It’s not often that I find a recipe which I don’t have to tweak first in order to make it best suited to my (and others’) taste. So this is why I’ve decided to post about a fantastic – and healthy – cookie recipe I found the other day on skinnyms.com.
Oh my! These were gobbled up by everyone who laid eyes on them! And with just about 130 calories per cookie (I used 1/2 the sugar), I could eat even 2 (one after lunch & another after supper) and not feel guilty about it!
Of course my hubby was eating them by the handful. But men can do that and not have it go straight to their thighs or waist…
Thursday was uneventful. Besides taking Maxi to 2 doctor’s visits for checkups, it was a normal day. Not much to write about. So I’ll get to the food 🙂
This may be funny, but I was most excited about the deviled egg today. I love deviled eggs, and up until today (except once 2 weeks ago) I had never made them. I only enjoyed them at parties if someone happened to make them…
Once again, SkinnyMs has provided a great recipe… for deviled eggs. Of course I only made and ate one, but I could have eaten more!! They’re about 100 calories per 1 deviled egg.
For lunch I had chosen a taco bowl. I love tacos and never before thought about taking the ingredients out of the taco… But it works! And man, was it filling!!
Taco bowl: 1 cup cooked brown rice + ½ diced bell pepper + 100g pork + 1 cup shredded romaine + ¼ cup corn + shredded cheese – 550 calories. (In my original meal plan, I should have also added avocado and tomato, but this was already so much that I just didn’t want to overdo it by adding more ingredients…
While my meal plan for the week originally called for a chicken lettuce wrap for supper, I decided to make something else. I was unhappy with having not made my frittata the other day, so I decided to do something with eggs (maybe that 1 deviled egg just made me want more!)
So supper was spinach scrambled eggs. 2 eggs + a handful of spinach + 1/2 tomato + a bit of low-fat feta cheese – about 250 calories. I added a pinch of salt and pepper and viola! I had breakfast for supper 🙂
Wednesday was a chill day. It rained all day so we were stuck indoors. But that’s ok because there is something about being at home while it’s raining that feels so calming.
And then in the evening we left Alexander with his grandpa, and we went with Maxi to our friend’s house for dinner.
See, we have 2 other couples that we meet with at a regular basis. We rotate who hosts, plan a theme for the evening food, all chip in with the meals, and then sit, drink wine, eat good food, talk and then, always play games. My, do we love our games!!
Our favorite game to play together is called Carcassonne.
If you like games with friends or family, and you don’t know this game, then you have to go get it! It’s strategic, so it’s not boring, but it’s also not so complicated that you spend hours learning how to play the game. Real fun!!
But yesterday we didn’t play Carcassonne. We played a new one – Bang! It’s a fun game where each player is given 1 of 3 identities, which are secret, and have to eliminate 1 or more players based on their identity.
It’s a short enough game that you don’t get bored, and you can have fun getting others to believe you are someone you aren’t, in order to win the game. If you have a good poker face – this game is for you!
Besides the games, the theme for food yesterday was healthy Jamie Oliver meals. I made the appetizer – a mint yogurt dip with veggies (recipe here). The main was made by our host, Chicken & Squash Cacciatore – YUM! and finally dessert was mini cheesecakes with a healthy twist. No recipe because my friend took Jamie’s recipe, and tweaked it to be a healthy dessert 🙂
As for the first part of my day – the menu plan was great!
Breakfast: granola with banana, goji berries and milk, plus of course my morning coffee (400 calories)
Snack: Spinach pear smoothie: 1 cup spinach + 1 pear + 1/2 banana + 1 tsp ginger + 1 cup green tea (about 170 calories)
Lunch: pork wrap: 100g pork + 1/2 avocado (smashed with lime juice) + 1/2 cup sprouts + 1/2 cup each roasted carrots and broccoli + whole wheat wrap (about 460 calories)
Snack: skinny peanut butter yogurt + 1 medium apple – recipe here (just under 200 calories)
And my supper was the Jamie Oliver dinner mentioned at the top of this post.
As Ice Cube rapped back in the day, “it was a good day”.
Now I don’t know when I will be able to get enough sleep again. Really. But I don’t mind, so long as I got my day under control, get everything done for the family, and maybe even have a bit of time for myself.
Tuesday was such a day.
It all started with little Maxi woke up at 6am to be fed. That is my ideal time to start the day! I fed him, and then had a bit of time with him awake before I had to wake up my older son to get ready for school. So I drank my water with lemon and sat down at the computer to do some light browsing – through Pinterest, StumbleUpon, Facebook, you know, the usual suspects.
Then at 7 I woke up my son, helped him prepare for school, and by 8 it was once again just Maxi and me (hubby was still sleeping). I made my usual French Press coffee, some breakfast, and once I was done, Maxi was ready for a nap. Perfect!
We went to his room, I got him to sleep and sat once again at the computer. Since I had the door shut, my time was just that – mine. At around 9 I fed Maxi again, but he was still so sleepy that he quickly went back to sleep and I was once again free for me time!
Wow.
So such a morning really makes up for the fact that I slept just 4 hours that night (I came home late from a girls’ evening).
So, about Tuesday’s meals – the day went smoothly despite having to make some small adjustments… (Here‘s a link to this week’s meal plan).
It seems that Maxi had gas problems last week when I ate Greek yogurt, which means I had to change my breakfast: oatmeal + goji berries + strawberries.
But my snack remained unchanged – yummy!!
Blueberry spinach smoothie: 1/2 cup each frozen strawberries & blueberries + 1/2 medium banana + 1 cup spinach + 1 cup low-fat milk. Total calories: 235.
When lunch time rolled around, I realized that we had run out of pearl barley, which was on the menu, so I exchanged that for buckwheat. I know that buckwheat has more calories than barley, but it also has many benefits: it’s high in protein, it’s gluten-free, and it has various properties which help with digestion, keeping low blood pressure, and drawing out retained water.
So Tuesday’s chicken barley salad turned into chicken buckwheat salad and was tasty!! 60g dry buckwheat + 150g chicken + about 1/2 tomato + fresh cilantro + balsamic vinegar.
After this salad, I wasn’t really in the mood to eat a snack afterwards, so I just waited till I was hungry and ate my supper for the day: tuna salad. I made it for myself and hubby, and totally forgot to take a pic. But trust me, it looked and tasted great!
Tuna salad: 3 romaine leaves + 1/2 can tuna + 1 hard-boiled egg + 1/4 cup corn + 1/4 cup shredded cheese + 1/4 diced red bell pepper + balsamic vinegar. Calories: 413. This is actually a large salad, so I ended up not eating it all. Next time I have to cut some ingredients.
So, thanks in part to Maxi waking up at the right time, and having a great meal plan, I like Tuesdays! How about you???
I have to say – what a difference it makes to prepare your meals in advance! And it’s not that I prepared everything into neat little boxes like I’ve seen some people do, I just did the more time consuming things over the weekend, such as cook the meats, prepare the hummus, that kind of thing. The rest I did when it was time for my meal. And because of this little bit of advance preparation, I was able to eat the right portions at the right times! Totally love this idea. And my boys were happy too, given that they also had food ready for them for whenever they wanted to eat 🙂 Win – win for everyone!
I saw this idea with the jar on pinterest the other day and thought to give it a try.
Looks convenient – right?
Well, looks can be deceiving! While it is a comfortable way to store the snack, once you actually want to eat it, it becomes a total pain in the …!! I had to use a spatula to get the hummus out of the jar! Once I transferred it all to a bowl, I was able to actually enjoy this snack stress-free.
So first snack of the day was about 1/4 – 1/3 cup hummus + 2 carrots. Total calories: less than 300.
Chicken wrap for lunch was so yummy! At the last minute I decided to add a bit more variety so I added a radish 🙂 While the wrap may not look like much, it is so tasty and filling! Added bonus: it was wrapped in a tortilla. I may not be Mexican, but I come from Los Angeles, which means I grew up on Mexican food and Tex-Mex (it’s not the same!!) so I just looooove tortillas!
I actually think it may be in my genes since my 9 year old also loves anything wrapped in a tortilla.
How to make a chicken wrap: 150g grilled chicken, cut into bite-sized chunks + 1 large lettuce leaf + 1/2 tomato + 1 tbsp hummus + 1 radish + 1 whole wheat tortilla. Total calories: about 390.
Spread the hummus on the tortilla, pile on the other ingredients, roll the wrap, heat on a pan (no oil/butter/whatever needed), about 1/2 min on med-high heat per side, and serve!
After such a filling lunch, the second snack of the day was a simple banana spread with 1 tbsp of peanut butter. I have to admit – peanut butter is my weakness. Up until now, I only ever ate peanut butter with apple (or, I’ll say it, off a spoon ). It’s great with banana too!
In addition, peanut butter has many benefits for the body! It’s full of fiber and protein which fills you up and keeps you feeling full longer 🙂
My last meal for the day unfortunately was sabotaged, as I had a girls evening with 2 of my friends. It wasn’t at my home, so I couldn’t prepare the BLT salad which I was looking forward to. Interested? Here’s the recipe. Total calorie count: about 430.
Full disclosure: I had 3 glasses of wine And I totally don’t regret it! You know, I have a 3-month old, so such an opportunity for me to de-stress without my kids, only with my close girls friends was really a treat.
Ok, so while I am for sure more mindful of how and what I eat, I still am not able to fall into the rhythm of eating 5 times a day and eating the right amount of calories each time. Thus it’s time to re-vamp my process a bit.
Lately I’ve seen lots of weekly meal plans on the internet, and I’m thinking that I like the idea! But, me being me, I wanted to create my own as opposed to following another one. Don’t get me wrong – I think that many of the meal plans that are out there are great and all, but I just like to take control of my own things.
So I set a meal plan for this week, researched all the recipes, calculated all the amounts and calories, did my shopping and prepped a few items I knew I wouldn’t rather have time for during the week (week being 5 days so far).
Above is my very own meal plan.
While some of the meals and snacks are my own ideas, I also pulled some ideas from various websites. My favorite website is www.skinnyms.com. There are so many great ideas on this site! I am totally addicted to it. If you don’t know this site yet, you must click on the link. Trust me – you won’t regret it!
It seems that my 9 year old isn’t as interested in healthy eating as I am. Therefore I am looking for interesting ways to get him involved. Unfortunately he is already too old for the timeless trick of many parents where, if they arrange the food in a funny face or Mikey Mouse or something, then their kid will eat whatever it is.
So I have to find more honest and real ways.
Enter Nicecream. What is it? It’s just frozen bananas blended alone or with other fruit to create an ice-cream consistency. My son loves it most with a bit of vanilla extract and nothing else. Could there be a tastier healthy option to dessert than this?! I think not. It’s without any additional sweeteners and has all the benefits of bananas:
It contains fiber, which helps with digestion
The potassium in bananas keep blood pressure at bay
All of its various vitamins and minerals keep the heart healthy
Bananas also contain tryptophan, an amino acid that studies suggest plays a role in preserving memory and boosting your mood
So all in all – can you find a better dessert than this? And when made into Nicecream – it tastes absolutely wonderful!!
Now, the process:
Take a ripe banana, peel it, cut it into slices, slide them into a zip-lock bag and place in the freezer
I noticed that for best results, they should be in the freezer for about 2 hours: less and they will be too mushy, more and they will be hard and difficult to blend
After the 2 hours are up, place the banana slices into a blender, adding any other ingredients you wish. I suggest start small and then once you get the hang of it, work your way into more complicated combinations. (You can add other frozen fruits to the blend).
Blend until smooth, scoop into a bowl, add some fresh fruit toppings if you wish, and enjoy!
Welcome to the middle of my first week planning and tracking meals! Here is what I’ve learned already:
If I’m lucky enough to have a mid-morning nap (which happens after nights when I sleep 4 hours or less), then it’s usually about an hour somewhere between 8 and 10am so I have a late breakfast and skip my first snack…
I need to focus on PORTION SIZES!!! Clean and healthy eating is for sure important, but so is portion size… and over-estimating portion size leads to a big jump in calories!!
My 3 main meals of the day should be between 300-500 calories, while snacks should be up to 200 calories.
I can treat myself to something extra, even on a daily basis, but it shouldn’t be more than 200 calories.
Tuesday (total: 1701 calories):
Breakfast 771 calories (!!)
Large bowl of granola/muesli + 12g goji berries + 100g banana + milk
1 1/2 cups of Herbed zucchini soup (find the recipe here)
Extra 85 calories
1 glass of red wine (We had a nice evening 🙂
Speaking of walking, since it was a rainy first half of the day, I didn’t get in my daily 3 hour walk with baby. But after my 9 year old came home from school, we went to the bball court just outside our apt building so he could shoot some hoops and hubby and I walked round the area with baby (who am I kidding, of course we also shot some hoops, for the good old days when we were young and good at basketball).
Tell me, is it as hard for you as it is for me to eat 5 times a day???
I don’t want to spend the rest of my days weighing food, so I was first creating portion sizes how I think they should/could be and then weighing them, which is why some of my portion amounts are odd numbers (like 18g or 11g).
A healthy life isn’t only about the food you consume, but about your level of activity as well. On top of that, it is (finally) spring and the weather is beautiful!!! In reality, spring and autumn usually last only about 2 weeks each in Poland. However, since the global weather has been changing, the past few years have given us longer springs and summers – yeay!!
My activity for the day: a 3 hour walk with little Maxi 💚
Everyone whose ever tried to diet or change their meal plan knows that a messy refrigerator only makes things more complicated. So, in the spirit of eating healthy, I decided to completely re-arrange my fridge so that it be most optimal not only for me, but also for my older son and husband.
I handed baby off to husband and got down to it. Now, of course I did not come up with the organization techniques on my own! I googled through many websites to find how best to arrange my fridge for our family.
And I must say that I’m so proud of the result! I just hope my boys keep to the idea that “every product has it’s own space” and don’t “re-arrange” it anytime soon…
So what’s the logic here? Well, considering that this is a typical European fridge (read: small), I didn’t have much space to work with. But this is what I’ve got:
Top shelf: Condiments, jars, leftovers, seeds/nuts
2nd shelf from top: eggs and a basket with cold cuts
2nd shelf from bottom: all dairy except milk – yogurts, cream cheeses, butter and a basket with cheeses
Bottom shelf: raw meat, raw fish, a container with carrots and radishes in water, and a container with corn.
Bottom left drawer: all veggies (packed so as to guarantee they stay fresh as long as possible
Bottom right drawer: all fruits which must be refrigerated
The main points which I followed were: condiments which don’t fit on the door go at the very top (apparently it is warmest there), dairy in the middle and raw meats and fish on the bottom so they don’t leak down onto other products. Then, veggies and fruits in the crisp drawers, packaged according to freshness.
Out of the fridge: bananas, apples, pears, tomatoes, cucumbers (I know! Apparently it’s best kept out of the fridge!), potatoes, onions and garlic.
Do you like to keep your fridge organized? What works best for you???
). It’s great with banana too!
Anna's Kitchen of Life 