by spiceaholic on July 29, 2010
Well, well, well. Look who finally showed up! 
I hope you guys are all doing well — I have lots of catching up to do in Blogville!
Trying to get back into a routine, for eating, working out, and blogging. It feels good to have a schedule of some sort.
I finally admitted to myself that my breakfast sandwiches aren’t quite the same when I use sandwich thins. They just don’t fill me up as much. So I finally went back to using light english muffins.
Here’s what I packed for lunch in one of my Laptop Lunchboxes:
Leftover grilled chicken, some mojo marinade to use as a sauce, broccoli, and fresh strawberries.
I had some brown rice at work that I heated up with the chicken and broccoli to make a nice and healthy lunch.
For afternoon munchies, I packed a snack-sized bag of Sun Chips, which I forgot to take a picture of, and a Nutrigrain bar.
After work I made myself go to the gym. I’m trying to get back in the habit now before fall tax season gets here. Which is next week — we’re supposed to start working at least 50 hours a week. Suckage.
Dinner was very very simple. I find that when I’m trying to eat healthier, my food tends to be simple. It’s like I choose separate items as opposed to a recipe, if that makes sense.
Baked potato topped with shredded cheese, steamed broccoli, and a chicken andouille sausage.
Not bad and I’m not really in a dessert mood either.
Here’s a Chloe pic to end the night!
She has this obsession with plastic bags and loves licking them. She stuck her head in one to lick it and ended up sticking her head through the holes and made herself a cape. Super Chloe to the rescue!
by spiceaholic on July 12, 2010
I love it when Monday goes well — it seems to set the tone for the week.
Breakfast was a no-brainer:
It makes things so much easier when I have a go-to to-go breakfast!
I made sure lunch was tasty so I wouldn’t be tempted to go out:
These are actually lunch and afternoon snack packed together. I had a sandwich made of turkey, low-fat provolone, Dijon mustard, lettuce, and sourdough. Sun chips and berries to round out lunch.
I packed one of my semi-whole wheat muffins, some lemon curd, and a peach for a snack. I ended up not eating the peach and had some hot Earl Gray tea along with the muffin.
I ended up joining the gym in my building, so I went after work and did about 30 minutes of walking on the treadmill. Yay me! In honor of their first anniversary, the gym is doing some special seminars and stuff and I signed up to go a nutrition one tomorrow.
After I got home I was more than ready for some dinner — thank goodness for leftovers!
Dal, turkey kababs, brown rice, and some spinach. I was really hungry and ended up having some more brown rice and dal.
Considering some dessert, but waiting to see if I really am hungry for it.
Good night!
by spiceaholic on July 12, 2010
I hope everyone had a great weekend! I had one of those awesomely lazy ones — lots of TV watching, some reading, and yes, some cooking.
Something got into me Sunday for sure, because I ended up cooking something for every meal. That’s huge for me, considering I’ve been in a cooking funk for a while.
So I’ve been really into British murder mysteries lately — Agatha Christie, Georgette Heyer, Patricia Wentsworth, and P.D James. I just like curling up with them and immersing myself into the story. Somehow that translated into wanting fresh, warm muffins from the oven, topped with jelly or lemon curd and all washed down with some hot tea — Earl Gray is my favorite. Weird association, right? Well, maybe not — they’re big on tea time and so I guess that makes sense.
Anyway, I decided that I wanted to make some whole-wheat muffins. Just plain muffins, no berries, fruit, etc. I looked through some cookbooks and decided to use one that my mom actually has and that I love flipping through. I eventually ended up buying my own copy, but hadn’t made anything from there until today.
The actual recipe looked like a nice basic one and I tweaked it a little to sub in some whole wheat flour, buttermilk for milk, and applesauce for oil. Unfortunately, I think the baking time and/or temperature was a bit off, since the muffins turned out a bit dry. I took a bite after they were out of the oven and thought I had a flop. But after they cooled off and I had topped one with some sugar-free cherry jelly, things were looking better. I think I will tweak the recipe a bit more until I like it before posting it.
But in the meantime . . .
Lunch was very ambitious for me — I made oven-fried chicken! I took some drumsticks (with skin) and marinated them in buttermilk, hot sauce, and salt and pepper for about an hour. Then I took cornflakes and smashed them into crumbs and then added seasonings — Old Bay, paprika, poultry seasoning, black pepper, some garlic powder. I coated the drumsticks using the “shake and bake” method and popped them in the oven at 425 for a little over 30 minutes.
After all that I cheated and made instant mashed potatoes. And a kind of faux creamed spinach — I steamed some baby spinach and melted a wedge of Laughing Cow cheese into it.
Snack time was another muffin, this time with lemon curd on top — no pic. This set off my lemon tooth, so I had some lemon sugar cookie ice cream after this.
I had some ground turkey in the fridge that needed to be used up, so I took some minced garlic, ginger paste, and some kabab spice mix, mixed it all up, and made oven kababs. While that was baking I made some dal. I got lazy with the rice and just heated up one of those Uncle Ben’s brown rice pouches.
The best part about my cooking spree is that I have muffins and dinner leftovers for the next few days. Yay!
by spiceaholic on July 8, 2010
Well, hello there!
I’m making this quick so I can start my book before bed.
I think you know what I had for breakfast:
I had quite the dilemma-nade about lunch today. I packed the same thing I had yesterday for lunch and was all set to eat it, when all of a sudden, visions of the turkey shwarma sandwich from Kameel’s Cafe began haunting me. Damn, that shwarma is good (shwarma is basically the Middle Eastern equivalent of gyros). But the nasty heat and not wanting to spend money ended up changing my mind. So I had what I brought. And didn’t take a pic. I decided if I still want it tomorrow at lunch time then I’ll get it.
Probably as a result of not eating what I really wanted, I felt snacky throughout the afternoon. I was washing strawberries for my snack when some of my coworkers came in with birthday cake. So I took a small piece.
And then I got hungry again around 5. I remembered I had some Twix left from last week, so I decided to finish it off. Stale Twix is not as good as fresh Twix, must remember that.
After work I made use of my 3-day guest pass at the gym and did the recumbent bike for about 30 minutes. Very convenient, having it downstairs!
For dinner I felt like junky food, so I let Mr. Spice have the leftover Indian food from a couple days ago and I treated myself to some store-brand mac and cheese in a box. With the gooey cheese sauce. I know, fine dining! I mixed a little canned chili into it, but wished I hadn’t. I don’t know why I thought buying this stuff would taste good.
That’s it so far! Almost bedtime.
Here’s another Chloe pic, for those of you who like them. This was taken last night. I am still a little skittish around her, especially when she’s in a pouncy mood. I tend to hide my feet when she’s around, but Mr. Spice explained that I’m making it worse since now she thinks it’s a game when I hide them. So last night I kept my feet on the floor when she came around. She came over, sniffed them, licked them, rubbed her head against them, and then plopped down for a cat nap between them. And then she flipped over and did her weird suspended leg thing and proceeded to nibble on my feet. And then I yelled and hid my feet again.
