back on the bike

Ok.  I have been slacking FAR too much in the work out department.  I have a freakin’ half marathon in a week!  What am I doing to myself?  I should be training, not watching the View working and pretending that’s a good enough reason to skip the gym.

I woke up to sun, FINALLY.  Made some java.  Frothed some leche.

Voila!

Prepare to see an endless supply of bridal mags in the background of all my pics now…my future mother-in-law got me a year’s subscription :)

I was researching wedding locations all morning, and totally lost track of time.  For a late brunch/lunch I had home-made hummus on toasted english muffins.

Oh man.  Hummus is like a drug.  Yeah K?

And don’t even get me started on english muffins!  Mmm…so amazing…like warm, fluffy magical carby heaven.  In the words of Carrie Bradshaw “me likey.”

I have been really craving seitan around the clock lately, so later on I made some “eggs” and seitan on the grill.  Protein, yes please.

For those who asked Qs on my last post about the BBQ seitan, it’s definitely a must-try…just lather on the ‘cue sauce before cooking the seitan.  It’s hard to mess it up.

Anyways, the home-made hummus was calling my name (again) and we all know I cannot resist her charms…so I had a teensy bit more.

Mmmm…

Coconut date rolls for lunch dessert.

 

For dinner I decided to get in my daily greens. 

Challenge schmallenge.  Bring it.

I threw a few fists of spinach in the skillet along with some broccoli, cauliflower, green peas, and some soy sauce. 

In another pot I threw together soy noodles, soy-tein (texturized protein) and spinach.

I loved this meal SO much I took about 500 pictures…

Check out all the goodness that is in this salad…I want this every night now for the rest of my life. 

There is just so much variety, I couldn’t get enough.  Each bite had a new flavor because of all the different ingredients.  Eat your heart out salad challenge!

Mmmmm.  Food porn.

Think I liked it or something…here’s the second helping!  HA!!

You would think I’d be full after all that food, but you’d be wrong!

NEW PRODUCT ALERT!!!

I had no idea what to expect.  I guess these are the random kinds of things you come home with when you go grocery shopping while PMSing.  Naturally, like the experienced female that I am, I avoided the frozen dessert aisle like the plague…but, next thing I know I am face to face with chocolate IN THE TOFU SECTION and in a moment of weakness, I pounced. 

Lucky for me, it is relatively healthy.  Here are the stats (per 1/2 cup):

calories	120
total fat	1.5 g (2%)
saturated fat	0 g
cholesterol	0 mg
sodium	45 mg
total carbohydrates	23 g (8%)
fiber	1 g (4%)
sugar	18 g
protein	3 g

**not too shabby huh?

Ok, it looks a little weird, I’ll admit.  BUT – holy freakin’ YUM!

It’s like the best pudding EVER.  I had 4/5 of the container plain…and could barely restrain myself from polishing the entire thing off.  Today’s meals are clearly sending me through the roof.  Try this immediately, you won’t regret it.  In fact, it could be your next obsession (it will likely be mine).

Before I go - HangryPants is giving away yumminess, so check it out!

the ER floodgates

..were open today, and I mean WIDE open (that’s what she said). 

As a result, my unit was a mad house.

Cardiac surgery is at a bit of a standstill lately (economy, where are you?), so in order to keep the money coming in, we had to make our beds available to non-ICU patients…waaaaaaaahhhhh (that’s me wailing like a baby due to my insane patient load.  I was ALL over the MAP today with diagnoses.  I mean everything from a “failure to thrive” 92 year old, to a 9 month pregnant woman with contractions every 10 minutes, EEK!  For the record, I’m a cardiac ICU nurse, I have NO clue what to do when a head is crowning from a female’s hot-pocket!!!!

Needless to say I think I burned 1,000,000 kcals at work.  No gym needed with stress filled days like today!

Maybe I should get off my soap box and stop my preaching about heart healthy diets so we can get some more open heart surgery patients (just kidding?)…kinda.

AM coffee from the bucks.

Odwalla bar + an apple for my snackety snack.

Lunch (which I barely snuck away for in the late PM) was a salad with brocc slaw, brocc, cauli, carrots, seitan, and SABRA hummus

 

and a sammie of leftovers (“eggs” and Tribe red pepper hummus)….which may seem weird and random (no argument there), but was actually really good.  As if ANYthing with hummus wouldn’t be!

I hit a HUGE wall around 6 pm, and barely made it through the last few hours of work.  Today was a 4 cup coffee day.  Yeah, I know.

Look what came in the mail!

How did the POM fairy know I just finished my latest read…perfect timing!  Entertainment for long flights never goes out of style, and since I am headed off to Ca (again) tomorrow, this will be at the top of my list.

Talk about cleaning out the depths of the fridge…dinner was more of the same (lunch repeat with a twist).  Seitan with an “egg” scramble.

 

Food porn for all y’all…

Tea and an apple for dessert.

And guess what else I FINALLY got around to doing?  Calcium/Vitamin D chews.  It’s about damn time, right?

If you know me, you know I rock my porcelain white skin like a champ, but since I live in the hospital or under a coat of SPF 500, it’s hard to get in the Vitamin D I KNOW I need.  Especially being an athletically active, white female (osteoporosis risk, check, check, check), calcium and Vitamin D should go hand in hand.  Let’s just say this is long overdue…

Anyone else take supplements? 

As for dessert?  Go big or go home, right?

Carob covered raisin love, AND a couple of coconut date rolls.

I couldn’t resist them! 

rolls in my tummy

Woohoo...I finally made my own sushi! It's been on my 2009 to-do list, and we all know how much i LOVE checking things off lists :)

But that's dinner, and I'm type A, so let's get back to the beginning, already!
Coffee (duh).

Note: snow on the window (still)

Brekkie wrap: soy bacon, "eggs" and avo in a flax wrap-up

Jealous? You should be, it was bomb.com

My coconut date rolls look like a reverse AT&T ad (or whatever company it is that does the "more bars in more places" ad) - that's what she said!

For lunch I had a bowl of sugar (aka vanilla o'soy yogurt mixed with POM and chopped up figs)

And a plate of sugar (aka melon)

And another plate of carbs (aka Alvarado street bread with sabra CHUNKY hummus)

Again, I skipped the gym. I'm a lazy ass. There's not really any other way to put it.

I guess it did give me some extra time to make a nice dinner for myself (silver lining?)

First I grilled some asparagus in the oven (nuthin but salt)...

Then, I got out all the ingreds to MAKE my own sushi!!!! Seriously, this has been on my to-do list for-EV-er. But, I didn't go with conventional sushi ingreds. I'm way more crafty.

This roll contained quinoa, greek yog, hummus, grilled asparagus, tofu, avocado, and carrots.

YUM!!!!

The only problem with my rolls were their inability to slice (the knives weren't sharp enough to cut through them), so I ate it burrito style. Once a gringo, always a gringo.

My second roll was the same, but BIGGER (and with more hummus).

I got lazy though, so after this I took the left-overs and made it into a pretty presentation.

Um, not to toot my own horn or anything, but...is this a cute little dish or what? Bring it Tom Colicchio! Hummus and quinoa all mixed together is prob my new fave thing.

Chopped and zoomed.

For dessert I added a mountain of soynut butter to a VitaTop choc/peanut butter muffin. Can't go wrong with this combo!!!

Work tomorrow. Remember what that is? I don't...

march, china, pajama party

March is here. In honor of that:

Out with the old, in with the new...

No more gold coast blend (you will not be missed). House blend, welcome home, I love you!

So far March SUCKS. I can't believe it's STILL snowing! Grrr. 8-10 inches in one day is too much? (that's what she said) But, seriously, I'm really annoyed with the East Coast. To make matters worse, my parents are in Hawaii for, like, the 9th time this year, and keep texting me pics of gorgeous sunsets and luaus. Ugh.

Ok, I'll stop the rants.

My coffee was frothy. Very niiiice. Yek shemesh.

Oh, and I ate my cereal mess in bed! Why not?

Eventually I dragged my behind out of bed to join the real world (sorta).

I blame all inactivity this weekend on the snow. I was in my PJs for 72 hours straight (I can't believe I just admitted that)...normally I'd never dream of skipping the gym on a day off, but I felt SO blah (correction: feel so blah). Sorry I'm in a Debbie Downer kind of mood, but why try to hide it. Shocking as it may seem, I'm not always rainbows and butterflies.

After a nice chat from Kyle via skype , I started my new book, Olive Kitteridge, and had a soynut butter-y piece of bread.

Kyle says "ni hao" from the Great Wall...

I can't believe we had a year+ bi-coastal relationship...this just feels weird. Come home already!!!

I've been passing the time with food. Not a healthy way of coping, and I'm no psychologist, but I'd say it's a pretty text book case.

Naturally, I turned to my first love, Sabra. Hey, while the boy's away...

I cut up a few slices of bread for dipping.

I felt so dainty eating my little bite-lettes.

(I'm pretty sure I didn't look dainty eating it though)

And the snacking continued for the rest of the day...

Dried pineapple rings = sugar high.

Sugar crash = curl up on the couch with crossword.

My thoughts on the Key Lime Pie flavor? Meh. It may be because I was so sedentary, or it may be because I had already had pineapple rings, but I was not feeling the overly sugar/tart-ness of this one. Sorry Larabar, this was a miss for me. I think coconut is still my #1.

I had multiple courses for dinner because I was bored, not because I was hungry. I mean let's face it, I did next to nada all day. I felt like a sloth and just thinking about it now makes me annoyed with myself. But, sometimes I just can't force myself to do things against my own will. Do I sound like a schizo or WHAT?!? Geez.

Course 1: pasta with Earth Balance (wow, Elise, creative AND healthy, someone call Top Chef's producers, stat)

Course 2: "eggs" with steamed brocc and grilled seitan

(this "course" I'm actually pretty happy with)...although I'm not sure the following desserts were quite necessary, since I was definitely already full by this point.

I melted some Earth Balance and drizzled it on top of the popcorn (it makes the salt stick better). Oh, and, I like healthy fat.

Naturally my salty taste buds were satisfied, but my sweet taste buds felt neglected.

No worries kids, I didn't repeat yesterday's dairy loaded chocolate disaster. At least today's dessert was vegan. No gluten or dairy, because, as my Dad says "even the monkeys learn." The dominant flavor in this was cinnamon. It tasted like a holiday cookie because there was a real spicy kick to it, but I liked it. It was a very dunk-able cookie because it soaked up soymilk really well, but didn't leave crumbs in the cup. That's a big selling point in my book. I'll probably never find them again, though, because I stumbled across them pretty randomly at a health foods store...in fact, I don't even know the name of the brand (if there is one?).

I stayed up late watching The Office on DVD (my friend hooked me up with seasons 1-4, so if you're the gambling type, it's a safe bet that that's what I'll be doing for the next 62 hours)

Obviously staying up late is a calorically demanding activity, so I had another late night snack.

Apple slices with a buncha chocolate soynut buttah.

Oh, and yes, my computer is still not turning on, so I'm using Kyle's ghetto fabulous Dell.

One last thing: To win some mega chocolate Larabar love, head over to Chocolate Covered Vegan, like, NOW!