Busy day - cooking for company

My sister was in town yesterday and I asked her to come over and help me go over the design of my wedding album (it's a lot of work and she's much better at this stuff than I am!). She asked me to cook dinner and of course I agreed :D I cook a lot for me and my husband but when other people come over there is just slightly a bit more pressure, even if it's just family. I know they say never to serve a new dish to your guests, but I wanted to make something that I wouldn't normally make just for the two of us. I figured I'll make a few things and if one of them is bad at least there will be enough of other stuff to fill the guests. I think it worked! By let me back track to lunch and the preparations for dinner...

LUNCH

While looking through my recipe books (and online) I got hungry. I planned on making brussels sprouts and some chicken. I used this recipe for the chicken and this recipe for the brussels sprouts. Both came out really great!

I skipped the peach chutney suggested in the chicken recipe (didn't even notice that we needed it when I skimmed through the recipe for our grocery list) and we didn't miss it. The chicken breasts only took about 1/2 of the panko/peanut mixture, so each serving came out to a bit less calories than is specified on the bottom of the recipe (works for me!). It was crunchy and delicious! We have some leftovers, which may or may not end up on top of my salad today :D

The brussels sprouts were a huge success too. My husband said he was "ok" with brussels sprouts but he absolutely loved these ones. Heidi (from 1o1 cookbooks) says this recipe turns brussels sprout haters into lovers and I can see why! The parmesan cheese finishing is key. It really makes them extra special for a minimal amount of calories.

So here are a few pictures of lunch:

Brussels sprout branch... so cool looking!



Btw, I cooked all the sprouts off this branch with 1/2 the oil & cheese in the recipe, so this came out to 2 servings.

And my plate:



Close up of the yummy parmesan sprouts:



While I was preparing this lunch I munched on some baby carrots.



Oh and of course there was dessert :)



This was a really great treat and really filled me up. The piece of chocolate is quite big for just 100 calories. The quality was also very good and there was a fun fact in the back: 1 piece of this chocolate, as pictured, has more anti-oxidants than 1/2 cup of blueberries or blackberries... I think this means I should consume more of it :D

Another weird thing that happened with this chocolate... there were only 4 pieces in the package when there should have been 5! I was quite upset about this because clearly some thief in the store dug into the box without my knowledge. If this wasn't as delicious I wouldn't be as mad, but now I'll just have to go back for more sooner. Well I hope the little thief enjoyed one of these babies as much as I did. Shame on you though!

And then we were off to the grocery store for dinner ingredients...

DINNER

On dinner menu for the night:

- beef meatball sliders
- cornmeal crusted roasted vegetable tart
- make your own salad
- raspberry brownies
- pomegranate martinis and wine

It was quite the project cooking all of this in our small-ish kitchen with just 1 oven. But actually I was able to manage my time very well. Cooking for company can get a bit stressful but last night turned out well. I guess I got lucky! Here are a few pics of the process...

Beef meatballs waiting for the oven to free up...



I followed the recipe to the T, except cutting it by 1/3 (we made 20 meatballs instead of 30). They were sooo good! I think the best part of dinner!!

The vegetable tart was also competing for oven space. Here are a few pics of the process...

Raw veggies cuts up (the recipe didn't call for mushrooms but we all love mushrooms so I threw them in):


Tart crust weighted down by rice (the shadow looks like a bunny... hehe):


Tart crust baked:


Roasted veggies, cooling:


Me assembling the tart (while the meatballs are baking):


And here it is before topping it with cheese:


With cheese, pre-baking:


And this is the salad "bar". I figured since different people like different toppings and dressings, I'll just put a few options on the table and each person can make their own. It worked quite well! The salad ingredients included organic mixed greens, grape tomatoes, sliced cucumber, dried cranberries, roasted sunflower seeds, goat cheese(!) and Annie's goddess dressings (regular and green goddess).



Onto actual dinner... We bought mini whole wheat pitas to make "meatball sliders." It was my husband's genius idea! Again we left it to our guests to assemble them. Here is my first slider:



I also had another meatball "straight up." Oh and I was drinking some red wine with dinner. I think I had about 6oz throughout the night. My mom and husband were drinking the pomegranate martinis. I had a sip and it was super good. I will definitely have one (or more) of these when I'm not counting calories!

While we were eating the meatballs the tart was baking in the oven. Here it is finally ready! It did look very nice. That's what I mean when I say it's too fancy for just me and my husband.



I had 1/8 of the tart (1 serving) + some salad (mixed greens, tomatoes, cucumbers, goat cheese with 1/2 T of goddess dressing):



Here is the feedback on the tart my husband and guests... it needed more cheese and the crust was a bit too dry. I think this is a pretty good base for a recipe but it definitely needs some tweaking. Some of the recommendations included layering either cheese or sauce between the crust and the first layer of veggies (the crust crumbled a bit so something to moisten it would help... I need to find something other than butter to moisten it :D ). Some of the reviews on the website mentioned that more cheese was used, but in the spirit of keeping things healthy I wanted to try it out for myself first with the suggested amount of cheese. I agree, more cheese would have been better (but when is it ever not the case?!). Overall I was slightly disappointed that it wasn't a huge success since it was the star of the show. But I think in general people enjoyed it and I'm glad I finally tried this recipe (it was on my to-make list for a while!).

Onto dessert...

I made the raspberry brownies before and these are my husband's favorite! He claims he's not a dessert person but he actually ate most of them last time around and requested that I make them again. I put this together over the last few days (it's easy you just need time to let things cool/freeze). Here are a few pics of the process.

No pudge original brownie mix with 5.5 oz of dannon nonfat yogurt and 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract, all mixed in the bowl (oh yeah, licking the bowl is the best part!)


Mixture going into the pan:


Brownies baked, ready to cool:


I let them cool like that in the pan for a few hours then covered them with tin foil and left them in the pantry for a day and a half until I was ready to finish this. A day and a half later I left the sherbert on the counter to soften a bit, then topped the brownies with a healthy layer of it, and covered with sprinkles as such:


Final product after being frozen for a day:


And my piece last night for dessert :) It came out better than last time. I loved it (and my husband and guests did too) !!! This is a fat free dessert but it definitely doesn't taste fat free.



After the stressful task of going over my wedding album layout (I get so weirdly stressed out... I just want it to be perfect!) I got hungry again (I guess it's been a few hours since dinner) so I grabbed a serving of my favorite trail mix:



I wanted more food (or more chocolate to be exact!) but I fought the urge and just made some peppermint tea. I actually ended up only having a few sips of it before going to bed. I probably should have skipped on the trail mix too, but I thought I was going to stay up longer and really was hungry. It could have been worse!

Here is the total for the day...

NYC STREAKING CHALLENGE:

Calories (1200-1650) - 1723 - ok, since I allowed myself 1 day with extra 100 calories.
Fitness - rest day
Water - DONE- I think I had at least 10 cups
F/Vs - DONE- banana, baby carrots, brussels sprouts, mixed greens, tomatoes, cucumbers, eggplant, zucchini, mushrooms

I'll start a new post with today's breakfast and other eats since this one has been probably too long already :) Enjoy the rest of your weekend!

It's Friday!

It's Friday!!! Man, this week seemed like it flew by but today was soooooooo slooooooooow. I could not wait to get out of the office but the clock was just not moving. Despite not being very motivated, I still got a lot done though :)

Food today was interesting. I got home kind of late after my hair appointment last night. By the time I made dinner, ate, and blogged it was time for bed. I always make my food the night before but it was already late so I decided to just make it in the morning. I also didn't really know what I wanted which was another reason I didn't make it right away. I was hoping I'd just wake up with a craving. Well, surprise surprise, the morning was super rushed and I kind of just threw a bunch of stuff together.

BREAKFAST

Breakfast this morning was an egg and cheese sandwich (with tomato). I cooked the egg in the microwave for a little under 2 minutes while the english muffin was toasting. Then I slapped on a piece of white american cheese, a few slices of tomato and wrapped it to go. Here it is:



It was just ok. The english muffin got slightly soggy and I think I've decided I don't like tomatoes on my breakfast sandwiches. Also the past few times I've made these I threw some bacon in there, but this time we were out and I really missed it. Oh well, it was still good, just not great. And it did feel me up.

PRE-WORKOUT SNACK

This snack I thought of 2 nights ago after I already made my food. I couldn't wait to make this and this was the first thing I threw together to make sure I don't run out of time :)



In the container is about 1/2 cup of TJ's European style nonfat yogurt, mixed with 1/2 cup of pumpkin and 1 tablespoon of TJ's pumpkin butter (for sweetness), topped with some pecans and 2 honey graham crackers. I crushed the crackers before eating and topped the whole thing with them. Very delicious! I would love it even slightly sweeter with a bit more pumpkin butter but I think that's enough sugar for a pre-workout snack. Good stuff!

WORKOUT

I took today the Journey to the Core class at the gym. There are 7 stations with 2 exercises at each station, and you do each exercise for 30 seconds, and the whole circuit 3 times. Then there is really nice stretching at the end. The time really flew by at this class, but I recommended to the instructor today to hold the exercises for 45 seconds and only do the circuits twice instead. I think this would make it burn more (I know I'm a masochist :D ). He said he'll think about... some people were struggling with even just 30 seconds, but I say let them rest if they need to. I want to get a better workout. I mentioned this to another girl after class and she agreed... she said she'll back me up next time if he asks :) The class took 45 minutes and I really fought the urge not to jump on the elliptical or do more lifting. I shouldn't over-train since I do try to workout 6 times a week. 45 minutes should be enough... I need to remind this to myself sometimes.

LUNCH

Lunch was the meal that really suffered the most from my lack of time this morning. I really wanted to make a salad but I just couldn't think of a good combo this morning and was getting overwhelmed. At first I was just going to buy something for lunch (I hardly ever do it and there are a few healthy options I can choose from) but then I remembered that I have a few leftovers frozen so I grabbed one of them, or to be exact I grabbed a container with the fritatta I made a few weeks ago. It was a solid ice block and I was definitely taking a chance on it.

It was still frozen when I was ready for lunch and I was definitely not excited about it. I figured if it tasted horrible I would throw it away and go back to plan A. It seemed ok when I got it out of the microwave... although it did take 3 tries to finally get it to the right temperature. I was also planning on having a small apple with it (but I ended up eating the apple for a late afternoon snack).



Because I really wasn't excited about this lunch, despite the fact that it tasted fine I just really didn't feel like it. I felt like I was punishing myself a little (I hate that I always try to be responsible!) so I finally left the last bite on the plate and instead of the apple grabbed a 100 calorie pack of cookies for dessert. A much better treat!



I got this little package of chocolate chip "buttons" in a Whole Foods promotional goodie bag. I was going through it a few days ago and found these so I brought them to the office. Good thing! Here they are... so pretty :)

Ok so the truth is they weren't that great. I pretended like they were real chocolate chip cookies, but really they weren't. I took my time eating them, trying to savor every button. I figured it was still more indulgent than an apple.

SNACK 2 + 3



x2... I ate a whole banana with a whole package of Barney Butter. I split it into 2 snacks, but the truth is I don't think there was more than an hour in between those. I just couldn't wait to have the other half! I absolutely love almond butter with bananas!!!!

So yeah, there was snack #4 (I was just hungry all day today, probably because I really didn't want to work and preferred to eat instead) which was the apple pictured above.

DINNER

For dinner tonight I planned to make some chicken with brussel sprouts I bought at the farmers market on Tuesday. When I got home I was absolutely starving and the chicken was still frozen :( I considered waiting, or defrosting it in the microwave, but at the end decided to go to another Plan B and made chipotle shrimp tacos from Cooking Light (I followed the recipe to the T). I love how shrimp can be defrosted in just minutes under cold water. We always have them on hand (in the freezer) and they are a great lean source of protein. Yum!

Here are my tacos with shrimp, avocado, sliced tomatoes and TJ's salsa verde on TJ's low carb whole wheat tortillas.



They were a big mess to eat but were quite delicious :)



And yes I was still hungry after these, so I made dessert. One warm chocolate chip cookie with some decaf peppermint tea. Now my belly is satisfied :D





And as always, a quick recap of today's "stats"

NYC STREAKING CHALLENGE- STREAK DAY 5

Calories (1200-1650)- DONE - 1630
Fitness - DONE- circuit training class
Water - DONE - 9 cups
F/V - DONE - tomato, pumpkin, beet greens, potatoes, mushrooms, banana, apple, avocado

I'm going to relax on the coach and watch a movie with my husband. I love weekends! :)

Leftovers aren't boring

Streak day 3, 8 days to go 'till NYC! Still doing great on my mini-challenge! :D

I got a craving for a breakfast I made last week: smoked salmon sandwiches, so yesterday I stopped by TJ's to pick up some lox. This breakfast did not disappoint! It looks kind of messy (sorry the bread is very fragile and broke apart on it's "commute to work") but it was super rich and delicious!



The bread I used is The Baker wholegrain flaxseed bread. It is so nutty and addicting. My husband would hate it, so I know it's not for everyone, but I absolutely cannot get enough of this stuff! Here is a picture of the package if you're interested...



So breakfast was 2 slices of the bread, about 1 1/2 ounces of lox and 1 tablespoon of whipped cream cheese. I also had a cup of hazelnut coffee with half and half and a tsp of agave nectar. The usual stuff. I wanted more food after this breakfast but remembered that last time it kept me really full for a long time. I decided to wait it out a bit, which worked! I probably would've had a massive stomachache if I ate more like I instinctively wanted to.

About 3 hours later I snacked on this apple. It was my pre-workout snack. I wasn't even that hungry, but I knew I needed fuel for my abs + spinning classes.



Both classes were soooo good and so tough today. I was super excited for them for some reason. I think it's because I'm feeling like my old self. I love eating healthy and working out! It's so good to know I'm taking care of myself! The abs class is the toughest one they offer at my gym, just basic stuff but you feel the burn after 15 minutes of straight crunching. And spinning... once again today was my favorite instructor and I haven't been to his class in months. It was excellent. I was dripping sweat like crazy and loved it! He turned the lights on at the end of the class and I was super shiny, but looked so buff!!! My arms looked so toned. Maybe it was that boxercise class last night? Hmm, doubt one class did the trick. Anyways, I felt good!

Moving on to lunch, which is boring for blog purposes because it was leftovers from last night's dinner. It was still absolutely delicious! In fact when I got back from the gym I had an email from my husband saying how good lunch was (he had the leftovers too). It's pretty cool to get 2 meals for both of us in the same amount of effort. The flip side of course is when something doesn't come out incredibly good and you're stuck eating it the next day. Luckily I haven't had any mishaps in a while :)



Afternoon snack, one of my absolute favorites. I've blogged about this snack before. It's the perfect thing to take care of my sweet tooth! 1/2 banana, packet of Barney Butter inside a TJ's low carb tortilla wrap. Best.snack.ever!



Speaking of Barney Butter, I found out today on Kath's blog that Barney Butter is giving free shipping for orders over $14. This is your chance to stock up on their goodies (like the single serving almond butters) before they start selling their products at Whole Foods next year. Just type ship4free when you check out. I definitely took advantage of this today :)

Oh another little victory today was this: I was walking by a bowl with halloween candy at work and grabbed a york chocolate mint patty. I know this stuff isn't that many calories comparatively to some of the other chocolate goodies so I felt it was a pretty good choice. I ran into a co-worker of mine on the way to my desk and we ended up talking about a transaction for about 10 minutes. Well, when I was done talking to her I realized I really didn't need this candy at all. Just because it's a healthier choice out of the bad stuff, doesn't mean it's a good one. I had my banana/almond butter wrap waiting for me, so I was good :) I put the candy back and made some tea and the wrap. It felt pretty cool. Small victories...

When I got home I remembered that I got some pumpkin butter at TJ's yesterday. I decided to have a tiny snack featuring it! I had a little over 1/4 cup of TJ's European style nonfat yogurt, with a little less than a tablespoon of the pumpking butter and a little less than 1/3 serving of Erin's pb granola.



Pumpkin butter was pretty interesting. For those of you who haven't tried it, imagine a pretty sweet pumpkin flavored jelly. Not sure why they are calling it "butter." It was pretty intense so I would use it with causion. But it was quite nice and definitely very pumpkin-y, and since I'm recently a little obsessed with pumpkin and other fall veggies (like squash) I liked it.

For dinner tonight I made another 20 minute meal from Cooking Light November issue: hamburger stroganoff. My husband was super apprehensive about this one (I guess he hasn't had the best experience with stroganoffs) but I already bought the ingredients (not realizing he didn't really want it) and reminded him that all the other 20 minute meals from Cooking Light have been awesome. Fastforward 20 minutes or so, here is my plate:



And yeah, it was awesome!!!!! My husband loved it too and we're both having it for lunch again tomorrow. Sorry to be boring, but when it's good, I actually really look forward to having it again. I followed the recipe pretty much to the T, except omitted the onions, used about 30% more mushrooms and served it over egg-white-only egg noodles. Another winner! I love it.

And today's tally is...

Calories (1200-1650) - DONE - 1464
Fitness - DONE - abs + spinning (60 minutes total)
Water - DONE- 9 cups
F/Vs - DONE- apple, banana, diced tomatoes, tomato sauce, mushrooms

Good night!

I voted!!!

Streak day 2, 9 days until NYC :D I'm kicking butt and taking names :) This is the healthy lifestyle that makes me happy!

I woke up extra early this morning so I could vote before going to work. The first thing I did was turn on the coffee maker! The coffee went with me to the voting place in my to-go cup :) It took a little under an hour to do the voting (there was a huge line outside before the place even opened!) but I was so happy I did it!!!

By the time I got to work, I was starving! I grabbed breakfast on the go, so it was the same old combo: 2 kashi golean waffles with a Barney Butter packet + 1/2 banana. I couldn't wait to bite into it :D


Yesterday at the gym they were trying to have people sign up for a Boxercise class. It was at 5:30 pm today so I swapped my usual lunch workout for the evening one to try this new class out. This meant lunch first, then 2 snacks later (or three...).

Lunch was a simple turkey, dijon mustard, tomato, avocado sandwich on 2 slices of Arnold double fiber bread... with some baby carrots on the side.



Good stuff!



Instead of working out, I did some serious farmers market shopping during lunch. I bought so much stuff I couldn't carry it home :) I left it in the fridge at work to bring it all back tomorrow, when my husband picks me up in the car.

First snack of the day: the rest of the larabar from yesterday (chocolate hazelnut kind) with some tea.



I decided that you really can't taste the hazelnuts and that it tastes just like the regular chocolate larabar. Still good though, just the name is more exciting than the product. Sorry larabar! I still love you!

Second snack: about 2 tablespoons of Sabra original hummus, 1/2 serving of Back to Nature crispy wheats (just like reduced fat wheat thins, but I think they may be more natural... I loooove these) and a pretty large apple. A pretty good combo!



And then a little before the boxing class I was craving almonds, so I had a 100 calorie pack of raw almonds. These are an excellent grab 'n go snack, because the nuts are already pre-portioned for you. You can of course buy a bag of almonds and pre-portion them yourself, but this is just something that's already been done for you. 100 calories worth of almonds is about 15-20 almonds, depending on the size.



And at 5:30pm I got to the Boxercise class... basically a (contact) boxing class. It was ok. It was quite introductory. Only 2 other people showed up; the guy was trying to actually get a paid class going and this was his introduction course to get people to sign up (I didn't know this until the end of class so he wasn't pushing this or anything). Anyways, because it was pretty basic stuff (I'm not a boxer, but I've taken cardio kickboxing classes before so I know "the moves"). I kind of had to work myself extra hard because it was pretty easy to slack off. I basically jump roped in between all the segments (probably did about 15 minutes of solid jump rope overall) and kicked as much as I could. I know I'll be sore tomorrow (in fact I'm sore already) but I won't be back to this class, and certainly won't pay to go. The guy was really nice though (definitely a boxer!) and told me I had a future in boxing. Haha!

On to dinner... I actually wasn't that hungry. Most of the time after a workout I'm not very hungry for a little while (unless I haven't eaten for hours in which case of course I'm starving but that's not because of the workout) but when I got home my husband really wanted me to cook dinner asap. Good thing I planned another "20 minute meal" from Cooking Light. On the menu for the night was "pork vindaloo"... you can find the recipe here. I of course omitted the onions, but otherwise basically followed the recipe. Garam Masala is such an awesome spice. I love indian food, and garam masala is definitely the spice in indian dishes. Yum!

My serving (about 1/4 less rice than was suggested) + some sauteed spinach with garlic:



I've said it before and I'm sure I'll say it again: those 20 minute meals in Cooking Light (there are 6 of them in every issue) are the best!!!! I've never had a bad one (in fact every one was super delicious!) and they are really easy! When I asked my husband how many smiley faces this recipe earned (that's how we rate them), he said: "Fill the page!" Hehe, yup, he loved it! And so did I!

Onto today's goal accomplishments:
-Calories (1200-1650)- DONE- 1576, including 4 oz of champagne I will have when Obama wins :)
- Exercise - DONE- Boxercise class (about 55 minutes) + walked home (25 minutes)
- Water - DONE - 8 cups and counting...
- F&V (min 5 servings) - DONE - banana, tomato, avocado, baby carrots, 1/2 larabar, apple, spinach, diced tomatoes

Another awesome day! Healthy AND Sane... that's how I like 'em! :D

**edited to add** Go Obama!!!!!



+ I had a handful of pecans: