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!

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).

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!

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.

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.

back to normal... hopefully

I've been pretty busy these last few days and haven't really gotten a chance to post anything until now. Well if I'm going to be honest I partially didn't post on Sunday because a) I hadn't really eaten anything and b) the one thing I did eat was a sandwich from Smithfield's Chicken and Bar-B-Q which is God awful for you. What can I say, I kind of needed it after a day like that. But now I'm back and mostly healthy again.

I started getting my food back to it's lighter, happier self at Sunday dinner. I made a great warm pear salad that I got from a woman in my area who runs a cooking school.

Let me tell you, it is divine. Its got romaine, a handful of spinach, pears seared in walnut oil, candied pecans, and my very favorite goat cheese. The dressing was a mix of orange juice, walnut oil, raspberry vinegar, and a little bit of garlic. Sooooo good.

And I made some pumpkin bread!

I know it's a little off season, but I really, really love pumpkin bread. Unfortunately the dogs got into it yesterday and now I only have a few pieces left. Sniff.

Moving on.

Last night I made Greek food.

Yummy chicken...

And meatball kebabs.

Baked (not fried) falafel with cucumber yogurt.

And broccoli that I needed to use up before it went bad.

All in all a much better couple of days for me. And more good news: I got my motorcycle permit! I'm so excited! I'll be retaking the safety class soon and hopefully I wont hurt myself in the mean time.

I'm also going to start training for my first ever 5K. I know it doesn't sound like far, but hey, I've never been a runner. Wish me luck!

the definition of a grumbly day

So I was at my class in heavy jeans, a long sleeve shirt, over the ankle boots, full finger gloves, and a full face helmet in mid July in the south. Let me tell you: it. is. hot. Really hot. Like get heat stroke, have to go to the ed, and consequently fail my class. I find it nicely ironic that I go to a motorcycle safety class only to wind up in the hospital. And I'll say it again: fail. my. class. That really bothers me. I like to do more than just pass, I like to do well, but I don't fail things. Ever. So this means that I'll be taking it again in a week or two. I am (happily) feeling much better, but I'm still really frustrated. And then on top of that, I left my purse somewhere in the middle of no where and had to drive back and get it. Ugh, what a day!

Time to distract myself. And what's good at distracting me?

Food.

Yesterday around lunchtime (healthy) me was munching on some yummy apple cinnamon oatmeal.

And a big bowl of greek yogurt with about a teaspoon of maple syrup mixed in. It looked like marshmallow fluff and tasted like yum!

Then for dinner I made myself a salad (I think I'm starting to get predictable).

With that I whipped up some spaghetti alla carbonara.

It sounds really fancy, but the "sauce" was just bacon, whipped eggs, and parmesan cheese.

I do love food and it does help distract me from my grumbly day. Kind of. But I'll take anything I can get.

cheerios, salads, and cookies oh my!

Yay it's friday! I'm so excited about the weekend, it'll be great to finally chill out. Especially since yesterday was pretty busy. I've just started motorcycle safety classes(!) and I know that they're very risky, but that's why I'm trying to reduce my chances of getting hurt. After all, the more you learn the better you get.

So the wonderful, stressful day started with the ever tasty fruity cheerios.

These are actually really yummy. They kind of remind me of Trix or vaguely some cereal from my childhood, but they have a lot less sugar and they're much better for you.

Then for dinner I had more salad. I think it might be the heat, but I'm really feeling salads right now. They're light and crunchy and manage to keep me cool!

It was pretty close to what I ate yesterday. Romaine, chickpeas, strawberries, pecans, and goat cheese.

Then I topped it with a couple of these:

Chicken teriyaki meatballs! I go them frozen from Costco, you can find some good stuff there if you just look hard enough.

And of course, I used my very favorite dressing, Annie's Naturals Lite Raspberry Vinaigrette.

I couldn't help myself from grabbing a newly thawed banana-apple bran muffin from a batch I made a week or two ago.

A few hours later I was hungry again, so I decided I needed some dessert. I got this cookie as a treat from my daddy. It's from Zoe's Kitchen, a restaurant chain that really focuses on fresh, healthy ingredients.

On to weekend fun! I can't wait to relax and see some friends that I've been ignoring (not on purpose I swear!)

ah, the heat of summer

Yesterday was miserable hot. I had planned on going to the lake for a short run, but when I actually had time for it (around four in the afternoon) it was over 100 degrees! I don't know about the rest of the world, but there is no way that I exercise in that kind of heat. Especially not when there are indoor gyms with happy, relatively uncrowded ellipticals. I admit, it doesn't really help with my first fitness goal (5K anyone?), but it's still cardio and that's what matters right?

To go along with the crazy temperatures, I decided that there was no way I was eating anything even remotely warm for dinner. So I made a leftover(ish) salad!

It had romaine, chickpeas, macadamia nuts, bbq chicken, green apple, strawberries, and goat cheese.

I am super obsessed with goat cheese right now. I love the rich, creamy, tanginess of it. The way it crumbles and melts... yummy! I can't get enough of it!