Food Week: Day 5

Well, today's eating could only be described as crap-tastic. :)  Cafe Rio for lunch, McDonald's for dinner. Nice.

Breakfast: Oat bran muffin with butter and a protein shake (served in a very cool Joe Cool mug):

Lunch: Cafe Rio Pork Salad (I only at half of this gut bomb):

Dinner: Mark's choice: McDonald's. My choice at McDonald's: Crispy Chicken Sandwich, Medium fries, Diet Coke (Again, only had half of this meal). Man, the Diet Coke is gonna keep me up all night, too. Bad choices happen at McDonald's, that's for sure!

Still, overall, I kept the calories within my goal range. 

I'm going "off the grid" for a few nights, so I won't be posting for the next two days until Sunday or Monday. I'm sure they'll be exciting, though, because it will be camping/backpacking meals! Can you say "s'mores"?

Food Week: Day 4

Wednesday! Whew, over halfway done with this little project. I tell ya, taking pictures of food is not my thing, really. I'm too anxious to eat to keep trying for the perfect shot.

Well, here's today's lineup:

Breakfast: Scrambled eggs with cheddar cheese, avocado, buttered wheat toast
Lunch: Dole Southwest Salad Kit (with less than half the dressing they provide...it's way too much!)
Dinner: Salmon cakes, sweet potato, wild rice and Caesar salad
Snack: Buttered wheat toast and a glass of milk

Dinner tonight was pretty boring looking. Fortunately, it tasted much better than it appears in the photo! I didn't mean to fix a meal that was monochromatic. Ah well. Better planning next time.

Geeking Out

Oh, man. I'm so looking forward to this thing! I confess, I pre-ordered it today. November 17th is the arrival date. It looks so cool.



Yes, I just got a new Kindle (to replace one that failed). But this baby looks too sweet to pass up.

Yay! :)

Food Week: Day 3

Today was a bit rough - I had a busy day in clinic with zero time for a real lunch, so had to make do with a protein bar. While it was better than nothing, it just wasn't enough calories! That set me up to be extremely hungry the rest of the day, and I chose a pretty unhealthy (but sooo good) after dinner snack. Ah well, that's the way it goes, I suppose.

Here are the foods for the day:

Breakfast: Another protein shake.

Lunch: Zone Perfect Caramel Chocolate Cluster Bar

Snack: Carrot sticks

Dinner: Stir Fry (zucchini, mushrooms, cabbage, red pepper, red onion, beef, rice); daiquiri

Snack: Two slices of white bread, toasted, with butter and Mark's raspberry jam

I'm sure tomorrow will be better! 

Food Week: Day 2

Mark made the best roast beef for dinner tonight, with some delicious new potatoes and an avocado-tomato salad to start. What a guy!

Breakfast: Banana and berry medley protein shake (served up in one of my favorite mugs), one boiled egg
Lunch: Leftovers! Spinach salad and tomato soup; Marcona almonds (oh, man! these are addicting!)
Dinner: Roast beef, rosemary red potatoes, avocado-tomato salad, and San Pellegrino with a twist of lime

Food Week: Day 1

It was a great day with some great meals! I realized as I was photographing my food that I need to be a better photographer, otherwise all my pics will be an overhead of a plate. I will try to get more creative as the week progresses. And thank goodness for Picasa - it's totally easy to make a photo collage with that program.

Here's what I ate today, September 25, 2011:

Breakfast: An oat bran muffin (Mark's recipe) with butter, two boiled eggs
Lunch: Chicken enchilada (Eating for Life recipe) with tomatoes, olives & salsa
Snack: Apple & mozzarella cheese
Dinner: Crab cake (home-made), spinach salad (Dole Spinach, Cherry, Almond & Blue Cheese), creamy tomato bisque (store-bought)
Snack: 1/2 of a RubySnap chocolate chip cookie. Mark ate the other half.

I ate a small sample of Aidelles Cajun andouille sausage when I was at Smith's. It was the size of the tip of my little finger, but in the interest of full-disclosure, I included a pic. Yes, I actually bought the product just so I could take a picture of it! Well, I would have (probably) bought it anyway.

I only had water to drink today, so there are no beverage shots. If I drink something else...well, you'll see a picture of it.

That wraps up day one. See you tomorrow night!

A Week of Food

Just for fun (at least, fun for me, maybe not for you so much. I guess we'll see.), I thought I'd do a week-long series of posts, with photographs, of all the food I eat in a week. Doesn't that sound awesome? I thought so. Really, this is because I have nothing else to do. Have I mentioned that I love being out of school?

So starting tomorrow, Sunday, September 25th, I will be doing a daily post showcasing everything I eat. No editing! If I decide to eat an entire carton of Ben & Jerry's, well, there will be photographic evidence.

Hopefully, you'll see a lot of this:

And not so much of this:

Guess I better go make a menu...

See you tomorrow!

Hello, Fall

I thought I'd embrace the impending arrival of fall (rather than curl up in a ball, lamenting the passage of summer) with a new twist on breakfast. Nothing says "fall" quite like pumpkin, so I created a new protein smoothie this morning. I substituted some canned pumpkin for my usual frozen berries, and made a delicious breakfast shake:

1/2 cup milk
1/2 cup plain Greek yogurt
1/2 cup pumpkin
1 medium banana
1 scoop of protein powder

Put all ingredients in a blender and....blend! A sprinkle of cinnamon on top was a nice touch. It has about 350 calories. Easy and delicious!

If you happen to try it, let me know what you think.

Ingredients

Lately, I have been studying nutrition. Basically, I've been listening to some podcasts from Dishing Up Nutrition and Fat 2 Fit, both interesting and informative talk shows about nutrition and fitness. All of which has me looking for ways to avoid highly processed foods. While I'm not going to turn this into a religion, I think it would be nice to broaden the repertoire of foods to eat that don't come from a package or a can.

While deciding on the menu for this week (Mark and I plan a weekly menu, and then do our grocery shopping based on that), tonight I wanted to make Monterey Chicken Casserole. While most of the ingredients are "natural" and relatively unprocessed (chicken, rice, cheeses, chili, tomatoes, etc.), it does call for a can of cream of mushroom soup. Campbell's is my standby for that, so let's just take a look at the list of ingredients in one can of Campbell's Cream of Mushroom Soup:

• Water
• Mushrooms
• Vegetable Oil (Corn, Cottonseed, Canola and/or Soybean)...don't they know?
• Modified food starch
• Wheat flour
• Salt
• Cream
• Whey (dehydrated)
• Monosodium Glutamate (our good friend, MSG)
• Soy protein concentrate
• Yeast extract
• Flavoring
• Garlic (dehydrated)

Mmmm, love me some of that MSG and "flavoring"! What does that even mean, "flavoring"?***

So, I decided to make my own cream of mushroom soup. After searching the internet for recipes, I devised something that I thought would work. Here's my list of ingredients:

• Mushrooms
• Butter
• Chicken broth (also homemade, from a real chicken - one that actually got to roam around a farm yard)
• Cream
• Onion (the real stuff, not dehydrated)
• Garlic (also not dehydrated)
• Salt
• Flour

And that's it. Now, some might say that "flour" is a highly processed food, and it is, certainly. But like I said, let's not get all crazy about stuff.

My recipe made 3 cups, 2 of which I will freeze for future use. It only took about 30 minutes total, including prep time. It looks good...not quite as gelatinous as the stuff in the can, it's really creamy, and it has a nice mushroom-y flavor...with no added "flavoring"!

Am I going to toss out all my canned soup now? No, of course not. I don't think I have time to always make every meal completely 'fresh'. But sometimes, I might choose the alternative (especially now that I have some in the freezer...hope it freezes well).

An now, of course, I don't feel quite so bad about all the Doritos that get crushed and sprinkled on the top! 

*** Flavoring agents are substances added to food to improve the quality of taste. Because apparently the product doesn't taste good without it. And by "substance", read "chemicals" - some flavoring agents go by the names "methylphenylcarbinyl acetate" and "ethyl 3-phenylglycidate" (an epoxy compound). I think I prefer flavorings such as "mushroom" and "onion". Or , if you prefer something fancy, Agaricus bisporus and Allium cepa. 

San Francisco!

Mark and I spent a quick 2 days in  San Francisco a couple of weekends ago. It had been about 24 years since I was last in San Francisco, and it was so much fun being there! Some of the highlights included:

• Dim Sum (I crossed it off the list!)
• Chinatown and the live frogs - which must be killed prior to leaving the store.
• Alcatraz (we didn't take a tour, but we got to see it)
• Hiking up Lombard Street
• Lavender Mojitos
• Ghirardelli Chocolates
• Zuppa Restaurant
• SFMOMA
• Shopping (window shopping, anyway)

It was fun, exhausting, and totally worth it!