Hi All – Wow, that was an unexpected break from the blog… it’s good to be back. Monday was my first day back to work after the mini-vacation… I’m sort of happy with the way the day went. I was fully prepared food-wise, which always makes my day at work easier!
Breakfast was a summer combo of berries, Greek yogurt and granola:
FYI all – this week Shaws has berries on sale for 2/$5 – not a bad deal. I bought blackberries and strawberries… so good! I used half of a container of Chobani to mix in with the berries (that’s about 60 calories) and then a handful of my Mix My Granola. [FYI for those of you who are thinking about mixing your own granola, I think the next time I make my own, I will take out the chai seeds because they are small and can get stuck in my teeth and I will do hemp seeds instead for the added protein!]
I did not have lunch until 1pm so at 10:45 I had my snack of walnuts and semi-sweet chocolate chips:
Before lunch I enjoyed the summer like weather with two of my friends and took a great 30 minute walk outside. It was close to perfect out on Monday.
Lunch was great – a [low sodium] turkey sandwich with green lettuce and dijon mustard on Great Harvest honey wheat bread. Yum!
I don’t know about you – but there are certain things that really make a regular sandwich awesome. Here are a couple of things:
- Awesome bread or wrap material
- Fresh LETTUCE – I cannot say enough about how great it is to have added crunch to your sando!
- Tomato
- Red Onion
- Pickles (I love them!)
- A good mustard!
Today I had three out of the six ideas above. It really helped. The sandwich was the only thing I needed for lunch on Monday. At 4:30 I had my afternoon snack, because I was staying at work until after 6pm. The snack was the other half of the Chobani and berries… and a sprinkle of granola left over from breakfast:
This snack really helped me get through the rest of my work day and the first hour at home. When I finally got home around 6:45 I had a handful of whole grain Sun Chips (thanks Ben!) and then Ben and I went for a walk with the football and ended up at our neighborhood park where we tossed the Nerf football around for a few minutes. I am so happy for this lovely spring like weather – it is so much fun to enjoy outdoor activities!
After getting home from the park, I started dinner. I cooked chicken tenders in one of our large pans with olive oil (2 tablespoons or less) the juice of half a lemon, later a teaspoon of Earth Balance, ground black pepper, garlic powder (we were out of fresh garlic – boooo!), onion powder and basil. This was just something I threw together and it came out really well!
Along with the chicken we had quinoa with red pepper diced up and cooked together. This was the first time I cooked quinoa – and I’m so happy that I liked it so much! I loved the idea that I got from the Trader Joe’s box of dicing up red pepper and letting the quinoa and red pepper cook together in the water – at the end the quinoa was ready to eat and the red pepper was perfectly cooked. An FYI – Trader Joe’s recommended cooking an entire cup of quinoa with two cups of water… I knew that this stuff really cooked up in volume, so I made only half a cup with one cup of water and we had a lot left over (and I had seconds!) so just beware that 1/2 a cup probably makes four servings! the next time I try quinoa, I might make it with a low sodium chicken broth to make it a little more flavorful… this time around the red pepper really helped, along with the garlic powder I added.
Along with these two dishes, I made a regular veggie salad. (Much needed color added to our meal!) Here is what it all ended up looking like:
That about wraps up the day. I’ve been really hungry this week – and after dinner last night I snacked on a handful of semi-sweet chocolate chips. 🙂
See you all soon!
Sugar and Spice 