Ole!

The Carnitas Burritos were a success!

Burrito #1

Small scoop of carnitas, chipotle corn, guacamole, tomatoes... with lotsa cholula! This steaming method works really well, the tortilla's were very pliable and held together well.

Burrito #2

Sweet potato, chipotle corn, guac, greek yogurt, and a sprinkle of cheese. Didn't finish this guy; it was super filling so I only need just over half!

The best part was nothing was overly spicy; the carnitas turned out very mild unless you added some of the peppers it was cooked in. I am making this again!

We also had Sangria

1. mix 2 parts sangria (or red wine) to 1 part club soda

2. add in chopped fruit, we did strawberries and clementines

3. Garnish with mint and lime

And, FYI, I did have 2 mini twix bars yesterday. Sometimes I love sweet and chocolate, nom!

Today I was bad and didn't eat before I went to they gym. Oops!

• 30 minutes treadmill
• 20 minutes bike

I did eat an un-pictured banana afterwards, boy I needed that.

For lunch I had my weekly Panda Express treat:

Steamed veggies and Sweet Fire Chicken. So good, my guilty pleasure, that isn't so guilty after all!

Then I did tons of work at the library today, and I am about to run back to campus in a bit for my 4:30 class.

In exactly 3 days I'll be walking into my parents house, greeting my lovely pup!

Carnitas Sweet Potato Burritos!

Clearly, you have noticed some things:

1) Ky and I love Mexican food.

2) Ky and I love low calorie, low fat, low sodium, low cholesterol pork loins

3) We like making elaborate multi-part meals!

Since we made that killer (by accident!) BBQ pulled pork a few weeks ago, we wanted to try out making carnitas burritos!

Below find color-coded all the parts of the meal: carnitas, sweet potato mash, roasted corn, guacamole, and steamed tortillas!

Carnitas

Ingredients

• 1 can diced green chilies
• pre minced garlic, or 2 cloves to mince at time of cooking
• 1 can of chipotle peppers in adobo (need 3 peppers)
• 1 can No-Salt diced tomatoes
• 1/3 jumbo yellow onion (diced)
• 1/2 jalapeno (seeded and diced)
• 1 package pork tenderloin; not marinated (usually 2 skinny ones in a pack)

1. lay pork tenderloin in crockpot, and top with jalapeno and onion

2. Dice 3 chipotle peppers; cut in half and then half those halves before cutting them several more times

3. Mix chipotle's, 1/2 can of green chilies, can of tomatoes, and one large tbsp of garlic together:

* I added 1.25 cups of water to this so there would be enough liquid to cover the pork

4. Top pork with mix in crockpot

5. Cover, and cook on low for 4-6 hours. Or until pork easily pulls apart with a fork

6. When done, remove pork to a bowl. Remove any fat.

*Save 1-2 of reserve liquid. It will keep leftovers from drying out in the fridge.

7. Pull the pork apart with two forks until well shredded. Serve

Sweet Potatoes (In lieu of rice)

Ingredients

• 2 sweet potatoes

1. Wash two sweet potatoes

2. Pierce multiple times with a fork

3. Wrap in paper towels, and microwave for 10 minutes

4. Remove, peel, and coarsely chop for easy mashing

5. Place in bowl with any seasonings you like

*I am not using seasonings because the carnitas and corn will be VERY hot, and I wanted a cooling layer

6. Mash (with fork, masher, mixer) to desired consistency

Chipolte Roasted Corn

Ingredients

• 1 can of low sodium corn (or 2 ears if you have fresh available!)
• 1/2 can black low sodium beans
• 1/2 can green chilis
• 1 chipotle pepper and reserve adobo juices
• 1 jalapeno pepper, seeded and chopped
• 1/2 a white onion, finely chopped
• garlic

1. In a DRY skillet, cook drained corn until it starts to faintly pop and brown a bit. Reserve in bowl

2. To skillet, add green chilies, jalapeno, adobo, and onion. Cook until onion softens

3. Add a small scoop of garlic, cook for 30 more seconds

4. Return corn to the pan with beans and heat through

Guacamole!!

Ingredients

• 2 avocados
• 6 campari tomatoes, seeded and diced
• 1/4 jumbo white onion, finely diced
• 1 jalapeno pepper, seeded and diced
• 1 tbsp minced garlic
• lime (if you have it, we didn't!)

1. Cut avocados, peel skin and remove bulb.

2. Mash avocados in bowl

3. Add other ingredients, then mix all together

Tortillas

1. Place a wide skillet on a burner 1/3 filled with water

2. Place a cooling rack on top (we used a grill sauté pan!)

3. Set water to boil

4. When boiling, place a tortilla on the pan. Flip after 15 seconds

5. Remove after another 15 seconds.

Tortilla's should be pliable without ripping.

Assemble burrito's with carnitas, sweet potatoes, chipotle corn, salsa, greek yogurt, hot sauce, tomatoes and lettuce.... enjoy!!

Gotta Get with the Program!

School has been working me! At the end of the day, the last thing I want to do is blog, but it is so much easier if I do blog every day. Gotta get back into the habit...

So, Thursday afternoon. I was in a bad mood; had a bad night on Wednesday, and I slept in too late to reasonably waste 1.5 hours at the gym. I was unmotivated, cranky, and noticebly not hungry at all (at 1:30 I still had not eaten anything other than my morning Luna).

I forced down an orange and a grapefruit:

After that, I was just going to start working, but instead I put on my running shoes and hit the pavement.

I ran a mile without stopping/walking for the first time ever.

It might not sound like much, but that is a big deal for a person who DESPISES running, and always tried to get out of it in the past. My big problem with running has always been that I do have mild asthmatic problems, and running outside always leads to feeling like there is a brick banging around inside my chest.

I had some discomfort in my chest, but it's good to know I can run because I am heading home to NC for 5 days, and will not have a gym at my disposal!

When I got back I had a piece of whole-grain toast with a fried egg, pepper, sprinkle of cheese and Cholula:

At this point most of my day had wasted away (it was almost 4!), so instead of working I decided to make another Mexican flared item for Kyle's interview survival meal.

• multigrain tortilla chips
• reduced fat mexican cheese blend
• 1 soy chorizo from TJ's
• 3/4 bag carrots (thinly chopped)
• 3/4 container of mushrooms (chopped)
• black lentils

1. Do one good turn of the pan of evoo (you'll have a lot of veggies to cook!)

2. Add carrots to the pan; sautee over medium-high heat to soften

3. When carrots are soft (almost 10 minutes) add in mushrooms

4. When mushrooms are soft, add in entire soy chorizo package (take off casing first!)

NOTE: at this point, I added 1/2 cup of water to the pan to help blend the spices with the veggies, and to prevent any sticking... I wanted to avoid using more oil!

5. When the soy chorizo is well mixed with veggies and water, add in the bag of lentils... the soy does not need to cook, rather is just needs to heat up

6. When everything is well blended and heated through, you are all done with your taco filling/nacho topping/breakfast scramble/etc!

SO GOOD, and good FOR YOU! It's all veggies, soy, and protein packed lentils. The soy chorizo is (as I always admit) a little high in sodium, so you can add less of it to the mix or you can just add more veggies/lentils to spread it out. This will keep well as leftovers because it is not meat!

I took about 1.5 cups of this and put it on a bed of nachos with ~1 cup cheese:

Baked at 350 for about 10-15 minutes (didn't take long due to lack of cheese!)

It was pretty good; I didn't like how the cheese turned out. Instead of easily pulling apart, it glued the nachos together! It looked pretty though with fire roasted salsa, greek yogurt, and fresh chopped tomatoes:

Also to celebrate we got some Coronoas (I had 3... ooops!) and I new Rogue:

I liked this guy... very complex and spicy!

We never got hungry for the chicken verde casserole, so we decided to have it Friday. Those nachos were hella filling with all those lentils! We did split some TJ's multigrain pilaf with greek yogurt and hot sauce:

Friday morning I had a Luna (of course!):

The gym was interesting.....

• 30 minutes treadmill, 4.0 incline at 3.8 mph (I couldn't get my machine to slow down once I got that fast!!!!)
• 30 minutes on bike, level 10

Lunch was GREAT! We went to a place we had not been, Ten Ren's Tea in downtown College Park. They had a million different hot, cold, and milk teas... Kyle got the Ginger Almond bubble tea:

I had a sip, and didn't like this one very much. It tasted like straight almond extract. Yech!

For lunch I got a seaweed salad, and had one of Kyle's fish balls:

I loved the seaweed salad (I always have, always will!), and the fish balls were okay.

My entree came with seaweed soup:

And my entree was the special; ground pork with noodles:

The actual noodles were pretty badly cooked, but I loved the ground pork... it actually reminded me of an amazing mediterranean lamb dish my dad makes. I did NOT eat the eggs; I hate yolks! Gross gross gross.

After lunch, I wanted to try the new fro yo place next door:

I got non-fat orginal yogurt with kiwis, mangos, and peanut butter chips. Really good, and I love the trend of serving yourself and paying by the ounce. Downside... this one accepts cash only.

I ate all the toppings, and 1/2 the yogurt. Very full from lunch!

The afternoon was spent working working working, only stopping at 6 to begin the weekend. I made our chicken verde casserole and steamed veggies for dinner:

350 degrees for about 20 minutes, or until cheese is melted and slightly brown. Our garnishes:

My plate, with 1/4 of the casserole and steamed spinach, squash and mushrooms:

I loved the spicy veggies in the casserole, gave it a nice crunch despite sitting in the fridge for 36 hours. In the future, I would put it together and bake it immediately just so the chips stayed crunchy. Sitting in salsa verde for that long made them very soggy, but still tasty!

After dinner we watched an assortment of tv shows. We snacked on a bag of air-popped popcorn, as well as the following vinos:

Loved the pinot, but following up with a sweet wine like Red Cat gave me a horrible headache that lasted through the night on into this morning. Argh. Stupid sweet wines. I hardly ever drink them, and now I am remembering all too well why.

Now I am sipping a pepsi (thank you Brendan, I owe you!)

And waiting for Ky to wake up so we can work on status post #2 as well as get some grub. We are out of everything, no veggies or fruit to be found in this house!