Peanut Butter and Banana Smoothie

Posted on December 17, 2011 by runningthewindycity

After Christmas shopping for a couple of hours, I was tired, hungry, and thirsty. Oddly, I was even craving a smoothie. It is December right?

Peanut Butter and Banana Smoothie
1 cup almond milk
1 frozen banana
1 tsp chia seeds
1/2 scoop protein powder
1/4 cup oats
2 T peanut flour- more to taste
dash of agave

Blend and serve!

I topped mine with a little granola and some unsweetened shredded coconut.

I had the last of the asparagus to round out lunch

To back track a bit, this morning I woke up to this-

Snowfall in Chicago! You can’t really tell from the photo but the snow was actually coming in sideways. I wanted to run early but didn’t want to brave the conditions, so I headed to the treadmill to knock out four easy miles.

I had big plans to make oatmeal or pancakes for breakfast but when I opened the fridge and saw the cranberry orange spread I couldn’t resist.

Aforementioned spread on half and butter and apple pie preserves on the other side. I also had about 1/2 of a banana with sunflower butter and some iced coffee with soy eggnog.

While my breakfast might have been easy, heres what I made Ian

An egg sandwich with bacon and cheese on multigrain bread.

Well I’m off, plans for the afternoon and evening include starting a new book and relaxing. I hope you’re having a great Saturday!

Things I Did Thursday- 11152011

Posted on December 15, 2011 by runningthewindycity

It is going to seem like a super lazy Thursday and thats because it was! Today is probably the one and only day over break that I will be able to relax and not leave the apartment, so that is exactly what I did

Here we go- things I did Thursday…

(1) Caught up on my DVR i.e. Top Chef

Why can’t the chefs just get along? (image source)

(2) Updated my About Me page, the Sonic page, and Ian‘s page.

(3) Had some leftovers and an awesome salad for lunch.

The salad has tomatoes, tangerine slices, sun-dried tomatoes, light mozzarella cheese, and a carrot ginger vinaigrette. The leftover portion was the savory bread pudding from dinner a few nights ago.

(4) I found out the work that needs to be done on my car may cost over $700, but I’ll know more tomorrow (as if that’s reassuring). I’m warning you- never buy a Volkswagen, you will spend twice as much on repairs and “specialty” parts than you spent on the actual car (image source).

(5) I cuddled with the furbaby on the couch.

That’s him laying on my chest, and who said cats aren’t affectionate?

(6) Watched the Ellen show. Did anyone else see it today? This guy proposed and his girlfriend said no! Ellen did a good job covering it up, but I still had to rewind it to watch it again. Crazy!

You can see the clip here. I can’t get it to embed for some reason.

(7) Roasted some asparagus for dinner. I had to be somewhat productive today… even if that productivity was geared towards filling my belly

I drizzled the asparagus with olive oil and then seasoned them with salt and pepper. Then I roasted them at 400 degrees for about 9 minutes.

They were the perfect side for my leftover pasta.

What did you do today? Anything out of the ordinary?

Spring errr Christmas Cleaning

Posted on December 13, 2011 by runningthewindycity

I hope everyone has had a great Tuesday!

After lunch today I cleaned the apartment for almost three hours. Wow! It wasn’t that everything was really dirty, just that I hadn’t done a lot of the tedious cleaning in awhile due to travelling and finals. I scrubbed all of the countertops and appliances, cleaned the shower, and swept under the furniture. The most difficult part was fighting off the furball, brooms are not a toy and should not be chewed. Eww!

When everything was finishing all I could do was sit at the kitchen counter with a glass of wine and relax. It felt soo good to have a clean apartment

Dinner
Dinner tonight was an attempt to recreate the strada I had for breakfast last Sunday. I used a recipe from one of my all-time favorite books, Barbara Kingsolver’s Animal, Vegetable, Mineral. The recipe is in the book and is also available online here: Asparagus and Morel Bread Pudding.

I had a small slice (went back for a sliver more) and some Gingerberry kombucha.

It was definitely more savory than Lula’s but in a good way! While we were eating tonight, Ian and I realized that Lula’s uses brioche in their strada to add a hint of sweetness and a different texture. So while I didn’t actually recreate the meal, I made a pretty good alternative .

I could definitely see myself making this meal again for dinner or as a brunch casserole. It was tasty, filling, and not super heavy. FYI the recipe makes a lot of food, we ended up filling one casserole dish and one pie tin, so if you decided to make this, you may be able to lessen the ingredient amounts to avoid having excessive leftovers. Fingers crossed that Ian’s sister picks up the pie tin later tonight!

Dessert was a little treat-

Awhile ago, my stepmom sent Ian and I a box of Cheryl’s cookies. We ate about half and froze the rest (the cookies have no preservatives so they don’t last very long but they freeze really well!). Shortly thereafter we started receiving their catalog and about two weeks ago received a coupon for 6 free cookies. As the cookies are so good, we didn’t hesitate to use the coupon, and last Friday a box from Cheryl’s arrived on our doorstep!

Ian’s been slowly making his way through them but tonight was my first night having a cookie so I made sure to have one of my favorites, oatmeal raisin. I also had a tiny glass of soy eggnog.

It was worth every calorie! Plus, I don’t feel guilty because the ingredient list was short (maybe 7 ingredients tops) and none of the ingredients had weird/unpronouncable names. Definitely key in my book!

How important are ingredient lists to you? What makes an ingredient list/nutrition fact sheet “good” or “bad”?

An Epic Sandwich

Posted on December 7, 2011 by runningthewindycity

For lunch today I had the most EPIC sandwich. It totally brought me back to my elementary school days. However, lets keep it between you and me that it’s better than the sandwiches my mom used to me ;P

I spread Naturally Nutty peanut butter on one slice of bread and cranberry apple butter on another slice. I also added some sliced banana that was left over from my overnight oats.

Just look at that sandwich. It was so good and perfect exam fuel.

Speaking of the exam, in terms of epicness my exam < my sandwich. My biostats exam was really difficult and tricky. I walked out unsure of anything I’d done during the test. I feel better after talking to some classmates but still it was very hard!

On a positive note, my semester is now over! I just need to go into class tomorrow to turn in a paper (already written) and I’m free

I didn’t know what to have for dinner. I was craving comfort food but I didn’t want anything too unhealthy. Ian was planning on ordering in Chinese food and offered to get me some but I just wasn’t in the mood. So I decided to make some cheesy asparagus brown rice.

I sautéed some mushrooms and asparagus with onions and olive oil and then stirred in some warm brown rice. I also added some mozzarella and pepper.

I served mine with some cilantro dressing. It sounds kind of weird but it actually tasted really good. It was cheesy with a bite

I’m now snacking on some ricotta cheese and a vitatop and deciding what to do with my first night off from homework in so long.

See you tomorrow with a new product review

Manic Monday

Posted on November 14, 2011 by runningthewindycity

Happy Monday- has everyone else’s been as crazy as mine?

I started the morning with a swim workout. I did my interval workout but instead of doing breast stroke for the stroke parts I did backstroke. It was a good change. The pool was really warm this morning though- waayyyy too warm. It was kind of suffocating .

I left hungry- swimming always makes me feel famished. I only had an hour to shower, eat, and get ready for school and work, so I threw together the quickest breakfast I could think of-

Trader Joe’s Multigrain O’s with an unripe banana (love them greenish), and a spoonful of sunflower seed butter. It hit the spot.

I went to my infectious disease class which is always super interesting. The professor is so great at connecting with students- I love when that happens. His lectures are so enthralling he even made me consider studying infectious rather than chronic disease. That’s a topic for a different post- eeek the future!

I ate lunch at my desk at work- a white chocolate wonderful peanut butter and fig jam sandwich with a persimmon.

And later a tiny heath bar to wake myself up before my presentation… mmm sugar.

My presentation went alright, I don’t really like public speaking, but I managed to calm myself down beforehand by reminding myself that I was prepared and knew what I was talking about. I also kept telling myself to talk slow. I talk really fast when I’m nervous!

I snacked on a mini granola bar post presentation because I knew I wouldn’t get home until after 6 and wanted to shred right after getting home.

Dinner was more complicated tonight than most nights. Even though my presentation went okay, after being so stressed all weekend, I just wanted to relax tonight. What better way to relax than in the kitchen?

Ian has been craving scalloped potatoes for a while and last week I found an easy and somewhat healthier recipe on my wholefoods iPhone app. I figured we couldn’t just have potatoes for dinner so I made an asparagus, peas, beans, and fennel salad using this recipe. I decided not to make the salad dressing, the salad was already a lot of work! But we had some cilantro dressing that I mixed with lime juice. It tasted great.