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!

Not Feelin' It.

Sorry for lack of blog yesterday; I'm not really feeling like myself at all.

Yesterday for breakfast:

Gym:

• 15 minutes elliptical, level 9
• 30 minutes bike, level 10

Lunch:

Leftover veggies/sausage from Sunday with 2 oz whole wheat bow tie pasta.

Snack:

FYI: I do drink diet coke almost every day; not great for you but cheaper/easier than coffee. I need caffeine based on my new self imposed work schedule. Look at all those notes for partway through a 20-page chapter:

Who knew the challenges of masculinity in single sex classrooms in regards to the "boy crisis" would be so thought provoking?

Dinner:

Rice, black beans, steak, corn, tomatoes, 1 tbsp guac. I also had 2 rum and cokes as I watched the Duke game. Let's not talk about that.

Today is all messed up; I got up with Ky at 6:30 to see him off on his first interview. I was unable to just stay awake, and I fell back asleep until 10. Basically messed up my whole morning.

I just had a Luna:

And went to the store to grab a few things for dinner tonight. I made an old favorite; Chicken Verde Casserole.

My mom used to make this when I was a kid, and over the past few years I have worked on different variations of it. She would typically layer pulled chicken, salsa verde, cheese, and tortilla chips and then bake. I've started tampering with spices, veggies, and different proportions.

Today I used the following:

• multigrain tortillas
• reduced fat mexican cheese (only used 1.5 cups, or 75% of one bag)
• 1 lb chicken
• salsa verde (wound up only using 1 jar)
• oikos (for garnish later)
• salsa (for garnish later)
• 1 white onion
• 2 red peppers
• 1 jalapeno pepper

1. Set the chicken to boil in a skillet of water for 10-15 minutes

2. De-seed/chop jalapeno, onion, 1 red pepper, and one clove of garlic; set aside

3. When chicken is done, place in bowl to shred:

4. In same skillet (after draining and rinsing), add 1 tbsp of salsa verde and veggies you just chopped

5. Shred chicken, and remove veggies from heat when onions are just becoming translucent you want a bit of a crunch when it's all said and done!)

6. Set up your assembly; I used an 8x8 baking dish

7. For the layers (you need to divide the ingredients so there is enough for two layers of each)

• a think layer of salsa:

• a thin layer of chicken

• A thin layer of veggies

• topped by a layer of chips

• So the first half looks like so:

• repeat!

8. Top with cheese ( I used about 1.5 cups, or 3/4 a bag of shredded cheese) and red pepper rings!

Sorry I have no pic of it all put together; my camera was about to die! I'll post some "before" pics in my next post.

I'm off to try and do some work; today is so blaaaaaaaaaah!

Again, I Don't Want to Go to Class!

After dinner last night Kyle and I split a blood orange and a regular orange:

I tried to make a mocktail (non-alcoholic cocktail) of soda water and orange juices; but it wasn't very potent. When I add lemon or lime to soda water it gets really flavorful (to me!) but no such luck with the oranges.

As for today, I just wrapped up my 9-5 8 chunk at school, and will be headed back shortly for another 3 hours.

Breakfast was "bliss"ful:

At the gym:

• 20 minutes on the elliptical, level 9
• 25 minutes on the bike, level 10

After the gym I hit up the food court for lunch. My guilty pleasure!

• Mixed veggies (35 calories, 0 fat, 260 mg of sodium)
• Sweet Fire Chicken (440 calories, 18 g fat, 370 mg of sodium)
• Black Pepper Chicken (250 calories, 14 g fat, 980 mg of sodium)

The Black Pepper Chicken puts me over 1500 mg of sodium for the day... which is the recommended amount from the Mayo clinic. Now that I've looked into it, I'll just got the bowl option with veggies and Sweet Fire Chicken.

I spent all afternoon in the library, and by the time I was ready for a snack it was almost time to head home, so I trucked on.

Dinner was the last of our leftover curry with basmati lime rice. Since it was rice heavy, I added some greenery of steamed spinach:

It was delicious, and almost made up for my having to return to campus for another 3 hours. I also had a baby bel while cooking:

Keep it real!

Kyle's Chili Recipe #1

Hello again.... I told you I'd post the chili recipe!

Like I said yesterday, Ky and I are not so good with recipes. We just seem to be able to throw things together and have good results most of the time. However, a few months ago Kyle made an AMAZING zucchini and sausage stew with mushrooms and tomatoes and spices. However, we didn't write down the recipe, and never got it to taste quite right again.

Hence why we got the pretty new recipe book to record/comment on what we make at times:

The Ingredients

Meats

• Hot Italian Sausage (1 lb)
• Ground Turkey (1 lb)

Produce

• Roma tomatoes (12)
• Celery (3 stalks)
• jumbo white onion (2)
• green peppers (2)
• habanero pepper (2)
• serrano pepper (1)
• jalapeno pepper (1)

Preserved

• evoo (1 T)
• frozen corn (8 oz)... fresh can be used when in season
• kidney beans (1 15.5 oz can)
• pink beans (1 15.5 oz can)
• diced green chilies (4 oz)
• low-sodium beef broth (3 cups)
• pace chunky salsa (16 oz)

Spices

• garlic powder (1 T)
• minced garlic (1 T)
• black pepper (1.5 t)
• paprika (1/8 t)
• ground cumin (1.5 t)
• Italian seasoning (1 T)*
• cayenne pepper (2 t)
• celery salt (3/4 t)
• chili powder (1 T)

* We only use this when using Italian sausage.

Preparation.

1. De-case sausage and place in a dutch oven with turkey over medium heat. Stir often to add in crumbling/browning the meat

2. While meat is browning, de-seed and finely dice all SMALL peppers, then place in skillet with evoo

3. After 2-3 minutes, add in garlic

4. Let the peppers and garlic cook while coarsely chopping green peppers and onions

then add them to the peppers

5. Dice celery, and also add to pan, and continue to stir occassionaly

6. Once meat is browned drain excess fat and liquid into a can

7. Cover meat with beef broth, and let it and the veggies cook while you prepare the rest of the meal

8. Chop tomatoes and place them in the crock pot along with corn

9. Add both cans of beans to crockpot after draining half the liquid from each can

10. When veggies are tender, add them to crock pot

11. When meat is fully cooked, drain 1/2 the liquid in the dutch oven and add the rest to the crock pot

12. Measure out spices, and blend thoroughly

13. Cover and cook on high for 4 hours, or low 6-8 hours.

In terms of our comments, we thought we added the garlic too early so it burned slightly, even though it did not affect the taste negatively. Also, we loved cooking with our fresh, deli made italian sausage. It brought a whole new level of flavor!

If you try it, enjoy! Also know that you can tinker with the meats, veggies, and spices you use to your liking!

Happy March!

Today felt good because I was on a schedule... and let me tell you, that is really hard to do considering I only have 2 night classes a week, and one of them is even cancelled this week!

Today I had a lovely Luna pre-workout:

Seriously guys, this are like oreos. And I love me some oreos. I had about 2/3 of this before I ran out the door.

At the gym I stepped up my workout a bit; I am still coughing a bit, all the gunk in my chest is really loose so I can tell it is almost over! Yesssss!

• 20 minutes elliptical, level 9
• 30 minutes stationary bike, level 10

I love the stationary bike because it is allowing me a bonus 30 minutes to read for class a day; I love multi-tasking.

After the gym I walked another mile or so around campus dropping things off, and was miffed I didn't pack a post-workout snack.

Then I had to hit Target for a few things, and FOUND MY BLUEBERRY BLISS LUNAS! I grabbed the last four they had in complete and utter glee; I must have looked completely insane to any bystanders.

When I got home I was famished! On the menu was a selection of leftovers:

1. chili, but that was for dinner tonight
2. veggie medley from last night
3. crockpot chicken curry

I went with the curry, because it was good but was on it's last legs. I added some Basmati Lime rice:

... and ate a baby bel while it heated up in the microwave.

The curry was really good... still very fresh tasting, and a perfect match for the basmati lime!

At about 3pm in the midst of studying/writing/laundry I got hungry again, and had a not-so-bloody blood orange:

I did work for a pretty solid 4.5 hour block today, so I was relieved when Ky got home and it was time for dinner at 6. It is REALLY hard working from home since you make your own schedule and deadlines.

Dinner tonight was chili salad! When we went to Hard Time's last week Kyle's dad got a chili salad, and it just LOOKED amazing! So, we decided to healthy-up our own chili (recipe coming up next!) by piling up some fresh greens.

• a mix of spinach and spring mix
• 1 serving of multigrain tostitos

• black olives (I passed!)
• chopped onion
• chopped cherry tomatoes
• 1/4 cup of mexican cheese blend (we split that)
• container of plain Greek yogurt to replace sour cream
• chili (duh :-))

This was SO great! The chili set in perfectly over night; it had a lot of heat, but not so much that you didn't get the flavor of the individual spices, meats, and veggies. Also, greek yogurt is a PERFECT substitute for sour cream, I didn't notice a taste difference at all.

Now I am completely stuffed, hanging out on the couch watching video games. I am taking it easy tonight because tomorrow is my long 10-12 total hours on campus day of the week... Yikes!