Tuesday 09 December wrap-up (I’ve been busy!)

Note: I’ve edited to add the recipe for my frittata below, as per Ashley’s request Hope this helps!

Going to keep this short and sweet.

Breakfast yesterday was another frittata, this time with tuna, avocado, cheese and cherry tomatoes, served with tomato sauce and a cup of tea.

How to:
1. Lightly beat two whole freerange eggs and a tablespoon of skim milk in a bowl. Spray a small frying pan (mine is about 20cm I think) with cooking oil; turn on the grill (the one in the oven!).
2. For this recipe, I used a 95g tin of sandwich tuna, which I stirfried for a minute or so with some cherry tomato halves and salt & pepper.
3. Pour the egg mix over the tuna & tomato; add 1/4 small avocado, sliced, and sprinkle 1tbs grated cheese over the top (or more, if you like!).
4. Leave to set on a low heat for a couple of minutes, until the edges of the egg become opaque.
5. Transfer under the grill, whilst still in the frying pan (if it is heatproof). I usually find that leaving the egg under the grill for 3-4 minutes on a medium heat is enough to set the top.
6. Making sure that the egg is cooked, transfer the frittata to a plate and enjoy!

I was reading some Paul Ricoeur on Tuesday morning and it was heaaaavy so I decided I needed cofffee. This is a skinny cappucino from Muzz Buzz, with a shot of vanilla. It was super awesome (and much better than regular MB coffee, which frankly tastes like death. I only go there because I don’t have to leave my car… no, I’m not lazy at all!).

Lunch was the same curry lentils from yesterday, pimped up with leftover char siu chicken from Sunday night’s dinner. This looks like a massive serve, but it isn’t a very big bowl… I was full for ages afterwards, though.

Finally, for dinner I chopped up a chicken and slow-cooked it on an electric frying pan (classy) in a tin of crushed tomatoes, with pepper and garlic salt. I added some carrot and zucchini to the mix a little later on, and cooked it on low for about 1.5 hours total. Served with split pea mash – just cook some split peas in a fair amount of water on a med-low heat for an hour, then mash. Mine were really runny so I put them into the fridge in a container for a while, and then reheated in the microwave when it was time to serve. They came out awesomely mash-like. I’ll use herbs for extra flavour next time, but we’re seriously out of -everything- at the moment. I’m just happy to have found a substitute for potato, which I don’t particularly like.

I also ate a few unphotographed chocolate almond oat balls that I made yesterday. I’ll be sure to snap a picture today though!

Tuesday dinner

Something nice and simple tonight was the way to go. Enter: vegetable pasta.

I cooked a big pot of wholemeal pasta so I’d have some leftover for a pasta salad tomorrow night. Tonight though, I made up a delish sauce using a jar of Jensen’s basil & garlic organic pasta sauce, combined with onion, zucchini, tomato, carrot, red capsicum, and kalamata olives. I stirred through a little organic pesto at the very end for a big of extra flavour, and oh my, it blew my mind. We’re out of parmesan so I sprinkled a little Colby over the top of the pasta, seeing as it was completely lacking in protein.

I never normally use jars of pasta sauce, preferring to make my own, but I’ve had this particular sauce a couple of times and I think I’ll keep buying it because it’s sooooo good.

For dessert, I had a little icecream bar – I think it’s made by Bulla? I can’t remember. Photo is a bit crappy, I’m afraid.

I made some awesome food choices today, if I do say so myself. It’s after 8 now and I feel totally satisfied, which is the aim of the game. Yay!

And we’re back!

Hey there!

I’ve decided to start photographing & blogging my food again, after a hiatus since my trip to Europe in July (oh my gosh – I can’t believe it was that long ago!). I’ve since been to South America for a month long holiday, where it was a blessing not to have to photograph every meal, as many of the meals were quite same-same. I swear I ate jam on bread for breakfast for 25 of 30 days when we were away!

Luckily, we’re coming in to Summer here in Australia, which means two things: firstly, all the good fruit is available in stores! I have seriously lamented the lack of stone fruits, vine fruits, and yummy melons over the past few months. I’m not really much of a fan of apples, and I hate pears, and although I quite like oranges, they’re a pain in the arse to eat so I never bother. Just the other day, I saw mangoes, tropical fruits (rambutan, longan, lychee), peaches, nectarines, plums, imported pomegranates (thank you America) and grapes at the shops. They’re all too expensive to actually purchase at the moment still, but a girl can dream. I just can’t wait for cherries!

Secondly, it stays light for a lot longer during the day, meaning that I should be able to take some decent photos. I have been looking over the archives of this blog, and many of the photos are terrible – the result of living in a house with shocking lighting conditions, and little natural light to enhance things. I hope that this time round my pictures will be a little clearer and brighter!

On that note, let’s get in to it.

I started my day the best way I know how: with a vegie frittata, accompanied by Vegemite on a slice of German rye (with a scraping of butter underneath the Vegemite) and a couple of teaspoons of tomato sauce.

How to:
1. Saute chopped mixed veg (I used zucchini, olives, and cherry tomatoes) in a small frying pan until beginning to soften.
2. Pour two free-range eggs (beaten with a little slosh of skim milk) over the sauteed vegies, with the heat on low. Sprinkle grated cheese on top but don’t mix through.
3. Turn on the grill to med-high.
4. As the edges of the frittata (still on the stove top at this stage) begin to solidify and go white, transfer the entire frying pan to under the grill, but only if it is heat-proof!
5. Enjoy when the top of the frittata is nicely browned and the egg is cooked!

For lunch I cooked up a batch of curry lentils, which turned out to be enough two meals – so thankfully I don’t need to cook tomorrow! Yay!

How to:
1. Cook half a cup of dried lentils (rinsed) in 1.5 cups of water on low for 30 minutes. Keep an eye on them during the cooking process as times are subjective.
2. Chop a range of vegies. I used zucchini, red capsicum, and cherry tomato as that’s all I had on hand.
3. Saute the vegies in a wok or other large frying pan. Add curry paste to taste – I used 1tbsp of Patak’s balti paste, but I probably didn’t use enough for my liking. (At this point I also threw in 1/2 cup of cooked white rice that I had in the fridge, just to use it up).
4. Drain the lentils before stirring them in to the wok. The lentils should be soft to eat, but not mushy, and should retain their shape when you stir them into the vegies and curry paste.
5. Enjoy!

For an afternoon snack I had a cup of tea (which looks totally washed out here, but was actually quite strong) with skim milk and a teaspoon of sugar, accompanied by two toasted Nanna’s Waffles, topped with peanut butter and mashed banana.

Dinner tonight is going to be pasta… can’t wait!

Thursday 30 July 2009

Argh — I am so bloody frustrated at the lack of GOOD natural light in this house! All my pictures from today came out so terrible. I’m really, really annoyed. I’m going to investigate setting up a lightbox just so I can take photos that aren’t so damn awful! I suppose winter is frustrating like that – the morning light isn’t strong enough to reach the table, and at night, there is no sun and my house is quite dark (and yellow-tinted). Boooo! I am so annoyed! Oh well.

I’m going to work back through the past few days of food in the following posts… I’ll datestamp them to reflect the actual dates.

Anyway. On with the show.

Breakfast this morning looked uh-may-zing … until I took it out of the pan, and it totally crumbled into a million pieces! And then my photo came out blurry, so really it’s a big fail. It tasted brill though, and kept me full for hours and hours. Enter: corn, zucchini, tomato, and red capsicum “fritatta” (aka mess), topped with reduced fat feta which, because you were asking, pretty much tastes like rubber – and resembles it texturally, as well! I’m reverting back to regular feta next week… stuff the extra calories. The banana & almond butter became my mid-morning snack as I was totally stuffed after the eggy scramble. I had a cup of tea with skim milk & 1tsp sugar with breakfast, too.

I was reading blogs this morning and someone (I can’t remember who!) had made ricepaper rolls for lunch, so I knew I had to do the same. I don’t put noodles in my ricepaper rolls, so it saves a bundle of calories. Instead, I stuffed mine with avocado, iceberg lettuce, carrot, and cucumber, and dipped in hoisin sauce. They were super delicious and you can expect to see part two tomorrow, as I really need to keep my intake to a minimum tomorrow as I’ll be going out for dinner. I had the leftover carrot & cucumber on the side.

For afternoon snack I had this Gippsland wildberry organic yoghurt – just half a tub – with Sanitarium granola clusters. These are soooooo yummy, but at 210 cals per serve, kind of hefty… so I have a half serve for 105 cals. Perfect for topping yoghurt!

Whilst I was cooking dinner tonight I had a plate of vegies and medium-spicy salsa. I cut up way too many vegies for dinner, so my tummy was a pretty good place for them.

And dinner was simple… pork fillet with caramelised red onion, zucchini, tomato, garlic potatoes, and extra (totally unneeded) steamed veg. Again, blurry pic. I is soz.

I would sell my firstborn child for some icecream right now, which is odd because I’m not really an icecream person much. But, I’m trying to be healthy, so if I can hold off on the craving for a week, Rhys has promised me icecream next Thursday… nevermind the fact we were meant to be getting icecream tomorrow after dinner! But oh well

Monday 27 July 09: Ipod pics and shitty descriptions

Breakfast: Vegemite toast; roast vegetable frittata (pumpkin, sweet potato, regular potato, carrot, feta cheese & 2 eggs); organic tomato sauce; tea w/ skim & 1tsp sugar

Skinny cap - first good coffee I've had in a month

Pork, stuffing, avocado & lettuce sandwich on Lawson's grainy bread. GIANT BREAD. In foil. nom.

Ham, pumpkin & avocado on a single slice of Lawson's bread. I know, sandwiches aren't snack food, but we're out of fruit.

Cracked pepper beef sausages, salad, noodles. I only ate less than half of this... the rest has been packaged for lunch tomorrow.

+ cup of tea and 1pc 85% Green & Blacks organic chocolate (pic didn’t work).

Exercise: two x 4.25km walk (8.5km total) + Level 1 30 Day Shred w/ 1kg barbells

Holiday hiatus

Just a quick post to say that this blog will probably be on hiatus for the next three weeks whilst I’m in Europe. When I return, I will do a post featuring the food highlights of my trip. Ciao!

Tuesday 23 June 09: Trying to be healthier today

I am so proud of myself – I dragged my butt out of bed this morning and went for a 4k plod. I didn’t run the whole way, partially due to shin splints (damn them!) and the fact that I was running into a massive headwind on the way home, and I kept literally getting blown backwards every time I took a step. It just wasn’t worth it! A good work out anyway – 400 calories burned before breakfast can’t be wrong!

I started my day with a light first breakfast. I’ve decided that the 5 or 6 small meals approach might be a solution to my incessent desire to eat! Unfortunately I forgot to put the card in my camera when I took a photo of my avocado, cottage cheese, and tomato on pumpernickel bread – I wish my camera would tell me when there was no card

After I took Rhys to work and got settled in for the day, I made second breakfast: a cup of tea with skim and agave, and a scramble involving one whole egg and two whites, four button mushrooms, zucchini, and ham.

Lunch came a couple of hours earlier – nothing exciting to see here! I had a sandwich on soy & linseed bread with ham, avo, pickle spread, tomato, and baby cos lettuce – and a little kiwi fruit on the side.

[image to go here - apologies for the lack of pictures, but I have been shaped! I will update with pics tomorrow!]

I’ve been eating a heap of sandwiches and rolls this week!

I began feeling a bit sluggish about 2pm so braved the rain to get a grande skinny cappuccino from Muzz Buzz. I’m not much a coffee fan, but it helps me when I’m feeling really off, and it’s a good appetite suppressant – not normally something I’d care about, but I’m feeling craaaaappppy this week.

[image]

Another snack about 4.30pm for some pre-gym energy: a pink lady apple with 1tbs peanut butter. Not the healthiest way to eat an apple, but I’m not the hugest apple fan at the moment. Does anyone else go through real phases when it comes to fruit?

[image]

Tonight, we are going to Rhys’s mum’s house for dinner, so there probably won’t be any food pics. We’ll be going to the gym for a quick session beforehand; as I mentioned yesterday, I will be doing a half-hour walking hill climb session, provided that I can get a treadmill (never a given at peak hour!). Tomorrow I’m taking the three-ish hour drive down south to see my sister. She is a highschool teacher and lives in Busselton, a nice beachside town. I’m looking forward to doing my exercise down there, but it’s sure to be horribly windy! I hope my new Garmin arrives before I go! I’ve been thinking all day about what food I want to take down to eat on the journey. Driving long distances makes me huuuuungry, and I want to avoid the lure of the highway roadhouse. I’m going to stop at a food court, Spencer Village, on the way – I never go here as it’s too far away to justify, but I can do a slight detour on my drive south to stop in and get some nums. I’m thinking some sushi… but what else? This food court does phenomenal big steamed buns filled with a combination of pork, chicken, vegies, egg, and yummy savoury-sweet char siu sauce, but I’m absolutely sure they are no good for you! I need something that will be easy to eat in the car, which luckily eliminates most of the other options – it’s a bit hard to eat noodles whilst driving.

So, what should I have with sushi? Rhys and I often get a bit naughty with our food choices when we drive down south – think McDonalds Coke, Twisties, and yummy continental rolls. I want to be healthier this time.

Monday 22 June 09: Not in a happy food place today, TBH.

Despite the fact that my trip is drawing ever closer (less than a week to go! Argh!), I still had a useless day today, not managing to get much work done at all! I will be up late tonight working on stuff for my research job, and then up early tomorrow to run and polish my paper (it needs references, dammit!). This lack of productivity has resulted in one thing and one thing only: boredom snacking. My best days, I’m at uni, in my office, with my head in a book all day – no time to snack mindlessly. On those days, my meals tend to be more balanced and fulfilling. On days like today, however, I’m pretty sure I could eat everything in sight and still not be satisfied.

And this is why I could do to lose a few.

I woke up this morning feeling surprisingly refreshed, considering the fact that I hadn’t managed to get to sleep until almost twelve. I started my day with Vegemite and cottage cheese on soy and linseed toast, and a cup of tea with skim and agave.

As always, lunch came early – around 11. I went for a glass of peach and mango tea (so nice in my freezing house!) with a copy-cat roll from yesterday, but with ham and no avo (so not -that- copy-cat at all, really): low-fat vintage cheese, ham, and pickle spread. Notice that party pie there, too? It may only be 123 calories, but I am a gutso.

The afternoon really slipped by. I went to the fruit and veg market to get some fresh produce, and somehow managed to spend $50 but walk away with very little. I definitely spent far too long in the continental foods section, picking up numerous things I hadn’t planned on buying – pickled red cabbage (inspired by Ashley’s cabbage salad post – thought not at all similar, I’m sure!), wafer squares (these are dangerous! I am addicted to wafers!), pickled mussels in a can, organic pumpernickle-esque bread, and a loaf of cake for Rhys when I am away. My afternoon snack came in the form of a few wafer squares (okay on their own… not so good if you keep going back for more!) and this concoction: cos lettuce, tomato, and pickled mussels on some of the organic bread. That Maccy D’s drink you can see there is definitely a Diet Coke – I needed a pick-me-up, and DC – though made of poison mixed with smelly balls – seemed a good option.

I’m sure that two lunches was not part of my plan for today.

I also had a few wasabi peas during the afternoon. How good are these things? Yet another example of a food that was safe and unwanted when the container was yet to be opened…

Rhys had promised to make shepherd’s pie for dinner, but I decided that, seeing as I was home, I’d get it ready instead. If he was to make it, I’d have to wait too long to eat!! I could (should!) have made this from scratch, but anticipating a busy week, we picked up a Maggi flavour base at the shops on Saturday. I was heavy on the veg as per usual – I always add way more vegetables than meat to every dish we cook (and always more than the recipe recommends!). The effect is two-fold: we get more bang for our buck (a good tactic for big eaters!), and we get lotsa nutrients. Into my shepherd’s pie went carrot, onion, okra (the first time I’d used this!), celery, and fresh tomato, as well as 400g lean beef mince. I didn’t make enough potato, however, and at the last minute decided to make four mini pies instead of one big pie – meaning I only used about half the filling. I will make the remaining filling into a pie tomorrow that Rhys can have whilst I’m away. I served up the pie with some oven-baked squash of some sort – it was spherical, but inside had seeds like pumpkin. I wasn’t impressed by the taste at all! I also served up half cobs of corn (with butter! What the hell, Erin???), and in my case, some of the aforementioned pickled red cabbage. The pies could have done with more flavour – when I pot up the leftovers, I will add some regular Gravox gravy. I doubt I’ll have any of the leftovers – Rhys can dig in whilst I’m down south from Wednesday to Friday.

I’m really not feeling good about my food intake over the past week. I’ve eaten too much of the bad stuff and not enough of the good! It’s reflecting in my weight and my general disposition – one is up and the other is down, and not the way I’d like them to be! I’m going to make an almighty effort to stay on the right path for the next few days until I go away. At least once I’m in Europe, I’ll be walking enough to justify eating a little more (I think I will wear my HRM in order to judge this!). We are eating at Rhys’s mum’s place tomorrow nightso whilst my serve might not be the biggest, we tend not to eat the healthiest food. To combat this, I’m currently planning my other food for tomorrow, and I’ll exericse twice – my training schedule has a 5k easy run pencilled in (urghhh – I just don’t know if I can do that right now!), and in the evening on the way to the inlaws, I’ll do a 30 minute hill walk (inspired by Jenna’s post yesterday) whilst Rhys does a weights session. I need to lift my game, big time.

Sunday 21 June 09: Lunch and an incredibly piggy dinner

Despite my big breakfast, I found myself hungry again by about 1pm – I guess that’s what happens when you burn 800 calories in the morning?? We were so low on fruit & veg at the time, so I whipped up a grainy roll the best I could with limited ingredients: chicken loaf, low-fat vintage cheese, avocado, and pickle relish. Simple, but yummo.

I was soooo hungry waiting for Rhys to get home from the footy. The Dockers lost, but no surprises there! I am an Eagles fan, but it’s always nice for the Dockers to win simply because it means Rhys will be in a better mood after the game. There’s no other reason I’d ever possibly want them to win! A lot of Western Australians support both teams, which I believe is a load of bollocks. One or the other, people. Anyway, for dinner, we totally pigged out. My camera seems to have eaten a couple of the photos though!

We had leftover pizza and pasta from our Saturday night “carbo load” session: smoked salmon pizza, calabrase pizza, rigatoni primavera, and gnocchi bolognaise. It was all as good the second time around as the first! Those bits of pizza are half slices – there was only one of each left, so Rhys and I split them. Can I tell you a secret? I love cold pasta, almost more than when it’s hot. I did warm this up though.

We had predicted that the leftovers from last night wouldn’t be enough… but they were. Regardless, we each still tucked into a couple of Four and Twenty party pies (mmm – indiscernable meat products!), and had a Magnum Ego to round the night off. Yes, we were gluttons, and thoroughly enjoyed it!!

When I get back from Europe, Rhys and I have two months until we go trekking in Peru. We are planning to ‘eat clean’ and exercise our butts off for those two weeks – kind of like a Body Blitz 12 week challenge (Google, my friends) – but only for nine weeks, and without bulkloads of supplements and cheesy photos! I will be ramping up my running and returning to the yoga mat (as well as weights… urgh) and Rhys will carry on his running and gym sessions. Mainly though, we just need to eat better, all the time. Rhys posted an awesome time for his 5k yesterday, without even having that much training – I’m predicting that he could still take a few minutes off his time by the end of the year! He is predicting that I will one day run faster than him if I follow my plan to favour the 5k (I am considering it, for this year at least). I’m not so sure!!

Recap – Saturday 20 June 09

Just quickly, because I’ve got things to get on with!

Rhys and I dropped our friend Brendon at the airport at 11am, and decided we were famished, so we got some brunch at the food court before doing our food shopping. I didn’t know what I wanted and decided something good and spicy was in order, so I got a laksa. It was rubbish. Not true; it tasted good and there was a very healthy seafood to noodle ratio (nice to see they weren’t skimping on the good stuff!), but it wasn’t spicy at all, and laksa is just too unhealthy to justify eating if it’s not burning your face off. As such, I neglected most of the soup and just ate the seafood and noodles. I’ve made a mental note not to get laksa from this place again. Mild laksa is nobodies friend.

I had a sandwich at about 3.30pm, consisting of chicken loaf (mmm… processed miscellania…), gouda, and avocado on soy and linseed bread.

And a Cadel’s Mountain Mix Winners bar. These things are the bomb. I don’t normally eat them right after a sandwich, but I was still hungry and craving something sweet.

And a bucketload of water. This 750mL shaker cup is my standard water-drinking-vessel; I’ve drunk four today since my run! I drink a heap of water – usually more than 3L per day – but lately I’ve been lacking, so I need to work on that.

I don’t have photos, but for dinner we ordered in Italian. Between four of us, we got a smoked salmon pizza, a salami, bacon & vegie pizza, gnocchi bolognaise, and primaveria rigatoni. There are leftovers, so I will have photos from tonight’s meal!

Finally, I am all caught up on posts. Back to regular programming from now.