Today’s my Friday! I’m leaving Thursday for a super long 6-day “weekend.” We’re going to DC for a wedding and then up to New Jersey. I’m excited- I went to college in DC and it still feels like my second home, even though I haven’t been back for a while. Only problem– forecast calls for Thunderstorms every single day. Fingers crossed it changes.

Happy for another What I Ate Wednesday too! Visit Jenn’s page for more fun posts.

Here are my eats from Tuesday:

Morning exercise: The day started off with a mile long swim! I usually don’t count my laps and just swim for a specific amount of time (usually 30 mins, sometimes 45), but today I counted so I could make sure to go a whole mile. It felt great!

Breakfast was post-swim, eaten at Starbucks. Coffee with soy, an enormous banana, and a greek cobani yogurt with a spoonful of jam.

Lunch was raw swiss chard for a salad, topped with half of a leftover stuffed pepper that I was too full to eat at dinner the night before. Hit the spot. I heart leftovers.

Snacks: Juicy watermelon.

And my favorite snack lately– a version of chocolate milk: unsweetened cocoa powder, unsweetened almond milk and a spoonful of sugar, all whipped up in a blender. It’s not as chocolatey as the real thing, but does the trick when I am craving chocolate or sweets.

And dinner was a veggie plate with Swiss Chard, zucchini, and a carrot. Plus an egg topped with nutritional yeast on the side.

Hope your day is going well!

–What’s your favorite summertime food?
–What’s your favorite snack lately? I need new ideas to bring to work!

Yesterday, while someone slept….

I made MUFFINS!

Dashing Dish’s Chocolate Peanut Butter Banana (gluten free!) Muffins to be exact.

I KNEW, as soon as I saw the recipe that I had to make them, like make them immediately.  I think her website is down, but I’ll post the proper link as soon as it’s back up.

And best part (which I’m guessing is true for you as well?) I already had all the ingredients in my kitchen (except for the yogurt, but that was so easy to pick up).

I’ve never baked with a blender before- have you?

It was sort of fun to mix everything with the blender (ingredients are oatmeal, sugar, cocoa, peanut butter, mashed banana, egg whites, greek yogurt, baking soda & powder, and hot water)

I added chocolate chips, cause that’s just what I do.  And modified it slightly, but not enough to call it my own, so just check out Dashing Dish.

They came out yummy! So moist (even the next day). And they’re pretty healthy.

I’ve already eaten four (two yesterday and two for breakfast today)…. And that’s four full size and not mini (oops).  And guess what, they’re awesome.

After swimming two miles this morning, here was my Ironman’s breakfast.  I think he could use some protein, don’t you? (and what is the spoon for? beats me…ha)

I see more muffins in my future!

–What’s your favorite type of muffin?

Ahhh, end of the week….almost.

My day started with early morning baking while sipping coffee.
Ghiradelli Brownies…..from a box, not scratch. Hope this doesn’t make me a bad blogger

The usual breakfast

FINALLY unpacking my suitcase

What a mess

Commute to work- blah

Work Work Work

Lunch and snacks.

This is my typical lunch and snacks this week- sweet potato, 2 hard boiled eggs for lunch, almonds and an apple for my snack....packed into a random shopping bag

More work.

Afternoon walk break to get some fresh air.

Hour+ commute home. I’ll spare you a photo of this “worst” part of every day.

Quick gym workout

Quick dinner. Shrimp+veggies.

And then BOOK CLUB. With wine. This is where I brought the brownies. Sadly, no pics…totally forgot.

So that’s how I spent my day.

You? What’s the best part of your day today?

Hey! Another Wednesday. This month, Jenn is asking for everyone to add an extra cup of veggies to their day. Sounds good to me! Except one thing…that did not happen on Monday, which was when I took pics for this post. It was moving day at my office at 8am….and I just flew in from Florida at 1am the night before. So, needless to say, I was a little scatter brained and ended up eating up a bit. Oh well.

But here ya go:

Breakfast: 6:30am. After a weekend vacation in Florida without many veggies, I was craving something green….I was also craving plenty of caffeine. Breakfast was a frozen peach, banana, and spinach Green Smoothie. And 3 cups of coffee.

Hits the spot every time

I spent the morning “helping” the movers pack up. Best part about office moving day is wearing yoga pants and sneakers to work, by the way.

Lunch: 12:30pm: Stopped at the local market on my way to the new office and got the Quinoa “Wellness” Salad. I thought extra “wellness” to this busy day could only be a good thing.

Tasted really good. Was a mix of red quinoa, lemon juice, currants, and red pepper. Plus a scoop of the chickpea quinoa (the yellow one). Sprinkled a few almonds on top. Very filling lunch.

Break: 3pm. We walked over to the new Starbucks to take a sunshine break. I got an unsweetened iced green tea. Sprinkled cinnamon on top. Was just what I needed (and the extra caffeine helped a ton).

Sipped in the midst of unpacking

Dinner: 6:30pm. I’m sad to say that I totally broke the “Don’t Eat Out” challenge today and we ate dinner out too.

Here’s my cute dinner date looking very serious while he sent a work email before our food came.

Went to a crepe/salad/sandwich place (that truthfully is probably better for brunch or lunch than dinner). I got the bbq chicken salad– a huge pile of cabbage, corn, peppers, avocado and bbq chicken. I LOVE bbq sauce, so this was really good and I ate a ton of it and was so full afterwards.

After doing a few other errands, went grocery shopping and then pretty much face planted into bed. Moving is exhausting….even WITH movers and even when it’s just at your office (not your home). Glad that day is ov-ah!

Question:
– What’s your latest favorite Starbucks/Other-Coffee-Place drink order?
– Good lunch out places near your office? There are some yummy looking ones near the new office.
– Any good eats today? Do you love BBQ sauce as much as me?

Work is so crazy this week. We’re moving offices and launching a “spring campaign” and it’s been go-go-go. It’s also been pouring rain pretty much non-stop, so it’s all quite a combo. Luckily, I’ve managed to do well on the exercise front and have def felt better because of it (sneaking in early morning and late night workouts to keep me sane).

Anyways, Happy What-I-Ate-Wednesday and Thanks for letting me be a part of it, Jenn!

7:30AM- Breakfast. Apple, HB egg, and Tall Sbucks Coffee with soy.

11:30AM- A very green Lunch. A salad with romaine, parsely, cilantro, and a pear on the side. I kept lunch light on purpose.

2pm: Snack. I had BIG plans to go to the brand new Yogurtland (we don’t have any nearby) for a giant snack this afternoon. But then the weirdest thing happened. I really didn’t feel hungry for yogurt at all. I felt like eating fats and something savory. Who am I? That never happens to me.

So, instead of my yogurt plans, I went with a nut mix and an iced coffee. This nut mix was great because I am still trying to check off my Operation SuperFoods List and so I made a combo of all the ones I’ve been missing. Hazelnuts and Pecans (which I don’t normally like much), Almonds (i can’t make s nut mix without them), Goji Berries (superfood), Currants (Superfood), and Carob chips (superfood too!). I also got an iced coffee with Hemp Milk.

Interesting fact too- see the table in the above photo? It was made out of recycled milk cartons. Neat! Recycle, people!

6pm: Dinner- A red quinoa and edamame salad that I picked up at the same store. It was really good.

Not the most photogenic and certainly not very exciting eats this week, but oh well.

And because I can never resist, a photo of my favorite furball chillin’ with his new toy, Barney.

Hope your day is going well!

- Has work been busy or slow this week?
- What’s the coolest thing you’ve seen made out of recylced materials?
- You recycle, RIGHT?
- Do you like Goji Berries? I wasn’t as big of a fan as I thought I’d be.

Surprise, surprise (ok, no surprise at all), I have a new favorite Green Smoothie combo!

In my effort to check all the 111 foods off my superfoods list, I bought frozen pineapple at Trader Joes this past weekend. And holy moly, I have been making the most delicious pineapple smoothies.

New favorite Pinapple-tastic Smoothie:

Frozen Spinach
Frozen Banana
Frozen Cut-Up Pineapple
Vanilla
Water
And…..
Blend away!! ***The pineapple took a little more blending time than some other fruits, fyi.

At work the other day, we were talking about smoothies and debating straw vs spoon. I’m DEFINITELY a straw girl. You?

Breakfast of champions. Notice how the pineapple makes the smoothie a pretty, bright green color!

I haven’t had pineapple since we were in Hawaii in December and I ate the entire thing by myself in 3 days. Frozen pineapple is my favorite TJ’s product of the week (though I could really just buy a fresh one, cut it up and freeze it myself- ha lazy girl).

Truth though– I’m not a fan of pineapple juice. You?

So just like my mango smoothie post, there are a lot of reasons why pineapple is a superfood that you should add into your smoothie. Fittingly, it’s also the start of pineapple season (March-June….so eat one this week!)

Pineapple display at the grocery store today!

Here are some fun pineapple facts:
from source and source

• Pineapple fruit contains a proteolytic enzyme bromelain that has anti-inflammatory, anti-clotting and anti-cancer properties. Studies have shown that consumption of pineapple regularly helps fight against arthritis, indigestion and worm infestation. ***worm infestation? ewww
• Fresh pineapple is an excellent source of Vitamin C, Vitamin A and beta-carotene. So eat up and to fight off winter colds.
• It’s rich in B-complex group of vitamins like folates, thiamin, pyridoxine, riboflavin and minerals like copper, manganese and potassium.
• Speaking of magnese…..a cup of pineapple chunks contains 76 percent of your daily need for manganese, an essential mineral required for the synthesis of healthy bone and cartilage.
• The pineapple, native to Brazil, was taken to Spain by Christopher Columbus in 1493 after he found it on the island of Guadaloupe.

Okay, this is really random, but did anyone else take French in Middle School or High School and watch Telefrancias with the puppet character, Anana?? I had totally forgotten about it until I googled “pineapple” this morning. Loved that show!

So, you tell me:
– Smoothies with a straw or a spoon?
– What’s your favorite thing to put pineapple in? Pizza? Fried Rice?
– Do you already add pineapple to your smoothies?
– What language did you take in High School?

On Friday, Jared and I were planning to go to Tahoe for our last ski weekend of the season.  As I mentioned in just about every  post last week, it’s been raining HARD around here.  And of course, Rain in SF = Lots of Snow in Tahoe.  We knew it was going to be a slow drive up, so we both took a half day of work and left the city at 3pm.  It normally takes 4 hours to get to the cabin.

6 hours
4 random gas station bathroom stops
and
1 surprisingly tasty McDonald’s salad later……

It was 9pm and we were JUST reaching the base of the mountain.  It was raining hard the whole drive and had quickly gotten dark.  At our dinner drive-through stop, we thought about turning back, a little intimidated how our little two-door car was going to handle the upcoming snow, but decided we wanted to go and trudged on.

Half an hour later, the rain turned to slush—big, drops of slush– and the roads were slipperly.  And then the slush turned to snow.  On the already dark, curvy highway, the power was out and it was pitch black.  The headlights were shining into the snowflakes and instead of making it easier to see, it was almost blinding.  We couldn’t see the lane lines either.

We were going only 20 miles an hour…..and still had another 20 miles before chain control kicked in so we felt like we were going to slide all over…..and even after that, we still had 60 miles to go.

I know all you mid-western and east coasters are probably thinking we’re babies for being freaked out of snow, but let’s just say….it’s a windy, curvy, dark, mountain road and def not salted or cleared.  And yes, we’re Californian and Floridian and def not used to driving in snow!

So after only 5 minutes of it, we both looked at each other and said, “let’s turn around.”  I think I held my breath on the ride back.  I should have taken photos, but frankly, I thought the car ride was going to be the least eventful part of the weekend and so wasn’t even thinking about it.

Though I did think to take this random photo. lol

With Jared’s trust hotel.com app, I looked up hotels in the area and we found one sort of close by in Grass Valley.  So Tahoe/snow/ski trip aborted……and off to an old-west gold mining town we went.

It was after 10pm by the time we got to the hotel….over 7 hours in the car and we were more than ready to relax.  Turned into a spontaneous weekend trip!

We woke up the next morning to our free hotel breakfast.  I absolutely love breakfast in the hotels.  I have no idea why (and Jared thinks I’m crazy), but something about it all being free and so cozy, I just love it.

French toast station (aka, what Jared ate)

I had oatmeal with half a banana and two cups of coffee.  Plus a glass of oj.

The weather seemed better and we considered trying to go back up the mountain now that it was light out, but realized we would have gotten into the same issues coming home on Sunday (which was when the worst snowstorm was going to hit), so decided that staying was a better option.  So off to sightseeing we went!

We started at the Empire State Park, which is one of the oldest gold mines in California, established in 1850.  It was a huge gold mine back then and now a preserved state park.  They have a little museum and you can walk around and see how everything worked, even go down into the mines.  Really interesting and such a big part of California history.

The mines

Really pretty grounds

Where they weighed the gold

The "cottage" (aka, house of the guy who owned the mine)

We went down into the mines

Jared on the track that took the miners underground every morning. Geez, what a dangerous life that way

After our mine tour, we went to the little town of Grass Valley and walked around.  It looks just like an old west town. 

There’s the oldest hotel in California (filled with Mark Twain stuff), and cute little shops and restaurants.  It’s nice to find a town nowadays with no chain-stores.

We had lunch at Main Street Cafe & Bar, which turned out to be SUCH a great choice.  It’s Mediterranean and was really cute inside.

We had the best waiter.  And we both loved our meals.

I got a grilled chicken salad with buckwheat noodles and a peanut dressing on the side.  It was delicious.

After lunch, we drove over to the neighboring town, Nevada City (yes, randomly Nevada City and Nevada County are in California….not Nevada).  It’s also a historic gold rush town and slightly bigger than Grass Valley.

It’s adorable—and my kind of town—there were 4 ice cream and candy shops within 4 blocks!  We stopped for hot cocoa and goodies at the candy shop.  I got a caramel and dark chocolate dipped marshmallow.  It was AMAZING!  Sorry, my pics of it didn’t come out.

And then, we started the drive home, which luckily only took 2.5 hours.  We  made bbq chicken pizza (recipe tomorrow!) for dinner and hung out on the couch watching Hancock (Will Smith is so great) and Outbreak on tv.

We were going to grab drinks for St. Patty’s day…..but as happens a lot lately, it was super late before we knew it and so we nixed our plan.  We turned off the tv and played cards instead.  I lost and am still mad about it!  Now it’s Sunday and I must say, it’s been sooo nice to have the whole day with nothing planned (went swimming, caught up with long-distance friends on the phone, cleaned my whole apartment, and did a kajillion errands– feel so productive!).

Anyways, so that’s the story of how my ski cabin weekend in Tahoe turned into a random hotel-gold mining-old-west trip instead.  Random!

Do you like hotel breakfasts too or am I the only one?
Have you ever changed plans mid-trip before?
Any green beer for st patty’s day?

Breakfast: Started this rainy day with a green smoothie. It’s been a few days since my last one and I have missed them! This tasted so delicious. In the blender: frozen spinach, banana, blueberries, mango, and water. Yum.

Wednesday night, I went to a neat event. Chloe Coscarelli, the vegan chef who won the FoodNetwork’s Cupcake Wars, has a new cookbook–Chloe’s Kitchen– and was doing a signing near my house.

I was mostly vegan a few years ago, but even now that I eat meat often (and dairy occasionally), I still really like vegan meals. But I need EASY vegan meals and that’s what attracted me to Chloe’s book– it’s just that! Simple, tasty vegan meals.

Chloe was really sweet in person. She seemed a little nervous at the signing but answered a few questions, mostly about her favorite vegan SF restaurants.

sorry for the big head in the way, no good angle here

She also talked about how difficult it was to write a cookbook– her friends thought she just cooked in her pjs all day, but honestly, it was a ton of work– so many trials and errors with each recipe, late into the night, figuring out exact amounts. I believe her!

She signed books

And another event perk– There were sparkly cupcakes (vegan and g-free, of course!)

I flipped through the book at home. Some good looking recipes. Like these:

She says that whenever she makes these cinammon rolls she keeps breaking up peice after peice....until pretty soon she's eaten half the pan!

Vegan meatballs

And I think Charlie would like this:

Anyways, so the cookbook is now on my shelf. Hope to make a recipe next week.

It’s always fun to meet the chef/author in person. Puts a personal touch to the recipes when you actually make them.

In other news, here was my non-vegan lunch. Sprouted bread with avocado and smoked salmon. Totally easy to make at work and filling.

Happy Friday!!

Any good cookbooks sitting on your shelves?
For those of you who aren’t vegan– do you still make vegan recipes?

G’morning!!

Breakfast: Another rainy morning breakfast. A big cup of coffee and whole wheat sunflower seed bread with homemade walnut butter and strawberry jam. I found the walnut butter hiding in the back of the fridge- I had totally forgotten about it. Hit the spot!

While sipping my coffee, I read yesterday’s Wall Street Journal article on “Colleagues Who Can Make You Fat.” It’s all about the food temptaions and peer pressure at the office.

Let me preface this by saying that this doesn’t happen at my office. I work with all women and everyone is very exercise/health conscious…..and no one really brings in any foods to share, so it’s not an issue.

BUT, I’ve def worked in offices where it has been, so can still relate a lot.

The article says there are many kinds of co-workers who “can make you fat” or just interfere with your healthy lifestyle. They include:

• The lady who guilts you into eating something she baked or brought in. “You MUST eat it, I baked it with my special recipe!” she says and then stands at your desk until you take a bite. Really you want to say, “Umm, sorry, but I’m not hungry!”
• The baked goods birthday/celebration treats where you feel like you “have to” partake or it’s rude. When I worked in a large office, this happened at least once a week. Sometimes it was fun to have a treat but other days, I just wasn’t hungry and would rather have had something healthier. A slice of cake at 2pm just makes me sleepy anyways.
• Office meetings that are surrounded around a meal aka, the lunch meeting “catered” by the greasy pizza place or the early breakfast meeting with nothing but danishes (and whoever is running the mtg always acts like they are so nice to have ordered greasy food for you as a “treat”). This wasn’t in the article, but just my thoughts.
• The person who comments on what you’re eating, “You’re eating salad again? How boring!” Or “Eww you like tofu? That’s disgusting.”

According to thethe article, “some 29% of people on diets say colleagues pressure them to eat more, make fun of their diets or order them restaurant food they know isn’t on their diets.” Geez, that’s annoying!

All my friends who work at Google, where’s there’s AMAZING free food all day long (pretty much everything you can think of to eat, it’s there) call it the “Google 15” and say that everyone gains 15 pounds within the first few months of work.  I’ve been to lunch there and I’m so not surprised people gain weight…..with free trail mix, candy, cereals, hot cocoa, pizza, etc, I would totally get used to several “work break” visits to the cafeteria everyday.

I’ve def had co-workers in the past who comment on my food and roll their eyes if I pull out a salad. It’s really obnoxious and frankly, none of their business. Work environments are such an interesting balance– you’re with these people 40+ hours per week…..yet, some of them you may not have ever chosen to have in your life.

I’m lucky now that I work in a small and friendly office where this isn’t really an issue. Otherwise, I really feel like it’s high school peer-pressure all grown up. I’m sure most of us can just roll our eyes at this silly comments, not take it personally, and get used to not eating every baked good that sits in the staff room unless we’re actually hungry, but this article still brings up something interesting. We’ve all indulged at the office, not necessarily because we’ve wanted to, but because we felt like we had to (or just because it was “there.”) At least noticing it can help before it makes you “fat.”

Afternoon snack: Plums! Ate this at my desk. No one commented, haha. Are plums back in season? Hope soo….

What’s it like in your office? Are there baked goods or treats all the time? Do you like it or do you feel like it makes eating healthy harder? Are your co-workers exercise/health conscious?

Happy Wednesday! Blogging from an overcast and pouring rain day in SF. We need the rain like no one’s business, but it’s like Mother Nature stored up everything all season until this week and just let it all out finally! But rain= cheaper tastier produce, so no real complaints from me.

And now, time for What I Ate Wednesday, Thanks Jenn!

These are my eats from Monday. It was a weird all-over-the-place kind of day. I was getting over being sick and I had jury duty, which made my schedule far from usual. But some days are like that, so here ya go:

My morning started at 7am with a great swim in the pool. I got my own lane (everyone must have slept in because of the time change). Sweet!

8am- Breakfast. Random breakfast: Coffee with soy milk, a banana, and a handful of walnuts. Omega-3s and potassium to start the day? yes, please.

Check out the sticker, "I'm chiquita banana....." Love it!

I was on “call-back status” for jury duty, so I spent the morning working from home (in yoga pants sprawled out on the couch). I was totally expecting not to have to go in, so when the 11:30am recorded message told me that I had to “report” by 12:30 to the courthouse FORTY FIVE minutes from my house, I was way unprepared. Poor Charlie was woken up from a nap and dragged out of the house to “daycare” with me, lol. Aww, the life of a dog.

11:30am- Lunch. This was pretty early for lunch, but I wanted to eat before leaving for jury duty, so I just threw leftovers together. It sorta looked more like dinner (?). 2 chicken legs (with liquid aminos), kale (from the farmer’s market), and leftover roasted eggplant. I ate the kale in the car. Messy.

3pm- After serving my patriotic duty as a juror (thank goodness I didn’t get chosen), I went outside for a snack. Almonds (more nuts? yes of course), an apple, and an honest tea. It was my first time with the tea. It’s ok. Anyone love it?

Isn’t the courthouse pretty? Jury duty was actually not so bad– the whole process is really interesting and like one big history lesson (i’m a nerd, i love u.s. history stuff).

I did a few errands after leaving the courthouse before going home to get some more work done.

6pm- Dinner. Even with the daylight savings change, I’m still hungry early. By 6, I was more than ready to eat. Brussel sprouts and quinoa mixed with pinto beans and nutritional yeast. I got more than my fair share of nutritional yeast that day.

Snack: Later that night, I ate (unpictured) 2 pieces of toast and 2 handfuls of raisins. Raisins do not stand a chance against me. I can’t get enough. Too bad cause they are full of cals.
I got plenty of fats and protein, but I was still pretty hungry in the end of the day. Need to work on better balance, I suppose.

Have you ever been selected to be on a jury?
How often can you work from home?
Do you eat meals in the car ever?