Tuesday, June 2, 2009

When I made a PB&J sandwich for breakfast, I accidentally forgot to put the PB back in the fridge, so it had to be stirred again before I put it back in. Anyone else find it really hard to not lick the spoon that you stirred it with? Actually, I use a butter knife to stir mine, but it’s still tempting!

On Monday Dustin and I decided to have breakfast/lunch out. It was already dinnertime in the world of normal people, but we had just woken up a little while earlier. I didn’t want to totally make it an overindulgence, but Dustin’s on this whole “it’s my birthday WEEK” kick. lol So, we got garlic knots from a local pizza parlor and Dustin got chicken wings. If you don’t know what garlic knots are, they look like this:

They’re basically just pizza dough tied in little knots, then topped with garlic and sometimes grated parmesan cheese and herbs. Then you dip them in sauce. They’re not that big, so I had 6 of them as my meal, plus 2 of Dustin’s chicken wings which I don’t really care for, but I think I more or less enjoy Frank’s hot sauce once in awhile. We got the wings plain so we could put Frank’s on at home. I used just a little drop on mine because it’s incredibly salty — 200mg sodium per TEAspoon

I can’t imagine the 6 garlic knots that I ate being more than 400 calories. So including the 2 wings, not terrible for an unplanned “free” meal. They were delicious and totally worth it.

Then later on I did 1.5 hours of my obstacle course and upper body strength training. I worked up a big sweat, but vigorous workouts make me extremely thirsty, so I think I drank like half a gallon of water afterward. Doesn’t help my ‘lose water weight’ cause!!! Ugh lol. After I showered, I made a nice recovery meal that was inspired by a guest post on KathEats.com.

2oz whole wheat angel hair pasta (210 cal) topped with shrimp, green bell peppers, plum tomato, and avocado

So easy to make but I made one grave mistake with this dish that I’ll explain in a minute. While I boiled the pasta, I added 1/2 TBSP EVOO (60 cal) with 1 chopped garlic clove to a nonstick pan with some green bell pepper that I cut into strips. Then towards the end I added in 1 diced plum tomato. The shrimp were precooked but I like to boil them for another 2 or 3 minutes.

I drained the pasta, then put it in a bowl and piled on the shrimp, peppers & tomatoes, and 51g avocado that had been sitting in my fridge for a few days with its pit. When I eat avocado I usually always put lemon juice on it right away to keep it from turning brown/black (oxidizing). Well, I used a little too much lemon juice this time, because when I put it on top of everything else, the lemon juice really overpowered most of the other flavors. Oops! I mean, I could still taste the other flavors, but every other bite was just a little too lemony. So in the end this was a good dish gone bad due to too much lemon. I really loved the creamy avocado with the shrimp — so yummy! Next time, ix nay on the emonlay!

After that, I had a Blue Bunny frozen yogurt/granola bar (150 cal) and called it a day. I was just too tired to stay up and eat again.

This morning I woke up hungry, of course. Inspired by a post on Livestrong.com, I decided to make a PB&J sandwich. My bread supply was actually a little low! I had sprouted grain breads in the freezer in the garage but I didn’t want to go outside, so I used 2 slices of Arnold’s light oatmeal bread (80 cal) to make a super PB&J sammich. Light bread is very flimsy, so I toasted it a bit to prevent it from completely crumbling when I tried to spread cold PB on it lol.

2 slices Arnold’s light oatmeal bread (80 cal) with 2 TBSP Naturally More organic peanut butter (170 cal) and 1 TBSP strawberry Polaner All Fruit (40 cal), plus 6oz sweetened vanilla hemp milk (98 cal). This was supposed to be my pre-workout snack, but it ended up being my pre-shopping meal for just 388 calories.

There are very few things more delicious than peanut butter and “jelly” — simplicity at its best.

Hubby’s birthday is on Thursday, so that means lots of things for me to do:

1.) Order cake — CHECK!
2.) Shop for presents — semi-CHECK!
3.) Shop for dinner –
4.) Clean bar –
5.) Decorate bar –
6.) Pick up cake –
7.) Wrap presents –
8.) Cook birthday dinner –

After my PB&J, I headed out to Middletown with mom to go shopping. We went to the party supply store, 2 other secret stores, and then to Hannaford. I love Hannaford! It’s a regular supermarket, but every aisle is like a mini Whole Foods with designated sections of “Natural and Organic” and specialty items that you’d typically only find at Whole Foods and stores like it. They also have an excellent selection of fresh produce — much of it organic — and they are open 24/7! That’s my kinda place! But Middletown is still 22 miles from us, so we don’t get there as often as I’d like to.

Some highlights from my loot:

I got oodles and oodles of fresh produce. In fact, I spent around $120 and at least $50 of it was on produce. It’s so refreshing to actually get your money’s worth instead of the crappy selection I’ve been overpaying for at Shop Rite. I’m like a kid in a candy store when I get around beautiful produce. Now, my mission is to actually eat it all before it spoils. Not pictured: 2 heads of red leaf lettuce, arugula, butternut squash, onions, bananas, broccoli, potatoes, tomatoes, corn on the cob, and asparagus.

I’ve been wanting to try Quorn — meatless meat — for awhile, but it’s pretty high in sodium. *head to desk* I’m supposed to be watching my sodium intake, why did I buy it?! AAAAAAAAAAAH! lol

OMG! chocolate crisp Weetabix!!!! I just HAD to get these! I tried 1/2 a serving (100 cal) tonight and they are fantastic!! Perfect for chocolate chip cookie cravings. A full serving is 200 calories, but I don’t think I’d eat it as a cereal for milk, I’ll definitely eat it as a yogurt topping and as a dessert, though. Yum! I also picked up a box of Cracklin’ Oat Bran. Good name. That stuff is like crack in a box lol. I also plan on using that exclusively for yogurt topping because it’s calorie-dense and surely won’t keep me full by itself. I don’t think so anyway. We’ll see. Hopefully I don’t eat the whole box as soon as it’s open.

I found these uncured chicken hot dogs in the freezer section. Only 60 calories and 260mg sodium each and there’s only 4 ingredients; chicken, salt, mustard and some other seasoning. Nice!

Aren’t those red bell peppers lovely? They were only $1.99/lb, which is pretty good considering that they are usually $3.99/lb in Shop Rite. That’s why I seldom buy bell peppers that aren’t green, they’re always 2 or 3 times as much money. Geesh.

Hick Lickin’ Good BBQ sauce? Mmm’kay Only 30 calories for 2 TBSP and 110mg sodium. Sweet!

I’ve been seeing dates stuffed with nut butters all over the blog universe, so I bought some dates with the intention of trying it out. It sounds yummy.

I did pretty good with my impulsive buys considering I was pretty hungry. We didn’t get home until after 10:00PM and it had been hours and hours since I ate. I quickly went to work on some leftovers, a boiled red potato + chicken breast from a whole chicken that my mom roasted the day before. What I came up with was simple, yet AWESOME!

KFC’s Jenn’s FAMOUS Bowl!

While I put groceries away, I boiled a 166g red potato (120 cal) and steamed a head of fresh broccoli. Then I reheated 65g leftover black beans (55 cal) and 3oz chicken breast (140 cal) mixed with 2 TBSP Hick Lickin’ Good BBQ sauce (30 cal). When the potato was done, I assembled my bowl as follows:

• Potato — cut up and mashed with fork a little
• Several pieces of steamed broccoli
• 14g Cabot 50% reduced fat shredded cheddar cheese (35 cal)
• 65g no salt added black beans (55 cal)
• 3oz chicken breast, shredded w/ BBQ sauce (170 cal)
• 56g Fage Total 0% plain yogurt (30 cal)

Can you believe ALL of that is only 450 calories? WoW! And it was A.M.A.Z.I.N.G! Chicken breast that has been roasted with the skin on tastes infinitely better than when it’s cooked with the skin removed. It was so tender and delicious! This bowl of goodness filled me up. I’d rank this as my top 20 delicious, satisfying and healthy meals. A++ all the way!

I stole a shrimp from Dustin, too.

I have an extremely busy day tomorrow, so we’re going to sleep early tonight. I didn’t do any exercising today, but that’s ok. Rest days are important, too! Alright, time to catch some Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz’s ~~ Nite nite!

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