What's for dinner? Thank goodness for a short week!

I'm really looking forward to those portobella melts. It's nice to plan meals with lunches in mind as well as what workouts I'm doing throughout the week too. For example... Pasta for dinner means I need to get my booty on my bike!

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WFD? Weekend post

Lots of yummy choices for this week. I'm especially excited for the lentil stew! And, let's note that we're off to San Diego on Thursday! Woot!

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Meatless Monday!

Eggs poached in a curried tomato sauce with whole grain English muffins. Yum!

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What's for dinner? Weekend post

Lots of healthy stuff planned for this next week and pretty delicious sounding too! Skinny taste has really been dominating my menus... I'm really excited to try the Indian butter chicken, authentic recipes are really fatty (it's called butter chicken, hello!)... But sooo good.
For the rest of the day the hubby and I are chilling in our pajamas and waiting for the rain to stop.
Happy Saturday!

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It's a "What's for dinner?" weekend post!

I feel a bit poorly that most of my recent posts have been uploads.  Only a bit, though.  So, I thought I would be a good blogger.
This week is our first week of no school and no house guests (although I loved having them!).  It would have been totally normal except that I may have jury duty... so I actually have no clue if I will be working or if I will be in a courtroom.  Word on the street is that they prefer to not have social workers on juries...similar to cops.  We'll see.  I'll try to refrain from using the word "baby snatcher" if they ask about my career choice.
                                           ...... I keed, I keed...
Anywho, it's time to eat healthy again (and slow down a bit on the alcohol, perhaps).  So, I rocked a menu using a nice mix of Cooking Light, Bon Appetit, Chef MD, and some SkinnyTaste.  A friend of mine who enjoys a nice balance of spinach and skittles in her life does Meal Planning Monday- which is a wonderful alliteration that I'm a bit jealous of (go visit her blog, she's great and she lives in my hometown.  I prefer Jelly Bellies myself but to each her own.).  Since I can't go shopping during the week due to laziness  a busy and unpredictable life I tried to come up what to call my meal planning posts since I always do my planning somewhere in the Friday-Sunday range.  And so.......

"What's for dinner?"  Weekend posts were born!

Office Max is nice and cheap.

They were born just now.  Did you see?  Did you like my flair?  It's a pity it was followed up with a menu on a legal pad.  Maybe I should type it or grab some colored pencils or something....

Also, pay no attention to my poor thumb with it's bitten nail.

                                 ....I digress.

When doing your menu planning, don't worry if you have to use arrows to move stuff around.  I plan based on what I have on hand and what is on sale.  For example, we have leftover pineapple from the party last week for our salad tomorrow.  Zucchini is coming into season and is going on sale (yay!).  Oh, and I impulse-purchased canned salmon a month ago from Costco (hence the burgers).  Sometimes as I'm writing the menu I realize that a certain meal would be better cooked on a different day due to home visits in the evening or having a high-exercise day or whatever.  Sometimes I re-do my menus when I move stuff around.  Sometimes I re-do it when I misspell things too.  I'm a perfectionist. Don't fear the arrows, though.  

It's also a good idea to mark on your menu if you need to marinade something overnight or a fresh loaf of bread is needed.  Just for reference.

I'm excited for healthy eating this week and to discover what this jury duty thing will hold.  I've been rocking some yoga and my exercise bike... adding in good food instead of Carl's Jr. (which is good for the soul, just not good for my love handles) will only make me feel better. 

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Steroid withdrawal v. Eating healthy

Spinach salad and cumin-crusted salmon over mashed sweet potatoes. Only took 30 minutes start to finish.

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Check out this lupus girl rock dinner!

Broiled swai with thai coconut curry sauce, brown rice, and broccoli. Not bad for a girl who has to start steroids tonight.

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Plan for the week

I've used my new book of Chef MD's book of culinary medicine as inspiration for my meal plan this week. I've also made it my goal to eat veggies for two meals PLUS at least one salad a day.

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Meal planning: Meat sauce!

Behold the glorious amount of meat sauce I'm working on. I include a ton of carrots and lean hamburger meat. This will all eventually be frozen and used on busy weeknights or last weekends.

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Pot roast

Nothing fancy here, but bound to be delicious.

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Also, I just thought I would share that searing the meat set off my smoke detector.  In an embarrassed panic, I pushed the little button on the thing until I had a minor flip out and then yanked on the damn thing.  It's now hanging from the ceiling.  Then, after I finally got all the kids into the hot tub to get delicious the alterations place called and canceled my appointment.  It's going to be one of those mornings.

Meal planning, chores, cooking smarter

Yesterday was an awesome day.  The Seahawks beat the Saints (the reigning Super Bowl Champs) and I had a date night with Kevin.  I ended up getting a falafel pita for dinner.  It had pickles.  I was pleased.  Then we went to see True Grit, which was quite good.  I avoided the popcorn and snuck in a bottle of white tea.  I ended the date night with a bite of dark chocolate and some grocery list writing.  It's an exciting life I lead.
As previously mentioned, I'm continuing to do the Food-Lover's Cleanse, but as I'm not following it exactly I don't feel right labeling my posts as such.  I'm mixing and matching the combinations of breakfasts, snacks, and lunches I've had in the past to save a bit of money and use ingredients we already have on-hand.
Today's to-do list is long.  This was made more difficult by the fact that Kevin and I seemed to be in a coma until 9 am.  Late start to the day, that's for sure. I started out by doing yoga with Kevin.
The lateral angle pose is giving me trouble.  My shoulder doesn't like to move in that way and my arm gets tired really quickly.  This is what it should look like if you're a pro:

Haughty bitch.

I have anger issues when it comes to yoga.  I regularly think about hurting the people in the yoga videos, usually because they hold the pose longer than I think it really necessary or because their arm/leg/back/whatever is bent in a way that is just not humanly possible.  I think I should get better at yoga before I attempt classes.

(Source)

So, after I finished my yoga and I showered I made the planned breakfast for this morning:  Sweet Potato Hash with Egg.

Oh my gawd.  This is Kev's manly sized portion, btw.

I did make one big mistake.  I missed the line where the cleanse told me to swap out the three tablespoons of butter for olive oil.  So, my breakfast was extra delicious.  Whoops.

The plan for later:

Lunch/Snack (Breakfast was at 11:30!)
Almond-Banana Smoothie (with yogurt)
Dinner
Salmon & Lime Cakes
Curried Lentil Soup
Salad

I also need to do all of the laundry.  I'm glad Kevin and I swapped chores, my hands really used to hurt after doing the dishes.  That being said, I hate doing laundry.  I may have a drink. I'm really relying on that 3-4 drink/week allowance for the cleanse.
I'm also taking the opportunity to get ahead for the week- I'm making trail mix freezer cookies and a nice big batch of my citrus-shallot vinaigrette.  I bought a trail mix that was on sale- supposedly geared towards women (it has some soy nuts in it).  You chop it up and throw it in the batter.  It has regular all-purpose and whole wheat flour.  I'm excited.
Back to work tomorrow.  I'm so energized I don't even dread the approaching work week.  It's nice.
Oh, and GO PACKERS!  If they win the Seahawks have an easy game next week.  Huzzah!

Kara's new diet- Day 1

This cleanse has been really great, the scale says I'm down another half pound this morning.  I'm really shocked.  It seems ridiculous that I've lost that much weight but I do feel really fantastic. I'm going to continue it for the next week but without following it exactly.  It's been pretty expensive to stick to it completely.  I'll keep not drinking a ton of coffee or alcohol.  I think I'll continue some of the recipes I liked more- like the omelet and the salmon dishes.  I think it will be good and a bit less stressful.
 Also, Kevin and I want a date night tonight.  We're going to try out Pita Pita- I'm hoping to stick to a low dairy diet with a small amount of complex carbs.  I think that place will help me stay on track.  I suggested getting sashimi and miso soup but we seem to always turn to sushi for our date nights (not that there's anything wrong with that).  Then the greatest challenge of all: We're going to a movie.  I love movie theater popcorn. Delicious, carby, buttery, popcorn. Nom.


So, today here's the menu I'm going with:


Breakfast

1/2 Cup Yogurt with Toasted Pecans, Flax Seed, 1 Tbsp Maple Syrup, and Blackberries  (From the cleanse.)
Lunch
Leftover Roasted Cauliflower and Broccoli 
Tuna on Rye Crackers
Apple
Mid-Afternoon Snack
Almond-Banana Smoothie (No Yogurt)  This was supposed to be Tuscan Kale Chips which sounded gross.

Dinner
Pita Pita.  I'll probably get something with lamb.  If their pitas are whole wheat I'll get a sammich, if not I'll stick to a platter.  The dinner tonight was supposed to be Salmon-Lime Cakes and Curried Lentil Soup.  That will be dinner tomorrow night.

Evening Snack
2-3 Dried Figs, Tea