That new year enthusiasm

As with many other people, I start the new year with an enthusiasm that is, let's face it, bound to wear off. That said, I'm celebrating my small wins.

Today, I didn't have too many wins on the breakfast or afternoon snack front. In my previous post, I mentioned my work is having a celebration where we had free breakfast tacos and free cupcakes. I had two of each.

However, the wins began shortly after work. I had worked too late to get to my pilates class on time, but that didn't stop me. I went to the gym and made sure to sign up for pilates classes on each of the Tuesdays and Thursdays for the rest of the month (it's a sign up class at the gym).

But signing up was not the win. I got on the treadmill. It wasn't the world's best workout, but let's be honest, I usually bite off more than I can true, so slow and steady is my new motto. I did 30 mins: a 5 min walking warm-up and then did 3 minutes running and 1 minute walking. I didn't remember to look at the distance I covered, but all in all, I was pleased.

The wins continued at the grocery store where I didn't buy too much (a SERIOUS win), I didn't have any impulse purchases (unless you count pickles and soy sauce), and everything I purchased was healthy.

Another win was dinner. Super healthy. Preheat oven at 350 (ahhh...the good ole all-purpose 350). Two packets made from foil - one had a
salmon fillet (technically larger than I'm supposed to have, but hey), seafood seasoning, and slices of lemon. The other had two medium zucchini sliced in 1/4 inch slices, a little bit of olive oil, and some herbes de provence. The two packets stayed in the oven for 20 mins and came out perfect. Delicious.


The last win of the evening (b/c clearly going to bed early isn't happening) was preparing my meals for tomorrow. 
In my Oots lunch box (as shown from top to bottom), I packed breakfast, lunch, and a snack.  Breakfast is Fage fat-free Greek yogurt, blueberries, strawberries, blackberries, wheat germ, and ground flax seed.  Lunch is three beans (black, kidney, and green) and brown rice with a bit of italian dressing on it.  Hearty, tasty, and full of fiber. On the left is one of my latest favorite "desserts"...it's really just apples and dried cranberries in a skillet with some water and cinnamon stewed down until the apples are really soft and the cranberries are somewhat rehydrated.  It's so delicious.  And, technically, the only bad thing for you is the sugar in the cranberries. 


The next row down is the snack row.  18 (one serving) of All-bran crackers and two pieces(?) of Laughing Cow Light Original Swiss.  Each of those are only 35 calories and they're super tasty.  Lastly, one of my favorite things is dill pickles.  This is two spears of Vlasic dill pickles.  Recently my boyfriend read that they have a lot of potassium (some runners/bikers drink pickle juice to avoid cramping), and since I'm getting back into working out, why not eat more pickles?  (In truth, I just like them.)



I also prepared (somewhat) for tomorrow night's dinner.  It will be chicken and brown rice stir fry. I've got chicken breasts in the fridge defrosting, I've got brown rice in the pantry, and tonight I purchased three different bell peppers, an onion, and some shredded carrots. I'm excited to make dinner tomorrow night. ...with my impulse buy...soy sauce. :-)

Yay new year enthusiasm!  And with that, good night.

My Valentine's Party

I'm still eating leftovers from my Valentine's Night Party.

This year, since Valentine's fell on a Saturday (and since a few of my friends were bummed they didn't have dates for the evening), I figured I'd have some of my single girlfriends over and we'd just have a good time on our own. Truth be told, even when I'm in a relationship with someone, this holiday doesn't excite me so much. It just seems a bit silly, but I'll take any excuse to cook for some willing guinea pigs, so I invited them over.



I did what I do when I have people over for food....I made WAY too much. I had two kinds of dip (a salmon dill dip and a spicy spinach dip), two baguettes and four kinds of veggies to do the dipping (snap peas, broccoli, celery, and carrots), spicy cheese straws, lemon cake with blackberry sauce, and strawberries dipped in chocolate. (I think I'm forgetting something too.)



The salmon dip didn't go over so well, but I think that was for two distinct reasons. The first is that I didn't really tell anyone what it was b/c I was so busy welcoming people into the house that I never really went oer what I had laid out for them. The second, I believe, is because even if they had known, the concept of lox isn't one that is too familiar (or appealing) to them. I love lox. Every time I go home to Brooklyn, I MUST have a toasted pumpernickle bagel with tofu scallion spread (oddly creamier than cream cheese, go figure) and lox. Lots of it. Pile it on. In fact, while making my dip, I took out a piece of lox, put it in the cuisinart. The next piece of lox went in my mouth. And so on. There was a point there where I was concerned there might not be enough lox in the actual dip. But as it turned out, I got all of the leftovers, and man they were good!



The spinach dip was a raving success. But the problem is, I can't recreate it. For me, so much of cooking is experimentation. But I was never much of a scientist....I don't keep track of my amounts. I now cannot properly recreate the spinach dip! I made it again for a work potluck this week, but it just didn't have the personality that it did the first time I made it. Part of that might have been that I only had cooked garlic in there when the original had both cooked and raw garlic. As I told some people at work, it didn't matter if the Valentine's night dip was super pungent b/c we were all going home alone to our cats. :-) But the dip also had red pepper flakes....maybe I didn't put enough of them for the redo? Either way, I've realized that my first estimations were a bit off, so this will take a bit of tweaking, but when I rediscover the magic that was the spinach dip, it will be called "Single Girl Spinach Dip."