Goodbye..

According to the Google Analytics.. no one reads this blog.  So I'm discontinuing it.  If you read it please let me know.. maybe something is wrong with the analytics?

Thanks!

A walk in the park

Today I decided to do something I had planned on doing 9 months ago when I moved into my current apartment near Columbia University on the Upper West Side --  walk home from work.

I work near Grand Central, so it's actually quite the hike.  Not very hilly, but pretty long - a little over 4.5 miles.  It took me about an hour and a half without stopping.  It was nice until it got to be dark out.  So I recommend to any who try this..leave work a little early so that when it's officially dark out, you still don't have 20 blocks to go.

It's definitely helpful though that the Central Park lampposts have the street numbers on them!

But one thing that bothered me.. where are all the water fountains?  If I had been running and was without a water bottle like so many people I saw, how do they stay hydrated?  I was thirsty by the end, and I was only walking!

After I got home I had worked up a bit of an appetite which was great since I hadn't been hungry at all when I left work.  I stopped at the grocery store on my way home and grabbed a spinach bunch and some of my favorite noodles: tofu shirataki!

I love this stuff!  It doesn't have a ton of nutritional value, but it's SUPER low in calories and carbs.  I stirfried it up with:

* torn spinach
* shrimp (frozen from the bag - gotta love trader joes!)
* smart balance
* 1 garlic clove
* SoyVay hoisin sauce

 

It was a little light on the sauce in the end, but definetely low in calories.

I wanted to finish off the meal with something sweet, so I sliced up a nectarine, drizzled it with a little bit of honey, and put it in a 375 degree oven for 10 minutes.

 

When it came out I drizzled it with some sugar free chocolate sauce.

  

I felt so good about the way the plate looked so I tried taking close up shots as well.. Didn't work. Oh well :o)

Happy Labor Day!

Holiday weekends are always good, especially when you have no obligations or strict plans in place.  I spent Saturday at the beach for most of the day, and hung out with some family members who were in town.  Then I spent most of Sunday lounging around my apartment, watching Sex and the City.  Today, Monday, I did some shopping in the morning and then did a picnic in the park with some friends.

The weather for the beach on Saturday was surprisingly good, barely hit 80 and the water was warm!

For our picnic today, I decided to make a new recipe from my other brand new cookbook, Williams Sonoma Food Made Fast: Baking.

I decided to make the lemon raspberry muffins, but with a few twists -- replace half of the flour with whole wheat, and make them mini so that overeating was less common.

I had never made muffins before, but they seem pretty similar to cake in their prep.

 

After mixing all of the ingredients together, I spooned the batter into my mini muffin tin and adjusted the baking time to be about 8 minutes instead of 15.  

 

They came out pretty well I do say myself!

 

 

Today I am also making a banana bread to use up some old, rotting bananas. It's a family recipe, so I can't share it, but it is delicious!!  (Especially when you add chocolate chips :) ).

Saturdays are happy days

I love love love Saturdays.  I usually lie in bed all morning watching tv, workout, then hang out with friends.  Nothing is on a schedule.

Today is Friday -- but since I didn't have work it totally felt like a Saturday.  So I treated it like one!  I layed in bed all morning watching Sex and the City.  Then when I would have usually worked I figured.. it's Friday!  I don't have to work out today :P  I will go tomorrow, as Saturday's always call for.  I worked out 3 times this week, which isn't a lot, but is enough to satisfy me for now.

I have plans to go out shopping tonight at 7pm, so when it came time to have lunch, I waited til a bit later and had a linner.  (Lunch + Dinner = Linner)

 

Delivery is an NYC tradition, so I ordered a lunch portion of vegetarian pad thai with steamed tofu and a side of steamed dumplings.  For $8 it was a bargain!

I put half of each dish on a plate and had a small but satisfying lunch.

 

The rest of the leftovers are going to be eaten right before I go out.

I love ready made food (especially when it doesn't come out of the freezer).

What's your favorite take out indulgence?

Light and smoky

Tonight I wasn't able to find what I wanted for dinner at the grocery store, so it was back home to scrounge something up.  I had some lox and goat cheese to use up (two of my favorite foods, emphasis on the goat cheese) so I decided to go with something simple and small.

I smothered a whole wheat English muffin with the goat cheese and topped it with the smoked salmon.  It was yummy, although I'm glad I ate the lox since a day longer and it probably wouldn't have been ok..

I ended the day with a nice sized bowl of Ben and Jerry's Half Baked Froyo.

Busy busy busy

I have been super, duper, crazy busy.  Between work having long hours this week and having plans almost every night after work, I haven't had much time to post.

Fear not!  I am back :)

And I've been pretty well behaved the past few days (although I forgot my camera for most of it..)

Tuesday night I made a salmon steak marinated in white wine, soy sauce, brown sugar, and lemon juice.  I served it with SoyVay hoisin marinade as a dipping sauce (which is by far one of my most favorite dipping/marinade/baste sauces ever).

I brought the leftovers of the salmon to work on Wednesday, along with the last of my barley salad.

I do have something to confess though... I didn't really have dinner last night.  I knew I would be out late, so on my way from work to the event, I grabbed a 4-piece McNuggets.. which certainly isn't good for you, nor is it a whole meal.  But I'm not going to lie to you about it!

Today for lunch I was MUCH better and had a wrap from Pump with baked tofu, tomatoes, mushrooms, broccoli, lettuce, cucumbers, cheddar cheese, and light honey mustard.

And now here we are at dinner time..it's just after 9:00pm, I'm fresh home from work and I'm feeling too tired to cook a damn thing.  I think I'm going to go to the grocery store and see if they have the Kashi Mayan Bake that I've heard so many rave reviews about :)

I will be better this weekend I promise; especially since I don't go back to work until Tuesday!

Happy weekend :)

Vegetarian for a day

It hasn't been intentional, but I've only eaten vegetarian the last day or so. 

I was running late this morning, so breakfast was packed up to be eaten at work.

 

-plain fat free yogurt

- blueberries

- kashi go lean crunch

- all bran buds

Simple, healthy and quick.

Last night I had some of the barley salad I made this weekend with some baked tofu; and that's what I have for lunch today as well.

It was super easy thing to pull together.  The barley salad lasts awhile and will be part of my dinner tonight as well.  It had red and green bell peppers and black olives, mixed with a dressing of rice wine vinegar, red wine, cilantro, mustard and rosemary.

For the tofu I simply sliced a package of firm tofu and pressed the slices with paper towels to remove some of the water.  I spread some hoison sauce on the top for flavor, and put the slices in a 400 degree oven for 30 minutes. 

Voila.

Today after work I plan on going to the gym and doing a similar treadmill/weight training workout like I did last weekend.  

Tin of tidbits

* Want a great way to feel like you're having a lot of ice cream, but be healthy instead?  Instead of topping your ice cream (do froyo!) with fruit, layer the fruit on the bottom of the bowl then top it with ice cream. It will allow the ice cream to drip onto the fruit to give it a yummy creaminess, but it will look like you have a lot of ice cream.  Thanks Meghann!

* Do you want to discover some more foodie blogs?  Then check out this great compilation pulled together by Google Reader  of what blogs some power bloggers read

* Get a free sample of yummy Kashi cereals: http://www.kashi.com/surprise

Got a great tidbit you want to share?  Leave me a comment below.

Lazy lunch

Last night I didn't really do very much planning ahead.. so today I had to buy lunch at work.  I wasn't particularly hungry, so I decided to just grab something light from Pret a Manger.  I love the Pret philosophy, that everything is fresh and made that day.

Today I decided to go for a cup of gazpacho and a half sandwich of apples, chicken and cranberries.

 

 The gazpacho was pretty good (once I added s&p). The sandwhich, while not completely great, totally worked for today.  It actually had some seasoning in it which is always a welcome surprise from a chain.  All in all a pretty decent, healthful lunch.

I haven't worked out since that run on Friday, so I'm hoping to get to the gym tonight.  We shall see!

Barley and me

Growing up, my grains consisted of only 2 things -- pasta (usually whole wheat) and rice.  My family rarely made ventures into anything else.  I wasn't totally oblivious to other things, and we occasionally had things like couscous, but all in all.. that was it. 

So today I decided to broaden my horizons, and bought my first ever bag of barley.  When it comes to cooking grains I'm usually fine with it, but barley scared me a bit because of its similarity (physically, anyway) to rice.  I have had AWFUL experiences making rice.  I don't think I've ever once made it without their either being too much or too little water.  It always comes out somewhat burned, somewhat undercooked, or both.  And the worst part is I always follow the directions to a T!  I guess it's just not meant to be..

So when I read the cooking instructions for barley and they seemed eerily similar, you can see how I would be worried.  Luckily.. this worry was unnecessary.  I followed the directions on the package, and just halved the entire thing.  I would have thought that it would take only a few minutes less than cooking the full serving.. but (to my astonishment) it took a full 20 minutes less.  I'm glad I checked on it when I did!

The barley came out great, not overdone but certainly not underdone.  Al dente; just right.  I then made a sort of salad with it from a recently purchased cookbook, Favorite Brand Name Vegetarian Cooking.

 

I would usually never consider getting a cookbook that endorses certain brands in its recipes but hey.. I got it on sale for $6.99 so I figured what the hell?

The book is actually pretty dense, with everything from appetizers to casseroles.  I'm not vegetarian, but I do lean towards it, and often cook with tofu as a welcome meat replacement.

The dish I made today was a barley salad, with a mustard/vinegar/orange/cilantro dressing (which was actually quite yummy) and diced bell peppers and black olives.  I only had a small serving of this today as a snack, but tomorrow it is going to be a main part of my dinner so hopefully I will get a picture of it then.

Off to bed!  I have a 4 day week because of the holiday.. which should be good, but really means I need to cram 5 days of work into 4...oh well, it will work out it always does.

Night!

Not scared of needles

In a totally unrelated post.. I got my first 'real' piercing today!  I have 2 holes in my earlobes, nothing crazy, done at the mall. However I had decided that I wanted one more -- something bad-ass, but that wasn't permanent or too noticeable. I am by no means punk or anything like that, this was just something I always wanted to do.  You only live once!

I really like it!

Exotic fruit

Whenever I'm at the grocery store, I'm always drawn to the food that I've never seen (or eaten) before.  The ugli fruit, the cactus pears, the lychees.  Today was one of those days.  I bought 5 lychees and decided to eat them with my usual breakfast.  Today's version of that was fat free yogurt, Kashi Go-Lean Crunch, and All Bran Buds.  It had all the crunch I craved, although since I was out of fruit to top it with (I usually go with strawberries and blueberries) it was missing that extra sweetness and color.  Still yummy though!

 

 

The lychees were a different experience for me.  I had never eaten them before so I looked up online just to make sure.

1. Peel the skin off with your nail (or a knife) but be careful not to pierce the fruit.

2. Eat the fruit off the pit, but not the pit since it is slightly poisonous.

Seemed simple enough.  The fruit tasted interesting.  I've had lychee infused desserts before, but never something that was solely lychee.  Maybe I didn't pick these at the prime of freshness, but they tasted somewhat sour to me.  The texture was also interesting; similar to a grape but more stringy (not in a bad way).

I don't know if I'll ever buy them again, but I'm glad I tried them!

Viva Mexico!

Yesterday was my kind of day.  Despite the dreary rain, I made it to the gym and had a dinner party with friends!

Thanks to my mid-morning snacks yesterday, when I got home from work at 2:30pm, I wasn't hungry.  So off to the gym I went!  And I got in a pretty decent workout, at least for me.

Treadmill: walk 4 minutes, run 9 minutes, walk 3 minutes, run 7 minutes, walk 7 minutes at an incline. I don't usually run very often at the gym - I'm an elliptical girl - so this for me was plenty of cardio.
I did some weight-training too though; a good 25 minutes of it.  Lots of different crunches, inner- and outer-thighs, assisted pull-ups and dips, hamstrings, quads, etc.  I usually do all of my weight training on machines (ie not free weights) and yesterday was no exception.

I'm a bit sore from this workout today, but not so bad to prevent me from going to the gym again, so we will see what the day holds!

Our dinner party last night was really fun too.  A few girlfriends and I decided to do Mexican night (which isn't exactly my favorite) but it turned out really well!  My friend J made guacamole and salsa for the appetizers.  Then it was onto the main course where my friend V made (from scratch!) beef taquitos and a bean and cheese casserole. 

 

These dishes were super yummy and since nothing was fried.. well they could have been healthier, but they weren't awful.

We rounded off the meal with the dessert I made (tortillas stuffed with banana bread filling and chocolate chips) which was only Mexican because I made it in the shape of a burrito :).  In my attempts for healthy.. I used whole wheat tortillas and served it with light ice cream.

We had the whole meal with Mojitos, which are one of my all-time favorite cocktails and are really easy to make!  See below for a recipe similar to what we did, although I eyeballed all the amounts and it came out great!

Vodka Mojito
Ingredients:
2 oz Smirnoff 21 Vodka
3 Fresh Mint Sprigs
2 tbsp Sugar
3 tbsp Fresh Lime Juice
Soda water

How to prepare it: Muddle the mint, sugar and lime juice in a collins glass. Fill it with ice, add vodka and top it with soda. Shake or mix the drink; garnish it with a lime wedge.

Do you have good healthy Mexican recipes you want to share?  Leave a comment below!

My thoughts on snacks

I am a fan of snacking. If I could, I would do it all the time. That said..I don't. But I do plan in 2-3 snacks per day so that I'm never ravenous at meals. Usually I have one mid-morning, and then 1-2 between lunch and dinner.

Today is a half day at work, so I won't be getting lunch til 3 or so. Because of that, I had 2 mid-morning snacks. Dried mango from Trader Joe's (always a favorite).

 

And Snapea crisps (which I portion out into baggies so I can't wolf down the whole delicious bag)

 

 OK, back to work.  Gotta get out of here on time!

The good, the bad and the ugly

So last night I fell into a bit of a trap... Thai is by far my favorite food 'genre', but it generally isn't good for you. And when I actually go for my favorite dishes, well.. it's never good for me. Last night I had pad see ew with fresh tofu. I guess I should know better than to go out to dinner write after deciding to eat healthy but hey you do what you have to when it comes to friends.

The dish was great (and I felt good about getting my tofu not fried) but while it's not awful in terms of calories for a large dinner (600) it doesn't fit into my needs.

Here's a general guide of what I usually eat and why:

1. I try (though not always successfully) to top load my calories. That means taking in more in the morning and less in the afternoon. This allows my body to burn off more of it since (theoretically) I will be active later in the day.
2. Breakfast is almost invariably fat free plain yogurt with some some of fruit and fiber-rich cereal. This always makes me feel like I am starting my day right, even if I ruin it later on..
3. Lunch tends to be leftovers from dinner, or a salad. I'll get more into these in the coming posts.
4. Since trying the South Beach diet about 6 months ago I try to avoid all bad-for-you carbs.. this includes pasta, white rice, instant oatmeal, etc. This is tough though since two of my favorite meals are macaroni and cheese and pad thai. I try though.

From now on, I am going to try to be even more adamant about the above. I may even go back to South Beach since I have gained back all of the weight I lost on it and then some. (Note: this is because I didn't do the second half of the diet properly, not because it doesn't work. It did for me until I fell out of it.)

Last thing. I also feel compelled to show you guys one of the many fitness/calorie aids I've come across as I start this journey. I already knew SELF had one online, but it turns out livestrong.com does too. Random I know. I'm going to sign up for it and check it out. I'll let you know what I find!

Hello!

Today is my very first blog post!  I can't wait to start posting, and hopefully get some advice and camaraderie along the way.

I had the idea yesterday to start a blog (I know, fast turn around) while I was at the gym.  I hadn't gone in almost 2 weeks which for me is incredibly not OK.  I realized that I needed something that would motivate me to really get back into things and 'travel on that journey' as it were.  When I went home and cooked a (mostly) healthy dinner, I sat down to catch up on my blogs for that day.  I subscribe to a few blogs that do more or less what I'm planning on doing.  To be honest, reading about other peoples daily lives, especially in regards to their eating and fitness habits, feels mildly voyeuristic to me.  But.. I still do it.  So now I'm letting you do it back to me.

Please always feel free to shoot me comments and input!