Quick post - Salmon. It's what's for dinner...and lunch

Tonight I did the same thing I did last week - pocket cooking of salmon and zucchini.  Super tasty, super easy, and super healthy.  Honestly, how can you go wrong? 

Amazingly, I managed to keep myself from eating the entire 8 ounce fillet that I had purchased.  Since it had been on the plate with the zucchini I was eating that had herbs de provence on it and the lemon that was on the fish.  I flaked it with some raw zucchini, so the juices from the fish, the lemon, and the herbs de provence were combined with the raw (yet very tender) zucchini. 

I also baked some brown rice tonight - the fool-proof method (see the following post).  So, tomorrow's lunchbox is full.  From the top to the bottom - flaked salmon with zucchini, brown rice with mushrooms and onions, unsweetened applesauce, all-bran crackers with laughing cow cheese, and yellow and orange bell peppers.  I started to pack dried cranberries and crushed pecans for my morning oatmeal, but then I remembered that I am going to a morning event with Leadership Austin, where they will serve breakfast. 

This should give me enough energy to get through the pilates class I'm going to after work....

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.

Garlic Anyone?

In keeping with the attempt to eat healthy, I decided to try a recipe that I've been wanting to try for a while. Baked chicken with a coating of All-Bran (Garlic and Herb) Crackers. I was excited about it. This is a considerably higher fiber option than regular breadcrumbs. And lower calorie to boot (18 crackers to a serving). Plus those crackers are wicked tasty.

Off to the store I go. Well, lo and behold, no All-Bran Crackers. Now, this is the grocery store where I shop almost exclusively, so I know that I've purchased them there before. But now the shelves are filled with the store brand gourmet crackers, none of which are even near my beloved All-Brans. So what to do? Well, I go back to the original recipe. Instead of All-Bran crackers (which was my touch) I picked up some Fiber One Cereal. A co-worker of mine has done this baked chicken thing with Fiber One before, so I knew it could work. My only concern was that the cereal has a sweetness to it that I wasn't sure I wanted in the coating of the chicken. The plot thickens.

When I got home, I had 3 plump chicken breasts, which were clearly larger than the 4 ounces each that I needed. I had looked at a baked chicken recipe and they gave a cooking time for a pounded out chicken breast. Perfect. I weighed them out and they were about 8oz each. Perfect. I pounded them out and cut them in half. But before I had even gotten to the chicken, I put 1.5 cups of Fiber One Cereal, garlic powder, dried oregano, dried basil, some salt and some pepper in my Cuisinart. (If I couldn't have gotten my hands on some Garlic & Herb crackers, gosh darnit, I was adding garlic and herbs!) Pulse pulse pulse until those little branches of Fiber One are made into powder.

I whipped up three egg whites (not until frothy, but until all the aspects of the egg whites were more homogenous than right out of the shell). With one hand (always keeping one clean), I put the now six pieces of chicken breast in the egg whites, turned them about and then into the powder. It worked swimmingly. From there, on to a baking sheet. (Did I mention I pre-heated the oven to 350? Quite a household commitment in 100 degree Texan weather, I might add.)

Once all six pieces were done, I put the baking sheet into the oven (middle lower rack) and baked them for 20 minutes. A quick flip and back in for 3 minutes. They were golden brown and cooked perfectly. Success!

While the chicken was cooking, I put together a bean puree that was the suggestion of the BF. I put two drained cans of Great Northern Beans and put them in the Cuisinart. I peeled three garlic cloves and threw them in. Let me stop here. That was too much garlic. I should have listened to BF. He told me that it was going to be too much. Let me repeat. I should have listened. In addition to the way too much garlic, I added some extra virgin olive oil. I probably should have used the really good stuff for this as the taste would have been a nice addition. Pulse pulse pulse. After tasting it (and, yes, I could tell it was too much garlic at that point), it needed something. I added some red pepper flakes and cayenne (not much of either, for the record). All in all, it's definitely something to do again, just not with as much garlic. This recipe made 4 servings.

So, if you put a serving of the puree and a serving of the chicken together, it's only about 200 calories. Tomorrow night, I'm going to add a spinach salad with some balsamic drizzle. I think it will work really nicely. Maybe the salad will break through the garlic of the puree. Fingers crossed.