GO TEAM USA!

I can't believe the weekend is already almost over! It's been a good one.

Yesterday I did not go to the gym; I was very stuffy and congested so I felt that working out was not a good idea at all. However, I STILL DID NOT FEEL SICK! SO annoying.

I did have a sugar free Red Bull to pep me up:

I don't really care about the sugar in red bull, but prefer the taste of this instead of original Red Bull.

Kyle had an eye appointment around 11, so we headed out to Laurel for that. On our drive up there, I saw something that made my heart skip a beat!

I love love love Jersey Mike's. Hands down my absolute favorite sub shop of ALL time. There used to be a bunch of them in the Durham-Raleigh-Chapel Hill area, but I think they expanded too fast and most of them closed. So I was over-joyed to see one had just opened a few miles up the road from us!

We stopped there for lunch, and it was amazing!

I got the Number 8: Turkey, Ham, Provolone, Bacon... then "Mike's way" for toppings: lettuce, tomato, onion, pickles, oil/vinegar, and special spices. SOOO GOOD! I ate about 2/3 of this, and was very happy. I also had one of Ky's BBQ chips.

After lunch we went to Starbucks, and a I got skim Chai Latte:

The afternoon was spent at the Columbia Mall, which was a total freaking zoo. So obnoxious; we had to park forever away and could barely walk through the mall without running into someone. Apparently there is nothing else to do in Columbia besides go to the mall.

After we got Kyle an interview suit and me an essential black cardigan, we headed back to our neck of the woods. On the way we stopped at the Laurel Meat Market in Laurel's historic district. The front of the store is a typical corner grocery store, but the back half was full of amazing meat, poultry, and seafood. They had EVERYTHING from lump crab meat to lamb chops to pickled pig feet. Since we hadn't figured out a grocery list, we didn't get much, just 4 hot Italian sausage links.

During our downtime at home, we split a bag of Annie's bunny mix:

Not that great; it had almost no flavor. Won't be getting this again, I'll stick with fruit and nut mixes!

For dinner we went to Franklins! Remember a few weeks ago I was dying to go there and it didn't work out? Well, last night Ky took me there for a good, fun dinner.

To start I had a vodka soda and some bread:

I was in a nibbling mood and had chunks of each piece of bread throughout dinner, sans butter.

For an appetizer, we split the seasonal special, the Cajun Mac and Cheese:

I had just under half of it; I really liked the cheese sauce and andouille sausage. However, the pasta was way over-cooked, and there was no crawfish in it. All in all not bad, though.

For my entree I went with the Vegetarian Flatbread, with Buffalo Fries:

I was drawn to this because the veggies were roasted, and I LOVE roasted artichokes and red peppers. It was really good, and I ate all the veggies and no flatbread. I decided I would rather have my fries with buffalo sauce ;-)

After dinner Ky and I headed home to download music and watch the Olympic Hockey game for the Bronze. I also had 2 un-pictured rum and ginger ales.

This morning I slept in super late, until 10:30. I passed on the gym again to be on the safe side. Breakfast was really good, I got Kyle to make his fabulous breakfast potatoes which we have not had since before the original oven broke.

• 1 medium golden potato chopped and fried in evoo, paprika, black pepper, garlic and covered in tomatoes
• piece of wheat toast with a fried egg and provolone on top
• we split a juice orange and grapefruit

In the afternoon I did a bunch of schoolwork, and then made chili with Kyle (recipe to follow!). We even wrote it all down in our recipe book so we could evaluate the recipe as needed.

It was actually Kyle's idea, believe it or not! He and I both cook by experimentation and throw things together often. We wind up with really good food a lot of the time, but can't ever replicate it because we don't write it down!

It was his idea, but not his choice to have the pretty flower journal. After cooking, we split a blood orange and a small scoop of trail mix:

Dinner was my own creation tonight; we wanted to use some of the Italian sausage we got yesterday and a TON of veggies to make a healthy pasta.

Ingredients:

• 4 oz whole wheat pasta cooked and set aside
• 1 zucchini cut into medallions than cut in half
• 1/2 container of chopped mushrooms
• 1 jumbo white onion coarsely chopped
• 2/3 cup of chopped carrots (julienned or very thin so they cook through!)
• 1/2 bag of spinach
• 1 cup of low sodium been broth
• 1 can diced, no salt added tomatoes (drained)
• 1 tsp minced garlic with reserve juice
• 1/2 lb italian sausage (1-2 links)
• parm (for garnish)

1. Place sausage (take off casing) in a skillet over medium heat. Stir occassionally to crumble it.

2. While sausage is cooking, cut veggies

3. Turn another skillet on to medium-high heat, and add minced garlic, carrots, and onions

4. When onions translucent, add mushrooms, zucchini, and 1-2 tbsp of broth

5. Check sausage; when cooked and crumbled remove from heat

6.When zucchini have softened, pour the rest of beef broth into pan and top veggies with a layer of spinach. Cover and let steam for 5 minutes

7. Add in can of tomatoes and sausage

8.Stir and top pasta with some parmesan

It was really, REALLY good! Using beef broth instead of oil or water gave everything a great flavor, and it was all low sodium. Granted, I don't know what is in the Italian sausage, but that is the only factor that wasn't so great.

I really enjoyed this and Ky liked it, too.

Now I am about to settle in to do some work, have a great night, everyone!

Jason is Here!

Today my entry will be a quick one, we have friends/family in the house!

Today I decided that since I don't feel that sick, I could handle the gym. I had half a luna:

Then I skipped on the more intense elliptical workout, and did the following to aid my congestion:

• 25 minutes bike, level 9
• 25 minutes treadmill, 3.6 mph at 4.0 incline

After the gym I met Kyle for lunch, and we went to Food Factory, a middle eastern restaurant with a lunch time buffet. Sadly, they did not have labels for their food, but I took a little sample of each thing:

Marinated chickens, spicy peas and potatoes, lamb meatball, rice, spinach, etc... all very tasty! I went back and got a little bit more:

After lunch I did a lot of organizational work for school, and had a little snack of wheat thins and laughing cow cheese:

I had one cracker, and 1/3 of the cheese and gave the rest of Kyle.

For dinner, we had the surprise of Kyle's dad driving through from Florida, so we went to Hard Times Cafe with him and our friend Jason:

At Hard Times I had soda water with lime:

We ordered the Chili nachos for an appetizer, and I had about 5 chips with toppings:

For dinner I got the veggie chili on tater tots:

I loved the chili, but did not like having a cup of cheese on top of it! I tried to pick out bites with little cheese, and ate about 1/2 of this.

Now we are home, partaking in drinks and stories and games. Have a great night!

Snot.

I hate colds. Mostly because you don't always feel so bad, but you sound/look like death. And your nose turns into a faucet. Horrible.

I got really hungry, like major growling, around 12. I heated up a bowl of our curry from last night, with extra broth to make it more soup-like:

I also added fresh chopped tomatoes, and a ton of Texas Pete to pep it up. I should always remember to eat my curries/chilis/spicy crockpot meals a day later... even in my taste-bud-stupefied state, this tasted much more flavorful and mature after spending the night in the fridge.

I didn't get hungry for the rest of the afternoon, but I had a Babybel cheese during my 4:30 class:

With an un-pictured Diet Pepsi (yech! I am a coke person all the way!).

When I got home I rushed to make dinner before my stories (The Deep End, Grey's, and Real Housewives of OC) came on. A yummy creation full of veggies, whole grains, and low-cal protein that I found on one of my favorite blogs, Eat Live Run:

• spinach (2 big handfuls)
• red peppers (I used 2)
• yellow squash (I used only 1)
• fresh, peeled shrimp (or thawed, frozen shrimp!)
• garlic
• red pepper flakes
• whole wheat pasta
• parm for garnish

1. Chop veggies; red pepper into bite size chunks, squash into thin medallions then halved

2. Peel/devein shrimp

3. Once water for pasta is boiling, add pasta and turn another burner with a skillet on

4. When skillet is hot, add one turn of the pan of evoo

5. Toss in veggies, stirring every once in a while

6. When spinach JUST STARTS to wilt, add 1 tbsp minced garlic, stir

7. When spinach is almost cooked/squash is translucent, add a few shakes of red pepper and shrimp

8. When shrimp is pink and cooked through, turn off heat and finish pasta

9. Toss pasta with veggies and shrimp to coat, then divide into serving bowls

10. Top with black pepper and a sprinkle of parm

I definitely made too much pasta, but I would say Kyle and I wound up with 2-3 oz once I dug some of the extra pasta out. I shouldn't have bothered with the spinach.... I hate how much it cooks down!!! I usually just use red pepper and squash.

Another Oregon Pinot:

And now I am settled in bed with tissues watching my stories. Good night!

My Cold is Back!

Uhg. I was sniffling all night last night and had trouble sleeping. Not good... I really need to stay healthy for the rest of the semester!!

Yesterday I had a Luna before heading to the gym:

Since I had two big work outs the last few days, I kept it a bit simple:

• 2o minutes elliptical, level 9 on random setting
• 25 minutes bike, level 9

While at the gym I looked more closely at these little laminated cards that I have been seeing in the past few weeks. February is Love Your Body month according to UMD Center for Health and Wellness. Always a good thing, until I looked more closely at their cards...

Do You Know Someone Who:

• talks about food.... a lot?
• exercises 5-6 days a week for 30-45 minutes?
• who is cutting foods out of their diet?
• etc etc

If you do, they could have bulimia/anorexia/exercise bulimia. Contact us for more information.

The first thing I thought of was... ME! I mean, I have food blog, and as Kyle pointed out I LOVE FOOD, and talk about favorite meals and recipes a lot. So of course I talk about food! In terms of exercise; every wellness ad, fitness program, or health magazine says that to see weightloss results one must exercise 4-5 times a week where they get their heart rate up for at least 3o minutes at a time. Yes, my 70 minute workout yesterday was a lot, but a rarity! And yes, I am trying to cut sodium, excess fried foods, and processed foods out of my diet. It's not like I'm cutting food out entirely.

I mean, I know those cards mean well, but now that I am trying to be healthier I see how bold and generalized those claims are.

Anyway.

After the gym I went to the grocery store to pick up a few things:

• boneless chicken breasts
• fresh shrimp
• turkey sandwich meat
• baby bel cheese
• mini-cheese wheel
• pre-shredded parm (I hate it, but it's cheaper than a block of parm!)

• bananas (I missed these!)
• mushrooms
• klondike gold potatoes
• onion
• red and green peppers
• yellow squash
• grape tomatoes
• spinach
• tempeh

• planter's fruit+trailmix x2
• wheat thins tuscan herb flatbreads (new buy)
• barilla plus pasta
• corn starch
• low sodium chicken broth
• diced NO SALT ADDED tomatoes
• 2 luna peppermint stick bars
• 2 luna blueberry sunrise bars

I have not been able to find the regular blueberry Lunas at several stores for the past few weeks... a true travesty!

As I unpacked and set up for my dinner prep, I had lunch, my leftover Bangkok curry:

For dinner we decided to try a recipe from a new low-sodium website Kyle found, Low-Sodium Cooking. We tried out the recipe for Crock-pot Chicken Curry, found here. My ingredients:

Thank goodness we already had all the spices... it would have cost me $8.99 just to get that teeny tiny container of cloves new! Can you believe it?! Anyway, as I began chopping the veggies, I realized that 5 potatoes was too many, and one green pepper was not enough:

I like a balance of veggies for taste and color, so this is only 3 potatoes with 1 pepper and 1 onion.

Layer of chunked chicken:

1 lb of chicken also seemed disproportionate.

The spices:

So many.... turmeric, cayenne pepper, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, corriander, etc...

Now mixed with the can of tomatoes and chicken broth:

And then dumped over the layers of chicken and veggies:

This went in the crockpot a little after 1pm, so I set it to high to cook for 5-6 hours. When I looked in on it at 4:30 it was already pretty well done, the chicken was tender and the potatoes spit at the touch of a fork. I turned it to low at that point, and then to warm at 5:30 because I wanted the spices to still settle, but I did not want the potatoes to turn to mush.

When Kyle got home we had a little appetizer spread and some vino:

Wheat Thins tuscan herb crackers, carrots, baby bel cheese, laughing cow garlic and herb spread, and plain hummus with hot sauce. The cheeses were both light, and very tasty. I really liked the garlic and herb spread on the tuscan crackers, which were great and low fat/calories/SODIUM.

This wine was a really good Oregon pinot, I recommend it if you like reds to be lighter on your palate.

My plate for dinner:

I thought it was way too potato heavy. If I make this again, I would use a mix of potatoes and cauliflower, as well as more green peppers. Also, while it had flavor, it wasn't hot in terms of spice... and Kyle and I love spicy food! I would add more cayenne pepper to spice it up for sure next time.

Other than that it was good, and we have enough for leftovers!

After dinner we settled in to watch some movies, and snacked some more. I wasn't hungry, but had insatiable cravings all night. One minute I wanted salt, the next chocolate. Go figure! I settled for some trail mix, light popcorn, and a piece of chocolate as we watched clueless:

As I said, I had a cold-infused night last night. I woke up feeling a little light-headed and sore-throated in addition to sniffling. So, I decided no gym and I can work out later if I feel less stuffy. I can tell I am a bit sick because I could barely eat my breakfast:

I can't really tell you if I liked the new Luna Sunrise bar or not, I couldn't taste it!

Uhg. I hate being sick. Everyone stay healthy!