Sunday, July 25, 2010

nights with the girls

Yesterday my sister and I went out for a girls night with dinner and a movie. Of course it was me, so we went and got sushi. We have similar tastes so she was equally as pleased, but even with sushi it was a bit of an effort to make sure it was glutton free. Apparently soy sauce has wheat and soy (obviously), so she isn't supposed to eat it. And tempura breading is definitely not glutton free, and half the rolls have cream cheese, which is dairy. We half managed. She ended up eating a little tempura, but otherwise stayed good.

We started off with edemame for me.


And a seaweed salad for her.


Then we got three different crab rolls.





Sooooo good!

We were really full when we dragged ourselves to go see the Sorcerer's Apprentice. It was ok, but Nicolas Cage still can only manage to play one character.

While we were driving home a friend of mine from out of town called and said she was here. So I dropped my sister off at the house and went to go see her. We ended up going to Cook Out (never a good move) and getting milkshakes. Oh well, one bad weekend wont kill me.

Saturday, July 24, 2010

cake pops!

I love sisters! Especially Especially when they inspire you to make things like this:


Yay cake pops! And they were super simple to make. It was awesome.

Red Velvet Cake Pops
1 red velvet cake- entirely cooled
1 8oz container of cream cheese (I used light)
1/2 cup powdered sugar
8 oz white chocolate
24 round popsicle sticks (or kabob skewers)

Beat the cream cheese and powdered sugar together until smooth
Break up the cake and add to the cream cheese mixture, blend until even and slightly sticky
Form 24 balls and set out on a wax paper covered cookie sheet
Push in one stick per cake ball, making sure it goes about 3/4 of the way through the ball
Microwave the white chocolate in 30 second intervals until melted
Dip cake in the melted white chocolate (I was having trouble melting mine, so I poured it over and then smoothed out the sides)
Place the covered balls back on the wax paper and refrigerate until the white chocolate sets
Eat in massive quantities


These were actually made with the recipe from the allergy-free Dessert cook book. It was pretty good, but personally I think the texture was a bit off. Despite that I'm still happy over all, the recipe just needs to be tweaked a little.


While I was waiting for the cake pops to set and before I could go get my sister I made myself a smoothie


It had strawberries, a scoop of protein powder, a couple ice cubes, a cup of unsweetened almond milk, and a touch of honey.

And I had a very minimal salad.


It was pretty sad. It only had romaine, green apple, and Annie's lite raspberry vinaigrette. Boo.

But I still can't get over the awesomeness of those cake pops! They were so yummy!

Thursday, July 22, 2010

fall cakes in summer heat

My sister is coming in tomorrow! I'm so excited! And after various trips to three different grocery stores I finally found all the non wheat flours that I needed. I suppose that's what I get for being lazy. I went to closest stores first, not the one that I knew would most likely have it. Oh well. There went my afternoon, driving around in circles, in 100 degree heat... yeah.

Speaking of food...


I had this mostly good protein smoothie yesterday afternoon to combat the temperature outside. I think the recipe needs a bit a tweaking. I used 1 scoop of vanilla protein powder, 1 cup of spinach, 3/4 cup of strawberries, and 1/2 cup of unsweetened almond milk. Good, but not great.

For dinner I made up a fabulous Hawaiian salad.


It had yummy romaine, pineapple, ham, goat cheese, and a few white beans for extra protein.

I was feeling like something else as well, so what do I do? I make up this:


The easiest cake ever! Really, it's so so simple. Two ingredients and that's all.


Pumpkin Spice Cake Mix Cake
1 box spice cake mix (I used Duncan Hines)
1 15 oz can of pumpkin

Preheat oven to 350 degrees and spray a 9"x13" pan with non stick cooking spray
Mix ingredients until smooth (2-4 minutes)
Bake for 25-30 minutes


I ate this plain in an attempt to save calories, but it would be really good with a cream cheese frosting, or a chocolate glaze, or pretty much anything else sweet and yummy.


I ate a piece before it had a chance to cool, so it was a bit crumbly. The picture isn't the best, but was still delicious!

I need to stop typing now because my finger is swollen. I don't know how it happened, but it hurts (sad face).

Wednesday, July 21, 2010

chocolate awakening

This morning has been meh. There has been a slew of ups and downs already and it's barely afternoon! I got up today sore from my two miles yesterday, so I had to cut down on my daily elliptical. Then I rushed baked some cookies because I had a friend coming over at 10 to help me with the motorcycle. He got here, we went outside, and the bike wouldn't start. And it wouldn't start. And it wouldn't start. And then it started! I got to go up and down the driveway maybe three times and then it cut off! And it wouldn't start. (See where this is going?) Eventually he told me to go get it looked at, because carburetors are beyond him. So we went inside to eat cookies.


Let me tell you, I've never liked chocolate. In fact, I didn't like chocolate so much that I would not eat the cookie part of a chocolate chip cookie because I could taste the chocolate in it.

Normally I would fake eat one, because that's the easy thing to do when people don't know you don't something but you made it for them. But my baked good deprivation has lead me to do insane things. I wolfed down my cookie, chocolate and all. And I was really happy to do it. It was delicious.

I figured I'd put up the recipe because these cookies have have forever changed my mind on chocolate.


Chocolate Chip Butterscotch Cookies
Adapted from Williams-Sonoma

1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
3/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup butter- room temperature (I use salted)
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/2 light brown sugar- packed
1 large egg- room temperature
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
3/4 cup butterscotch chips

Heat oven to 350 degrees
Mix flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt together on a piece of wax paper.
Cream butter until light and fluffy, add granulated sugar and light brown sugar and beat until the mixture doesn't feel gritty
Add the egg and vanilla and reduce speed to low. Blend until combined
Slowly add the flour mix, scraping down the sides of the bowl as needed
Turn off the mixer and add the chocolate and butterscotch chips, mix them in with a rubber spatula
Shape heaping teaspoons into rough balls and place on two ungreased cookie sheets
Bake for 12 minutes or until edges are golden brown
Let sit for two minutes in the pan, then transfer to a cooling rack



Even I think these are yummy!

Tuesday, July 20, 2010

i feel like a cripple

I'm really not doing well in the health department this summer. Yesterday I dropped my bike and strained my back trying to pick it up. That thing is heavy! I looked it up, it weighs nearly 400 lbs. Yeah my back hurts. My steady diet of Aleve has made it a bit more difficult to make fabulous food.

I made some eggs for lunch.


With a bit of soy sauce.


My dad always used to put soy sauce on scrambled eggs and I just picked it up from him.

And with that, I had a Health Valley Organic bar.


I snacked on some blueberry yogurt pretzels.


These are fantastic. They're from the Fresh Market and probably one of the best things they make there, but then everything they have is good.

I've been missing my salads terribly, so for dinner I made a huge southwestern-ish one.


It had romaine, white beans, corn, pineapple, goat cheese, and taco sauce. Yummy!

I ended up eating more and lying around from the rest of the night. Boo back pain!

Monday, July 19, 2010

lonely bird

I'm all alone again. Yesterday I got up at 4 in the morning to drop people off at the airport and it took me all day to wake up properly. Please no one force early flights on any one you love, they wont like you. But for a going away dinner of sorts we went out on Saturday for sushi. You would not believe how much I looove sushi! When it's done right, I die over it. And I'm still happy about the rolls we got.

And the fact that we got this:


Sunday was my day of shuffling around between errands. Because it was just me, my food was not particularly exciting.

Microwave Campbell's chicken and noodle soup.


I was underwhelmed. In fact, I was displeased. But beggars can't be choosers, and it did fill me up.

I felt like it had been forever since I had a really good salad. So I made one for dinner.


It had romaine, pear, green apple, goat cheese, mandarin oranges, and Annie's lite raspberry vinaigrette. It was crunchy and sweet and wonderful.


And then I had the last (huge) slice of pumpkin bread. I'm so sad it's gone! I need to make more.

On top of that, I decided I needed strawberry ice cream. Yum!


I have a feeling I wont be eating quite as fancy now that I'm here by myself. But! Exciting, exciting! My sister is coming from Colorado to spend some time with me, then next week I'll be out with her (so we'll see how the eating goes). She's got a ton of food allergies, so I got her a surprise present:


I'm gonna make something from here for when she gets in. Right now she doesn't do any baking because she only recently found about her allergies, so I'm hoping that maybe she can get back into it. Fingers crossed and I'll let you know if the recipes are any good.

Saturday, July 17, 2010

paninis and near floods

Last night was crazy. I went to a concert at an outdoor amphitheater and poured. No, it more than poured, it was a deluge. It rained so hard it hurt. But up till that point it was fun. We only got to listen to about three songs before the band had to leave the stage because of lightning. Oh well.

There wasn't really anything exiting that happened during the day. I made scrambled eggs for lunch.


Sprinkled with a little bit of this:


I know that it's not really good for you, but I believe in bad things in moderation. I doesn't do anything too bad to have just a little bit.


Then I snacked on another one of my new yogurts.

new yogurts.

In preparation for show, I made an early panini dinner.


These were really really good. They were ham, goat cheese, mustard and tomato. I don't have a panini press, so I cook them up in a pan and smush them with a heavy stone wrapped in tin foil. It works like a charm.

My program tells me I need to go for a run today, so I'm off to go be active. Have a good Saturday!

Friday, July 16, 2010

homemade^3

I made tomato sauce from scratch yesterday! And by "from scratch" I mean I took the tomatoes off the plant and went from there.

A few of the tomatoes before they were cut up.


First I eighthed and seeded the tomatoes. This is just one of the two bowls!


Then I sauteed some onions and garlic


And cooked the tomatoes to death with some salt and pepper


I had to puree it because I cut the pieces a little to big to be easily edible.


Then I added some carrots, celery, red wine, chicken stock, ground chicken, and tons of herbs. I was a bit distracted at this point and wasn't taking pictures like I should have. But I got this shot after we decided we couldn't eat any more.


We ate it over white wheat pasta with a side salad. And it was heavenly.

Then I ate strawberry ice cream.

Yeah, it was a good night.

Thursday, July 15, 2010

new yogurt and simple foods

I just finished a 15 minute jog and I'm feeling awesome right now. My ankles are a little sore, but tomorrow is a rest day on my training program so I'm not too worried. I have to ask, is it hot any where else in the country? It's really challenging to do anything outside, let alone run. But hey, I finished and that's enough for me.

I tried a new yogurt yesterday. Breyers YoCrunch 100 calorie in cheesecake is relatively decent. I did super love the little graham cracker cookie pieces. For some reason, I find foods that don't require any chewing less filling. I know it's not true, but my mental perceptions were pleased with the chrunchies.


I was all by myself last night, so I made up a plate of simple easy foods. It started with scrambled eggs with some Old Bay thrown.


Then a fruit salad with half a green apple and a handful of strawberries.


And of course, another piece of pumpkin bread. I swear, if anyone is actually reading this you must go make this bread. Right. Now.


And a picture of my plate just for good measure.


This would actually make a really good breakfast. Protein, cabs, fruit, yummy!

Now I'm off to go be productive. It's good to do that at some point. Just saying.

Wednesday, July 14, 2010

starting running and seasonal eating

My 5K training program told me to run/walk 2 miles yesterday, so I added that to my normal morning workout. I had two miles on the elliptical, a little bit of weights, and a two mile run out in the heat. Well more like a 1.25 mile run, and a one mile walk. Don't laugh, I'm a beginner. At least my legs feel fine today. I was mildly worried about hurting, but I'd doing great!

I had great fuel for my extra exercise, or at least tasty fuel. I had my normal (boring) oatmeal for lunch.


I snacked on a half a piece of left over pumpkin bread. I cannot tell you how good this is, I'm trying not to eat the last couple pieces all at once. Betty Crocker never lets me down!


And then for dinner I made a great crab cake salad.


It was a spicy, seafoody, fresh dinner even though it only had three ingredients: romaine, corn, and crab cake. I finished it with a squidge of lemon and a little Old Bay. Yum! The crab crakes were actually pretty healthy. They only had one tablespoon of light mayonnaise, and other than the crab everything else was fat free.

I know it seems I eat nothing but salads, but I'm a seasonal eater. When it's warm I pretty much live off them, but in the fall and winter I'm much more of a soup and warm food person. It makes eating well a challenge for half the year, but it is easier in the summer. I have a feeling a lot of people are like that. At least I have company.