I don't know what a predicate is.  Oh well!Man oh man, today kind of dragged.  I woke up, didn't feel that great, and had to trek through snow... wasn't too fun.  But it did get better!  Halfway through the day I felt noticeably better and more awake.  

LUNCH

I had a delicious pita sandwich for lunch with 1/2 c of cottage cheese and a clementine.  The sandwich had cheddar cheese, avocado, tomato, and red pepper.  

After lunch,  I decided it was necessary to splurge on some Starbucks.  I finally tried the Caramel Brulee latte (skim, no whip).  It was pretty tasty and hit the spot! 

DINNER

After work,  I walked over to meet with Chris who was a couple blocks away at his bro's house.  It was very gross out so we decided to pick up some Chipotle since I was craving Mexican.  I got a vegetarian fajita burrito. 

 And I always have to have chips and salsa if I'm eating Mexican, so we got some of those, too.

 

I still have a little less than half of the burrito is sitting there because I'm quite full.  Somehow I'm still picking at the chips though, not very shocking.  It looks like chocolate chip cookies are in our future :) 

Pause

Sorry for the pause in posting.  I forgot to bring my camera to work yesterday so there are no pictures from lunch.  Then Chris finally arrived right when I was sitting down to post! 

Dinner last night: 

I had a boca burger with avocado and tomato on an arnold thin.  I love avocado on boca burgers!  Then I had roasted green beans (425 for 12-15 min; add some olive oil, salt and pepper first).  It was delicious

This morning came too fast.  I felt terrible all night because I could not stop coughing! I thought my congestion had cleared up, but apparently it just took a day off (another 'pause').  It was awful!  I thought I was keeping Chris up, but apparently he slept through all of that.  Lucky him! Oh well, I'm gonna suck it up and get on with my day :) 

Breakfast: 

In the bowl: 

• 1/3 cup oats, water, skim milk
• pinch of salt
• 1 banana
• spoonful of ground flax
• spoonful of PB
• topped with a little pecan praline granola

Banana oats are sooo good.  Well it's snowing so I have to put on all my gear!  

Green Eggs (No Ham)

Good morning! Ok my eggs this morning are not actually green. But the avocado I put in the egg white sandwich is. The little bit of orange you can see peeking out of the pita is a little cheddar I added. I also had a banana on the side.

It's the start of a 4-day week! Yay! And Chris is done with finals today! Yay!

Dessert for Dinner

I wasn't very hungry tonight, probably because I had some popcorn at the movie I saw this afternoon and my appetite has been all over the place.  However, I was definitely craving chocolate so I decided to have a mini dinner/big dessert :)  

I had one Kashi waffle with PB and chocolate chips (I did not realize this picture was so off center! oops!):

I also had some skim milk:

Well I took some cold medicine and it's making me drowsy so it's bedtime for me!  P.S. I updated my pictures from my previous post. 

M.I.A

Sorry for being MIA for the last couple of days.  On Friday, I started to feel like I was maybe getting sick. Then, as predicted, I woke up Saturday completely congested.  So I've been in this haze for the last 24 hours and I'm still feeling pretty icky.  So I'll give a little recap since Friday.  

FRIDAY

So I took this picture of my lunch before I ate it.  My appetite was pretty low so I saved the orange for later.  The sandwich is a PB, PB, and banana on a whole wheat pita.  In the bowl is greek yogurt with a small spoon of pumpkin butter stirred in and topped with pumpkin granola. 

By the time I got home that night, I was sooo hungry! Plus, I was really didn't have much in the fridge so I walked over the Whole Foods and picked up a sandwich.  I got a caprese panini.  Yummy, this was so delicious.  

I also had a glass of wine, while I watched Julie and Julia.  This movie was sooo cute. I loved it!

SATURDAY

Saturday morning, I woke up feeling congested and groggy and actually didn't have an appetite until a couple hours later.  Finally, when Katie woke up, I decided make a big breakfast for us.  

I made pumpkin pancakes (TJ's) and scrambled eggs with cheddar cheese. 

It was very tasty, which I already knew it would be!  I love these pumpkin pancakes.  I plan to eat them once a week until I ran out of the mix:) I topped mine with pumpkin butter and REAL maple syrup.  Since I wasn't feeling so hot, fresh squeezed orange juice sounded perfect so I used Katie's juicer to make some.  

It was so gross outside and I felt gross, but this was the only time I could go shopping for gifts so I bundled up and went to do some shopping.  The trip didn't take that long but man was it exhausting.  So when I came home we ordered pizza and a caprese salad from Sapore di Napoli, our favorite neighborhood pizza spot.  

We got a pizza with tomato, artichoke, mushrooms, and olives.  I love this pizza because it is thin crust and you can tell they use really fresh, high quality ingredients.  I put on my sweats, put in Elf and ate my dinner.  It was perfect:) 

SUNDAY

Today I just woke up and had a bowl of cereal (not pictured).  After grocery shopping and getting threaded with Gina, I made quesadilla.  The quesadilla had a cheddar, half an avocado, tomato, and red bell pepper.  I had some wraps that were going to go bad, so I decided to bake them up like tortilla chips.  They were not that great.  I did eat a small serving, but threw the rest out.  

The making of the "tortilla chips"

My plate