Healthy Living Week 5

Well, here we are just about a week shy of my finale of my Healthy Living experiment and I have to say that I am feeling really good about myself. Sure there are areas that I have not perfected and areas that I epically failed at (dang diet soda!) but I do think that I have definitely made a conscious effort to think before I put something in my body for nutrition reasons.

Besides eating two Doritos chips off my boyfriend's son's plate at a cookout, I have not had a potato chip since Lent began. And I can say that I honestly don't miss them. Tortilla chips are another story but even those I haven't indulged on :)

I have really worked to bring down my portion size and make responsible decisions when it came to what I have ate and drank in the last few weeks.

I got in a 2 mile run last week Thursday. It was a little brisk, but I had to take off my gloves by the end as my hands were overheating. It wasn't a speedy run, but a run is still a run.

Friday I tried to make some Vegan Pumpkin muffins and banana bread to take to my boyfriend and his kiddos and had some pretty epic baking fails. Completely cooked on the top, raw on the bottom.Waaa. waaa (sad trumpet)

My mom and I deduced the cause to be that my oven only has one coil on the top and so the bottom of my oven doesn't warm as evening. So I'm essentially baking food from the top down instead of evenly around. We are going to work on some things to divert the heat better in my oven so I can bake some yummy treats and not waste food. Otherwise, I'll be in the market for a new oven soon if this doesn't work.

Saturday I met my boyfriend's kids for the first time and we started the day getting his middle kid fitted for a batting glove and baseball mit. Then off to Chuck E Cheese's where we all acted like a bunch of kids. I did enjoy a piece of pizza but mainly stuck to the salad bar. His boys actually eat rather healthy too and wanted salad instead of pizza. Some pizza was even leftover because they all liked salad so much. I got schooled in basketball against Tim's oldest but it was still a fun time. 

Sunday I came home early because Tim got called into work. I decided to try out protein powder pancakes and was a huge fan. A few different blogs that I follow (Run, Eat, Repeat and Blogilates) have talked about how yummy protein powder pancakes are but I was skeptical.

Besides the fact that the mix is rather gooey at first, these were delicious! I used 2 scoops of vanilla protein powder and 1 egg. I added just a bit of water and this made three nice sized pancakes. I added chocolate chips to the last pancake and the only issue is that the pancake starts out rather thin and eventually puffs up when you flip it. So the chocolate started to melt in the pan before the pancake was done. No syrup necessary, just a little bit of margarine and they were sweet enough. Highly recommend making these!

And now for the main event meal of the week - Mojito Shrimp tacos! I found the recipe a while back on Pinterest, but it's really from this blog.

Here are my modifications to the recipe: I used precooked shrimp, so I had to make sure I didn't turn them into chewy rubberbands by overcooking them on the grill. They really just need to get heated through.

The tortillas I bought didn't work, so I threw together some jasmine rice, salsa, cumin and onion to make Mexican rice and served it over that. It was really delicious. The mango really added the sweet flavor that I was looking for to make this meal different than other Mexican dishes.

And lastly - I have continued my "Oatmeal in the morning" routine and have almost finished all of Katie's Gourmet Instant Oatmeals. Just in time for me to get more at the Farmer's Markets. More on her oatmeal soon on the blog :)

Summer's Here

Summer is finally here and wow did it come up quickly for me. I am sorry for neglecting my blog. I have done a lot of cooking and have gone out to eat a few times and I want to share all of that with you, but I just have to make time for it.

Let's start with my favorite summer dish for a super hot summery day - SHRIMP PASTA SALAD!

When I was growing up, we didn't have central air and our two dinky A/C window units really only cooled the bedrooms for sleeping. So a lot of our time was spent in the basement in summer on those really hot days.

I remember my mom setting up the card table in the basement with folding chairs and we would all sit down and eat Shrimp Pasta Salad in the cool basement (next to my Barbie dream house and my brother's Lego Village).

My mom never really used a recipe and it always turned out great. That's what I did when I made this on Friday. Luckily we could eat this in the comfort of our Central Air-Conditioned house. Yay for modern technology!!!

My mom always served this with muffins (usually store bought as who wants to turn on the oven when the house is already 85 degrees!). I too bought muffins from the store, mainly as a time saver, but I didn't want to turn on the oven, even with the A/C.

Shrimp Pasta Salad
1 box Medium Shells Pasta
1 bag shrimp (I used small extra shrimp in a bag for $5 at Walmart)
3 stalks celery, finely chopped
1/2 vidalia onion, finely chopped
1 cup frozen peas - thawed (canned turn to mush)
1/2 tsp-ish Garlic powder
1/2 tsp-ish dill weed
1/2 tsp-ish ground mustard
1/2 cup light Miracle Whip
1/4 cup plain Greek yogurt
salt & pepper to taste

Directions:
1) Cook noodles according to box directions. Drain and rinse with cold water immediately.
2) Thaw shrimp in cold water until tender. Check over shrimp for cleanliness but don't rinse too much or you lose the flavor.
3) Add noodles, shrimp, onions & celery to large mixing bowl. Then add garlic powder, dill, mustard, salt & pepper to the mixture. Add in the miracle whip and Greek Yogurt and mix gently to coat everything. Add peas last and very lightly mix so as to not mush the peas.
4) Chill for at least 1 hour before serving.
5) Scoop some out and have a muffin on the side for a summery delicious and decently nutritious dinner.

NOTE: I have tried Fat Free Miracle Whip and the flavor wasn't the same. Using all Greek Yogurt changed the flavor too much and it was too watery for my liking so I still use that much light Miracle Whip.

PAIRING SUGGESTION: I had a glass of Cupcake Vineyards Pinot Grigio with it and it really hit the spot. Just make sure it's nice and chilled.

Funny thing about my peas - they were a little overly frozen and freezer burned in spots so I attempted to pick out the good peas. Came across this very frozen chunk and someone in quality assurance was a little 'laxed on the job and missed this! Too funny!

Do you have any summer go-to recipes for when the weather gets really warm? Please share with me :)

From the Books Thursday: Shrimp w/ Snow Peas

 

We sure do like our Taste of Home cookbooks in this house, and today's recipe comes from the 2003 Light & Tasty book. We had some shrimp to use up in the freezer and the Shrimp w/ Snow Peas recipe sounded the best.

I gathered all the ingredients that I needed and any extras I could think of. We had an entire package of sliced mushrooms, but they were put too far back in the fridge and froze :(  So we had to use the brand new package and chop them up ourselves. No biggie, but sad we had to toss the rest out.

Mom took on the job of peeling the shrimp. They were deveined and not too hard to peel, but I'm not a fan of peeling the shrimp. I had already cut a fingertip earlier in the week by reaching in a drawer blind and catching a serrated knife, I didn't need a shrimp tail to cut that back open.

While she was doing that, I grabbed the lemon, dill and other ingredients and mixed away. Don't be shocked by the amount of lemon as it's nice and mellow in the final dish.

Chop, chop, chop the veggies I did!

Mom took care of the sweating of the veggies

I interrupted with photos of us - sheesh that kitchen light is bright!

And then I took it upon myself to open that bag from photo one and cook with wine. This one was just ok - it had a little musty smell once I let it breathe. But it had a screw cap so I'm not sure where the musty came from. I guess you get what you pay for as it was well under $10.

Here is me supervising while the veggies sweated out.

After about 10 minutes, it was time to add the snow peas and for added yum, edamame! I was so excited to use some of these. A coworker turned me onto edamame years ago at a holiday party and I have been addicted ever since.

I gave my lemon-dill sauce a stir and added it to the veggies and it immediately thickened. About two more minutes on the stove and we were set to eat. This meal takes the length of time to cook rice on the stove, so our timing was impeccable. (However, we did have two people cooking this one!)

This was a very refreshing and healthy stir-fry dish that surprisingly doesn't use soy sauce. At only 322 calories, 6 g fat and 4 g fiber per HUGE serving (including the rice), this is going to become a regular in the family repertoire.

After dinner, I put on my comfy holiday socks with workout capris and relaxed on the couch before a Barre3 video was in order. I know how to keep it classy! :) This is just the first of my many pairs of holiday socks!