kale chip disaster August 22, 2008

my first attempt at making kale chips failed miserably. i don’t think i put enough kale pieces on the cookie sheet because they came out crumbly, like melt-in-your mouth crunchy and not in a good way. also, they were WAAAAAY too salty, it ruined the flavor of the kale. i sprinkled on quite a bit of salt because i was afraid i wouldn’t like kale’s natural flavor. i was wrong.

i’m going to try again soon because i have a ton of kale sitting in the fridge now that i need to use. here’s last nights batch before going into the oven.

and close-up, bathed in salt and olive oil.

fresh out of the oven on my plate along with my chick’n sandwich.

you can totally see the salt concentrations… it makes me gag just looking at how salty they were. my sandwich was good though. it was a chick’n patty on an ezekiel english muffin with a tiny sprinkle of mozzarella (that i couldn’t even taste) and some spicy mustard.

i was probably full after just eating that but i was so disappointed in the kale chip disaster that i craved something creamy and cool and sweet. i compromised by adding a tbsp. and a half of agave nectar to some soy yogurt and pairing it with kashi h2h and slivered almonds. so really it was a trio of things in there, (not counting the agave) not a pair.

friday morning dawned bright and early today. after my shower i was hungry so i dipped into my cantaloupe.

lots of fresh juicy cantaloupe and i ate it all. cantaloupe is my all-time favorite favorite fruit ever. of all time. i love it so much that last statement wasn’t even redundant.

i wasn’t so hungry after all that cantaloupe but i packed some grapes and an almond butter & banana sandwich for mid-morning.

having eaten all of that i should be stuffed. but i’m definitely already hungry for lunch. i’m excited to share something i’ve actually cooked myself with my dad. i had a ton of stuffing left over the other night from the spicy bean stuffed peppers. i brought the filling to work with me today and plan to run next door for some lettuce we can wrap it in for spicy lettuce wraps! i know he’ll love them because they’re really hot and he likes jalapenos.

breakfast August 20, 2008

that’s the best i can do right now for a title. today i had kashi h2h with a small banana and almond milk.

i was in a hurry out the door so i ate that quickly at home then had some fruit at the office to supplement. i packed green grapes and a pear.

i was hoping the extra fiber from the fruit would keep me full longer but i think i need to eat it before i have any cereal for that to work. anyway, i’m already hungry and it’s only been 3 hours so i’m going to eat my chili! yes, i remembered the can opener today.

tuesday snooze-day August 19, 2008

tuesdays are boring and i’d rather be sleeping. i forced myself to wake up this morning and eat breakfast, though. two flax waffles topped with a small chopped banana and sugar-free maple.

i was worried that wouldn’t be enough breakfast to keep me going until noon so i had 1/2c. of h2h with a drizzle of almond milk to supplement.

as it turned out, i started to feel the first hunger pangs around 11. so i snacked on some peanut crunches.

lunch is supposed to be amy’s chili but i forgot to bring my can opener so i don’t know what i’m going to do.

hurry August 16, 2008

this will be a hurried post because i don’t want to be late to my mom’s birthday party and i haven’t posted since yesterday lunch because i’ve been super busy. the pictures are taking forever to load so i’m gonna write everything up and then just put the pictures in at the end.

i had a z bar pre-workout and my workout was good. it was real good, i’m still sore. lots of awesome guided strength training. after working out i headed home to freshen up and pack my bag for the night so i could sleep at my parent’s house since the wine bar i was going to is closer to their place. i stopped over there to eat dinner with them before i went to meet the girls for wine. i snacked on a small handful of honey wheat pretzels before dinner was ready. then i had a small serving of the chicken and vegetables with black beans my sister made for everyone. at the bar i started with a glass of white, an Argentinian Torrontes. then we ordered some bruschetta, of which i had two halves. one of prosciutto, brie and fig and one of salami, manchego and pesto. i washed that down with a Malbec Rose. and then we shared a tuxedo chocolate cake for dessert. the girls really wanted to be on my blog so they posed for me

this morning i wasn’t hungry before my workout so i jazzercised without a snack. i got back to my place and made banana oats the same way as yesterday to fuel me for yoga. then i went to yoga!

after yoga i had pb&j on wasa crackers. and the rest of my h2h with soy yogurt and agave nectar with almond slivers. and just now i had the rest of my cucumber, sliced, with tomato quarters and lemon-yogurt hummus. and that’s all i’ve eaten since my last post…

pics!

down to the wire August 15, 2008

it’s a good thing i get paid today because i have no food left except some spinach and tomatoes. i used my last english muffin for the pb&j i packed for lunch and i plan to have the aforementioned produce to make my last salad later today, probably after i workout. today i’m going to a new strength training class! i’m excited to add it to the rotation if it’s good because i had been seriously lacking a challenging friday workout.

this morning i made banana oats the usual way. after i served them in the bowl and topped them with the pecans and a handful of h2h, did the dishes and took some laundry out of the dryer while watching the today show so i could give the oatmeal a chance to cool off a little. i always get really eager to eat them and then i burn my tongue. not today!

i also drizzled it with a smidge of sugar-free maple before eating. this breakfast is doing it’s job, i didn’t get any hunger pangs until almost 1 (i ate at around 10). so i had my snack of true north peanut crunches.

they were pretty good but a little too sugary to be a regular snack. and right now i’m about to dip into the pb&j. so i don’t have to make another immediate post i won’t bother taking a picture. consider it logged. *update: i also added a serving of snapea crisps to round out lunch.

craving a balance August 13, 2008

i’ve decided that i definitely need to workout more, even more than i already do, because i just like food too much. i enjoy eating and i’d rather not put so many limitations on what i can and should eat. i like working out and the bottom line is i need to create more time to be active so i can start enjoying my life in a body i can be proud of. what brings this on is the discovery that i don’t have a waist and it’s high time that i get one. now that i’m done philosophizing (sp?) i can present breakfast.

same as yesterday, i started out with half a chopped cantaloupe. only today’s isn’t blurry

and followed it up with 1c. of kashi h2h with pecans and a small chopped banana in 1/2c. of soymilk

i ate at around 830 and started getting hungry again at around 1030 (!!) but i chugged water and staved off the real hunger until just now, 1215-ish.

cold breakfast August 12, 2008

yesterday my body temp was way up and i think it was because i had hot hot oats for breakfast. so today i had half a cantaloupe (that i chopped up last night in my motivational kitchen frenzy)

it had been in the fridge so it was nice and chilly. and blurry, too, apparently. to supplement i had 1 heaping cup of kashi h2h with a dash of apple oh’s and a small sliced banana in 3/4c. of soymilk

i had all that around 830 and exactly 3 hours later at 1130 i had this cherry pie larabar

and i’m trying not to be hungry again ’til 130 because it just seems like a good time to eat lunch. i packed a can of amy’s lentil vegetable soup and some true north pistachio crackers. lentils usually keep me full for a long time so we’ll see what happens because i already ate the only snack i brought.

the tofu experiment August 11, 2008

but first can i just say how crap it is to live on the west coast and have all the results of the olympics ruined for me because espn.com is my homepage? i don’t see anything until 3 hours after everyone on the east coast has already seen it. grrrr.

on the plus side, i’m officially back in the game. i went to spin and pedaled hard after work and i have plans to do the same thing tomorrow. i ate the lunch that i packed for myself and felt satisfied with my food all day and didn’t spend so much as an extra dime. basically, this will be my routine until something (ahem, A NEW JOB) dares to disrupt it. one can only hope…

after working out i wasn’t even hungry right away which is a miracle. i ventured into the kitchen to tackle the tofu but not before i put a load of towels in to wash and cleaned the kitchen a little. by the time i found kath’s bbq tofu recipe and was ready to press the tofu i started to get munchy. of course, the kashi h2h was sitting right in front of me so i dug in for a handful and decided it would taste much better with soymilk, even just a little bit. so i had a mug of h2h as an appetizer

then i pressed the tofu. it was an interesting process because i just ran out of paper towels so i had to use napkins that are substantially thinner (not to mention ones that say ‘happy new year’ on them) to drain the moisture. kath’s recipe called for a heavy cutting board for 20 minutes but i got impatient so i did this

there’s actually blocks of tofu under there

so i waited until 8, not even sure what time i put the blocks under the weight but 8 seemed like the right time to move them to the pan. here they are before i stuck ‘em in the oven

they were pretty juicy and thick which i’m pretty sure is the opposite of what they were supposed to be. but whatever, i wanted dinner so i put them in anyway. while the tofu was baking i poured myself a glass of wine

and sauteed some zucchini and mushrooms in a canola oil blend instead of olive oil because supposedly olive oil isn’t safe to cook with above certain temperatures. since i’m not sure i played it safe and went with the canola for the veggies. i think i went a little overboard on the oil but i drained the excess before i ate them

when i took the tofu out after the prescribed 20 minutes the blocks still looked mushy so i cut each block in half to get 4 pieces and put them back in for another 10 minutes. when i took them out i decided they were done

to prove it, i even ate one. on a toasted english muffin with an extra smear of bbq sauce and some spinach (but i didn’t add the greens ’til after i took the photo)

the verdict: meh. possibly feh. definitey not bad but not life-altering by any stretch of the imagination. pretty decent for my first go round. next time i think i’ll buy extra-firm tofu and actually marinate it after it’s been pressed for longer than 20 minutes. and slice the chunks properly before i put it in the oven the first time. also i’d like to make my own bbq sauce like kath did because the one i used had HFCS! no bueno. i’ll be on the hunt for HFCS-free ketchup…

for dessert i had an uncle eddie’s

and i’m spent. i wonder how long i can stay up watching the olympics before i pass out?