Talk about MIA...

Holy crap...it's been a really long time.

Shortly after my last post my dad unexpectedly passed away. After that I had a really hard time feeling motivated to take care of myself. I also felt little motivation to keep up with this little blog. Plus, this past semester was rough. And I started working full time, which meant very long days between classes and work. When I got home I had to use whatever energy I had to study.

Initially I sporadically went to the gym and ate well on and off...mostly off. It was hard and it took me a while to get back into my groove. Even then it was a struggle. I would go a while doing well and taking care of myself, but then would fall back into bad habits. I even tried paleo for about a month, which is something I never thought I would be able to do. I'm proud of myself for doing it, but again it just lead to me falling into my bad habits. I did really well for that month or so. I don't know if I just felt deprived without realizing it, but for the past month or so it's been pretty bad. And it didn't help that a fairly stressful semester ended  and I just didn't want to do anything. Lately I just have not felt like myself, and I'm definitely not happy with the toll it's taken on my body. SO, I've decided to make a change and get back to my normal self and start taking care of myself again. It doesn't matter how many times we fall, so long as we get back up and dust ourselves off. So if you're like me and you're struggling to get back up, just do it! It will be hard at first, I won't lie. But it's so worth it in the end. In an attempt to get back to my normal ways I've decided to take a break from paleo...who knows, maybe once I've had a break and feel like I've got a handle on my eating habits I will give it another try. There are a few things I've taken away from my paleo trial though:

• Fat is not the enemy. Previously I would shy away from anything that seemed too fatty. I would rarely use nut butters (even though I loved them). I would rarely use oil, butter, etc to cook with. I would avoid fatty meats. Now, I really do have a different view of fats and I'm no longer scared of them. 
• Avoid overly processed foods. The less ingredients the better. There's so many chemicals and things added to foods now-a-days that our body just doesn't know what to do with. Now, I'm trying to find moderation with this as well. With paleo, there's a very strict view of how pure everything you eat should be. But there are certain things that I'm willing to compromise on. Like sriracha. I absolutely love sriracha, but according to paleo you can't have it. It's all about balance, especially right now when I'm just trying to get back into my groove. 

Anyways, enough of my talking...I thought I'd share a recipe for some amazing protein pancakes I made before my paleo trial. These were so delicious, my god just thinking about them has got me drooling. 

PB&J Protein Pancakes

Ingredients:

For the pancakes:

• 1 scoop protein powder
• 2 tbsp peanut flour (or PB2)
• 1/8 tsp baking powder
• 1 banana, mashed
• 2 egg whites

For the toppings:

• 2 handful of berries ( I used blackberries and blueberries, but any work)
• 2 tbsp peanut flour (or PB2, peanut butter/nut butter)

Directions:

1. Add protein powder, peanut flour, and baking soda to a bowl.
2. Add the banana in chunks. Mash it all together while trying to mix it the best you can. 
3. Add egg whites and stir well. 
4. Cook pancakes like any other pancakes!
5. While pancakes are cooking, put your berries on a plate or cutting board. Use a fork or masher to mash the berries very well. Combine mashed berries to form a fruit spread. 
6. Once pancakes are cooked, spread some of the fruit spread on each pancake. Stack them pancakes.
7. In a small bowl add peanut flour and enough water to make a consistency you can pour. Pour the mixture over those bad boys. 
8. Enjoy!

These pancakes are so fluffy and delicious, hands down the best protein pancakes recipe I've ever tried. This recipe was adapted from a recipe posted by @the_starving_artist on instagram.

Hopefully now that I have the summer off I will be posting a lot more on here. At least that's my goal :)

With love,

Tuffy

WIAW #7

Happy WIAW everyone! One of my favorite days of the week , probably next to Friday hehe :)




Since its pumpkin season right now (well, at least it is if you ask me!), first I want to talk about one of my recent ah-may-zing pumpkin creations:

Stacked pumpkin french toast

I made this for lunch over the weekend...good does not even describe it. When making the french toast I added sugar free pumpkin spice coffee mate, cinnamon, nutmeg, and a dash of ginger to the egg mixture. I cooked it like normal (in a bit of coconut oil). Between layers (and on the top slice) and spread Trader Joe's pumpkin butter and PB2 (which I made using the pumpkin spice coffee mate). And then topped it off with a bit of sugar free syrup. Some easy and delicious pumpkin goodness <3

On to today's eats!

Lunch

This morning I just threw together a bunch of stuff for a quick stir fry: ground turkey, broccoli slaw, spinach, feta, and artichoke antipasta spread from Trader Joe's. I put all that on top of some spaghetti squash and topped it off with some hot sauce at work. You can still see the steam in the picture haha :)

Red Velvet Cafe's oatmeal raisin cookie sandwich

Here in Vegas Red Velvet Cafe makes absolutely phenomenal (mostly vegan) desserts. They also have good food, but the desserts is where it's really at. All of their cakes and cookies are supposedly under 200 calories. I don't know how she does it, but it's incredible. My mom surprised me with one of these at work...it was so good I almost forgot to take a picture ^_^

I got off work early and decided to do some food prep. I got super hungry in the middle of it so I decided to share a few of the things I made with my love.

Zucchini fritter topped with lite mozarella and sriracha

Recipe from Meg

Apple peanut butter protein muffin

Recipe from Vevian

Both were very yummy!

For dinner I made something super simple and inspired by my mommy <3 

My love and I have coined it "Mama V's chicken and rice"

And for dessert we decided to take a trip to Golden Spoon...we got one of those "buy one get one" texts and couldn't resist :)

Pumpkin pie & graham cracker swirl, Pecans and Praline, and Vanilla Malt. All topped off with a bit of graham cracker crumbs.

So happy with this decision haha, I love me some pumpkin flavored anything ;)

I hope you all had an awesome Wednesday!

With love,

Tuffy

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 # 5

Happy WIAW everyone :)
First I want to address the theme of this WIAW. Lately I've been inspired by, loving, and craving all things pumpkin. There are so many drool-worthy pumpkin-containing foods being posted on Instagram, it's nuts! I love it. This week I've been loving my pumpkin iced coffees, with pumpkin coffee from Trader Joe's and sugar free pumpkin spice coffee mate. So good! Also, I've made pumpkin blondies, pumpkin protein pancakes, and my oh-so-amazing pumpkin pie fro yo (in previous posts). And I've got a can of pumpkin in my cabinets just waiting for me to do something with it this weekend :)
Anyways, on to my eats today!
Lunch today was:

Baked chicken tenders, roasted veggies, quinoa, and sriracha

Cottage cheese, cookies & cream casein, chocolate PB2, and mashed up banana

Snacks consisted of:

My last quest bar :( Loving these! I almost forgot to take a pic!

Dehydrated cinnamon fuji apples

I love these dehydrated apples from Costco. I don't buy them much anymore because they're kind of pricey, but my mom found a box on the bottom of a cart in the Costco parking lot and thought I would like them. Boy, does she know me well or what! I was pretty excited about that.

For dinner I made pineapple, chicken, and steak cauliflower "fried rice". Yummmy :D

Grated cauliflower

The finished product. Of course, had to add some spice with chili garlic sauce.

And lastly, dessert!

Peanut butter and "jelly" fro yo. Yum yum yummm

Before I added the "jelly" I dipped a strawberry in the PB fro yo...so delicious. For the "jelly" I just mashed together strawberries and blueberries. For the PB fro yo I added 2 TBSP peanut flour to Fage Greek yogurt. I really love homemade fro yo!

Well, I suppose that's it for now....need to get some sleep :)

With love,

Tuffy

MIMM #3

Hey, look at that -- it's actually Monday! This may be the first time I'm successfully posting this on Monday.

Anyways, today "marvelous" is all about the little things for me. Since I worked all weekend and had a super busy day today (worked nonstop until 2, left for class, ate in the car, got home at 5ish), it's the small but marvelous things I look for.

Well, a few weeks ago I made a goal to go 2 weeks of healthy eating and making good choices without any slip-ups or treats/cheats (my love actually decided to join me on this as well). The 2 week mark was last Thursday, and not only did I make it, but I went 2 extra days. I'm really proud of myself, as I don't think I've gone more than a week without any slip-ups in a really long time. So the fact that I went 2 weeks is just awesome! On Saturday my love and I had a planned treat meal (NOT cheat...I will expand on this idea later!) and it was marvelous, lemme tell you.

Treat meal!

This consisted of (clockwise from top left): bacon wrapped dates (SO good!); macadamia crusted chicken (inspired by a meal I've had at Kona Grill), bacon wrapped steak, and Hungry Girl's butternut-cauliflower-potato bake (actually pretty healthy); Yogurtland!! Mine was a mix of white chocolate macadamia nut, french vanilla, cheesecake, and pineapple guava topped with white chocolate macadamia nut crumble, cookie doe, mochi, and yogurt chips; wine that really wasn't that good, and my love and I!

Not only did I wait 2 weeks to have this amazing treat meal, but it also did not trigger me to eat everything else I could find (which is usually the case). The next day I went right back to eating healthy. Something else that I'm proud of :)

Sunday was rather non-eventful. Just work, visiting my dad briefly, and going to the gym. I cam home and did some food prep. My love was super full from eating with his family, so I was on my own for dinner. I took this opportunity to make a yummy breakfast for dinner (I love doing this! reminds me of being a kid lol).

Breakfast dinner

This dinner consisted of leftover squash bake topped with a whole egg; roasted veggies and egg white scramble, whole grain toast, and half of a cinnamon roll oatmeal cake (from Chocolate Covered Katie).

Like I said earlier, today was super busy at work. Mostly because I had to leave by 2 to go to class, so I had to squeeze everything in before then. Tomorrow is just going to be nuts though! By the time I left work I was starving, and this little guy was very comforting:

My protein PB&J

Something else that reminds me of being a little kid. Just a little more grown up. Some protein powder added to PB2 to give it a little bit more protein. The "J" is just fresh strawberries mashed together. So much better and fresher tasting than the stuff out of the jar. 

And now I'm painting my nails, which is most definitely marvelous since it's been a few weeks!

I hope you all had marvelous Monday's as well <3

With love,

Tuffy

MIMM #2...on Tuesday

So I know I'm a day late on this, but I was up until 3 last night studying 0_0 so I didn't exactly have time for this post. But since my first genetics exam is now over, now I do! 
I am so happy to be done with my first round of exams for this semester...back to a more normal routine where I actually have time for some things I enjoy :)
Even though I was in studying-mode yesterday (and all weekend) I still got some marvelous things in.
My study break this weekend was going grocery shopping. I'm a total nerd for grocery shopping...I love it! I love doing it and I love having a fully stocked fridge afterwards!

Yay!

 I skipped work yesterday so I could get some extra studying in, and while home I got some food prep in while studying. Well, it didn't prove to be an effective way to study, but I'm still very happy I got a bunch of it done...it will make the rest of the week much easier.

Roasted veggies

Big bowl of homemade hummus...a girls best friend ;)

My first attempt at kale chips...I love it.

Chicken + tilapia...I need new tupperware -_-

Iced coffee for the week

I also got to enjoy some delicious meals with my love <3

Southwest egg cups + toast

My love made me dinner while I was studying...so sweet of him. Feta & turkey meatballs with spaghetti squash and garlic pita bread.

An amazing new snack I came up with: PB and "jelly" cottage cheese. "Jelly" = mashed blueberries

 Over the weekend I fell head over heals in love with a new dessert concept...homemade fro-yo! I was inspired by stacieeleep on instagram. So far I've made 3 different fro-yo concoctions and every one has been delicious!

My first, and so far favorite, attempt. Pumpkin Pie fro yo! Greek yogurt with vanilla protein  powder topped with one of my pumpkin pie blondies and almond butter. It tasted like pumpkin pie!

Tropical fro-yo: greek yogurt with mango, pineapple and coconut. Topped with fresh strawberries and Trader Joe's-O's

Greek yogurt with vanilla protein powder topped with a Kashi chocolate square and PB2

 I can't wait to try more combinations...there is just no turning back after you've made your own fro-yo :)

Lastly, on Friday my love surprised me when I came home from work and he started painting our room. When we moved in here our room was hideously painted green and purple...we called it the hulk room. Awful, just awful. Well, he went out and got paint and surprised me. He finished in Monday and it looks SO much better!! I will post pictures later, but this was definitely a marvelous surprise this weekend.


Well, that's it for now. I suppose I should get some sleep, seeing as I only got four hours last night ^_^


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