Being prepared

This weekend I've been house/dog sitting for the doctor that owns the clinic I work at. My mom's been his head nurse for the past 13ish years, so I've known him since I was like 12, but I don't think I've ever actually seen where he lived. Wow. Let me just say this place is amazing!! I think the things I love the most are the kitchen:

I'd love to have a kitchen like this one day!

and the view:

I'm a sucker for a pretty view :)

Sometimes it feels like I could reach up and touch the clouds

So pretty.

I would love to be able to cook in this kitchen everyday. Everything's so nice and there's so much space. It's awesome! And if I had a view like this I'd be sitting/eating outside all the time. It's just a really different perspective to see Vegas from up here.

Anyways, I knew I'd be here for the weekend and I didn't really know what they'd have for me to eat (although I did get a little glimpse when I got the tour/instructions a few days before). So I came prepared. The night before I came over I made a batch of this cous cous, without any protein so I could add in whatever, from Janetha (which was super yummy and versatile...will definitely be experimenting more with it). I brought 2 servings worth of that with me and I brought dried lentils, figuring I could just make those to go with the cous cous if all else failed.

Here's some stuff I brought

That's protein powder on top of the PB2. Since I just took this picture, there is some stuff not pictured. Like my vegan chocolate chip cookies from Red Velvet. Or my BCAA's for after my workout yesterday. The cous cous. And I actually had 2 packs of dried seaweed.

The point is that I didn't go cray and bring everything I possibly could with me. But I did bring some good staple ingredients that I might want to use while here. Plus some snacks. And delicious dessert. And I ended up doing really well considering I'm not in my own kitchen.

Here's some meal creations I came up with:

This was my first night here and is the cous cous with lentils and an egg. I forgot my Trader Joe's hot sauce and they didn't have sriracha, so I had to use tobasco to give it a little flavor/spice. It was really tasty and filling. For dessert...my remaining half of my vegetarian icing-filled carrot cake cookie from Red Velvet with Coconut Vanilla white tea I found (omg so good!)

This was my breakfast/lunch after my workout yesterday...I had to get a bit more creative with this.
On top is 1 egg + 1 egg white scrambled with onion, cucumber, and some roasted turkey breast they had (topped with tobasco, of course). I saw that there was organic reduced fat unsweetened coconut in the fridge and I knew I had to use it in some way while I was here. So I decided to make oatmeal with it and the vanilla coconut tea...this turned out so freaking good, I will most definitely be experimenting with this sort of concoction again. I brewed the tea really strong (I probably let it brew for like 7-10 minutes while I did other stuff). I then used the tea to cook the oats, but added in 1 packer of Pure Via and some vanilla extract. After cooking I added 1 tbsp of this vanilla latte creamer and 1 heaping tsp of the coconut. Then I just added some water until it was a creamier consistency. Topped with some ancient grains granola. This was fabulous, I was so happy with this.

I don't have a picture of my dinner last night, but it was just the rest of the cous cous with a slice of chicken breast from a rotisserie chicken and a salad with raspberry balsamic dressing (really good!). For dessert I made protein fluff using PB2 and cookies and cream protein powder, which by the way is really not the same using water instead of milk...but alas I had no choice. I used this as frosting for my Red Velvet cookies...wow that was super tasty.

The point of this whole post is that being prepared is so important to being able to make healthier choices. Obviously it was really helpful for me this weekend to have some of my favorite things with me and some good staples. Even on a day to day basis it is important. At work we get drug reps bringing in lunch probably 2-3 times a month (on top of our work providing us with bagels/doughnuts/pizza every so often) and it is almost always something unhealthy, but always something tempting (although once a drug rep brought Rachel's Kitchen, which is this "natural foods kitchen", I was so freaking happy lol!). When I have a yummy lunch that I made myself waiting for me I am not even tempted to go get any of the food that was brought to us. Some people are able to prep their food for the whole week...I haven't quite gotten to that level yet...but I do always have a yummy lunch with me (on those rare occasions that I don't I will plan on going to Jimmy John's for one of their delicious sandwiches as a lettuce wrap).

Well I suppose that's it for now...now to go play with this adorable doggies :)

Love,

Tuffy