Feels Like Home

It feels so nice to spend my evening blogging!  I can’t tell you how at home I feel sitting in front of my computer recapping my day.  I’ve definitely missed this.   In my large recap I forgot to mention something I bought last week.

Anybody love a good bargain story?  I went to an outlet with my family and Andrew last week.  It was mostly Waterford Crystal but they also had a huge selection of Dr. Weil kitchen products.  I bought this brand new juice extractor and am so happy with my purchase.  The exact one I got is The Dr. Weil 9806 The Healthy Kitchen Stainless-Steel 2-Speed Pro Juice Extractor.   If you look on Amazon the MSRP is $375 and they have it on sale for $243.   I did even better then that, much better!  I got this juicer for only 70 bucks!  And so far it has worked perfectly.  I’ve never had another juicer to compare it to, and I’m not sure if it’s better then some of the top brands, but it is good.  The pulp seems really very dry and I’ve had no issues with it. Of course it’s only been a week but so far so good.

My kitchen essentials!

I’ve loved experimenting with the juicer, and of course I went right to the blogger who I felt could help me the most with my new juicer and help me come up with a plan for a “mini cleanse”.  I sent Gena of Choosing Raw an email and she got back to me immediately with some great tips.  Thanks so much for all your help Gena.

I started today with my favorite juice so far.  It has all my favorite flavors and I really enjoy the fresh taste, I looked at many recipes and came up with one that tastes great.

• 1 carrot ( I will increase this I think tomorrow to 2 or 3)
• 2 apples
• 1 lemon
• 1 inch piece of ginger
• 1 romaine heart
• Large handful of spinach

The flavor is out of this world! 

I wasn’t sure if I could handle just juice until lunch time, but this combo kept me satisfied until lunch time.  It’s not the same as being full after a bowl of oatmeal, but the hunger stayed away until about 11:30 and I broke for lunch at noon.

My lunch today was a big salad, the pictures don’t really do it justice it really is very big.

Very green!  I had another whole head of lettuce, a cucumber, and 3 stalks of celery, with balsamic vinaigrette.  Gena suggested having an avocado with my salad but there not something I ever have on hand, I’m not sure I like them to be honest, but I’m definitely going to buy one tomorrow and mix it in with my salads soon.

Around 4 I got hungry and I snacked on my first honeycrisp apple of the year!  I was so excited to see these at the store, but why do they have to be so expensive!?

And yeah I wore jeans to work on a Tuesday, I’m a rebel.  This apple was just a delicious as I remembered.

For dinner it was kind of a “whatever sounded good to me at the time meal”

I had brown rice:

Roasted potatoes with a small amount of EVOO (using the Misto) and sea salt:

Greenbeans and broccoli steamed:

All together:

 

 

Although these pictures are outside, it was gray and cold, so I took this plate back inside and happily gobbled down every last bite.

Now I’m just waiting for Andrew to come home so I can spend some much needed quality time with him.  I also have a little bit of kitchen cleanup to take care of from dinner. 

Thanks for the warm welcome back, I’ve missed chatting with you girls!

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89 Degrees

Not outside, the outside temperature at 3PM today was 97 degrees.  The 89 degrees refers to the temperature it was in my apartment when I got home.  Luckily it’s a small apartment and cools down really quickly.  But it’s definitely not fun to come home to.  This humidity is making me feel sluggish and making my sinuses hurt horribly.  I’m waiting to take some medicine until just before bed time because it’s a night time/sleep aide/decongestant, and I want to make sure I’m able to take it and sleep through the night.  Otherwise the second it wears off I’m wide awake.

The weather seemed perfect when I left for work this morning, no humidity, a nice breeze, probably only 78 or 80, it was a pleasent ride in to work with the windows down.  I can’t tell you how excited I was for today’s breakfast.  Look what I was finally able to fine in a local store!

Pomegranate Chobani! I knew I was a dork when I was food shopping yesterday and announced to Andrew it was the best day in my life while loading up the cart with the new flavored Chobani. 

You can’t see any in this shot but there were quite a few pom seeds floating around in that yogurt.

I mixed it with some Kashi Island Vanilla.

.

I have to say this might be my new favorite flavor!

Lunch today was a delicious pb & j on a whole wheat wrap.

Love!

On the side I had a new kind of organic applesauce I found at the store yesterday.

Can you see the ingredients?

Just organic apples and I guess some added vitamin C.  Unsweetened applesauce is so delicious!  Definitely a delicious side.

I also brought a plum but wound up not eating that until around 3:30 when I got snacky.

Beautiful and juicy.

So once I got home I let the house cool down while I made a refreshing salad.  With only the BIGGEST cucumber I’ve ever seen!

Bigger then my cutting board!

When standing on the counter it rested a good 4 inches above the bottom of my cabinets.  I got this cuc from a co-worker, fresh from her garden.  Expect to see a lot of cucumber in the coming days!

I barely made a dent in it and had some over romaine lettuce.

Perfect for a hot muggy day.

While perusing blogs today I saw some cheesy garlic bread (I forget on which blog) but it looked amazing and I decided to recreate some at home.

I used a hot dog roll, a small amount of (REAL) butter, garlic powder, and a 2% milk string cheese, with some cheddar also sprinkled on.  It was absolutely perfect, and tasted a lot like cheesey bread you’d get at a restaurant, and it was definitely healthier because it wasn’t greasy at all.

I’m really bad at blogging over the weekends, but I can’t wait to share some pictures with you all of a baseball game I went to on Friday, unfortunately I forgot my camera so I have to get them from my friend Jess tomorrow or hopefully soon.

Well I don’t have the A/C on in the office so I’m getting really hot sitting here, hope you all have a great night and stay cool!

An Al Fresco Dinner

What a day!  I woke up thinking it was Thursday and thought that until I was on my way to work.  Since we don’t work Fridays anymore Thursday is our dress down day so I went to work wearing jeans and everything.  It was obvious to everyone at work I had mixed up what day I thought it was.  Ugh.  But oh well I was comfortable all day at least.

I started out the day with something I haven’t had in so long, unfortunately in my hurry this morning I forgot my camera but I do have some pretty bad blackberry photos to share.

Peach Chobani!  In addition to forgetting my camera I also forgot some cereal for mixing into the yogurt.  But it was still amazingly delicious, it’s been to long Peach Chobani!

Without the cereal though this didn’t do a great job of holding me over for lunch.  I wound up getting hungry around 10 and snacked on some Dr. Kracker’s Cherry Semolina crisps.  These are absolutely delicious!

The serving size is 8 but I probably had about 12, they are so delicious.

Lunch today was an old favorite, rice pilaf, green beans, and broccoli all mixed together.

What a horrible picture of one of my favorite flavor combos.  I can’t get enough of it I crave this at least once a week. 

After work Andrew and I decided to go out to eat.  It’s been a while since we went out just the 2 of us for dinner so we went to our favorite local restaurant, Harborside Bar and Grill.  It was a beautiful day so we got to enjoy being outside on the patio.  To start I had a house salad with balsamic dressing on the side.

I used about a 1/4 of the dressing with my fork dips before almost every bite.  It’s amazing but before I would have easily used 1/2 of it or more, dipping the fork in is just as flavorful and definitely a calorie saver.

Then our waitress brought out some fabulous rolls.  I of course had one.

Warm and doughy, it was perfect.

For dinner I had the Rigatoni Pomadora, a fresh tomato basil sauce, with rigatoni and fresh mozzarella balls throughout.

This sauce is the freshest tasting sauce ever, I don’t think I could make it even 1/2 as good as they do.  I would love to be able to buy a jar of this sauce.  I have about 1/2 of this left for tomorrows lunch.

After dinner we stopped by to visit my sister and parents since she’s been bugging me for the past 3 days to come over.  It was a nice night hanging out on their patio enjoying the weather.  After it rained for almost all of May and June, it’s definitely made me appreciate the past 2 weeks, we’ve had the most beautiful sunny, warm days lately, and I’m definitely grateful for them!

Stress Non-Eater

<rant>I know there are people out there who eat when they are stressed.  I am the exact opposite.  When something is really bothering me I let it manifest itself in ways that prevent me from wanting to eat.  It’s probably just as unhealthy as someone who binges on a stressful occasion.  I will admit that sometimes when I’m just a little bit stressed and eat I make poor choices, I don’t overeat though.  I might just say screw it I’m eating that cookie(s).  But when I let myself get so worked up eating is the last thing I want to do.  Today was one of those days.  For the past year Andrew’s twin brother’s girlfriend and I haven’t gotten along.  Today I finally let everything build up and when I got angry with something she did today,  I let it eat me from the inside out.  We sent some not-so-nice emails back and forth, and finally spoke on the phone a little while ago.  I’m a people pleaser, I get upset when people don’t like me, it bothers me so much, that this really stung.  I should have just went about my day but unfortunately I wound up leaving work early, and stewing in my anger.  Nothing has been completely resolved she apologized for somethings and I accepted her apology and for Andrew and his brother’s sake we have decided to start over.  Is it the best option?  Probably not.  Will it make Andrew happy?  Absolutely.  Besides that his brother is now going to be my brother-in-law in a couple years, and who knows one day she might be my sister-in-law so I have to bite the bullet and work on this relationship no matter how badly I just want to hide my head in the sand.  I’m more of an “ignore it and it will go away” type of person, not a strong characteristic.  Maybe it’s time I grew up and just worked on things. </rant>

Wow okay sorry for all that, it feels good to vent though.  And I’m sure at least one of you will have a similar story, or be able to share advice.

Enough about that, this is a food blog after all.  For breakfast I once again had a sandwich thin with pb.  I actually have pictures though!  And Homegirl, the key to the perfect pb spreading is to spread it on thick in the middle and then work it towards the outside.  No I’m kidding, there is no secret,.  I do admit I have a little more then a serving perhaps 2.5-3 tablespoons I’m willing to get the extra calories though.  I’m still losing weight so perhaps I’m doing something right. 

Then the trouble began.  Andrew came to take me out to lunch since I was so upset.  We wound up going to my favorite salad bar.

I ate some but not all of this salad.  If i had to guess I would say between 1/3 and a 1/2. It was:

• mixed greens
• carrots
• onions
• chicken
• cucumbers
• and light balsamic vinaigrette.

And this is where my pictures from the day end.  I came home early and began screaming about the whole thing to poor Andrew.  I was so worked up!  I give myself this nauseous feeling when I get upset, and eating seems impossible.  I feel better now but not well enough to eat something, I did stop by my mom’s house though and picked up her left over chicken parm, so get ready to see it for lunch tomorrow!

I’m off to watch the New Jersey Housewives reunion, and then get some much needed rest. 

Uh Oh…

This is my first experience with drogging, is that what we’re calling it? Caitlin? Maybe you can answer, because my hiccups might be preventing me from looking up the proper verbage. That’s not a word? Oh well.

For breakfast today in order to keep myself on schedule I had 2 waffles.  They were good but the syrup was better.  I had whatever I had left of the sugar free syrup on my whole grain Van’s waffles.

Yum yum yum, sideways and all it was fantastic.

For lunch I had a pb and raspberry jam sandwich.  I apparently did not take a picture, although I swore I did.  Here’s what Google Image Search turned up.  Enjoy!

Hiccup Hiccup.  For some reason this picture cracks me up . 

Dinner was a salad from SaladWorks.

It was some kind of Fiesta,   Of that I’m sure, but I’m not sure the name of it.

I ate half of that salad without any of the dressing, I”m saving the rest for tomorrow.  I totally ate the rest of that roll though.

 

And that’s about it, I didn’t eat anything else.  But I did enjoy a finely aged box of wine from my dad.  Yikes.

Andrew totally edited this post, he said it didn’t even make sense to him, at first.  Whoops.

Good Night Everybody, hope you have a great Saturday!

Big Announcement and Giveaway Winner!

I can’t believe tomorrow is my last day already, we have to leave the house early Sunday morning.   I’m nowhere near ready to leave!  This place is so amazingly relaxing.  The only good thing is next week because of Memorial Day and my Friday’s off I only have a short 3 day work week ahead of me.  Should make it a little more painless.

Yesterday was a really great day we woke up hung out by the pool a little later my dad made some delicious blueberry pancakes.

Since we had a late breakfast I wound up snacking on an unpictured orange later in the day and never ate a real lunch. 

We hung out by the pool for most of the day.

Yes I bought goggles to wear in the pool.  I’m a nerd like that.

I can’t tell you how many pictures I have of me walking, I never know about them until I upload my pictures.

Later on Andrew and I went for a bike ride down to one of the beaches. 

Afterwards we came back and had dinner.  I had some leftovers.

I had the chicken leftover from the night before.

The last piece of corn on the cob.

And a salad:

After dinner Andrew and I took a trip to Jockey Ridge State Park.  It is the largest natural sand dune on the East Coast.  Climbing up those dunes is tough but it is the most amazing view, on one side you have the ocean and on the other you have the sound.  It’s absolutely breathtaking.  And it will now forever be a very special place to me.

People looks like ants from the top.

As we were walking along Andrew stopped hugged me and got down on one knee, he pulled out the most beautiful ring in the world, and I started crying instantly.  I knew it was coming but he had tricked me into thinking it wouldn’t be for a little while.  I had always said I didn’t want a lot of people around when he proposed especially strangers, and as we were walking up the dunes he kept pointing to areas where there weren’t a lot of people, and he continuously was scoping out the area around us.  I had a feeling it was coming but wasn’t sure.  I never thought I’d be one to cry I though I would be far too excited, boy was I wrong.  We left the park just as it was closing and decided to celebrate with some ice cream.

  I wanted to post so badly last night but needed to call family and friends first, I’m sure you all understand.

I would post today’s eats but it’s getting late and I’m exhausted, plus they were pretty boring.  I have a ton of leftovers from our dinner out tonight but will post them when I get around to eating them.

Without further ado the winner of the Souvenir Giveaway is:

Random Integer Generator

Here are your random numbers:

17	

17. Jenn@slim-shoppin  |  May 18, 2009 at 9:06 pm

I used to spend summer vacation there growing up. Most of my relatives are on the East Coast. When we were younger and would tell our friends we went to the Outer Banks (I’m from Chicago) they would say “Where?”

Awesome place to visit and great place to vacation!!

 

Thanks to everyone who entered I loved reading your favorite vacation spots, I hope to travel to some of those one day!

Jenn send me an email  365healthyeats@gmail.com with your mailing info and I’ll get these out to you as soon as I get home!  Congrats!

I’m not sure I’m going to be posting tomorrow since it’s our last day so I might not be around until Monday since we’ll be in the car all day Sunday.  I hope you all have a fantastic holiday weekend!

$5 Footlong…

ZAand it wasn’t from Subway.  But we’ll get to that.

Yesterday was spent like any first day of vacation, hanging out by the pool, going to old favorite spots from the last time we were here, and of course napping.

For breakfast yesterday I had a cereal/yogurt mess.  It included vanilla chobani, 365 high fiber cereal, and Kashi Island Vanilla shredded wheat.

There is yogurt under there somewhere.

Then it was swimming time.  We hung out in the pool for most of the day. 

Even Bailey enjoyed her time by the pool.

Here’s a picture Andrew snuck of me enjoying the sun.

I went in the hot tub for like 2 minutes but it was way to warm I felt like I was boiling in a soup pot.

After swimming and sunning we were hungry and we decided to go to one of our favorite local hamburger/hot dog joint. 

Last year when we here for 2 weeks (oh and by the way “here” is the Outerbanks.  I didn’t realize I never said where we were until Caroline asked), and we came like 4 times. The chili dogs here are the best I ever had, and we had been talking about going again since my parents booked the trip.  And I decided to have the special of the day a $5 footlong with fries and a drink.  Actually my entire family and Andrew had the special.  Go big or go home right?

I ate and loved every bite.   Spankys is a cute little place that has monkey’s just about everywhere.

 

Once we came back it was raining so we hung out on the screened in porch until the rain stopped and we went right back in the pool.  Then it looked like rain again so we came in and I fell asleep for a couple hours.

After I woke up refreshed and ready for to do some food shopping.  As soon as we got back I made myself a big salad and was going to have a pb sandwich on the side but wasn’t that hungry, that footlong really filled me up.

It was romaine and cucs with Newman’s Own balsamic vinaigrette.

This morning we thought we would be waking up to rain but luckily it was sunny until early afternoon, we went for an early morning swim, and then I attempted to catch up on your blogs.  Once everyone was up and showered and dressed we went out to breakfast.  We went to a buffet called Western Sizzlin’.

I got a little of everything.

First to attempt to eat some healthy food I had some fruit.

Then I had a big plate of all the breakfast goodies.

A French toast stick ( I went back for a couple more of these).

I also had some homefries, bacon, a biscuit, and eggs.

There’s a piece of toast under there but then saw the biscuits and decided to eat the biscuit and not eat the toast.  I can’t remember the last time I had a biscuit and I can have toast any time. 

Breakfast was of course wonderful, and then I did some super secret shopping, you’ll read about it soon enough (HINT giveaway tomorrow).

After returning back to the house we did some more swimming and then it started to pour.  We’re inside now, but as soon as I post this we have some more shopping to do. 

Hope you are all having a fabulous Sunday!

Back To Normal

I didn’t post yesterday because I felt so sick that I didn’t eat much.  It would have been a boring post although what I ate was healthy the amount I ate was not.  I would estimate for the whole day yesterday I ate about 600-800 calories which is obviously not enough for anyone.  Today I woke up feeling so much better and was actually able to eat, and eat well.  Amazing what a couple days of extra rest can do.

This morning I woke up starving, I knew I wasn’t going to be able to wait until I got to work to eat my breakfast so I ate before I left this morning.  I had vanilla yogurt with blackberries, 365 brand fiber cereal, and kashi vanilla island cereal. 

Probably my favorite breakfast combo right now. 

Work was okay today, a little hectic but it made the day go by faster, plus it’s really like my Thursday so there’s always more to do towards the end of the week. 

For lunch I packed a few pieces of chicken over a bed of lettuce with balsamic vinaigrette dressing.

That piece of chicken I used is left overs from the diner we stopped at Saturday night, there wasn’t much chicken but it was a big salad that did a great job of filling me up.

I guess I’m making up for yesterday’s low calorie day because by 3 I was hungry.  Not just hungry for a small snack, but something substantial.  I decided to try a new bar I bought.

This was good, artificial tasting, but good.  I’d definitely buy it again because it’s good in a pinch.

After my taste of chicken for lunch I definitely wanted more so Andrew and I stopped at the store for a rotisserie chicken.   For a side we used a new find we got from Whole Food’s last week.

This box is 3 servings but Andrew and I finished it, it was so good!  He had a little more then me but I know I had a little more then just one serving.

I had a big bowl with rice on the bottom, steamed French cut green beans, and some white meat chicken on top.

And all mixed up:

Wow this was fantastic I would definitely do it again, it was so simple to make obviously since really I only had to cook the rice. 

I’m actually contemplating a dessert.  I’m thinking some fro yo with melted pb, I’ll let you know tomorrow if I wound up having it.

I hope everyone had a great day and is having a good evening.  I’ll see you all tomorrow.  Thanks for all the “get better” wishes those comments definitely made my mood lift a little even if I was still feeling sick!

Much Better…

It’s amazing what a full night’s rest can do for a bad mood.  I woke up this morning in a really good mood and luckily never fell back into my cranky state of yesterday.  Thanks for all your kind comments yesterday and for being so understanding.  I’m so blown away by all the sweet comments I get day-to-day!

For breakfast this morning I had the one I wanted for yesterday.  I had Vanilla Chobani and some pb puffins.  Delicious I can’t get enough of this combo.

For lunch today I decided to make up for my lack of veggies to get a subway veggie delight 6 inch sub.

Lettuce, cucs, red onions, green peppers, and vinegar.

On the side I had some Baked Lays.

After work I picked up Andrew at school and we stopped off at Whole Foods.

I had my first taste of “garbage water”.

This stuff seriously smelled so offensive.  I don’t know how to describe the smell, kind of like low tide on the Jersey Shore, I guess, if you know what that smells like.  But the flavor?  Fabulous!  I loved it!  My dad tasted it and said it reminded him of dying Easter Eggs.  And then he made a lot of faces.  I tried to give it to Andrew and he refused and my mom commented “Danielle, leave him alone, he just finished eating.”  I was little upset because here I am enjoying this drink and my mom is insinuating that I’m going to make Andrew vomit from a sip.  Ready for a little TMI? This drink is fizzy, fizzy = burps.  Burping after drinking this is gross, try to refrain from doing that.  I would definitely buy this again although not often, 4 bucks is a little steep for something that makes my loved ones ill.

While at Whole Foods I of course had to eat from the salad bar.

I had a 1/2 a piece of lasanga, 2 potato wedges and:

A big salad, romaine lettuce, celery, grated carrot, onions, cucs, red and green peppers, some kind of pasta salad, and other things I’m forgetting I’m sure.  It was a nice cold veggie full salad.

I’m now home and getting ready for bed, tomorrow is my Friday so I can’t wait until 5 o’clock to be done with work for the week!  Hope you are all having a fabulous night!

Back to Business

After such a great weekend it was awful getting up this morning.  In fact I left just in time to get to work, I had training again today so I had to quickly eat something I had another Luna Bar.  3 days in a row I snacked one.  That’s all I bought and I’m happy although I love the bars I’m such fan of convenience that I will grab a bar running out the door instead of taking the time to make something.

I have to say this was the least favorite one I’ve tried and I probably wouldn’t get it again.

Lunch today was a 2% Cherry Fage yogurt with granola crumbs, and an Arnold’s sandwich thin with pb.

Boring lunch but yet it was very filling.

I got out of work a little early to go hang out with my sister while my parents went to a meeting.  After everything that Jenna has been going through it has really made me realize how each day on earth is a blessing and shouldn’t be taken for granted and I need to make time to spend with my sister as often as possible, because you just never know what could happen. 

I had a left over turkey burger from last night with romaine lettuce, pickle, onion, montery jack cheese, and ketchup on an Arnold’s sandwich thin.

On the side I had a salad.

I also took advantage of my parent’s elliptical and was on it for almost 40 minutes and burned 287 calories.

I have no idea what to bring for lunch tomorrow so I need to go figure that out so I can get to bed!  Enjoy your night everyone!