September 8, 2009

So long Summer

Posted by Anna under Weekend Recap | Tags: , , , , , |
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Labor Day weekend was fun and busy, but I am sad to see summer leave! We had some sun and some chilly weather this weekend and fall is def in the air. 

I had a BBQ with my family Saturday night. There was grilled chicken, ribs, broccoli, eggplant, potatoes and tomato salad. There was so much food and I was stuffed after dinner :)  BBQ’s can be healthy if you choose carefully. Grilled potatoes are real TASTY and are a good alternative to potato salad that’s usually made with tons of mayo. I especially like them because I can’t eat mayo (allergy!).  And, you really can’t beat grilled veggies! I’ll miss them come winter :(

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Sunday afternoon John and I decided to walk the Freedom Trail in Boston. We walked from one historic site to the next including…

The State House

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and Paul Revere’s grave stone.

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This was our tour guide who had lots of stories to tell!

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John and I saw the movie Extract Saturday night. It was funny and entertaining, but the story line was a little out of the ordinary. Have you seen this movie? What did you think of it?

It was really nice to have Monday off! I spent most of Monday relaxing then I was off to Mohegan Sun to see Journey in concert. They were fantastic! I think my friend and I were some of the youngest people there, but it was fun! There were a lot of food choices at Mohegan Sun. We choose to eat at Bobby Flay’s Bobby’s Burger Palace. It was the best burger I had in a while. It was the perfect portion (I was full, but not stuffed afterwards) and I did not feel like I was eating a fast food burger at all. The restaruant did not serve any seafood so I got my french fry fix! The fries were crispy, just how I like them :)

Here are the rest of the weekend’s EATS:

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Saturday and Sunday’s bowl of cereal were identical so I didn’t snap a photo of Sunday’s Rice Chex with rice milk.

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I also had some chips that are not pictured with the hot dog.

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August 31, 2009

Take Note

Posted by Anna under Breakfast, Weekend Recap | Tags: , , , |
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Good Monday morning! My week’s off to a busy start already. I had the first of two tests done on my stomach this morning and couldn’t eat or drink anything beforehand. When I got home I was surprisingly not crazy hungry. Most days I wake up hungry, but I was happy today was not one of those days.  I made a grilled ham and egg white sandwich on a thick slice of French bread for breakfast when I got home.

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I also ate a nectarine while uploading the pics for this post so I could snap a photo of it.

Now that breakfast is posted I can fill you in on my weekend! Saturday was spent playing BINGO and roulette at Foxwoods with my mom and John. None of us came home winners and it was getting a little frustrating ;) John and I decided to go back to Foxwoods on Sunday to try our luck at BINGO and roulette again, but it was not our lucky weekend. At least we had fun!

Here’s are some highlights of this weekend’s EATS

Ham and tomato sandwich on rye bread with mustard.

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Tea with lemon and honey and a cinnamon roll from Panera. I had just a few bites!

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Saturday night’s EATS were a grilled steak dinner with corn on the cob and asparagus.

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Both Saturday and Sunday I had the usual bowl of cereal for breakfast- Corn Chex on Saturday and Rice Chex on Sunday!

Sunday afternoon at Foxwoods John and I ate at Stadium Sports Bar and Grill. I had the chicken fajitas. They were excellent!

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I was a little hesistant at first to order the chicken fajitas because they also had shrimp fajitas on the menu and I was worried that they would be cooked together. I told the waitress I had a shellfish allergy and she said they would cook my chicken in a separate pan. When the bill came I was happy to see she did make note of my ALLERGY

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It’s so nice when restaurants are accomodating to allergies :)

The plan is to get A LOT of WORK done this afternoon and to find some time for a little YOGA…

 

August 28, 2009

Summery Pink Fingers and Toes

Posted by Anna under Dinner, Lunch | Tags: , |
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Today was a great day, but I am happy to be home relaxing  now :) I ventured out during lunch this afternoon for a  manicure and pedicure. I have been meaning to do this for over a week now! I got a summery pink color on my fingers and toes. Since this is a food blog I thought it best to leave out a close up photo of my feet!

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Dinner was DELISH! My EATS were crispy sweet potato fries, fresh picked tomatoes from the garden seasoned with salt, pepper, garlic powder and EVOO and grilled chicken legs.

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I had a couple more slices of tomato and many more fries! For dessert I had a piece of homemade zucchini bread and tea.

Lunch today was not so exciting! I only have an hour lunch break so I choose a mani/pedi over a nice lunch. I had hummus on raisin toast (yesterday’s Plan B!). This may be a strange combo, but I really l ike it. The sweetness from the raisins adds a lot of flavor to the bland tasting hummus. I use original hummus so there really is not much flavor to it.

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Blog Hummus Toast

I didn’t eat the banana in the pic with my breakfast so I ate it with lunch instead. This afternoon’s snacks were a small bag of potato chips and this orange.

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There will be an early wake up call for me tomorrow.  I’m leaving around 7:30am for Foxwoods to play BINGO and gamble. Now this is later than I wake up for work, but early for a Saturday! I’m going to squeeze in a little exercise tonight (20  minutes of strength training) then it’s bedtime! Hope your weekend is off to a great start!

 

August 23, 2009

Steaks, Sandwiches, Smoothies oh my!

Posted by Anna under Weekend Recap | Tags: , , , , |
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Hope you all enjoyed your weekend and are ready to start a brandnew week!

I was up bright and early Saturday morning to start my dog sitting duties. It was only 6:30am, but I was getting hungry so I actually tried something new! Vans Dairy and Gluten-Free waffles. I don’t have to eat gluten-free foods, but I bought these because they were dairy (allergy!) free. The waffle was not as light as the regular kind and had a much sweeter taste. The verdict on this NEW EAT: I liked it! I topped 1 waffle with 1/2 of a medium banana and ate the rest of the banana on the side.

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Around 8am I was hungry again so I had a bowl of kix with rice milk and I was good to go for the rest of the morning. I bought a new pair of glasses Saturday morning and can’t wait to pick them up later this week! The frames are light brown on the outside and blue on the inside. They’re really cute! I started wearing contacts when I was 15,  but now that I have a desk job and sit in front of a computer for 8-10 hours a day it’s tough on the eyes so I started wearing glasses again about a year ago.

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My lunch EATS were a simple turkey sandwich on a potato roll with a fruit cup. I ended up eating the fruit cup for an afternoon snack and had potato chips with my sandwich instead. I didn’t decide to forgo the fruit cup until after I took the pic and finished the sandwich so there’s no pic of them, sorry.

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As an afternoon snack with the fruit cup I had a small bowl of Kix.

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Dinner was DELISH! I grilled up some steaks for John and I. This was my second time grilling myself and I thought the steaks came out great! We also had potatoes that I microwaved then put in the toaster oven to get crispy. They were seasoned with ground pepper and garlic powder.

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The potatoes.

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The steaks were only seasoned with fresh ground pepper, salt and a little garlic powder so I thought they could use a little something extra. I made a tomato and garlic sauce with fresh basil from the veggie garden to top the steaks with. This was so good! I used a can of petite diced tomatoes, chopped up some fresh basil, seasoned it with garlic powder and added some EVOO then mixed it all together for a tasty steak sauce!

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My first helping…

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I also cut a tomato in fours and grilled it up to eat on the side. I had several more potato wedges and another small piece of steak.

Sunday’s breakfast was great as usual! They’re my fav :) Scrambled eggs, bacon (I buy the lean cut of bacon. This one only had 70 calories and 4 grams of fat for 4 slices.) and a biscuit made from the Bisquick mix. Of course there was ketchup for dipping! I cleaned my plate and had a second biscuit too.

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John and I were out shopping in the afternoon so we grabbed some sanwiches for lunch. This was a HUGE, but GREAT sandwich from Lamberts. They sliced about a 1/2 lb of deli meat just for my sandwich! It was too much turkey for me so I took about 1/2 of it out. Lettuce, tomato, pickles and yellow mustard were my toppings of choice.

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This was a hearty sandwich!

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Breakfast and lunch were larger than normal so I wasn’t too hungry for dinner. I made smoothies with rice milk, mango and pineapple for me and John. This filled me up for a while, but later on I was hungry again so I had a bowl of Rice Chex, dry with no milk.

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WOW this was a massive post! I’m off now to relax for the rest of the night before another busy week begins!!

 

August 10, 2009

Unexpected Happenings

Posted by Anna under Lunch | Tags: |
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My work laptop is busted so I haven’t been able to do much work today. I have been trying to get some work done, but it keeps crashing and I have to constantly restart it. Ugh, very frustrating! When I get into work tomorrow I have to bring it to one of the computer technicians so they can fix it :(

This afternoon’s lunch EATS were a baked sweet potato, grilled chicken leg with a couple of pieces of grilled chicken breast on the side. There’s only a 1/2 of potato in the pic, but I was still hungry and ended up going back for the other half.

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I felt like it was a good day to have dessert after lunch! I had a slice of Sara Lee pound cake and put little Cool Whip on top of my slice. Cool Whip is dairy-free so I like to use it to “frost” my cakes!

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It was easy fitting some exercise in today since I haven’t been able to do much work. I went on my 2 mile “neighboorhood walk” and did a 10 minute ab DVD.

I was able to get a last minute appointment for a facial at 5pm tonight :)  So today hasn’t been all that bad!  Dinner may be a little later than usual tonight, but here’s a sneak peak of the menu:

Homemade black bean burgers

Spinach sauteed with garlic

I’m going to see if I can get some more work done this aftenoon, but I just might give up if the computer crashing continues…

 

August 9, 2009

Energetic Sunday

Posted by Anna under Weekend Recap, Workouts | Tags: , , , |
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I woke up with energy this morning  after a good night’s sleep (YAY!)  so it was not another lazy day for me! I started my day with a smoothie made of rice milk, frozen mango, canned peaches and ice then I was off to the gym. I always make my smoothies with frozen fruit (mango, pineapple and peaches is my fav combo), but the grocery store was fresh out of frozen pineapple and peaches so I added in some canned peaches and it tasted just fine :)  Using only mango would have been too boring…

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 I had a few sips before I snapped the picture. I blend my smoothies so that there are still some little bits of fruit and ice. I think it’s more refreshing that way!

I took it easy with this morning’s workout and didn’t want to overdo it since I’ve been tired from my sleepless nights. It was still a GREAT workout though! I may go to the gym tomorrow morning too so that was my other reason behind a moderate workout. So what did I do? Here you go:

Cardio:

Bike- 20 minutes

Strength Training:

Biceps curls- 2 sets of 15

Shoulders raised- 2 sets of 15

Overhead tripcep raises- 1 rep of 25

Side bends (for arms and obliques)- 1 set 15 each side

Crunches- 50

Crunches for lower abs- 1 set of 20

This workout gave me energy all morning so I knew it was just the right amount of exercise for me!

After the gym I picked up some dinner ingredients at the grocery store. I also got this juicy plum that I snacked on

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Around 12:30pm John and I stopped a Eat At Jumbos for some lunch. Their sandwiches are always made with fresh, crisp veggies :) and they will make pizza with NO cheese!!!  If you live around Somerville, MA check it out. The only disappointing thing about lunch? I devoured my sandwich before taking a pic :( so all I can do is tell you what I ate… a BLT on white bread that tasted like it was toasted on the grill (YUM!) with NO mayo (allergy). I also had a bag of Baked Ruffles.

John and I played some mini golf this afternoon. Somehow I think the scoring card got messed up and we’re not sure who really won so there will probably be a rematch sometime soon :)

Dinner was quick and easy tonight! Some of it was cooked on the grill, broiled in the oven to get crispy and eaten fresh!

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The chicken wings were grilled. Half the wings were marinated in buffalo sauce and the other half in Wishbone’s Bountiful Santa Fe dressing. I really like this dressing because there are chunks of veggies in it, including corn.  The potatoes were cooked in the microwave, sliced then seasoned with garlic powder and pepper before they went in the broiler to crisp up. And, there was no lettuce in this salad! It was made with cucumbers, tomato, red onion and corn. The dressing was salt, pepper, garlic powder, olive oil and vinegar. It was a nice summery dinner!

Now that all the dinner dishes have been cleaned up, tonight’s plan is to watch this week’s episode of Entourage (this is really the only TV series I watch and I am hooked!). I’m hoping to have another another good sleep tonight so I’m ready for the gym bright and early in the A.M!

 

August 4, 2009

Dinner and A Long Car Ride

Posted by Anna under Dinner | Tags: , , |
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Before I left for Philly Thursday I had a very productive afternoon! I managed to check everything off my TO-DO list…

  • Finish packing
  • Get an oil change
  • Clean my car since I will be spending lot sof time in it! (Philly is about 6 hours from Boston with NO traffic!)
  • Get my GUEST BLOG POSTS set up and ready to go
  • Buy some SNACKS for the trip
  • Work until 1 pm

And thensome…

I knew John and I would be leaving right around dinner time so that afternoon I started thinking about DINNER! I knew I didn’t want any greasy fast food especially since I would be sitting in the car all night. I decided to grill instead and pack dinner to go. Luckily the downpours ended so I didn’t have to turn the oven on, it was a HOT day!

I marinated chicken breast in buffalo sauce for a couple of hours before I lit up the grill. I also marinated zucchini in oil, salt, pepper and garlic powder and grilled it too. All cooked and ready to go…

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The end result: Chicken and Zucchini sandwich on a soft, doughy roll that I ate in the car

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I put some ketchup on the sandwich too. It may sound like a strange combo, but I put ketchup on just about everything! I couldn’t use mayo or creamy ranch dressings because of my dairy allergy so I used ketchup which is always my go-to condiment :)

It was definitely worth the effort to pack the sandwiches and SO much better than grabbing whatever was along the way :) I also snacked on some potato chips later on that night in the car.

  What types of snacks do you pack when you’re traveling?