WIAW #6

Happy Wednesday! I'm happy to be joining in on WIAW again :D

First off, I just want to talk about how much I've been loving pumpkin lately...and then I'll get to what I ate!

               

On Monday I made a pumpkin pie fro yo parfait, and let me tell you it was phenomenal! I kept seeing amazing looking overnight oat parfaits on Instagram and decided to combine this idea with fro yo. This was layers of: pumpkin spice overnight oats, pumpkin fro yo, apples sauteed with cinnamon and a teeny bit of sugar free syrup, and vanilla protein fro yo. So so so so delicious! <3 

Also, I've been so obssessed with sugar free pumpkin  spice coffee mate and Trader Joe's pumpkin spice coffee. It's so delicious, I highly recommend it to anyone who loves pumpkin and coffe :)

And now onto my eats:

Open faced egg sandwich

I just learned how to poach an egg, and I don't know why I never tried this before. This was a slice of whole grain bread, laughing cow cheese, an egg white, 2 slices of center cut bacon, a poached egg, and hot sauce. I scarfed this down before my exam yesterday...so good. I also had some cantaloupe on the way to class but didn't get a picture...although I'm pretty sure you guys know what cantaloupe looks like ;)

Homemade healthy calzone

Artichoke and Parmesan kale chips

For dinner I made my healthy calzone (Joseph's whole wheat pita, no sugar added pizza sauce, Trader Joe's spicy jalapeno chicken sausage, fat free ricotta, and a bit of lite mozzarella) and some delicious kale chips.

"Dessert"

I love cereal and I love having big bowls of cereal as my "dessert" at night :) Trader Joe's O's, Trader Joe's fiber cereal, diced up apples, and some peanut flour. Recently I've been adding peanut flour to my cereal (it was my love's idea!) and it's such a good combination. It just gives your cereal a slight peanut butter taste, and who doesn't love peanut butter?!

Well, that's it for this WIAW. I hope you all had an amazing Wednesday <3

With love,

Tuffy

WIAW #3

Hello there! Whew, it's been a busy few weeks, between work and school...hence why I've failed at posting lately. I'm working on it though! It's still pretty busy, so this will be a quick one. Real quickly though, I want to just say that I really like the idea behind this WIAW banner. Especially because I'm continually striving to make good choices while stressing out from school and studying and what not. So here it goes!
Lunch:

Fruit, yogurt, and hot sauce!

 Bottom is just mixed fruit. For the first time this week I made a big bowl of fruit so that we can just take some as we want it. I really like this idea because fruit is always there when we want it with no work involved. On top is my plain greek yogurt. Within this past week I've decided to make the transition back to plain yogurt. Until I compared the stats on plain yogurt to fruit filled yogurt last week I never realized how much sugar is in the fruity ones! It's nuts! I'd rather just get plain and then have all sorts of options on how to flavor it myself. So today I added 1 tablespoon chocolate PB2 and 1 TBSP ground flax (+ 1/2 packet of Pure Via for a little sweetness). Yum! Plus my hot sauce for the concoction below :)

Butternut squash, green beans, and a veggie burger

The green beans and squash were left overs from last night. Just grilled up a veggie burger this morning while getting ready and topped it with some fat free cheese. Topped it with hot sauce at work...perfect :)
Snacks while studying:

Vanilla maple almonds <3

 I got these in my monthly package from bestowed. If you don't know about bestowed, check them out. They are an awesome company and I was really happy with my box this month. Hopefully I'll be doing reviews of everything later this month once I've used it all. Anyways, these almonds were awesome. There was only 4g of sugar, which seems really good for almonds that are coated with stuff. They were really tasty though.

Lentil chips

I also got these cool chips from bestowed. These were equally as awesome. They were kind of airy and had a delicious garlic Parmesan flavor. I'd love to be able to buy larger quantities of these.

Also, not pictured was about 30 grapes...but I think everyone knows what those look like ;)

Dinner:

Cucumber feta turkey burger, veggies, salad

I made these turkey burgers on a whim from a suggestion from my love. Shredded some cucumber, added 1 egg white, some feta crumbles, and seasonings. They were pretty good but I definitely plan on improving this recipe. On the side was just a veggie saute (cauliflower, sugar snap peas, bell peppers, onion, garlic, artichoke hearts, feta, and seasonings), delicious as usual. And just a typical salad.

Well, that's my quick WIAW for today. I hope you all had a great Wednesday <3

With love,

Tuffy

Recreated Vietnamese Pancake

Yesterday I asked my love what he wanted for lunch and he said he wanted a Vietnamese pancake from our favorite Vietnamese place, Lemon Grass Grill. Instead, I suggested that I make it at home for us since we pretty much had all the ingredients. A Vietnamese pancake (aka Bahn Xeo) is basically a fried omelet/crepe (it's more like an omelet but the egg mixture has rice flour in it to thicken it up) with shrimp, pork, bean sprouts, onion, and it's dipped in fish sauce. Here's a picture of a typical Bahn Xeo:

Bahn Xeo

For myself I decided to just do it omelet style, so I used 1 whole egg + 2 egg whites. For my love I used 2 whole eggs plus some flour and water to thin it out. The egg pancake part is the easiest, it's the filling and the fish sauce that really makes this dish. Also, we didn't have pork so I just used chicken that we already had cooked.

Serves 2

Ingredients:

• 3/4 cup shrimp, chopped (I used fully cooked and frozen, but any will work)
• 1/2 cup boneless skinless chicken breast, chopped (again, my chicken was already cooked from my food prep that week, but you can use raw as well, just cook a bit longer to cook through)
• 3/4 cup bean sprouts
• ~1/4 white onion, chopped
• 2 cloves garlic, chopped
• Eggs, depending on how you want to make your egg pancake

Directions:

1. Add garlic and onion to the pan, saute for 2-3 minutes.
2. Add bean sprouts, chicken, and shrimp to pan and saute.
3. Liberally sprinkle garlic and onion powder. Add salt and pepper to your liking.
4. Stir occasionally. Continue to cook until the onions have wilted and all the ingredients have had time to mingle with each other! (~5 minutes).
5. Remove mixture from stove, set aside.
6. Whether you want to use just eggs or the egg +flour mixture, this step is the same. Add egg mixture to a medium-sized pan (make sure to use cooking spray so your eggs don't stick!)
7. Cook until the top of the egg pancake is almost cooked through, but still a little runny, ~2 minutes.
8. Flip the entire pancake over and cook for another 1-2 minutes. 
9. Add half of the mixture prepared earlier to each egg pancake (I made our simultaneously in 2 separate pans). The mixture should only cover half of the egg pancake. Flip the empty half of the egg pancake over the mixture half.
10. Plate the pancake!

Serves 4

Adapted from here

Ingredients:

• 1 cup water
• 4 tbsp rice vinegar
• 1 packet Truvia (or other sweetener/sugar)
• 5 tbsp fish sauce
• 1 clove garlic, chopped
• Chili garlic sauce, amount depends on how spicy you want it

Directions:

1. Mix all ingredients in a bowl. (FYI, the original recipe calls for the water to be boiled, I think so that the sugar will dissolve, but we didn't do it)

And here's the finished product:

Recreated Bahn Xeo

That's it! It was pretty easy to cook this, and I thought it was just as delicious as in the restaurant. I like that it wasn't greasy and fried like the one at the restaurant. We both enjoyed this healthier creation :)

With love,

Tuffy

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

Recipe: Stuffed Greek Burgers

This is an original recipe for me, although I did have some inspiration. I made it on a whim a few weeks ago when I was just trying to figure out a way to use up the left over ground turkey and hummus we had in our fridge. My inspiration came from livefiteatclean on Instagram. She had posted multiple things that were topped with both hummus and Sriracha. I know that it initially sounds like a kind of bizarre combination, but let me tell you, it is amazing! It just gives your hummus a little kick...mmmm.

Anyways, so I knew I wanted to use the turkey and top it some how with hummus and sriracha. In trying to stick with the Mediterranean theme of the hummus, I decided to stuff the burgers with marinated artichoke hearts and feta. The combination of all of this turned out to be incredibly tasty, and I will most definitely be making these again. Not only did I surprise myself with these burgers, but the green beans I whipped up to go with the burgers ended up surprisingly tasty as well. I am notorious for just throwing stuff in a pan for a quick veggie saute, but the things I used for this saute ended up working incredibly well together. My boyfriend has asked me to make these veggies again on multiple occasions.

A finished picture of the turkey burger, green beans, and whole wheat cous cous

Serves 2

Ingredients:

• 1/2 lb ground turkey (I go with extra lean)
• Quartered, marinated artichoke hearts, about 4 quarters
• 3-4 TBSP crumbled feta cheese (my choice: fat free crumbles from Trader Joe's)
• Salt, pepper, garlic powder
• Hummus (I make my own artichoke hummus, but store bought is fine)
• Sriracha

Directions

1. Separate the ground turkey into two roughly equal lumps of turkey.
2. With each lump of turkey, split in half and flatten out into patty shapes. You'll want to make the patties fairly thin, but not too thin that the stuffing won't stay in the burger while cooking.
3. Chop up the quartered artichoke hearts a bit, just into bite size pieces or so.
4. Add the artichoke hearts to one of each of the burger halves.
5. Sprinkle feta cheese on top. 

   

   It should look like this after step 5.

6. Place the empty patty halves over the halves with the filling.
7. In order to secure the halves together to make one stuffed burger you're going to have to squeeze together the edges of the halves. There isn't really one specific technique here. You will just have to continue to squeeze the edges together and then fold the thinned out edges over a bit and pat down. Basically you just want to create one burger instead of 2 patties sitting on top of each other, so you are trying to meld the edges of the two patties together. (sorry this is a bit of a ramble, I've never actually had to explain this technique...it's much easier to learn from watching!)
8. Once you've formed your burger liberally season the side facing up with garlic powder, salt, and pepper. When seasoning, be very liberal. It will seem like it's too much, but trust me it isn't. Some of the flavor gets lost during the cooking process, which is why you should be liberal.
9. On your heated pan/grill (I cooked on our grill) place the seasoned side down. Repeat the seasoning process on the side that is now facing up.
10. Cook for 4-5 minutes per side. It depends on what kind of heat your using, but that's a good general time. You just want to cook until they aren't pink in the middle (sometimes I have to cut into one of them to be sure).
11. After cooking, add some hummus (~2 TBSP) to each burger and top with sriracha (as much as you can handle!)

Serves 2

Ingredients:

• Fresh green beans (~1/2 lb)
• 1/4 - 1/2 yellow onion, sliced (depends on your taste)
• 3-4 cloves of garlic, chopped (again, depends on taste)
• 1/4 bell pepper, sliced (any color)
• 1/2 mini cucumber, thinly sliced
• ~3 TBSP Fat free feta crumbles
• Marinaded artichoke hearts (add to taste) + some marinade
• Garlic powder, onion powder, salt, pepper

Directions:

1. Add onions, garlic, and bell pepper to pan and saute a few minutes until they become a little wilted.
2. In the mean time, rinse the green beans and trim the ends.
3. Add the green beans to the pan, cover, and let cook for about 5 minutes.
4. Take cover off, add cucumber and as much artichoke hearts as you'd like.
5. Add about 2 teaspoons of the artichoke marinade.
6. Season liberally with spices.
7. Add feta crumbles and stir. Let cook for another 3-4 minutes. All of the flavors will come together and the cheese will melt a bit.

   

   Green bean saute

   Serve and enjoy!!!
   
   
   Love,
   Tuffy

Quick and easy dinner

We've been making pizza lately as a super quick and easy (&healthy!) dinner. We get this awesome thin, whole wheat pizza crust from Walmart that ends up being about 270 calories for half of the crust (awesome!). So we each take a half and top it with whatever our hearts desire. It's awesome because we each get to top it our own ways. My half is always overflowing with veggies, whereas my boyfriend usually takes more of a minimal approach.

Some things we like to add:
•Trader Joe's chicken sausage (1 split between both of us)
•Marinated artichoke hearts
•Spinach + basil
•Onions/garlic
•Laughing cow (for me, broken up) or fat free ricotta (for both, if we have it)
•Sliced fresh mozzarella (for him) and low fat mozzarella (for me)
•tomatoes/tomato sauce (for me)

The list could go on and on, there are just so many possibilities. Pair this with a salad and it's the perfect meal!