Hi there blog readers – Happy Sunday to you all! This week and weekend has gone by so quickly. This weekend I have spent a good amount of time in the kitchen making healthy food, and it is nice to know that I will be able to start my week off in a healthy way because of all of the work in the kitchen.

I made an interesting discovery about my eating habits thanks to the wonderful app My Fitness Pal. When you enter everything in to My Fitness Pal, as I do on most days every day for the last month!) you can get a complete read out on all of the nutrients you consume on any given day. Last weekend I was looking at the vitamins and minerals I was eating and what I was supposed to be consuming and came to a rather alarming discovery – I was never getting anywhere near the correct amount of Iron in my diet. I quickly wondered if this was why I was often tired or feeling run down. (Of course the other reason might be that I get up so early in the morning and can never quite fall asleep as early as I want to the night before.) On my weekend trip to Target, I started reading every label of food I ate to see how much iron was in everything. I made some choices on that trip to incorporate more iron into my diet. I bought a box of Blueberry Bliss Luna Bars (40% of iron in one bar) and Special K (45% of iron in one cup of cereal). I also treated myself to a box of one of my favorite ‘healthy’ desserts – vita top muffins! Lots of iron in one of those, too. This week I have been looking at my amount of iron, and I’m definitely getting closer to what I should be eating. I hope if I eventually start getting the correct amount of iron in my diet that it might improve my energy levels.

… So, I started writing this post three days ago!! But let’s see if we can jump right back into what I was going to tell you about 🙂

On Friday night I hung out with one of my best friends for one of our annual “we need to catch up” dinners. Normally when we get together for these dinners we go out – mostly to Not Your Average Joe’s or one of the two locally owned Mexican restaurants by our houses. But we are both trying to be really good about what we eat, so I offered to host our dinner and I made us healthy burritos. I used the random crock pot chicken that I made on our Wednesday snow day last week for the base of our burrito. We each used half of a Joseph’s lavash roll up, 1/3 C brown rice, a cup of spinach, the chicken, crushed tomatoes and a sprinkle of cheese for our burritos. They were great and satisfying. I drank a lot of tea while we talked. I also snacked on some Trader Joe’s reduced guilt popcorn – I love this stuff, a little goes a long way!

On Saturday I weighed in and was thrilled to see that I have lost a total of two and a half pounds so far. I’m so pleased with this steady progress. I had my Special K and fruit with milk for breakfast along with a cup of coffee. Soon after breakfast I changed and headed out for the gym. I cannot wait to be able to run outside again!! At the gym I did the elliptical machine and weights. Then I ran over to the grocery store for fresh produce and shrimp. I already had an idea what I wanted to make for dinner!

Dinner on Saturday was my version of “healthy” take out. In my mind I was eating dinner from my favorite Thai restaurant. It was a vegetable stir fry with shrimp and couscous. (Yes, I shelled and deveined all of the shrimp myself.) The final product:

This dinner was so good and I loved watching the Olympics while I ate this. The vegetables really added volume to my dinner which is always really helpful!

On Saturday I picked up all of the ingredients to make a new recipe that one of my friends told me about. I am so thankful to my friend Sara for sharing this Turkey meatloaf recipe with me – it is definitely one of my new favorite things and will be on my menu quite a lot from now on! Here is the recipe:

(adapted from the Weight Watchers website – for the original recipe, click here.)

Turkey, Zucchini, Quinoa & Sage Meatloaf

Ingredients:

2 egg whites

1/2 cup chili sauce (I used sriracha!)

1/2 a medium onion, finely chopped

1 medium uncooked zucchini

1/2 C uncooked red quinoa, rinsed

1 Tablespoon fresh sage, chopped

1/2 tsp kosher salt (I used less)

1/2 tsp freshly ground pepper

1 pound lean turkey (I used 99% lean)

1 tsp mustard (I used a spicy mustard)

Directions:

Cook the red quinoa according to its directions (make sure to rinse!) Fluff the quinoa with a fork once it has finished cooking. Let it cool slightly

Preheat oven to 425 degrees.

Line a large cookie sheet with aluminum foil, spray foil with cooking spray.

Sherd zucchini (I used my new Kitchen Aid box grater which worked really well!)

Squeeze the zucchini dry with paper towels and place in a large bowl. Add egg whites, 1/4 C sriracha, onion, sage, salt and pepper. Add the turkey and quinoa and mix well.

Shape the mixture into individual meatloaves (I just LOVE that these are individual portions!) measuring about 4 inches x 2 1/2 inches. I made eight loaves – but the recipes says you will make about six. Place ovals onto the treated cookie sheets.

Stir together the remaining 1/4 C sriracha or other chili sauce with the mustard. Spread over each of the loaves. Bake until meat thermometer registers at least 165 degrees. 30 – 35 minutes.

(I cooked my loaves for 30 minutes and they registered at about 180 degrees – they still tasted delicious!)

The final product was extremely popular and I have already been asked to make this recipe again! Fantastic – I highly recommend making these today!

Well, that about wraps it up today! We are in the midst of yet another snow storm right now. This winter is really a bit crazy. I cannot wait for spring 🙂