Fueling Foods

I have mentioned before that my work schedule has gotten really busy over the past few weeks. On those days where I am really busy, food choices are even more important because my foods need to fuel me for a long day.

When you are working late, it can be easy to mindlessly snack all day. Sometimes I do feel like I get even hungrier on those days. So I like to bring foods that will keep me full for a while. This is what I ate yesterday to keep me full and energized.

I started the day with a peanut butter waffle (recipe coming soon!) topped with hot apples, cinnamon, and a little maple syrup.

The apple on the waffle added some extra fiber that kept me full for several hours.

On the way to work, I picked up my new favorite drink from Starbucks, a skinny White Chocolate Mocha. I also added some cinnamon and nutmeg to it to give it a little something special.

Granted, this was decaf so I didn’t exactly get a caffeine boost. But it still gave me a surge in energy.

Breakfast kept me full for a while so I had a late lunch. I had some chili that my husband and I prepared last week (leftover chili is the best). I added some brown rice and some kidney beans for a little added bulk.

Not a pretty picture, but it was delicious! And it kept me full for a while as well.

I had an afternoon/early evening snack of a couple of hard boiled eggs.

I think that eggs get a bad rap. They are a great source of protein!

A little while later, I was feeling a little snackish again. I brought out my little homemade snack mix that I made that morning.

In the tupperware container were some Barbara’s Peanut Butter Puffins, some Trader Joe’s peanut butter filled pretzels, and some honey roasted peanuts. Can you tell that I love peanut butter? 🙂 Because the eggs had done their job, I didn’t feel hungry enough to eat all of it. I just had the pretzels and about half of the cereal. Great munching material!

I did not get home until after 8:00 pm. I didn’t take a picture of my food, but my wonderful husband had prepared me a dinner of sweet potato fries and a lean hamburger patty. Yummy!

I will be honest and say that after dinner I was in the mood for something sweet, so I had a few of my husband’s Famous Amos vanilla sandwich cookies. They were so good!

The best thing about my busy schedule is that I stay very active at work. There are a couple of sets of stairs that I have to climb. The busier we are, the more times I have to climb the stairs. So I may not have had time for a workout, but it’s hard to feel guilty when my quads are feeling this sore! 🙂

What is your favorite snack or meal that keeps you full for a long period of time?

Fresh Start to the Week

This weekend was really relaxing (except for the whole working on Saturday thing). After work on Saturday, I decided to head to my grandmother’s house (she lives an hour away) and spend some time with her. We are really close and every once in a while I will go spend some good quality time with her. I am glad our tradition of spending the weekend together did not end when I got married. 🙂

I have to say that I did not take one single picture the entire time I was there. It was just one of those nights where I wanted to take a break from my blogging duties and just relax.

I will say that grandmother’s house = comfort food. I had real butter (and lots of it), macaroni and cheese and lots of bites of some burnt pound cake (not all of it was ruined). And last night, my husband and I ordered take out. In addition to a Greek wrap with fries, I ordered a massive slice of red velvet cake from Marietta Diner, a local restaurant that is practically an institution and has amazing food.

I LOVE red velvet and I think it’s been years since I’ve tasted one of their cake slices. Don’t worry, I didn’t eat the entire thing. 😉 I probably ate almost half of it before a massive stomach ache hit. That’s what happens when you eat too much comfort food. I ended up throwing the rest of the cake away. As wonderful as that cake was (seriously delicious), I knew my body couldn’t take any more sugar.

Did anyone NOT watch the Superbowl last night? I think Corey and I were just about the only ones in the country not watching the game. Instead, we watched Social Network as part of my mission to see all of the Oscar nominees for best picture. It was an excellent movie. Even Justin Timberlake did a great job in it. I’m not sure if I’m rooting for it for Best Picture though. I think Black Swan was better. I know that King’s Speech is getting a lot of buzz and is expected to win, so I would like to see that one.

After all of the fattening food I ate this weekend, I wanted to start today right. I have never been one to promise that I will do better on Monday (at least, not anymore). I typically eat healthy even on the weekends, with the occasional splurge just like during the week. But after my eats this weekend, I knew what I needed to start my week off right: lots of fruits and veggies!

I started the day with a nice apple bowl for breakfast.

I microwaved an apple with some cinnamon and a little bit of maple syrup until it was soft. I topped the apples with some peanut butter granola, blueberries, Rice Krispies, and ricotta cheese. It was super tasty and filling! And the best part was that my breakfast snapped, crackled, and popped. 🙂

Lunch was a delicious noodle bowl.

It had spinach fettuccine, pasta sauce, grilled chicken, and some broccoli. It was a very red and green lunch . . . like Christmas in a bowl!

An afternoon snack was a couple of handfuls of honey roasted peanuts.

These things are so good! I am contemplating making some homemade honey roasted peanut butter with them.

Dinner was taco salad.

I had some beef seasoned with homemade taco seasoning, spinach, cheese, salsa and a special ingredient . .  . broccoli. I know that seems like a weird addition. The meat did make the broccoli a bit soggy, but it was still tasty. And of course I had some tortilla chips for dippin’. 🙂

I have to admit that I did not feel like working out at ALL. I felt lazy and out of sorts. But I kept telling myself to just do something and it would make me feel better. I planned on doing the elliptical for an hour, but I ended up doing fifteen minutes. That was all I could push myself to do at that moment. Ordinarily, I would feel guilty about not doing more, but I have learned that any activity is good activity.

All in all, it was a good beginning to the week. Hope everyone’s Monday went just as well. 🙂

Food Processor Lovin’!

Before I talk about today, I want to give a brief mention about yesterday. I didn’t blog, mostly because I didn’t get home from work until nearly 5:00 pm and by then I was so emotionally drained that I just wanted to unplug for a while.

Last night, Corey and I wanted to go out to dinner. We had a gift card for Outback, which could be used at Carrabba’s. And since our last dinner there was so awesome, that’s where we wanted to go. However, I was starving and the wait was way too long. Coincidentally, we had another gift card to Chili’s. We decided to go there. Not a good idea as it turns out.

We started with some chips, salsa, and queso dip. (By the way, I’m sorry about the quality of the photos. The lighting was awful!)

The queso dip was pretty good. Of course, the chips were way too salty. As my husband said, it was like someone had dumped a salt lick on the chips. He wasn’t exaggerating.

For my entrée, I ordered some crispy shrimp tacos. The tacos came with rice and black beans.

The shrimp tacos were not good. They were way too salty and I didn’t like the flavor of the rice. I tried one or two of Corey’s fries and they were also way too salty. Maybe they did that on purpose so people will drink more. Corey usually drowns his food in salt, so if he says that he thought the food was too salty, then that’s saying something. Neither one of us ate very much of our entrees. In fact, we spent the rest of the night trying not to throw up. Worst dinner ever.

Today I was feeling extremely dehydrated (probably from all the salt). I wanted a nice, healthy breakfast in an attempt to recover from last night.

I took one apple and microwaved it for 2 minutes with some cinnamon and Naturally Nutty Butter Toffee Peanut Butter. After it was done, I added half a cup of the custom granola that I created online, along with some ricotta cheese. It was so delicious! What a great way to start the day.

The rest of the day was spent with rerun after rerun of New Adventures of the Old Christine. I just discovered reruns of this show on Lifetime. It is so freaking hilarious. I had a nice lunch.

It was a hamburger on a white pita (I was totally out of my multigrain bread) with some Alexia Sweet Potato fries. I love these things! Unlike most frozen items, there are only a couple of ingredients and I can recognize all of them! They are very delicious and perfect when you want something quick.

After lunch, Corey and I went to Whole Foods to stock up on veggies and bread. You know, the staples. I was feeling so drained for some reason when we got back. I had to force myself to go for another session with my 10K training app.

I am so glad that we got dressed and went out. It was truly a beautiful day. It was in the high 40’s and the sun was shining. Just about all of the ice had melted and even most of the snow was gone. I really wanted to go for a run for Callie’s sake. Poor thing has had cabin fever worse than anyone. Even with all that ice, she didn’t understand why we couldn’t go for a walk.

It’s amazing the difference that a couple of days of above freezing temps can do. On Monday, the cemetery looked like this . . .

And today it looked like this.

I didn’t even need a jacket! And to think that exactly one week ago, I went for a run and got a headache because the wind was blowing so hard.

The highlight of the afternoon was watching Julie & Julia.

And best of all . . . I made my very own nut butter! I used my brand new food processor and I used Angela’s recipe for dark chocolate almond butter as a guide.

I started with some raw peanuts.

I melted some white chocolate chips.

And I mixed it all together. Took about 15 minutes to fully transform the peanuts into peanut butter. But when I was done, I had white chocolate peanut butter! Yummy.

It tastes as good as it looks. 🙂

Now I’m relaxing, eating some dinner, and getting ready for Desperate Housewives.

Dinner was baked chicken strips and sweet potato fries. These sweet potato fries were fresh and roasted with olive oil, salt, paprika, and red pepper. Spicy. The chicken strips were made simply by coating chicken with some melted butter and panko crumbs mixed with a little black pepper and salt. It was a tasty meal. And now I’ve realized that I have eaten a lot of orange veggies today.

Unfortunately, I have to work tomorrow so my weekend has been a bit short. Hope everyone had a great weekend. What did you do this weekend?

Apple Picking!

This is my favorite time of year.

Pumpkin . . . the leaves changing colors . . . and of course, apples! I have never picked my own apples before and I really wanted to do that this year. This was the perfect weekend for it.

After breakfast and a workout, Corey and I set out for some Subway, which we ate on the way to the apple orchard.

We ate our sandwiches on the way to the orchard and had a nice time chatting and spending some quality time together. After a while, I may or may not have fallen asleep. 😉 What can I say? A moving vehicle puts me to sleep every time.

After a little over an hour, we were at a little apple house in Ellijay, GA.

We browsed the store a little when we first got there and there was so much to see!

bees making some fresh honey

fresh preserves

 

pumpkins!

Next, it was time to pick some apples. I was a little disappointed at first because they only had two varieties available for picking: Rome Black and Arkansas Beauty. I had no idea how either of those tasted. But was I going to let that stop me? Heck, no! 🙂

 

Enter the Rome Beauty orchard!

 

People had obviously picked a lot of apples before us. Pretty much the only ones left were the ones high in the trees . . . too high for us to reach. 😦

 

too high!

 

But Corey (aka my hero) was going to do everything he could to make sure I got some apples! So he got the brilliant idea to climb the tree to get to them.

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How cute is he? 🙂

The first apple of the bunch!

Of course, I had to “sample” the product . . .

The taste test result? Best apple ever!

Finally, I found an apple that was low enough for me to reach.

I don’t know what a peck is, but we got a half of one.

After picking some apples, Corey and I headed into the store to buy some fried goodness.

Before we went to the orchard, I thought I wanted an apple pie . . .

But then I saw the apple cider doughnuts and I just had to have a taste! But I may have bought a fried strawberry pie to eat for dessert later. 😉

Mmm . . . tasty doughnut goodness!

And I just had to wash the doughnut down with some fresh apple cider. So good!

It was an awesome day and I can’t wait to eat/bake with the apples that I bought today.

And after a long drive home (where I took a little nap), we came home to make a big pot of chili and catch up on some shows that were taking up space on the DVR.

Best chili ever! Maybe because we let it simmer for about an hour.

Don’t forget about dessert!

Love those pies!

Now I have to go catch up on some shows. I still don’t know who got kicked off Project Runway or who got fired on The Apprentice. 🙂

Scone Making Time!

Today was an awesome day. For the first time in a while, I had absolutely nothing to do. And I loved it. So Corey and I relaxed at home all day long . . . with our dog of course.

I started the day by sleeping in for the first time in a long time. My husband and I watched some mindless TV for a while before he made me a delicious breakfast. He was kind enough to make me some yummy blueberry pancakes, which I drizzled with some real maple syrup.

First time I’ve ever had real maple syrup and it was delicious. Mmm . . .

Not too long after that, I managed to do a nice workout. 30 day shred and then 30 minutes on the elliptical. I’m surprised I managed to do a workout on a day reserved for relaxing. But what can I say? My body craves exercise.

I didn’t actually get hungry until kind of late in the afternoon because of my late breakfast. But I knew that my hour-long workout required some kind of fuel so I prepared something light.

Lunch was a whole wheat pita with hummus, cheese, spinach, and some cucumbers. It was very light and refreshing.

The best part of the day? Apple Scones! I have been in the mood to bake all week long and I thought today would be the perfect time. I have also wanted to try my hand at making scones so Apple Scones it was.

Check out the chunks of apples!

I will post the recipe for the Scones below. They were so tasty! Full of cinnamon and apple flavor.

The rest of the day was spent just relaxing in front of the TV (of course) while my husband prepared a rotissierie chicken for dinner. Even Callie was feeling extra lazy today.

And of course Corey needed my help removing all of the chicken from the bone . . .

Corey is so funny. He will clean up after Callie when she is sick and throws up, but the thought of removing any kind of meat from a bone makes him sick. That’s okay though. I’ll go ahead and let him think he’s got the easier job. 😉

I may have eaten a few pieces of the skin while I was removing everything.

Callie even wanted in on some of the chicken action.

Along with the chicken, we had baked potato and fresh corn on the cob. So good!

And now Corey and I are attempting to make Pumpkin Spice Bagels. I’ve never made homemade bagels before so I will let you guys know tomorrow how they turn out. They may be done kind of late, but that’s okay. Tomorrow is my day off! This has been a very relaxing weekend and I have been a little stressed out at work, so I needed a couple of days off. Below is the recipe for Apple Scones. Enjoy!

Apple Scones

1 c. flour
1/4 c. granulated sugar
1 tsp. baking powder
1/4 tsp. baking soda
1/4 tsp. salt
2 T. unsalted butter, chilled
1 small apple, peeled and diced
1/8 c. milk
1/8 c. unsweetened applesauce
1/2 T. granulated sugar
1/2 tsp. cinnamon, divided
1/4 tsp. nutmeg

Measure flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt in a large bowl. Cut in butter until crumbly. Add apple, milk, applesauce, 1/4 tsp. cinnamon, and nutmeg. Stir to form a soft dough.

Turn dough on a lightly floured surface. Knead gently 8-10 times. Pat into a 6-inch circle. Brush tops with milk, sprinkle with cinnamon, and sugar. Score into 6 pie-shaped wedges.

Bake at 425 degrees for 12-15 minutes, or until browned and risen.

tasty apple goodness