Fabulous Saturday

What a lovely day we had yesterday. It had all the fabulous features a Saturday should have: a sweaty yoga class, a little grocery shopping, a run, some down time, dinner with friends and of course, good food. It all started with a bowl of Trader Joe’s High Fiber cereal mixed with Quaker Oat Squares. I topped it off with ground flax seed and dried blueberries. I’ve almost polished off my Costco size bag of dried blueberries and I can’t wait to dip into the mixed dried berries next!

After breakfast and blogging, I went to my yoga class with Doroda. Unlike last time she taught the class, this class was full of sun salutations, vinyasas, challenging poses and sweat. We never made it into shoulder stand but we did give wheel another try. This time we used blocks up against a wall and I actually made it up for a few seconds! I have faith that with more practice, I will be up into it in a few weeks.

Yoga was followed by a quick trip to the grocery store to pick up the ingredients for my entry into this weeks BSI contest. I was oh so excited to make my entry, I started on it as soon as I crossed the threshold of home. I made a spinach and crab quiche that I am going to call crabcake quiche because that is exactly what it tasted like.

Crabcake Quiche

9 inch whole wheat frozen pie crust

3 eggs, divided

1/2 cup mayonnaise

2 tbsp white wheat flour

1/2 cup milk

1/2 cup Parmesan cheese, grated

2.5 oz pepper jack cheese, shredded

3 dashes nutmeg

1/2 cup green onions, chopped

1 cup fresh spinach, chopped

8 oz jumbo lump crabmeat, cooked and picked over for shells

salt and pepper to taste

Instructions:

Preheat oven to 350*. Lightly beat one egg white and brush the pie crust with it. In a large bowl, beat the remaining eggs,  leftover egg white and leftover yolk.  Add in the milk, mayonnaise, flour, nutmeg, salt and pepper and beat until smooth. Add in remaining ingredients except crab and mix well. Finally, add in the crab being careful not to break it up too much. Pour into the prepared pie shell and bake for 45 minutes until it is slightly golden brown and the middle is set.  Serve warm, room temp or cold for breakfast lunch or dinner.

Let me tell you people, this thing was so good. So good in fact that I felt like I could eat the whole thing and savory dishes rarely make me feel that way 😉 I had my slice with a little pile of rooster sauce to give it some serious heat

and to keep from eating the whole thing, I had some carrot sticks and almond butter.

Then for lunch dessert, I had three chocolate covered almonds.

Once we ate lunch, we watched some of the DVR and then headed out for a run in the beautiful sunshine. It went much better than the last time I attempted running outdoors. The weather was much warmer so my lungs did not hurt as much but the hills still proved to be a big challenge. The dear husband was patient and walked with me each time I need to take a walk break. When all was said and done, we covered two miles and it felt good to be in the great outdoors. For an after run snack, I had a small bowl of greek yogurt topped with peaches and creamed honey. If you have never had creamed honey, my suggestion would to be to stop reading this and go buy some NOW.  Well, you can wait until you have finished reading but really, you should get some ASAP 😀 As the name suggests, it is much creamier than regular honey and it leaves my mouth really happy.

Once we were done with snack time and showers, we headed out to Costco to purchase a few items and then headed to dinner at our friends, Sarah and FJ’s, house. Sarah had prepared quite the spread. We started out with mozzarella wrapped in roasted vegetables and perfectly salty black olives.

For the main course, we started with warm yeast rolls topped with rosemary and sea salt

followed by lasagna rolls with pine nuts

white beans with caramelized onions and walnuts

and THE BEST spinach I have ever eaten. In the spinach was basil, garlic and red pepper. I had never thought to add basil to fresh cooked spinach but I will from here on out.

All of the food was fantastic, my friend Sarah likes to spend crazy amounts of hours in the kitchen and her passion for cooking really shines in everything she makes. For dessert, she made poached pears topped with vanilla ice cream and candied pecans. This was my first time having poached pears and I must say, I really liked them. I was nervous that they would taste like the red wine they were poached in but to my delight, they didn’t. They were perfectly sweet with a hint of spice from the cinnamon and nutmeg. yum!

I can’t wait until we are invited over again 🙂

Question: What is your idea of the perfect way to spend a day?

Burning Lungs

For the second day in a row, I woke up late. I got ready as fast as I could, grabbed my cafe au lait and ran out the door. Once I got settled into work, I ordered breakfast from the kitchen again. Another egg and cheese sandwich but boy was it ever good. The Chef really knows his way around a salt and pepper shaker 🙂

Lunch was pretty simple, I asked The Chef for a salad to go along with my PB on sandwich thin. I only got a picture of the salad because I had company in my office for lunch time.

Work went by pretty fast and by the time I got off, I was inspired by the sunny day to try my hand at running outdoors.  It had been a really long time since I ran outdoors but since I am planning to run a 10k in March, I figured no time like the present to get started. I laced up my sneakers and headed outside. My lungs began to hurt from the cold air pretty instantly. I ran for about a mile before calling it quits, my lungs just hurt too bad. I guess I haven’t built up enough lung strength to handle the cold. Anyone have advice in this arena?

After my short run, I came inside and starting coughing like mad. Finally, my lungs felt normal again so I heated up dinner. We had a quick meal because we had to be at Body Pump class and were hoping to get there a little earlier than last week. I made a huge pot of chili over the weekendso I heated that up and served it over blue corn chips. I topped it all off with queso cheese and a dollop of sour cream.

After dinner, we headed to Body Pump to pump some iron. I love Body Pump because it takes the guess work out of lifting weights and for a newbie like me, that is awesome! Once we were home, I had half of an Honest Foods Choco Peanut Butter bar warmed in the microwave.

For those of you that are looking for a new blog to add to your list, check out my friend Brandi’s new blog. Brandi seems to have the balance of food and exercise figured out and I am proud to call her friend.

Chocolate on Bread

I had a long hard emotional day yesterday. Ever since I started the group therapy, my obsession with the scale and my appetite have increased. I experienced the same thing a couple years back when I started seeing my regular therapist. I think what happens is that all of the issues of the past become so “in my face” that I just wanted to push them back down.  Though I am learning new coping skills that don’t involve eating, food is still one of my very best friends. The kind of friend that is there through thick and thin, the kind of friend that has caused heartache as well as the greatest joys.

I started the day on the scale. It showed me a number that I really didn’t like even though it was only slightly higher than the day before. Of course, in all honesty, it was to be expected with my love for chocolate and dessert lately.  After my “weigh in”  I grabbed my cafe au lait and tried to pretend that my battle with scale didn’t exist. I went to work as normal and ate a normal “healthy” breakfast. I had greek yogurt with berries and granola.

Things became tricky around lunch time. I was feeling really wiped out when The Pro offered to pick up lunch from Panera. Feeling depressed and tired, I wanted something comforting. I ordered the tomato and mozzarella panini

with creamy tomato soup. Once it arrived, though it was slightly cool, I devoured it with no regard to how hungry I was.

Feeling stuffed, I wanted some chocolate. I bought this dark chocolate orange bar

at the grocery store over the weekend and it was calling my name. I took one bite and it tasted heavenly. It was then that I saw the leftover baguette.

I had only taken a bite and dipped it into my soup while I was eating lunch but it was calling my name. I wrapped a couple of squares of the chocolate in the bread and proceeded to finish off stuffing what I could down. By then end, I was miserably stuffed. I wanted to cry, even looking back on it now brings tears to my eyes. I got through it by chatting with my friend Sarah on Gmail and for a little while, my negative feelings subsided.

After work, I had a date with the dear husband at the gym; the plan was to run for 40 minutes on the treadmills. I got on the treadmill and started a 5 minute warm-up followed by about 7 minutes of running. I couldn’t do it anymore. My mind wouldn’t let me. I slowed down to a brisk walk and finally made my way back up to running for about 2 minutes. After that, I just didn’t have it in me anymore. I slowed down to a stroll and finished out the 40 minutes. Had the dear husband not been right beside me, I would have bailed after that 7 minutes of running. It felt so frustrating because, lately, running has been a freeing, mind clearing release for me and in those moments, it was mental torture.

We left the gym and came home to make dinner. I made orange peel tempeh from a recipe I found on Sally’s Blog. I made the sauce over the weekend and assembled it all last night over brown rice. It was way too spicy, I ended up not measuring the rooster sauce and over did it big time. I could only eat a couple of bites before calling it quits. The dear husband was a trooper and finished off his serving.

I was still hungry. I decided that the safest thing for me to have was popcorn. I air popped a batch and we headed upstairs to watch Brothers and Sisters on the computer. We normally DVR it but for some reason, it didn’t record this week. Once the show was over, I found some leftover chocolate covered sunflower seeds from our wedding and proceeded to dive in.

At the same time, I grabbed my copy of Eating in the Light of the Moon and sat down. Thankfully, reading the stories calmed me down. Enough so that I only ate a couple of tablespoons of the seeds. It felt good to finally stop eating but I am still ravaged with the shame of it. I know that doing this therapy is the right thing, if I don’t face all of “my stuff” I will continue to reach for “my log” for the rest of my life. In the end, it isn’t about the food and my only way to recovery is through it.

So Much to Do, So Little Time

Happy Monday, Bloggies!!

My weekend was exhausting, I think I was a little over ambitious about the things I wanted to get done. I woke up yesterday and enjoyed a cafe au lait while blogging/blog reading and then when the dear husband woke up, I made breakfast. We had a repeat of last Sunday, I made poached eggs in the microwave and put them on top of english muffins and a little cheese. This was the last of our english muffin stock so I will miss this breakfast!

After breakfast, I got started on my really long to do list, I had a lot of food prep to do for the week including cooking beans, chopping veggies, making chili, draining tofu, making sauces, the list seemed endless. In addition to all of the food prep, we had laundry and other preparations for the week ahead. Once I had all of the food prep done, we went upstairs for a quick workout before lunch. I did a 30 minute walk run with incline interval workout on the treadmill while the dear husband rode the recumbent bike.

After our cardio, I made lunch. I made baked tofu BBQ sandwiches; a favorite combo in our house. I normally do this on pizza crust but with my new obsession with sandwich thins, I thought we would give that a try. I drained the tofu, the coated it in olive oil, salt, garlic powder and onion powder and finally baked it for about 40 minutes. While it was baking, I caramelized some onions with balsamic vinegar. Once I had all the part made,  I assembled the sandwiches. On the sandwich thin, I layered the baked tofu, jack cheese, BBQ sauce and the onions. What a great combo, next time, I will add some pickles.

On the side, we had orange quarters from an orange that I removed the skin from in my food prep.

I also made us caramel lattes but ended up giving mine to the dear husband.

Once lunch was done, we rushed off the meet my friend Becky at the gym for Body Pump. It was an awesome class and I can already tell that I am getting stronger. Once we were finished pumping iron, we split this protein bar on the ride home. We both really enjoyed the flavor, I think I commented at least twice that it was like a candy bar. It did not have that protein bar texture that neither of us like so these will go on our next shopping list for sure.

Once home, we had to finish up the laundry and shower. Finally, we were *basically* done and sat down for an easy peasy dinner. I had a more elaborate dinner planned but I was just too tired to make it happen. We had buffalo mozzarella pizza topped with fresh basil

with steamed artichoke hearts on the side. I topped the artichoke hearts with garlic, olive oil, sea salt and parmesan cheese. This dinner was really good, especially given that it was so easy.

For dessert, we had warm chocolate pudding the escaped the camera. At that point, I was so tired, I wanted to cry. Needless to say, shortly after, I was in dreamland.

What do you do to relax when the time that is supposed to be your down time is too busy?