Two Recipes: Lunch & Dessert

Good morning and happy thursday.  I cannot believe how cold it is outside today--cold relative to the 90 degree weather we were experiencing last weekend.  I sure hope it warms up for all the festivities this weekend (bonfire tonight, out tomorrow, game saturday and concert sunday!)

Anyways, yesterday I had great plans of making protein shakes and egg salad along with some sort of dessert.  The good news? I did it all plus a little cleaning and laundry AND had time to work, walk and go to Wegmans with a friend.

So in case you missed this one on pinterest or your time spent checking out other blogs, here is some Egg and Avocado Salad!

Ingredients:

5 eggs (3 without yolks)

1 tbsp Lt. Mayo

1 Avocado

Grape Tomatos

Salt, Pepper, Cumin to taste

Boil 5 eggs, chill and remove the yolks from 2-3 of them (this removes some of the extra stuff that you don't really really need). Chop with either a food processor or by hand.  

Mix in 1 sliced and chopped avocado. Add desired amount of Mayo. Add salt, pepper and cumin to taste. Mix again and enjoy :)

This was the perfect dinner along with some tomato soup at work.  The avocado didn't brown for a few hours so it was the perfect yellow, white and green color (which scared my mother who refused to try it).

After work I went for a quick walk/ run with my mom and decided to try something of my own (aka no recipe).  

This is what I came up with:

Broiled Peaches with Vanilla Yogurt and Pomegranate Balsamic Drizzle.

Ingredients

1 peach (cut in half)

Brown Sugar

Granola

Low Fat Vanilla Yogurt

Sweet balsamic vinegar

sprinkle brown sugar on halved peaches and let sit for 5 minutes.  Place in broiler on 400 for 4-5 minutes.

remove and add granola of choice (I used Be Kind honey granola)

Dolup of Vanilla Yogurt

F. Olivers royal pomegranate drizzle to finish.

These recipes so so easy, delicious and just the right amount for a snack, lunch or dessert, enjoy!

Chocolate Blueberry Morning Blast

Okay so I definitely have gotten back to my favorite summer routine of getting up early, exercising and coming home to make a great breakfast and blog about either that or something else more exciting..okay maybe not so much the more exciting part since I have been busy working every day but there will be more exciting days to come.

Last night during my evening boredom slump after work I made myself a list of some recipes I want to try this week

Here is what I came up with:

1. Egg and Avocado salad

2. Protein shakes (post-workout)

3. Greek Quinoa Salad

4. Protein pancakes

5. Oatmeal Peanut butter & carob chip squares

6. Cedar Plank Salmon with some sort of salsa (thanks wegmans!)

Today I am tackling the first two and am starting bright and early.  I was up by 8 and went to Cardio Pump with my cousin.  This whole group class environment is pretty foreign to me since I love working out and running by myself (it is my "me" time) but it was actually a challenging workout and I had fun doing it.

Into the mix:

1 packet of chocolate spire-tein protein powder

1 cup blueberries

8 oz almond milk

oh so creamy but a bit too chocolatey, maybe i'll try vanilla next time and less milk! This baby mae two batches for me.

Do you use protein powder? If so, what kinds and if not, why not?

Recipe: Egg White Protein Oats

So yesterday I woke up early and started my day with a little pinterest.  I am addicted, I know this but the whole website is amazing and great for getting new ideas for crafts, exercises and meals.

I saw that my friend Clare had posted some amazing recipe/photo of microwave oats with an egg in them.  I thought, wow so easy and a great protein meal.  It was then decided that I would try my kitchen skills out with oats, eggs and a microwave.

I used the following:

1/4 cup quick oats

a dash of cinnamon (a lot actually)

1 whole egg

a little almond milk 

handful of  blueberries

put all these in a mug and whip them up.  Microwave for 2 minutes and volia!  I will warn you that when doing this in a coffee mug the oats puff up beyond the mug which caused the loss of some blueberries and a whole lot of juice to go all over the microwave (messy cleanup!)

These were...mhhh, okay. I wasn't impressed with how much I could actually taste the egg but I added some more almond milk and brown sugar and we were good to go.  Since I was working all day yesterday it was a good thing I had such a hearty breakfast, this baby lasted me until I got out of work at 4pm (I was starving at 2 but didn't have time) so A good meal to hold you over for, say, 5 hours!

Today I went with a different mix:

1 egg white

1/4 cup multigrain oats (different from yesterday)

dash of cinnamon

almond milk

water

The first batch didn't have enough liquid and I got more of an oatmeal/ egg crunch pancake. So I tried again to make sure I had the right amount of liquid per oats.

Volia!  Added some organic crunchy PB, strawberries, blueberries and half a nanner.

Nothing like sweet summertime!

A Graduation & Vacation

Congrats to this guy for graduating from Colgate University last weekend! 4 years of friends, fun and lots of visits from me, I couldn't be more proud of him.   I spent graduation weekend with Brendan and his family with a huge picnic, ceremonies and one last night with his friends. I had the most amazing time and am so happy to have met so many amazing people through Brendan at Colgate. 

Next up was a trip to Montreal, my gift to Brendan for graduation.  I had been keeping this trip a secret for so long and then accidentally told him the week before (oops!). The drive, a longish 6 hours, was filled with many coffee breaks and breakfast sandwiches and ended with some serious traffic to get to our hotel.  We had the most amazing time perusing Montreal, exploring restaurants and the typical touristy sites and even got caught in the middle of a huge protest.

After going to London and wearing my classic sperry's around the city ALL DAY I learned my lesson and went with some sneakers.  All day I continually mentioned how touristy we looked with our sneakers and camera bag but it was fun and I made quite a few jokes about it.

We went to a few markets for cheese and baguettes, the Biodome (because you're never too old for the zoo), famous restaurants that were suggested by Anthony Bourdain himself (Dominion Square Tavern, Beauty's Lucheonette, and St. Viteur's Bagels)...YUM!

Congratulations Brendan!!

Summer Time Smoothies

It is finally summer and I am quickly falling back into my "typical" summer routine.  When I say typical I mean, yes, typical for me.  I'm not sure there are many other college students that enjoy getting up early to run followed with thinking up some delicious replenishing breakfast. 

 I decided to embrace my typical routine by getting up and running a short 2 miles with my mom followed with my first trip back to the YMCA.  I realized how spoiled I am to have a membership in the city to an all women's gym--specialized machines, comfortable and no strange stairs from the locals. Oh I will definitely be missing that for the coming weeks.  I honestly cannot tell you why I take such issue with readjusting to a gym that I used to be so familiar with but I am almost always stricken with fear that seriously puts a damper on my workout.  However, I pushed through, found the machines that I am used to working with and made myself a list of free weight exercises to do and volia--done.

This morning I had decided to start in with some smoothies and had been craving one ever since I made up my mind.  I had seen this idea on Pinterest which led me a blog with a brief description of how it works--honestly it is pretty self explanatory but here is a picture for all you visual learners out there:

Courtesy of Kelleigh Ratzlaff Designs.

Steps:

1. Buy or find a cheap blender

2. Remove the main pitcher that it comes with and separate blade (be careful this is sharp!)

3. fill a medium sized mason jar with your smoothie of choice

4. place blade on top of mason jar, attach the piece that holds everything together

5. flip and place on the blender. 

** I find that holding it down works best since the jar doesn't completely screw into the blender mechanism.

Think Magic Bullet on a budget--except this is better since the Magic Bullet is (a) $50 and (b) pretty time consuming with all those parts that seem to get lost!

Full and beautiful with lots of protein and antioxidants!

Ready to drink!

The recipe for today:

1/2 frozen banana

1/4 (give or take) Wegmans mixed frozen fruit (strawberries, blueberries, raspberries & blackberries)

1 container of chobani

1/2 a packet of Spiruten Vanilla Protein Powder

1/2 cup (i didn't measure)? Almond Milk

Blend and enjoy!

First Race of The Season.

congrats to my mom on her first 5k ever!  She ran the whole thing and beat her estimated time.  

I came in at 26:30 something and ended up with a great average time (8:30m), a personal record for me!