You probably noticed in my post yesterday that veggies seemed to have eluded a lot of my plates this weekend. Sure I enjoy indulging, but I am an everything in moderation kinda gal, and I didn’t completely snub my veggies.
Yesterday I made crock pot vegetable soup for dinner and it was pretty darn yummy, and it is practically calorie-free.
In that mix is:
half of one of those huge bags of carrots (probably about 10), chopped
I put it in my crock pot in the am and let it cook allllll day long on low. It was veggie-packed and seriously delicious. Also perfect for lunch again today.
Pretty sure I will be eating it all week, because it made a ton. Definitely a good way to sneak in a bunch of veggies if you are sick of salad (which I am not, but I like to switch it up).
Workout
I took my gym’s 7:30 BodyPump class tonight, and man, I am finding the most recent release pretty hard. I have done it a couple of times now, and I am continually struggling at the end of squats, triceps and lunges. Squats especially, I felt like the track went on forevaaaa. Definitely a good workout though, and one that I will be feeling tomorrow.
This post is on the short side and a little on the lackluster side, but it is late (school night late, not weekend late) and I am off to get ready for bed.
I am feeling pret-tyyyy much back to normal today, and my appetite seems to have returned in full force. All day today it was snack attack after snack attack.
My healthy chicken sandwich and carrot sticks for lunch left me wanting a little somethin’ more, so I followed that up with a little soup supplement action from Druxy’s. I then ate an apple crumble VitaTop for dessert, but I still wanted more so I broke into my afternoon snack early (an apple), and continued to snack my way through the afternoon.
My snacks were all pretty healthy (minus the cookies I ate when I got home), but man, I was insatiable!
I have to say though, my mid-morning snack today was quite filling and is quickly becoming a new fave of mine.
Morning Snackage
Vanilla Greek yogurt topped with a mix of frozen berries. Now that it is well into fall, fresh berries are expensive little buggers, so I have been passing them up and opting for frozen instead. Maybe this snack isn’t groundbreaking, but this is new to me and I am loving frozen berries with the yogurt. I put them on top of the yog in the morning and then when they thaw and you stir them up they make the entire yogurt all berrily delicious.
Dinner
The theme of tonight’s dinner was use what you have. I didn’t really meal plan the last time I went grocery shopping and I didn’t pick up a lot of “dinner foods”. This is not good because now I am scrambling at dinner time to find something to make, which can lead to me abandoning making dinner altogether and picking up fast food, and I try to stay away from that.
Originally my plan when I got home was to quickly grab my gym clothes, hit up the gym for about 45 minutes, grab something from the grocery store that would be quick to make, and then head back home to make dinner.
But when I got home I was starving, and I didn’t want to wait to eat dinner, I wanted dinner and I wanted it soon.
I scrounged around in our cupboards and found a can of tuna. That was all the inspiration I needed. I was making tuna casserole.
I have never made tuna casserole before (my bestie Lisa makes a mean tuna casserole), so I googled around for some recipes but I didn’t find any that included the ingredients I wanted to use. I also wanted it to be healthier than the typical tuna casserole. I basically just ended up throwing a bunch of shtuff together and hoping for the best.
Tuna Casserole
Gone are the days of natural lighting (til April…)
It was not the best tuna casserole I have ever eaten, I will say that, but it was still pretty darn good, and it was quick and easy, so that is always a win in my books!
Now I am off to the gym! I’m hoping to put in some romantic time with the arc trainer.
Here is my tuna casserole recipe.
Tuna and Vegetable Casserole
Ingredients
half a bag of whole wheat egg noodles (you could use regular as well)
1/2 yellow onion, chopped
2 stalks celery, chopped
1 cup shredded carrots
1 can low-fat cream of celery soup (mushroom would be good too, but celery was what I had)
1/2 cup breadcrumbs
1 can tuna, drained
3/4 cup water (you could use milk, but I only had almond milk and, well, blech)
1/4 teaspoon pepper
Mrs. Dash seasoning mix (maybe a tablespoon?)
Directions
Preheat oven to 350 F.
Spray a casserole dish with cooking spray.
Boil the pasta until done, drain, then transfer to large bowl (or back into the pot)
Add in onion, celery, carrot, and tuna; toss to combine.
In another smaller bowl, mix together soup and water until smooth.
Pour the soup mix into the pasta bowl and add breadcrumbs, Mrs. Dash seasoning and black pepper; toss until combined.
Transfer mixture to baking dish.
Bake for about 30 minutes. Top with cheese if desired and bake for another 3-4 minutes (I left the cheese out – I know, what was I thinking?!)
It has a lot of steps, but I promise they are easy.
This morning after sleeping in a little bit (9am, my teenage self would not be impressed), I woke up with a serious hankering for pancakes. I have been seeing pumpkin pancakes around a lot, and I had some pumpkin sitting in the fridge that I haven’t really been using lately. I thought I’d try my hand at making my own little cakes full of the pumpkin goodness.
I googled around for recipes, but I wanted pumpkin oatmeal pancakes with minimal ingredients and I had a hard time finding the perfect recipe for me. In the end, I decided to do my own thing and hope for the best.
Oatmeal Pumpkin Pancakes
They turned out really well, and I was impressed with my handiwork. They were delicious.
I am not a cook by any means, but I find pancakes really hard to mess up. Here is the recipe I ended up using:
Pumpkin Oatmeal Pancakes
Ingredients
1/2 cup oats
1/2 cup canned pumpkin
1 egg
2 tsp brown sugar
1/4 cup flour (I used whole wheat)
1/2 cup milk (I used almond milk)
1.5 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp vanilla
1 tsp baking powder
Mix all ingredients together, pour onto skillet and cook a la regular pancakes. Makes about 6 decent-sized, thick, pancakes.
I only had a little bit of maple syrup left, so I topped one of my pancakes with that, and then the other two with Nutella.
Yumminess
This made me wish I had actually put Nutella in the mix! I loved the chocolately flavour. So good. Ah well, next time.
Though I am now a fan of pumpkin, I found that I couldn’t really taste the pumpkin at all in these, but it added a smooth and fluffy texture that I was a big fan of.
Workout
After breakfast, I leisured for a bit, completed a few chores around the house, cuddled with this little ball of cuteness…
Winnie Kitty
And then hit up the gym!
I debated going for a run outside, but I wasn’t really feeling it. Since that is pretty much the only form of cardio I’ve been doing lately, I thought I’d switch it up and use the arc trainer at my gym.
I actually really enjoy the arc trainer. I feel like it’s a better workout than the elliptical (just my opinion, I don’t know if that’s true), and not as boring as the treadmill. I also can read a little bit, so I spent most of my 40 minutes on the arc trainer reading magazines and catching up on my celebrity gossip.
Before the arc trainer I did the 20 minute fit fix, which consists of 9 machines designed to work every muscle group in your body in a short amount of time. Perfect if you are trying to squeeze your workout in. I hadn’t done the fit fix since last year around this time, and my weight has increased quite a bit! I love being able to notice a difference in my strength. It is motivating.
And then I stretched. A lot. My muscles have been feeling really tight this week, particularly my calves. I gave them some much-needed love and attention.
I was very sweaty afterwards.
Gym Mirror Self Portrait
I love going to the gym on Saturday (once I get there). I feel refreshed and ready to take on the weekend! In particular, ready to take on some all-you-can-eat sushi action and my friend Sherrie’s going away party – both on the agenda for tonight!
Do you guys have a food that you know isn’t very good for you so you cannot let yourself even try it, because you know if you do it will be so delicious you won’t ever be able to resist it?
Well I do, and here it is in all its glory.
Danger Danger
Muffins. Banana walnut muffins from Druxy’s in particular.
Whenever we have a meeting in the morning, we usually have refreshments, including coffee and a big ol’ platter from Druxy’s with cookies (I never should have tried cookies either), pastries and muffins. I’ll go for the cookies and the pastries, but I always stay far, far away from the muffins.
Here is my reasoning. Pastries are not dangerous to me, because I associate them as a treat food and I know I won’t eat them on a daily basis. Same with cookies. (Usually.) They are both desserts (in my mind).
But muffins are sneaky. Muffins seem like they would be healthy, but we all know they are not (unless you make them yourself, and then I guess you can healthify them up). When you buy muffins from Starbucks, Tim Hortons, etc. they are not good for you. I don’t know for sure about Druxy’s muffins, because I can’t find their muffin nutrition facts on their website, but I just know they are bad news and probably full of calories, fat, sugar, and sodium.
So I never tried them, because I knew as soon as I had one taste of those muffins, I would be all up in Druxy’s grill every day at mid-morning snack time purchasing a muffin (because there’s a Druxy’s in my building, remember).
I don’t know why this rule doesn’t apply to pastries and cookies (unless a platter of cookies is brought straight to my desk of course), but it doesn’t. It only applies to muffins. My tummy thinks they are a quick and delicious, healthy snack, and my brain cannot convince it otherwise.
So guess what. At our last meeting, I caved and I tried a dang muffin. And now?
Uh Oh
I am forgoing my beautiful Greek yogurt snack in the morning, and I am all up in Druxy’s grill grabbing a banana walnut muffin (they are SO GOOD).
I swear they call to me from Druxy’s downstairs. This is what they are saying to me:
(Well, those are mini muffins, but you get the idea.)
It’s not every morning, but the muffins must stop. My current strategy is to trick my tummy into forgetting how delicious they are. I was able to stay away today, but I don’t know if I will have the willpower tomorrow…
Anyway, moving on…
Mexican Meatloaf
Immediately after work today I changed into my running garb and hit the pavement. I completed a 5k loop in about 31 minutes, and I wasn’t really feeling it in the beginning (I felt great after though!), so to get my mind to forget about what my body was doing, I started to fantasize about dinner.
I had ground chicken chilling in my fridge, so my original idea was to make tacos, but then I remembered that we are out of cheese. I am sorry, but I believe that you can NOT have tacos without cheese. It should be illegal.
I did feel like something a little Mexican-y though, and I wanted to use that chicken, so I started going through every possible Mexican dish I could make with that chicken that I hadn’t made before. I just wanted something meaty (this coming after my meatless Monday).
The answer?
Mexican meatloaf!
Meaty Loaf
This actually turned out really well, and I was seriously impressed with the flavour (note: meatloaf is unattractive, sorry, but that’s just the way it is.)
I got the base recipe from here, but I ended up doing my own thang.
Mexican Meatloaf
Serves 4-6 (or two with leftovers)
Ingredients
1 pound ground chicken (you could also use beef or turkey)
1/2 cup shredded Cheddar cheese (optional – I had to omit this, but I know it would have been great with it!)
Directions
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Grease an 8×4 inch loaf pan.
In a large bowl, mix together everrrrrything except for the cheese. Pack into the loaf pan.
Bake for 1 hour in the preheated oven. Top with cheese, and serve with sour cream and extra salsa (both optional, I did not).
I thought this was delicious, and one thing I am always impressed by when I make meatloaf is how easy it is! Very minimal prep. Perfect for a weeknight.
I served mine with cauliflower that I steamed in the microwave with one of those Ziplock steamer bags. Also super easy!
Meaty Dinna
We have about half the loaf leftover, so I know what’s for lunch tomorrow!
And while you’re here, this is what was for lunch today!
Chicken Sammers
Chicken sandwich with light veggie cream cheese on one side of the bread, spinach, tomato and mustard. And some baby carrots on the side that went unpictured.
And I’m outta here. Catcha lata!
Any foods you purposely do not even try because you know you will just like it too much and eat it all the time?
So first things first, a lot of you had questions about the big Running Date, and I responded to most in the comments, but I don’t know if you’re alerted if I respond to your comment, so I thought I’d answer them here as well.
I had never heard of The Running Date, or anything like it (except for The Amazing Race), and only found out about it through Sam’s giveaway at Health, Happiness and Skinny Jeans. As soon as I read about it, I wanted to do it! To be honest though, if I didn’t win the tickets I probably wouldn’t have. But I am so glad I did! I’d definitely do it again.
We also found out that The Running Date was put on by a group of university students, and this was the first year it had been done. It was their idea, and they found sponsors, roped volunteers into helping out, and ran the entire thing. I was surprised when I heard this because it was very well organized (not that I expected it to not be well organized, but it was very “official” feeling – hello race bibs!).
They had volunteers at each location to record the time you arrived there and to guide you through the challenge (and make sure you actually completed it and didn’t cheat!). They also gave you a little souvenir to take back with you, which you had to hand in when you got to the finish line. This is how they knew you hit every check point.
Registration was $40 per person, so $80 a couple. You could register online in advance, or in person the day of the event.
Also, I just checked their Facebook page, and they have all the teams ranked…and yeah, we came dead last. Haha.
But I certainly felt like a winner .
Meatless Monday
Welp, it’s Monday, so this means I am back to my regular eating after a weekend of snack attacks. We had some friends over on Saturday night, and after a few bevvies I got into the chips, hardcore (why does this always happen?).
We had Cool Ranch Doritos and Miss Vickies Sea Salt and Malt Vinegar, and someone (probably Andrew) pointed out how amazing the two chips were when you ate them together. Don’t even try this, it is so addicting. This is why I do not usually keep chips in our house. I can eat an entire bag, no problem.
Luckily I squeezed in a couple other workouts this weekend besides The Running Date on Saturday: BodyPump on Friday night, and a 4k run yesterday afternoon. But I am happily back to the healthy grind today in the eating department.
My eats included a peanut butter and sliced banana on a toasted whole wheat bagel for breakfast, and a big ol’ salad from Druxy’s for lunch.
Druxy's is de Best
I was in a meeting all day long today, so at lunchtime we all went down to Druxy’s to grab a little somethin’. Everyone was amazed at the Druxy’s salad selection. I love that you can grab a HUGE Druxy’s salad for $6, and you can include protein like hard-boiled eggs, seeds, and nuts for no extra charge (chicken and tuna are an extra $2).
I packed my salad full of almost all the available veggies, feta cheese, eggs, pepitas and sunflower seeds, and it was darn good.
Giant Salad
For dinner tonight I wanted something that I could just throw together quickly. Enter black bean burritos!
Burrrrritos!
These were really easy, and really good. But I changed them up a bit from the last time, and added some more veggies to the mix.
As I have been noticing lately with meatless dishes that include beans, the burritos tasted meaty without including meat!
Even Andy-pants said “These are delicious for not having any meat in them. Actually, I take that back. They are just delicious.”
He is a big meat lover, so that is definitely a compliment.
I sprinkled those babies with cheese and dug in!
Cheesy Burrito
Yumballs.
I am just noticing that my Monday today was meatless! I am not planning on becoming a vegetarian, but I am trying to cut back on meat and try out other sources of protein. Meat is expensive! Especially if you buy organic, grass-fed or free-range, and I usually do not unless it is on sale. I know I should, but I just can’t justify the extra cost. It is already nearly $10 for two regular chicken breasts. It’s ridiculous.
Here is the recipe if you want to try ‘em out!
Black Bean Burritos
Ingredients
4 whole wheat tortillas
1 small onion, chopped
1 red bell pepper, chopped
1 cup frozen corn (I cooked mine in the microwave first)
2 cloves of garlic, minced
1 can black beans, rinsed and drained
1 cup salsa
cheddar cheese
Directions
Wrap tortillas in foil and place in oven heated to 350 degrees F. Bake for 15 minutes or until heated through.
Spray skillet with cooking spray and heat to medium. Place onion, red pepper, and garlic in skillet, cook for 5 minutes, stirring occasionally. Pour beans and corn into skillet, cook additional 3 minutes, stirring occasionally.
Add salsa to veggie mixture, cook until heated through (1-2 minutes).
Spoon mixture evenly down center of warmed tortilla, add cheese, and roll tortillas up.
EAT!!!
Pretty sure these are going to be a new staple dinner around herrrre.
Yesterday in the late morning, Ando and I headed out to the grocery store, but since the weather was nearly 30C with beautifully sunny skies, we decided grocery shopping could wait – we wanted to be outside in the sun!
Instead we drove to a nearby apple orchard for some apple-picking action.
It felt weird to be doing such a fall activity in such summery weather (I was sweating hardocre, it was HOT!), but it was an amazing time.
I have not been apple picking in years, and I don’t think I have ever been to this particular orchard. Even though it was late in the season, there were still a ton of apples.
And beautiful views.
There was also a corn maze, which I was pretty excited about since I also have not been in a corn maze in years.
Can you spot Alejandrew?
He was trying to sneak up on me, but I was watching him like the big creeper I am.
And we made some new friends.
Sheep! They were actually extremely cute. It made me want a sheep for a pet. They reminded me a bit of Winnie (our cat, if you are new around here).
But any cute animal that is a bit chubby and on the slow side reminds me of Winnie.
And then…
Llama time!
The llama’s were not quite as nice as the sheep. And actually, I thought they were quite snobby.
But somehow we lured that little llama out of his snobby shell and got him to smile.
It was an awesome little impromptu trip to the apple orchard, and I am pretty sure we are going to have to make this a fall tradition.
We went a little crazy on the apples though…
I have no idea why we got so many, or what in the name of pizza I am going to do with all of them… But apple crisp sounded like a good start.
I love apple crisp, it is one of my favourite desserts, but for some reason I have never made it before.
My friend Joanna‘s mom makes the best apple crisp, and she knows how much I like it, so when we were in high school, whenever she would make apple crisp she would send a little plate of it to school with Joanna just for me. I will always remember that.
Anyway, I have always assumed that apple crisp was really difficult to make, but after doing some googling and checking out recipes, I saw that it actually looked super easy! I ended up settling on this recipe from AllRecipes, but I did change a few things to slightly healthify it up (a bit, there is still quite a bit of sugar and butter, so don’t get too excited).
Here is the recipe with my modifications.
Apple Crisp
Ingredients
Apples
6 large apples, peeled, cored and sliced
3/4 cup white sugar
1 tablespoon whole wheat flour
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 cup water
Topping
1 cup oats
1 cup whole wheat flour
1 cup packed brown sugar
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 cup butter, melted
Directions
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
Place the sliced apples in a 9×13 inch pan. Mix the rest of the apples ingredients (white sugar, flour, ground cinnamon) together, and sprinkle over apples. Pour water evenly over all.
Combine the oats, flour, brown sugar, baking powder, baking soda and melted butter together. Crumble evenly over the apple mixture.
Bake at 350 degrees F (175 degrees C) for about 45 minutes.
Mine turned out beautifully.
Seriously addicting though.
Andrew told me that is what he ate for lunch today, haha.
I will be back with regular eating stuff tomorrow, but tonight I am feeling lazy after my busy day at work.
Thanks for popping by! My name is Lindsey, and I pretty much have two moods: happy, or hungry. I like to tell stories and draw pictures of my adventures. I will do just about anything to make someone laugh.
Contact me!
Feel free to email me at happyorhungry@gmail.com with any questions or feedback. I'd love to hear from you!
