Rabbit Food

Tonight when I made dinner I thought of all the ingredients, measured them out and when everything was ready, I threw it all together.  It turned out looking a little like rabbit food or some strange vegan meal you see in the movies.  So what did I do? I went with it. I was originally going to eat this couscous salad by itself but since it already looked so "earthy-crunchy" I chose to take it a step further. Lettuce wraps!

Since I'm on my new calorie kick they're included too!

-1/3 cup cooked white pearl couscous (the cooking directions include adding butter and salt when simmering but I just left out all of that): 166 cals
-1 inch cube of feta cheese crumbled: 35 cals
-1/4 craisins: 130 cals
-1 thin sliced chicken breast (cooked plain on a skillet with no spices): 250 cals
-1 Tbs olive oil and vinegar dressing: 75 cals
-5 garlic and cheese croutons from whole foods (the 365 kind): 35 cals
-about a handful of alfalfa sprouts: 5 cals cals
-as much lettuce as you want! (each leaf of lettuce is only one calorie)

I measured all the ingredients, cooked the chicken, sliced it and placed it in the fridge in a bowl with all the other ingredients minus the couscous and salad dressing.  I cooked the couscous and placed it in it's own bowl to cool in the fridge for about 15 minutes. Once everything was cooled down, I placed all the ingredients in a bowl and tossed it with the salad dressing.  The salad dressing gave it enough flavor that I didn't need any salt or other seasoning.  Plus the feta and craisins carry enough flavor of their own!  I spooned out servings into some pieces of lettuce, rolled 'em up and chowed down!

*The iphone camera has definitely got a mind of it's own- looks like I'll have to start using my fancy camera. Just look at the top photo- it does enough

Maryland Inspired

This past weekend I went to one of my favorite cities: Annapolis, MD. My family and I went to get some crabs! In Maryland, a crab feast includes crabs covered in Old Bay seasoning and served with vinegar and Old Bay for dipping. It is one of the greatest things you will ever eat. Stop reading right now and book a trip to Maryland, it's the best.

From my amazing meal of Old Bay, I needed some of that back here at school. What did I make?

-thin sliced chicken breast: 250 calories
-1 tbs Old Bay rubbed on chicken breast: ZERO cals
-1 cup Uncle Ben's brown rice: 110 calories
-steamed broccoli: 55 calories

Heat a skillet and cook the chicken (with rub on both sides) 3-4 minutes each side. Steam the broccoli for about 9-10 minutes. The chicken has enough flavor that you don't need to salt the broccoli or the rice!

Rice CAN Go in Salads

So I ran another half marathon and took a good two weeks off afterwards.  I continued to eat the same way I was eating when I was running 20 or so miles a week. Tons of calories+no run= rapid weight gain. I haven't changed sizes but it's just something you can notice. The hands have a little more to rest on on the hips these past few weeks. So what did I do? No need to diet or anything! I just decided it was time to get myself back into my 6 days a week workout routine and I also did something else... I decided to start counting my calories for the first time. I downloaded the "livestrong" app and got to work. It has calorie inputs for breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacks as well as exercise and water intake. I especially like the water intake because it reminds me to keep drinking- as a nursing student that's always on the radar- we don't need no hypovolemia!

For each meal, I search what I have eaten or manually put in the calories if I have the packaging. It keeps track of my intake for the day, letting me know how many more calories I could eat. When I exercise, I can put that in and it gives me back some calories to eat-BONUS- more food!

So what's with the title?

I had about 800 calories left for dinner (and dessert of course) this evening. So what did I have, you ask?...

THIS GLORIOUS SALAD!

2 cup red leaf lettuce: 8 calories
1 cup left over Uncle Ben's brown rice:110 calories [yes, rice can go in salads: it's delicious-try it]
1/2 cup cherry tomatoes: 14 calories
1 Tbs grated parm cheese: 22 calories
1 Tbs olive oil and vinegar salad dressing: 75 calories
1 applewood chicken and turkey sausage- feta and spinach flavor: 120 calories

Total Calories: 349

I've got 370 left for a kick ass dessert!

Somewhat Dip

So I decided I wanted to make a little something to go along with my blue corn chips. Since I'm not going to the store until next week, I had a few things to add in! Just get creative, you can make something awesome.

You Could Call it Dip
-1 package of single serve frozen corn, cooked
-2 pieces of sun-dried tomatoes chopped
-2 stalks celery chopped
-1 cup black beans drained and washed
-2 Tbs caesar dressing
-Mix- Enjoy!

Meat-free AND Gluten-free

Tonight I had a little "clean out the fridge" dinner since I'm heading out of town this weekend. Not much cooking involved but here's the menu! Bonus- it was both vegetarian and celiac-friendly!!!

Burger:
-Garden veggie burger
-sliced avocado
-cabot extra sharp cheddar

-mustard

Spinach:
-steamed quickly on the stove in about 1 Tbs butter, spinach cooks fast so make sure you watch it and are continuously stirring!























Sweet potato fries

Sliced mini pickles

Tuna Salad

Every time I make tuna salad it's different depending on what I have. I love to follow recipes but theres a few things I always get creative with. One of those is tuna salad. Ever since I had a babysitter add grapes into the tuna salad, I can't just have it plain.

This time I had a big salad topped with my very own tuna salad for dinner. I covered a plate with red-leaf lettuce, cut up a tomato and topped it with tuna salad. I ended up throwing some sun-dried tomatoes on top because they are just so salty and tart, I couldn't resist when I saw them.

Tuna Salad:
-1 can of tuna in water, drained
-2 tbs mayonnaise
-2 tbs caesar dressing
-3 mini pickles chopped
-1 stalk of celery chopped
 Mix and enjoy!

I had this light summary dinner with a cold magic hat #9 (my favorite beer)

Carbo Load

So I'm trying to be gluten free but when I get stressed, all I want is some pasta.  It's my favorite food in this entire world (ice cream doesn't count as food in my book). I love every single kind of pasta and it can be prepared in any way, I'll eat it.

The night before my most recent test I got creative and made some tomato based mac and cheese! I cooked some pasta, threw it back in the pot added about a cup of mozzarella cheese and 1/2 tomato sauce. I kept the stove on low so that the cheese fully melted from the heat of the pot and the warm pasta.  It turned into a delightfully gooey mess! I made a ton of pasta but instead of splitting it into portions, I threw it all in a massive bowl and ate til I was full. Stress eating? I'm good at it.

Taco Night

So I had this big night planned to invite some friends over for a taco night. With people unable to come and a few people showing up, I unfortunately was the only one who was hungry. Benefit? I got to eat as much as I wanted. For those of you who know me well, being told I can eat to my heart's content is the greatest thing.

What did taco night consist of?
-Heated corn tortillas
-bean dip
-taco cheese
-mexican rice
-olives
-avocado
-salsa
-chicken

This was one of my favorite things to do in college. It was such an easy dinner to make and invite some friends to share with!

Obviously I didn't have just three that night. The shells were a little hard to roll up but you can always eat them with a fork and knife! My friends may not have been hungry that night but I sure think I won even if I over did it on the calories 

Breakfast Tacos

In college I went to a horse race every year with a big group of my sorority sisters.  It was mostly just another chance for us to get drunk in dresses. Guess what? people do that post grad too. Steeple Chase was quite the experience. I was a little surprised by the near comparison to the undergrad days but it was a blast as promised.

Before the big day of drinking I needed something hardy to avoid drunken embarrassment. Solution? Breakfast tacos.

I made some scrambled eggs with milk and taco cheese. I placed them on top of corn tortillas and topped it off with some pace salsa.

You can always add other "mexican-like" things to your eggs. Black beans, avocado, peppers, extra cheese. All are great. Get creative and eat!

The Most Epic Sandwich

The other day I was headed to the library and knew I needed something to keep me full during my studying. In college our library was open every morning around 8, even on the weekends.  I study in the biomedical library but I am far enough south that on Sundays not even the biomed library opens until noon. I was in the 11:00 am transition between breakfast and lunch. So what did I make? A brunch sandwich.

I have really gotten into putting overeasy eggs on just about anything. I had a french baguette from whole foods that I needed to finish up and an avocado that was about to go bad. You can really put anything on a sandwich and it's guaranteed to be delicious.

The most epic sandwich: sprouts, dijon mustard, costwald cheese, salami, avocado and an egg.

Just look. It tasted even better.

Power Salad

Not much to this one! Just a good picture of a great salad.  I really prefer to throw anything and everything in a salad. I had recently gone to the store so I had lots of yummy things to add in! Try mixing things that you would never think to put in a salad.  One of my favorite things to do is go to whole foods and make my own salad for dinner. I usually put about a handful of lettuce in and the typical salad fixings (uncooked veggies, sunflower seeds, craisins, hard boiled egg) and then I head over to the mixed salad bar where they have various prepared pasta salads and veggie salads.  I find something that looks good and throw it in.  I don't usually think most about how things will taste together when I make a salad because once you add the dressing you create commonality between all the flavors. Get creative and eat!

Gluten Free Pizza

I recently went home for a semester break and found that I may or may not have Celiac's disease.  Turns out I don't have the antibodies but that doesn't rule out the disease.  I have been trying to live a gluten free life but I just love gluten too much. I definitely feel better with a gluten free diet but I can't give up pizza, beer and pasta.

When I got back from break however, I bought a bunch of things that were gluten free, one of which was corn tortillas shells.  We use these at home when we have tacos for dinner. They are fairly small compared to your normal tortilla. I used them in a bunch of different ways.

Today for lunch I made mini pizzas!

I put about a tablespoon of tomato sauce on each, covered it in mozz. cheese and baked for about 10 minutes on 350. They came out of the oven looking delicious but kind of boring so I opened up the fridge and found sundried tomatoes. I topped the pizza with cut sundried tomatoes and about 1/2 tbs of grated parm cheese. Besides inhaling a little bit of grated cheese, lunch was fantastic today!