Tag Archives: quesadilla

Poached egg. Oh how I’ve been craving a poached egg. For SO LONG I’ve been craving this poached egg. I’ve come across many a beautiful photo of incredible poached egg breakfasts and poached egg dishes coming at me left, right and centre.

But I’ve been afraid. Oh so afraid. The sizzling water, the precarious tipping of the egg, the fragile removal of the gentle specimen at just the right moment… too finicky, too difficult.

I had braved an attempt once. Once was all it took to realize that a poached egg natural I was not. From that moment on, I feared that I would never be able to make the perfect poached egg. And so I pushed poached eggs to the back of my mind and did not again return myself to their delicate splendor.

Until now.

May I present to you… my morning breakfast.

Apparently I did not magically become a poached egg master in my sleep.

As cliché as I can possibly be, perhaps “practice makes perfect” is the only way my future poached eggs are going to survive. Special thanks to Bec for her poached egg guidance. I’m thinking the slotted spoon is key and I may need to invest before taking my poached egg attempts to new heights.
So until then, maybe I’m safer with scrambled.

——————————–

After my slight breakfast fiasco I headed to my last class of the first week of classes. Week One completed and survived!

I also managed to be a savvy textbook saver after all. I mentioned earlier that I was having no luck in the used textbook hunt but I kept at it and managed to score nearly all of my textbooks used and at ridiculously good prices:
Developmental Psych - New $144. I paid $50
Applied Social Psych – New $106.50. I paid $50
Clinical Psych – New $163.50. I paid $60
Physical Geography – New $126.75. I paid $40

I have one set of books that I have to buy full price but they are the cheapest ones on my list. Overall I managed to save nearly $350! Moral of the story? The extra effort to track down used textbooks is worth it.

Now onto the last couple days of EATS

Wednesday

A green monster topped with a sprinkling of wheat germ and coffee squared began my morning.

Classes filled the majority of my day. I snacked on a Larabar and a coffee during some downtime but I was essentially on the go right until dinner so it was much needed when I finally arrived home.

Obviously a speedy dinner was a necessity. There isn’t much that beats the quick speed yet great taste of a veggie burger. Topped with spinach, tomato, dijonnaise, a slice of FF swiss and sided by a cold corn cob and I was eating mere minutes after arriving home.

But that’s clearly not enough food. Bring in the yogurt bowl!

My food Dreams of Dark Chocolate swirled themselves through this bowl of yogurt, bananas, cinnamon and strawberry jam. There may have been unaccounted for spoons of the DCD straight from jar to mouth but we’ll keep that on the DL.

Wednesday night consisted of slacking and no school work since, at this point, I had not yet gotten my hands on any textbooks. Catch up time this weekend perhaps? Good thing the first week is pretty slow on the school work front.

Thursday

I woke up with visions of oat bran dancing in my head.
But then I opened the fridge to visions of leftover peach crumb pudding dancing in my face. So obviously I ate that first.

The last few precious bites. This was pretty much all that was left. Not quite breakfast-worthy but enough to rev up my taste buds.

After spending a bit of quality time with the stove, I enjoyed my bowl of oat bran filled with banana, wheat germ and PB2 and decked out with the same in the morning sunlight.

Where there are beginnings there are also endings, and with the birth of this bowl came the peaceful death of a much loved jar. It was a good run we had PB2, a good run. Luckily I have the last bits of my Chocolate PB2 jar to help me through a few more mornings before I bid it adieu as well.

Thursday mornings are late starters in terms of classes, meaning time for a mid-morning exercise sesh! This one consisted of a sweaty treadmill run followed by some abtacular crunches.

I wasn’t planning on having anything to eat before I left for school but for some reason I ended up semi starving shortly before going so I threw together a cabbage slaw and cottage cheese bowl.

Yeah still pretty starving. I dug into the last of a yogurt container and finally threw in some crumbled peanut butter cookie for a sweet kick.

Then it was off to class. I made my schedule so that majority of my classes are back to back, which is great in terms of being efficient and not having little spurts of time to kill here and there but bad for my concentration level since I’m seriously lacking there to begin with. So by the end of the day I end up watching the clock for the whole last half of the last class. Which just makes time drag that much more. Not so fun.

Because that early snack/lunch deal of mine was much earlier than I had hoped to eat, I was starving when I got home. Luckily it was just about time enough to be reasonably considered dinner without still being the middle of the afternoon so I just went at ‘er and cracked open some refried beans. I’d been parted from them basically all summer for no real reason whatsoever, so this reacquaintance was much loved.

With them beans I did something special and made a refried bean quesadilla! It was special to me at least…

- In a pan I heated broccoli, tomatoes, red pepper and spinach with some chicken broth.
- In the microwave I heated the refried beans with salsa, garlic powder and buffalo sauce.
- In a tortilla I spread some avocado, the heated bean mix, the heated vegetable mix, and some more salsa, then pan fried it all to crispy perfection and got my dinner on!

The veggies didn’t all fit into the tortilla so I ate them on the side with a little dose of balsamic vinaigrette.

The Post-Dinner Sweet was a mini bowl of Weetabix and Vector with cut up peach and chocolate almond milk. Yes that’s a blue-tinted light on the bowl. My mom bought this wind-up flashlight thing and I figured dessert deserved to be in the spotlight. :)

I also ate some frozen banana-almond butter “sandwiches” like so:

Schweeet.

So here we are now into

Friday

Aside from my poached egg breakfast (which, despite its pathetic appearance, was quite delicious) I managed to turn my day into an excessive cereal consumption day. The carbs were calling me all day and apparently today = zero resistance because I obliged and ate them by the cereal-filled handful.

Therefore my lunch was much unpictured cereal eaten standing at the pantry, straight from the box. It happened. It’s over. We move on and eat veggies for dinner instead haha.

But uh… first comes the fresh bread. A carb calling day still remains a carb calling day into dinner time and fresh bread is the carbiest of the carb.

We did groceries. This loaf was still warm when we got it home.

Sabra Baba! First try of the goodness. I’m kind of a baba junkie and this is good. Although I don’t think anything beats my babaganoush-in-a-can. I love that stuff.

The monster veggie bowl dinner, complete with cottage cheese and some of the Sabra Baba (plus spinach, mushrooms, baby carrots, red pepper, tomatoes, steamed broccoli and a really random sour cream-based dressing).

Then there were grapes by the handful (an improvement on cereal by the handful).

And then there was THIS.

We had a coupon so this giant tub of Maple Walnut fro yo delight was only $1.99. I’m a coupon fan, what can I say.

I decked my bowl out with a peanut butter drizzle and a pumpkin mellocreme. Oh yes it’s that time of year again. Welcome FALL!

The week is done, and the weekend is calling.
Adios Week!
Bonjour Weekend!

Not Quite Biceps of Steel

March 6, 2009

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Okay before you all think I’m some super bionic woman, allow me to clarify. My 100 pushups are done throughout the course of the day, not all in one go. THAT would be nuts. Although maybe that’s a good goal to strive for… hmm… Ha but seriously, 100 pushups throughout the day, usually 20 at a time. Sometimes I’ll do the sets back to back but I never do 100 consecutive pushups. They are the full ones though, not the “girlie” pushups.

Yet again I fall behind on the posting. I don’t think I’ll ever be good at doing the daily thing.

On Wednesday (or I guess Tuesday night technically) I was thinking ahead enough for once to throw together a Breakfast Cookie!

Into the mix: 5 grain Oats (~1/3 cup?), scoop of chocolate protein powder, 1/2 a small banana, peanut butter and flax

This was excellent because it was a breakfast cookie and they are excellent, but not as excellent as it could have been because I don’t like the protein powder I used. I need to buy some new stuff asap. I love how long and fun these are to eat though. I also probably shouldn’t have eaten the orange along with it because I actually felt sick after all of this. Breakfast cookies sure can pack a huge full factor punch in the stomach. They are also great for early morning class days because they are all set to go in the fridge as soon as I’m ready to eat!

Class.

Then Lunch. Large fridge-clearing salad that included add-ins such as spinach, cabbage slaw, mushrooms, carrot, red pepper, avocado and leftover egg noodles.

A Crater-style Iced Coffee followed it up.

For Wednesday’s workout I did 20 minutes of Tabata Intervals followed by an approximate 20 minute full body strength routine. I did the Tabata intervals at 10% incline, speed 8-9mph. These sure work up a sweat fast!

Dinner was a refried bean quesadilla with hummus, red pepper, spinach and salsa in a spelt tortilla, topped with sour cream and homemade guacamole. This was so good. Best one I’ve had in a while.

Then I had some yogurt with Kashi go Lean Crunch and banana.

But my sweet tooth hit hardcore and I went kitchen raiding shortly after. I’m not sure what I ate but I am sure that it was sweet.

Thursday I opted for a Weetabix breakfast of perfection that included Weetabix, pumpkin, vanilla yogurt, almond milk, frozen bananas, frozen berries and cinnamon. Now I’m all out of Weetabix! Whatever shall I do? Oh right, groceries.

Lunch was another random salad that I had to pretty much inhale before running off to class. The random add-ins to this one were leftover baked tofu, leftover roasted potatoes and guacamole, plus a hunk of spelt tortillla with hummus on the side. The hummus got all bubbly when I micro-d it. Mmm.

I also had this sudden huge craving to try the Pure Protein bar that I bought a while ago. I’m not a huge bar person so I always take ages to get around to eating the ones I buy. Don’t get me wrong, I love them, but I always opt for more wholesome or voluminous snacks or meals and save the bars typically for on the go or in class. For some reason though I needed to try this yesterday.

I had probably 1/4 of it. I can’t believe I was able to restrain myself to that though because I nearly inhaled the whole thing. Maybe out of hunger, maybe out of sweetness craving, maybe out of its deliciousness. I’m not sure. I did enjoy this quite a lot though. Unfortunately these are hardly sold anywhere around here and I’ve only seen the huge version of the bar, not the nice smaller ones that food blog world seems to show.

Anyway, Thursday was a long day of classes. Nothing exciting there.

Dinner was an herb and garlic tilapia fillet with pasta salad and normal salad.

I ate plenty o’ pasta.

And then my hunger just went off the wire and I ate myself into a food-induced coma. Well not quite but I kind of felt sick after, I think mainly because I chugged a huge glass of water to stop the fridge raiding. It did the trick anyway.

THEN I went out and danced the night away. Most dancing I’ve done in a while. It was fun. A lot of fun. Maybe a little too fun.

And now I don’t feel all that hot. I think I need more sleep. I also think I have class so more sleep isn’t the most viable option right now.

So I’m off. Happy Friday!

Speedy Week Long Overview

February 8, 2009

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One week’s worth of eats, drastically reduced (the highlights only), in quick recap form.

Aaaaaaand GO!

Saturday, January 31st

Scrambled egg whites with veggies + a piece of leftover sushi from dinner out the night before.

Leftover Noodleless Lasagna from the freezer, topped with tomato sauce and shredded mozzarella.

Sunday, February 1st

Oatmeal pancake made with a reduced sugar instant oatmeal packet, canned pumpkin and egg whites. Topped with canned pumpkin mixed with vanilla soy protein powder.

Roasted sweet potato fries and cauliflower with Baked Dijon Salmon from this recipe featured by Angela

Monday, February 2nd

Blended Strawberry Banana Oats

I completely forget what was in that quesadilla but I know there was edamame hummus and clearly some spinach.

Tuesday, February 3rd

Carrot Cake Oatmeal – I grated a whole carrot into this baby. To be honest I kind of forget what I put in here but I’m fairly sure it involved oats, cinnamon, almond milk, a splash of gingerbread syrup, almond slices and shredded carrot. It was topped with some kind of yogurt “icing”, which was most likely vanilla yogurt mixed with some nut butter.

Butternut squash soup pureed with kale and half of my leftover quesadilla from dinner the night before.

Wednesday, February 4th

A bizarro breakfast – tempeh, carrots, orange, eng muffin with cottage cheese… and then some kiwi slices with a spoonful of vanilla yogurt. I guess I was having an indecisive morning.

And an indecisive afternoon since lunch was just as random. Veggies, tempeh, leftover salmon, buttercup and acorn squash

Mediterranean chicken breast, broccoli, buffalo sauce. I finally got Franks Buffalo Sauce since before we were using a more generic brand and it almost ran out. WHOA. I thought buffalo sauce was good before but this stuff is AMAZING. Especially with broccoli. So so good.

Then some Canned Butternut Squash. This stuff was on sale. I was pretty excited. I think I like canned pumpkin better though. Mixed with vanilla soy protein powder.

Thursday, February 5th

The day of madness… a chunk of midterms and assignments finally OUT of the way. Only one more week of it to go.

I’m slightly bummed that I had to rush through all of this and couldn’t get it down in several earlier separate posts throughout the week that weren’t bursting at the seams, but hopefully this week I’ll get back to more regular posts that won’t have to be done in one giant clump.

One positive non-food note… The weather is FINALLY picking up! It’s gorgeous and sunny today and is supposed to be above 0 (celsius) all week. Yesterday it was even raining instead of snowing. Spring Spring Spring!

Alright, I guess it’s time to get back to the studying. Thanks for the all of the good luck studying encouragement, and I wish mass amounts of good luck to all of you! Whether you’re studying or not :)

Baked Breakfast Beauty and a Stellar Sandwich

January 8, 2009

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Well, I have now experienced 4 out of 5 of my classes. They all seem decent but I’m already started to feel a tiny bit overwhelmed. I think it mainly has to do with the fact that I don’t have any of my textbooks yet though, so I can’t get started on the readings. I plan on getting them asap but I’m trying to get my hands on some used books, which can be a bit of a task sometimes in trying to contact people who are selling them, arrange meeting times etc.
Do any of you buy any your textbooks used? Or do you buy all new? Or what other alternatives to you use? Sharing, photocopying, ordering online? Textbooks are so expensive so I’m trying to figure out the best way to get deals but not have to wait weeks to have all my textbooks in my hands. Last term I managed to get most used and save a good chunk of money but it was a couple weeks into term before I had them all and I fell a bit behind of some of the readings…

Anyway, sorry for no update yesterday, my wireless Internet has been a pain and a half lately. I think our router is on the fritz.

Tuesday

Tuesdays and Thursdays begin at 11:30 so I have plenty of morning chill time. For this reason I decided on baked oatmeal for breakfast. I have made this before using Kath’s method but I made a few slight modifications: no salt, used carton egg whites, 1 cup skim milk and 0.5 cup unsweetened Almond milk, only half a mashed banana and also threw in some cinnamon.

I was completely starving while I made this though and I knew I couldn’t wait the half hour baking time, so I had a bowl of plain yogurt with mashed naner and a dollop of pumpkin seed butter.

Then I did some blog reading and puttering until the baked breakfast goodness was ready.

By then though I was starting to run out of time and wanted to get a workout in before heading off to class, so I had half of a piece of this and then was off onto the treadmill for a quick run that I believe ended up somewhere around 4.5 miles.

Then I was starving again so I had the rest of the piece of oatmeal.

This was definitely not enough to fuel me through the next three hours of classes that I knew stood ahead of me though, so I scarfed down some cottage cheese and an apple before running out the door.

Classes were fine but felt very long because my two classes are back to back and in the same room so I essentially don’t move for 3 hours. I already have trouble sitting for long periods of time as is so this might be a little bit of an annoyance throughout the term. Luckily there is a 10 minute break between the two classes so at least I have a chance to get out of my seat, if only briefly.

Between the two classes yesterday I snacked on half of a CHOCOLATE HAZELNUT Jocalat Larabar. My first attempt with this flavour. WHOA. Seriously delicious. If you haven’t tried this one, DO IT.

By the time I got home from my classes mid-afternoon I was starving once again. When I remembered I still had buttercup squash in the fridge I practically ran to it. I could seriously eat it at every meal. I made up a nice big bowl of raw veggies, squash, leftover chicken and leftover baked tofu. I basically ate this bowl twice…

… and then wasn’t hungry for dinner until quite a few hours later.

Even when I did make dinner I wasn’t that hungry but I was really looking forward to making a fridge-clearing quesadilla so I ignored my lack of hunger and just made dinner anyway :)

I packed this with black beans, guacamole, tomatoes, salsa and spinach, topped with ff sour cream, and managed to get rid of at least three containers of leftover foods with it so I was quite satisfied.

I was exhausted last night and told myself I was going to get to bed before midnight but then my friend wanted me to join her for her co-worker’s birthday because she didn’t want to show up alone, so I figured I could suck it up and try to stay awake. We didn’t stay too too long but I still didn’t end up getting to bed until after midnight. TONIGHT I will sleep!

Today

Every day this week I’ve had to drag myself out of bed. Blah. I can’t wait until it starts getting lighter earlier. It’s so much easier to get out of bed when it’s not pitch black outside.

For breakfast this morning I went to my fresh baked oatmeal stash and had a reheated slice, complete with 2 tsp soy nut butter, half an orange and fresh strawberries.

Then class time. Classes on Wednesday start at 9:30 (tolerable) and end by 11:30 (wonderful).

When I got home I did an arm-burning shovelling job since we got a lovely snow dump last night (The driving was brutal. Stupid winter). Then I did some online textbook searching (paaaaainful).

THEN I made some lunch. The greatest sandwich ever. Or at least of the month.

A slice of marble rye toasted, with roasted red pepper hummus (my favourite kind), tomato, spinach, chicken and honey mustard. Every bite was awesome.

I ate it with mushrooms, zucchini and a bit of leftover baked tofu on the side, but they had nothing on the sammy.

I finally got onto the treadmill a bit later but today’s run was hard. I did a sprint interval workout that I’ve done many many times before. It was only 30 minutes long but even the first five minutes of a slow-paced 6mph warmup was tough. I’ve been energy low all week so far so this is why I must force myself into bed earlier tonight!

This is also why I have trouble working out early in the morning. My energy levels just aren’t up yet! Do you guys just plow through it if your energy is really low during a workout? Do you lower the intensity instead? I always want to keep going but I feel like I can hardly get through it if I’m too tired and I feel like I’m not putting nearly as much effort into it.

After some shopping (where I found some sugar free eggnog syrup on sale! – I’ll try to remember to take a picture tomorrow) it was dinner time. I’ve been meaning to make this dinner for ages and just haven’t gotten around to it yet, but I finally decided to make it tonight. Pretty sure I saw the idea via Erin a while back. Sweet potato with Amy’s Organic Medium Chili with Vegetables. I also added spinach and a bit of salsa on top.