Grill Night

On tonight’s dinner menu was grilled chicken and pineapple with pineapple salsa and corn on the cobb.  It was a very yellow dinner….on yellow plates no less! I’m pretty sure the yellow plates were unintentional :)

This meal was yet another from the Shape Magazine easy weeknight meals. I’m pretty impressed with the recipes. They aren’t my new all time favorites or anything, but they’ve been easy, cost effective, and pretty tasty.  As I’ve mentioned before there are some tweaks I will make if I repeat any of the recipes, so I would say so far, so good.

I never used to like pineapple, and it’s still not something I go for on a regular basis, but it was nice to get some fruit into our meal tonight.  I’ve also recently totally fallen in love with mango.  I blame Pinkberry. Speaking of yogurt, when we ran to the store to pick up milk and fresh cilantro for tonight, I made convinced Travis to take me to Yogurt-land.  The Yogurt-land next to my office is much nicer, but I was really craving some fro-yo.  I noticed at this particular location that the fruit was not 100% ripe which made some of the strawberries and mango I heaped into my cup not so great.  The yogurt tasted a little different too, but I’m not feeling great, so maybe that was why it tasted off.

I did take a picture, I swear, on my phone, but T-mobile is being a turd and didn’t upload it to my album online.  I think I may have decided that I prefer Pinkberry to Yogurt-land. Maybe. More testing will be required before an ultimate decision is made.

I may have overextended myself money wise this paycheck, next week’s meals might be a little interesting.  Basically, the first paycheck at my new job went almost exclusively to rent, and groceries.  After making half a paycheck stretch for nearly four weeks, I knew that this check would also make things a little tight timing wise.  However, another payday is coming soon, and that one should really even things out a bit more.   For now though, I have to be satisfied with paying the minimum balance on my last credit card (so close!) which makes me sad in my heart.

I am feeling better than this morning, but I still have a lingering headache (of the sinus variety), and a dull ache in my left ear, which is fun…so I’m off to sit in a warm bath and read Gone With the Wind and then get to bed early.

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Catherine, September 2nd 2010 | Tags: , ,
Posted in Eating, food, life, Los Angeles, money, recipes, the internet

Keys Belong Outside of Cars

Old gas station in the living ghost town of Ch...

Image by kevincole via Flickr

After work tonight I decided to push through 2 miles even though I was feeling off kilter all day. I did 2.26 miles in 31 minutes, which includes my cool down. I did a couple of sprint sessions, but was really more focused on getting in two miles. Man, today has been weird.  I seriously think I may have some kind of food allergy or hypoglycemia or something because man, after I eat lately I am exhausted.  Even after oatmeal! I’m not talking “Oh, wow, hey, I’m a little tired.” I’m talkin “I could lie down under this desk and be out for an hour.”  After lunch, I was so tired I felt like I was drunk.  Somewhat confused and fuzzy, and loopy. Not good.

Anyway, after my run, I decide to stop at one of the gas stations on my way home, and I end up not being able to get gas, but I do manage to lock my keys, in my car.  So, there I am, slightly damp from being sweaty, at a gas station in Santa Monica, and the wind starts picking up, and I’m starving, and it takes an hour and fifteen minutes for the people to come and take two seconds to jimmy open my door.  Thank goodness I had my cell phone.

When I got home, Travis had almost finished making the Frittata on our weekly menu, which is again, part of the Shape Magazine easy week night meals series.  It was delicious, and I will certainly be enjoying it for lunch tomorrow.

The recipe can be found here, but note we used fresh tomatoes, not sun dried. Now that I look at this, it looks slightly different than the one featured in Shape, but close enough.  I really liked this recipe and think it would be great with any kind of cheese (I know I’ve been on a goat cheese kick lately, saying I would sub it for everything, but it’s so delicious! I can’t help it!).

My serving, with sliced tomatoes.  I LOVE tomatoes. I could eat them with every meal, every day, all day, all the time.  I snack on cherry tomatoes like they are candy. If I could have an endless supply of tomatoes, I would be the happiest girl on earth.  Travis salted these tomato slices, which was totally unnecessary.  I am kind of a tomato purist, when they’re ripe, they don’t really need any dressing up (not that dressing them up isn’t fun).

Oh, speaking of fun!  My Reebok order came today.  A little over a week ago, I got an email at work saying that our non-profit organization was taking part in a Friends & Family discount with Reebok.  I used the 25% off plus free ground shipping deal to order a pair of capri running pants, and a medium resistance band, all for $30!  I haven’t been able to find capri running pants in my size for an affordable price anywhere.  I tried the pair on briefly, and they seem ok, a little less snug than I was hoping, but I’ll take it!   I may even wear them for the half-marathon on Sunday. We shall see =D

Little Bits really enjoyed the empty box

Ok, I am pooped, so I’m going to sit in a hot bath and read Gone With the Wind.

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Catherine, September 1st 2010 | Tags: , , , ,
Posted in books, Calypso, Eating, food, life, Los Angeles, lunch, reading, recipes, the internet, training, work, wtf

Oatmeal, Protomen and Easy Pasta

Yesterday was a rest day as far as training goes, since we are now T-Minus 4 days away from my first half marathon! I had planned on coming home, relaxing in front of the TV for a bit, then writing a nice blog about my rest day and our dinner, and include yesterday morning’s oatmeal.  However, that did not happen.  Travis’ friend from back home (Nashville) is in a band called The Protomen.  They are awesome, seriously, so cool, look them up! They are currently on tour and played a show Monday and Tuesday night not far from us, so Travis went to both shows.  Last night, his friend happened to be a few blocks away from us (they were all at The Price is Right taping) so he came over to hang out and have dinner with us.  This is why I don’t have any pictures from dinner.  We were all so hungry, we simply wolfed it down with hardly any pause.

I can however, share with you the recipe we used! We made the Easy Pasta Bake, which I found in this month’s issue of Shape Magazine, but can also be found online here! We used brown rice pasta from Trader Joe’s instead of whole wheat, because it was all we had in the house.   It was good, but I’d make some slight changes, the addition of goat cheese would be awesome, as would pine nuts.  Also, I would maybe add some onion as it was a teensy bit bland.  I would definitely use mozzarella instead of the cheddar cheese next time.  The cheddar got a little bit greasy. :(

Ok, well I’m dilly dallying and just realized it’s almost 8am! I need to get a move on or I will be late for work. I’m going to have to buy lunch today since we don’t have any leftovers from dinner.  Oh well!


Question: Do you like to alter recipes to better suit your tastes?

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Catherine, September 1st 2010 | Tags: , , ,
Posted in breakfast, Eating, food, friendship, life, Los Angeles, recipes, the internet, training, TV

The Return of Oatmeal

The weather here got really hot in the past couple weeks, so I’d been pretty averse to the idea of oatmeal for breakfast.  However, this weekend, and this week are much more mild. So, this morning, it was OATMEAL!

1/2 cup oats
1 cup water
Trader Joe’s  And the Three Berries granola
chocolate chips =X
slivered almonds
Trader Joe’s almond butter

I’ve seen a lot of blog posts lately about how to save money, especially when grocery shopping.  In the past two years Travis and I have cut our grocery bill in a big way by planning our meals and shopping from a list.  That’s not to say that some extras don’t jump into our cart, but typically we stick to our list.  We also like to use coupons and shop items that are on sale.

This week, we are using recipes from the latest issue of Shape Magazine. Now, I have a bit of a love/hate relationship with fitness magazines because I feel they tend to send mixed messages.  They promote healthy living and eating, but on the covers each month are features about “LOSE 8 POUNDS IN THREE WEEKS!” and whatnot.

Anyway, this month they have a feature on easy weeknight meals that use a few ingredients in all of the recipes.  This made our grocery shopping much easier and less expensive.  We ended up getting the makings of 7 meals for about $80.  This actually included a few other things we needed like batteries and a combination lock for the gym.

Tonight’s meal was Tomato and Spinach Stuffed Chicken Roulade.  I typed that into google, and it came up with this, which is actually the exact recipe from the magazine.  It’s listed as Diane Henderiks’ Tomato and Spinach Stuffed Chicken Roulade.

This meal was really good, but like so many of the meals I find in Shape and Self it was a little bit bland.  In the future I would probably swap the cheddar with goat cheese, and add some paprika or some other spices into the breading to add some flavor to the chicken.

After work today, I decided to run 2 miles.  It was rough, I’d had a headache off and on all day, and while I was running I could feel a throbbing in the back of my right eye.  So, it was definitely slow going, but I logged in the 2 miles. Also, my iPod didn’t record the whole workout correctly.  So annoying.  The count down begins for the big race!  T-minus 6 days!

The only picture I took from Saturday night:

Belated Birthday Dinner! Woooo :)


Question: What are your thoughts on fitness magazines?

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Catherine, August 30th 2010 | Tags: , , , , ,
Posted in breakfast, Eating, food, life, recipes