Simple and Satisfying

Today they are letting us out of work at 1pm to compensate for all the natural disasters and power outages/holiday etc. Even though they told us NOT to take a lunch I just had to eat something at my desk at noon, it's a habit.

So I packed my usual salad, but somehow it was simple and amazing all at once. BEHOLD:



Kale, dressing, and four pieces of falafel. It doesn't look special, but it was a party in my mouth. The proof is in the pudding dressing.

The dressing was a morning improvisation with 1T tahini, 1T white bean hummus, 1/2 lemon, and a splash of almond milk. There may have been a spritz of le Braggs (not sure because I was half asleep).

And as soon as the simple deliciousness of the salad entered my life.



It was gone....



I'm still smiling in its memory though :)

Bread Lovers Annonymous

I noted a few posts ago that I am now entering the They're Back Juggling Act. It is basically when my roommates return to the apartment after the summer and their behavior can chip away at my resolve to stay healthy and active.

Case in point.



Is it really feasible for three twenty-something females to eat so much bread before it spoils?

I don't know about you, but I am like a recovering bread addict. Seriously, I could eat bread by the handfuls without so much as a drop of jam or slice of cheese. I just love bread.

A little before the start of 2011 I started to check in on some gastrointestinal symptoms and overall irritability I was feeling. I realized that my main food group, bread (and a lack of fresh produce), could be the cause of my discomfort. So, I decided to reset my system with a yeast free diet for about 6 weeks. After that I gradually added back breads (less than before and whole grain), brown rice, oatmeal (my love), and dairy (my frenemy).

The yeast free diet helped cultivate my appreciation for whole and fresh foods; and I haven't felt anywhere near the bloating and discomfort of 2010. Sometimes I make an error in my food choices for the day and the effects on my digestion are so immediate that I can analyze where I went wrong. These tummy ache days are usually caused by an excess of dairy or bread, sometimes both. But the discomfort is so disconcerting that most days I consciously keep track of these foods to safeguard myself before it gets too bad.


Back to the original discussion.

Did you see the array of bready foods just sitting in my apartment with a sign inviting me to partake?

Truth: Most of these breads came from loving relatives who wanted to help start the school year off right.

Truth: Nobody is force feeding me bread.

Truth: I haven't exactly expressed my love-hate relationship with bread for fear that I would be judged as having a vain eating disorder. I should really work on being more open about my choices.

Final truth: I have ingested 2 english muffins, 1 bagel, and 1/4 of the olive loaf in the last week. I guess the damage could be worse. But I have been combatting my weakness with oats in the morning, kale salads for lunch, and lots of fruit for dessert.

Speaking of dessert, it's September and am slowly beginning to part ways with these...



Soon peaches will be completely phased out and apples and pumkin will be in my heart on the mind.

September is beginning, it's friday, and the start of the Labor Day 3 day weekend. I can't think a more exciting time.

Oh yes I can, because I'll be a taking a short trip to Atlantic City with the girls this weekend, woot! Yeah, like six of us are coming from the four corners of the world East Coast to party for the last night of "Summer". I'll leave you with the one of the first signs of Fall that I found on a walk earlier this week.



Pink Sky=Gorgeous!

Honey Nut Heaven

Justin's Nut Butters are so dang good. But at $11 a jar they are not at all economical. Sometimes I splurge on a few packets to eat as an on-the-go snack with apple slices. Other times I just try to recreate the nut butter awesomeness with the ingredients I have on hand.

On Tuesday, when I wasn't feeling so hot, I wanted an easy to assemble breakfast. Ie. Minimal dishes, no blenders to clean, and no measuring utensils to find. That breakfast was an apple, nut butter dip, and my leftover pumpkin pudding from the weekend. Except I didn't have any Justin's; so I improved with plain almond butter and regular old honey. The result was nothing short of Justin's amazingness.



This breakfast was the no brainer I needed. I also amped up the pumkin pudding with some sliced banana.







Today I was craving the honey-nut flavor combo again. It made its appearance in my 4 hour oats.



This is 2/3 cup almond milk, Scoop of vanilla protein, 1/2 cup oats, 1Tchia seeds, 1T almond butter, and 1T honey.

I was definitely in a honey nut oats heaven after today's breakkie ;-)

They're Back Jungling Act

Hey Bloggersphere,

I had to take a break from the computer Mon-Tues. I was sick with the "even changing TV channels is too strenuous" bug; I was seriously wiped out, even from work.

So today is hump-day, yay! Time flys when you take an unexpected weekday off from everything. But although I feel better physically, I'm kind of worn out mentally from all the new changes this week, mainly: the return of roommates...

Don't get me wrong. Roommates are awesome fun and great to have around. But, have you ever felt like you were compromising your usual flow to make others (friends, relatives, coworkers) comfortable?

Let me give you an example. Let's say you have planned out your day's eats. Either because you were trying to finish up some fridge contents before they spoil, you wanted some specific fuel for your evening run, or you actually have a healthy eating goal for the day. (A diet isn't the ONLY reason to plan your meals!) And then, let's say your people wanted to go to a sports bar, like a place where chicken strips on lettuce is considered a salad. They are really excited about this place because tonight is half-priced pizza (we are poor) and you haven't been all together for a whole summer. How do you react to this scenario?

Well, this happened to me and I already let some torches fall in my juggling act. Basically, this would have ordinarily been a hot yoga night or a jogging night (remember those 13 miles I have to complete in October, so yea) followed by a light meal because I would eat the majority of my day's sustenance before working out. Unfortunately, I bought into the reasoning that we hadn't been together in sooo long and the pizza is dirt cheap. In all honesty, I wasn't hungry and I determined to eat a slice, avoid beer (drink a Mybucks Misto), and make a salad before bed.

All was going according to plan. I had my Soy Misto and was peering over the sportsbar menu just in case they started making real salads since last time. It was at this time that the server sat at our table and proceeded to tell me that my coffee was prohibited and considered a liability. Okay, I understand not bringing a Chipotle bowl or a big mac, because well that's your competition. But really? I can't drink the only desired part of my evening AND enjoy the company of my friends. They don't even offer coffee at this place! And so I was sent outside to finish my drink...

I guess my roommates thought I could chug my drink and return soon because they ordered the full pizza to split between the three of us. I ended up throwing away my half coffee (I need to relax with coffee, not drink it under pressure) and re-entering the bar to see if I could hang out and keep my saltiness to myself. Not only did I not have any more desire to eat this pizza; I no longer had any desire to contribute any money to this establishment for food I really didn't want to eat. So I went home before the pizza came. Luckily, my roommates could tell I had a hard time with the situation and it was already old news when they returned. So lucky to live with fellow Cancers who understand being overemotional and take care of my feelings :)

But I still have this nagging feeling that all of this could have been avoided if I had just kept to my schedule and went to workout.

So begins the juggling act of being social and maintaining my health goals. Help!



Tonight, I will ease myself back into my usual rhythm with a hot yoga class and food from my own fridge, woot!

Hurricane Irene Weekend Score

A Quick Recap of the Hurricane Weekend



Miles on Treadmill:5



Cookies Eaten: 1 GINORMOUS Snickers stuffed chocolate chip cookie





Nasty Veggie Tasting Fruits: 4 So sad, does anyone know how to make prunes out of prune plums? They're disgusting otherwise.



Hours of sleep during Irene: 11...9pm-3am I couldn't ignore the scariness anymore...4am-9am



Mybucks drinks consumed:3



Dresses found:0 Womp womp!



Cutest Playmate: There could only be 1

Hurricaney Day Eats

This morning I allowed myself the awesome luxury of sleeping in with no alarm. I woke a little before 9 AM :-D

I wanted to do some dress shopping before Hurricane Irene arrived, but first breakfast.




As I mentioned earlier, I was inspired to make a tofu pudding from this recipe. Due to a shortage of fresh fruit (and my inability to select a baby food puree) I decided to make this yogurt/pudding as a pumpkin spice flavor. The parentals had this little gem hiding in their spice rack :-D



I blended 1/2 the can of pumpkin puree and ½ the block of silken tofu and seasoned it with stevia and spices to taste. I piled on the cinnamon like it was my job but as I've mentioned before it’s one of my faves. The full experiment made 2 servings of pudding so I saved half for later.


A pluot and a peach riding sidecar.

Breakfast was served.


Topped with granola and a cherry big granola cluster on top.

Shopping was a complete bust (I'd rather not elaborate) but I tried to turn around the day with a visit to Mybucks Starbucks.


Tall soy latte with lots o' cinnamon action...Alright!


With my spirits re-lifted I used my caffeine fix to run 2 miles on the house treadmill.



Trying to smile but the stench of shopping failure were still lingering...

After my short cardio sesh I started to work on my pimped out macaroni lunch.



I was serving atleast 3 and a man so I decided to make 2 boxes of Annie’s and used the whole bag of veggies.



I added half a can of tuna to my own plate to make a faux tuna noodle casserole. I would have mixed two cans into the whole pot, but moms is not a fan of tuna.


Lunch was served.

And then of course dessert...




Looked like a peachy blossom...




If I look at it just right it will be all mine!!!



The highlight of my weekend so far has definitely been hanging out with this crazy guy.



Up next tonight:

Some more treadmill

Snickers Stuffed Chocolate Chip Cookies!

Trashy TV until Irene takes our power

Grocery State of Emergency

Good morning bloggersphere!

Friday after work I traveled by car to spend the weekend with the parentals. On the 1.5 hour drive I snacked on a classic.



I have a confession to make. Some larabar products make my throat and ears itch. I know,I know, not smart...but I swear it only lasts 5 minutes. Actually several fruits and nuts make my mouth a tad uncomfortable; but I don't want to avoid the good stuff! Some of the biggest offenders: raw almonds, raw walnuts, cantaloupe (good riddens), kiwi (watevs), avocado (love), bananas (new love), mango (love!), pineapple (FML). I don't know why it happens, I just know that it is very temporary and it doesn't appear life threatening. Cie la vie...


Am I the only one that can get easily discouraged in a grocery store? In the wake of our Hurricane Irene warning I decided to take a trip to the grocery store before arriving home, to get, you know, the essentials. BTW, my essentials are usually different from my parents' essentials, so I wanted to prepare for the worst just in case.

I first went to Whole Foods because I expected the pickings to be best there (since most aren't comfortable with surrendering their firstborns).

The place was bananas! Well no, actually they didn't have bananas. And that was the one thing on my list that I was really looking forward to, hmpf. Don't feel bad Whole Foods, Giant didn't have bananas either.

Don't even get me started on the last pathetic bundle of kale. Have people really gotten so health conscious that they are storing up kale for the winter natural disaster? No, that's great. I just wish you guys would have saved me some...

Last gripe (I swear). I had cultivated some mighty high hopes for pints of strawberries and blueberries to be swirling around in a cyclone of yogurt and granola each morning. The only berries to be found last night were the mixed ready to eat kind priced at $5 for a tiny a$$ container...sigh.

So, with most of my "list" completely unattainable I had to scramble for new ideas of what would satisfy my hunger this weekend. Here are my findings.

First up Dairy and Kombucha.


Well not actually dairy, but some almond milk and silken tofu to make yogurt. The recipe calls for baby puree, but since my sister found me in the baby food section and rubbed my belly (I'm not preggo) I decided to bring a fall flavor back instead with some pumpkin spice yogurt. Which brings us to the improvised section of the grocery tour.



What we have here are a box of Puffins that will compliment my almond milk nicely, a pair of peaches, a set of pluots (!), Annies mac that will be combined with the frozen peas and carrots, Pumpkin puree and cinnamon for my silken tofu yogurt experiment, and a mystery bag with four little strangers.



What are these? They look like plums in the picture but I can assure you they are about a quarter the size of the plums I'm used to. There was no signage on display so I bought four because I was intrigued by the mystery.

Mystery solved by the grocery receipt. They are prune plums, gross, I hope they taste better than prunes.

Oh, and I saved the best part of my groceries for last...



Yeah, I definitely intend to kick off my Hurricane party with a batch of peanut chocolatey goodness.

By the time I got home from two grocery stores (hunting, lining up, and selling my soul) I was beat and hangry. My legs even hurt as if I did some running today (which I did not). God love my mom for having the perfect meal ready for a time like this.



Honey mustard salmon, salad, and plenty of hummus. There was white rice also, but that would have been unwise so late at night. A little while later I was in need of a quick dessert so I cracked open a bottle my cereal and milk and called it a night.