Pumpkin Pie Smoothie

The cleanup from my dinner last night included washing only a blender and a cup. And there may or may not have been ice cream involved…

You see, I was in a hurry to finish up work for the day and get ready to volunteer at the Humane Society to play with some lovable dogs for a few hours. My Marine was on duty, which meant that he was working a 24-hour shift and wouldn’t be home for the night. When he’s not around, my dinners can pretty easily turn into a salad or smoothie meal. Plus, in the summer heat, I was finding myself to be craving what I consider a typical fall or wintertime flavor – pumpkin. These combined factors sealed my smoothie dinner fate, and thus, a yummy pumpkin pie smoothie was born:

Here are a few good reasons to eat pumpkin besides that once a year slice of pie around the holidays: Pumpkin is high in a number of vitamins and minerals, including vitamin A, B, K, and potassium, and contains high amounts of antioxidants and fiber. In this smoothie, I incorporated ingredients typical in pumpkin pie, such as pumpkin spice and vanilla extract. I also added chia seeds to amp up the smoothie from a nutritional standpoint, as chia seeds are a rich source of omega-3 oil, calcium, iron, potassium, fiber and more.

Pumpkin Pie Smoothie

What you need:

• 1/2 c pure pumpkin
• 1 c almond milk
• 1 TSP vanilla extract
• 1 TBSP graham cracker crumbs
• 1 TBSP chia seeds
• 1/2 c light vanilla bean ice cream
• 1/2 TBSP light brown sugar
• 1/4 TSP pumpkin pie spice
• Cinnamon, to taste
• Ice

In a blender, combine the pumpkin, almond milk, vanilla extract, ice cream, chia seeds, sugar, pumpkin pie spice and ice. Blend until well combined. Pour into a glass, then add the graham cracker crumbs and sprinkle cinnamon on top. Mix with a spoon or straw and enjoy!

Nutrition stats: 330 calories, 11 g fat, 9 g protein, 51 g carbs (and fulfills 312% Vitamin A, 44% Calcium, and 300% of my Vitamin C needs!)

And here’s a random final thought for the night…

Who can argue with that statement? 😉

Zucchini & Rigatoni Parmesan

When I first became a vegetarian, I was the only one in my family to not be a meat eater. My grandma, a little Italian lady who spends approximately half of her life in the kitchen cooking, used to say things like, “How are you going to find a boy if you don’t eat meat? What are you going to make him for dinner or eat on a date?”

[Side note: I somehow nabbed a really great guy eating salads on dinner dates and never cooking him a steak 😉 ]

While she may or may not have understood my choice to go vegetarian, she always went out of her way to accommodate me with vegetarian eats, in addition to about 20 other dishes she would make for every family dinner. One of the things she used to whip up all of the time was eggplant parmesan. While I loved eggplant, I somehow developed an allergy to it in my teenage years. Whomp. From then on, instead of eggplant parmesan, she started making me things with zucchini – especially zucchini parmesan.

I thought of her on Monday night, when I made my own zucchini parmesan dish for dinner:

I first made my own tomato sauce, but if you’re short on time or want to simplify the process, use jarred tomato sauce instead.

Zucchini & Rigatoni Parmesan

Serves 4

• 2 large zucchini, cut lengthwise into thin slices
• 2 c tomato sauce
• 6 oz rigatoni, or other short shaped pasta
• 2 TBSP olive oil
• 2 garlic cloves, minced
• 1 c part-skim shredded mozzarella cheese
• 1/4 c chopped fresh basil
• salt & pepper to taste

Boil a pot of salted water and cook pasta according to directions. Preheat oven to 350.

Meanwhile, heat 1 TBSP of olive oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Add the garlic and cook until lightly browned. Add half of the zucchini slices and cook until tender on both sides. Repeat once more.

Spread 1/2 of the zucchini slices into an 8 x 11 pan. Sprinkle with salt and pepper. Layer 1/2 of the pasta on top. Next, pour 1 cup of tomato sauce over pasta. Arrange 1/2 of the basil over the sauce, then add 1/2 of the mozzarella evenly. Repeat this process 1 more time.

Bake the dish in the oven for about 10-15 minutes, or until cheese is melted and lightly browned.

Nutrition facts per serving: 350 calories, 15 g fat, 16 g protein, 43 g carbs

Banana Peanut Butter Pancakes

First thing this morning, Harley and I ventured out for a long walk around our neighborhood trail. As my stomach growled, I started to think about breakfast. Most days, I eat Greek yogurt with fruit, cereal with protein powder and fruit, or a smoothie for breakfast. But every couple of weeks, I get a craving for pancakes. Today was one of those days, and as we got some exercise in, I concocted a breakfast recipe in my head.

Despite my love for pancakes, you won’t find pancake mix in my kitchen cabinets. I’ve become accustomed to mixing a bunch of ingredients together to make up my own recipe when I have pancake yen. Here is today’s creation:

These light and fluffy banana pancakes have a subtle hint of peanut butter, and are the perfect portion to serve breakfast for one. I used butterscotch flavored peanut butter, and think they’d also be awesome with chocolate peanut butter (and of course, plain old peanut butter never fails!).

Banana PB Pancakes

• 1/4 c whole wheat all purpose flour
• 1/2 mashed banana
• 1 packet of Stevia sweetener
• 1/2 TBSP baking powder
• 1/4 TSP salt
• 5 TBSP unsweetened almond milk
• 1/2 TBSP vegetable oil
• 1 TBSP peanut butter

Heat up your skillet to medium high heat.

Mix the flour, banana, sweetener, baking powder, salt, almond milk, and oil in a bowl. Warm the peanut butter in the microwave, then add it to the pancake batter. Combine everything well.

Form 3 pancakes and cook until lightly browned on both sides.

Nutrition stats: 310 calories, 14 g fat, 7 g protein, 45 g carbs

I’m off to the gym to for a workout!

Tips for Making Smart Choices in Unhealthy Environments

Happy Sunday Funday!

Our job as puppy babysitters has come to an end. Hogan was adorable and fun to play with, but watching him for a few days reminded me of how far we’ve come as dog owners with our Harley girl. It is so nice to be out of that puppy stage and for her to be fully potty trained, no longer teething and way more chilled out. I’m happy with just having one dog and think it’s safe to say that we won’t be getting a new puppy anytime soon!

This weekend was a very sporty one for me. Last night we went to the Chargers/Cowboys preseason game. I’m a huge NY Giants fan, but it was a really fun time finally going to an NFL game in San Diego. It was even better because the Chargers were playing the Cowboys, who I strongly dislike, so last night I was all Go Chargers! and just rooting for the Cowboys to lose as I usually do.

Then, I spent this afternoon downtown at Petco Park for a Padres/Giants game. This also marked the first baseball game I’ve been to in San Diego. As I said, this weekend was sports packed!

Between these two sporting events and the concert I went to last week, I’ve been around a ton of unhealthy food lately. This got me thinking about the ways I try to make it easiest on myself to make good choices in environments that aren’t necessarily promoting healthy eating and drinking. Here are a few tips I have:

• Don’t go hungry. Before the football game last night, we made sure to have dinner. I had a busy morning today, but on the way to the baseball game, I made sure to fill up with a fruit smoothie and protein bar. If you go to the event with a full belly, you’ll be less likely to crave the fat-filled nachos or sugar-filled cotton candy everyone’s eating around you.
• Scope out all your choices. If you do go hungry, check out all your options before standing on the first line you see. At the Chargers game, I saw a farm-to-table food stand full of decent for you eats, such as mozzarella & tomato salads. I obviously got excited about this even though I wasn’t hungry or eating –YAY for healthy options! These types of stands may not be available everywhere, but it’s smart to look around and see. The more we as consumers request higher quality eats, the more choices we’ll be presented with.
• Hydrate. Sometimes your body will mistake thirst for hunger, so make sure you drink water and stay hydrated before and during a sporting event, concert, or whatever your plans may be. Out of all the overpriced things for sale, the $5 bottle of water is most worth your purchase.
• Pick one indulgence. If you’re dying for a beer and could kind of go for popcorn with it, just buy the beverage. An all-or-nothing mentality (which I can certainly be guilty of myself) will only make you feel guilty afterwards, but if you only eat/drink the thing you’re in the mood for the most, you can lessen the damage and enjoy it more. Better yet, split your purchase with a person you’re with, as popcorn and nacho orders are usually multiple portions anyways.
• Skip the soda. Okay, so you can’t get the jumbo pretzel out of your head at the ball game. Instead of depriving yourself of something you’re really in the mood for, I say go ahead and get that pretzel. But, don’t get a regular soda along with it, as it will knock you back hundreds of more calories, not to mention all of the sugar it contains. Instead, opt for water and hydrate yourself!  *Random tidbit: According to the HBO series The Weight of the Nation, soda and sugar sweetened beverages are the #1 calorie source in Americans’ diets. It’s also the ONLY individual food/drink directly linked to obesity.*
• Lastly,  if you overdo it at an event one night (and who hasn’t done this?!), there’s no use in punishing yourself and feeling guilty afterwards. The important thing is to just shake it off and get back to a healthy routine the next day.

“Tell me what you eat, and I will tell you who you are.” – Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin

A Boozy Monopoly Night

Happy Saturday!

Look who we’re babysitting for the weekend:

Adam’s friend recently got this 10-week old Bulldog and had to go out of town this weekend, so we are watching him for a few days. I can’t even deal with the way Hogan wiggles his cute little body around!

Hanging in his little bed

We were interested to see how Harley would act with Hogan here. She’s gotten a little territorial with him, but last night they were rough housing with each other like old buddies. Harley is typically really submissive and kept rolling over and letting him get on top of her to play. He is just this little goofball who was flopping around and doing his miniature bark and it was pretty entertaining!

Moving onto food, check out what I baked this morning:

Banana cinnamon muffins from the Skinny Bitch cookbook. One of my first blog posts talked about this recipe (here) – they are SO yummy!

Now for this week’s edition of “What this Vegetarian Eats in a Day,” here is a rundown of my Friday eats –

Breakfast was a cinnamon apple sandwich: a Granny Smith apple cut into thick chunks with cinnamon peanut butter, Kashi Go Lean Crisp Cinnamon Crumble cereal, and sprinkled cinnamon in the middle.

When my stomach started growling for lunch, I whipped up some homemade hummus…

…and spread some on whole wheat toast with sliced avocado, lettuce, tomato, and a slice of cheddar cheese, along with some strawberries:

I liked this lunch so much I just might repeat the same exact combo this afternoon.

Later on in the day, I snacked on a Chobani apple cinnamon yogurt. I’m kind of obsessed with Greek yogurt. It’s high in protein, low in fat and calories and delicious. I think this may be my new favorite flavor!

For dinner last night, Adam and I used a Groupon we had for a restaurant in Hillcrest called Fig Tree Cafe. First we share an appetizer of roasted tomato, onion, basil, and goat cheese bruschetta:

And then my entree was a mixed greens salad with goat cheese, walnuts, dried cranberries and lemon-poppyseed dressing:

[Easy healthy living tip: always order your dressing on the side. I usually don’t wind up using all the dressing and save myself some unwanted calories by doing this!]

San Diego has so many great areas and things to do and see, and I love getting deals for places I’ve never been to and trying them out. Sure, some deals wind up working out better than others (I got a pretty weird massage recently with one), but I adore exploring our city. And who doesn’t like to save some bucks?!

After dinner, for a reason I’m not sure of, Adam decided that he really wanted to play Monopoly. Once we picked up the game at the store and returned home to hang with the dogs, it turned into a boozy game night at our place.

It became my “cheat” night and I enjoyed a bottle couple glasses of Gewurztraminer wine and some pretzel crisps while Adam and I got into our game of Monopoly. Hey, we all deserve to indulge sometimes right? 😉

We were laughing at how we used to play this game as kids, but probably had little concept of what it was all about. Mortgages? Rent? Utility bills? I’m pretty sure as a 10-year old I wasn’t too in the know on these things, but I distinctly remember having drawn-out games of Monopoly with my older brother. They lasted for days, and we would take our money and pieces to our rooms when we were done playing for the night, in fear that the other person would cheat and steal some of the other’s assets.

It was also pretty comical because at the start of the game I said, “One of the biggest things I remember about Monopoly is that whoever lands on (and buys) Park Park and the Boardwalk first always wins in the end.” I was right, and unfortunately, that person was Adam! No worries though, I have plans to coax him into playing cards sometime in the near future and redeeming myself (…but we aren’t competitive with each other!).

Question: What were your favorite games to play growing up? 

Besides Monopoly, I also remember loving Life, Uno, Candy Land and Sorry.

15 Minute Meal: Spinach Ricotta Pasta

Hi friends! Hope you’re having a great week.

This evening when I got home from the gym, I was pretty ravenous. Wanting to prep dinner quickly, I threw together this easy, cheesy pasta dish:

Spinach Ricotta Pasta

Serves 4 

• 8 oz [multigrain] angel hair or spaghetti
• 6 c of raw baby spinach
• 1 c cherry tomatoes, chopped
• 2 garlic cloves, minced
• 1/2 TBSP olive oil
• 1 c light ricotta cheese
• 1 c light shredded mozzarella cheese
• Salt & pepper

Boil a pot of salted water and cook pasta according to directions.

Meanwhile, heat oil in a large saucepan over medium heat. Add garlic and cook for a few minutes until lightly browned. Add tomatoes and cook for about 5 minutes.

Add a large handful of spinach to the pan. Cook until wilted, then add more spinach a handful at a time until all of it’s wilted.

In a bowl, combine the ricotta and mozzarella cheese. Mix together well.

Once pasta is done cooking, drain then return to the pot. Mix the cheeses and veggies in with the pasta. Add salt and pepper to taste, and combine everything well. Serve immediately.

Per serving: 380 calories, 13 g fat, 24 g protein, 44 g carbs

Quote of the Day: “Take care of your body. It’s the only place you have to live.” – Jim Rohn

Experimenting with Tofu

I’ve been a vegetarian for 15 years. Because of this, you may think that perhaps I’m an expert in typical vegetarian staples, such as tofu. This is definitely not the case, and up until recently, I had never cooked with tofu before. I’ve gotten a bit familiar with it lately and have been playing around and making things like tofu scramble wraps. Today, I wanted to try to make crispy tofu and put together grilled veggie and tofu skewers.

First, I heated up my little indoor gril to 350. I then cut up a red bell pepper, medium zucchini, and 6 oz of extra firm tofu into thick chunks. Next I divided the pieces among 6 skewers:

In a bowl, I mixed together 1/4 c of BBQ sauce and 1/4 TSP of steak seasoning. With a brush, I coated both sides of the veggies and tofu slices with the BBQ sauce. I threw all of the skewers on the grill.

I let them grill until brown and crispy, then paired 3 of the tofu + veggie skewers with brown rice and corn on the cob.

The meal was super healthy and kept me full through my evening volunteering at the Humane Society, but I was hoping to be able to make the tofu more crispy. I think I need to do some research on how to prepare crispy tofu — definitely more to come on this once I’ve mastered it. If anyone out there has suggestions, please do share!

I’m off to relax, good night!

Some Workout Inspiration

Well, today I am feeling SORE! During my workout yesterday I did a few new weight training exercises, but didn’t expect them to make me so achy. It’s funny how that happens sometimes. I also changed things up yesterday by hopping on the treadmill for the first time in a long time. Recently, I haven’t been running at all and the nagging calf injury I’ve mentioned in previous posts has ceased to exist. It took 2 1/2 years to feel completely back to normal, but it’s been feeling so good lately that I stopped wearing my calf compression band during workouts. It’s pretty awesome!

Since I determined that running is the only thing that brings my calf soreness to a head, for the time being I’ve decided to just not run. After all, it’s one type of cardio I actually loathe, and there are so many other forms of exercise that I enjoy. However, since I frequently hike outdoors without an issue, I have no problem with treadmill incline walking workouts. I brought one back into the mix with this half hour routine:

I also wanted to share some motivational [workout] sayings I’ve come across recently:

And with that, I’m off to get ready for a weeknight date with my hubby! We’re seeing Gavin DeGraw and Colbie Caillat in concert at a venue called Humphreys by the Bay. The tickets were one of my birthday gifts from him. 🙂

I hope she sings this:

And he sings this:

“I don’t want to be anything other than what I’ve been trying to be lately. All I have to do is think of me and I have peace of mind. I’m tired of looking ’round rooms wondering what I’ve got to do or who I’m supposed to be. I don’t want to be anything other than me.”

My New Favorite Healthy Living Tool: The Fitbit

For my birthday, I received a fun gift I had wanted — the Fitbit (thanks grandma!).

I first heard about the Fitbit Tracker from one of my girlfriends, who uses hers on a daily basis and loves it. After using it for a week, I’m confident that I’ve learned the ins and outs of the device and can offer a good rundown, so here it goes:

The Gist of it: The Fitbit is a wireless activity tracker about the size of a bluetooth. It can easily be worn in your pocket or clipped onto your waist, which is how I’ve been using it. Ladies, it’s also suggested that the device can be worn in the middle of your bra, though I tried this for about 10 minutes and decided against it. Besides the fact that I could actually feel it clipped on my bra (whereas on your waist, you totally forget it’s there), I thought it’d be kind of weird if I wanted to check my Fitbit in public and then appeared to be feeling my cleavage. 😉

Basically, the device tracks your activity stats throughout the day. It comes with a charger (“home base” they call it) that plugs into your computer, and every time you walk within 15 feet of it with your Fitbit, it automatically syncs your updated activity info. You’re able to log onto the Fitbit website and check out your progress whenever you want.

Features:  

The first thing you see when you log onto the website is stats on how many: steps you’ve taken so far that day, floors you’ve climbed, miles you’ve walked, calories burned and what they call an active score. On the right side, it tells you how much of your goal you’ve accomplished so far that day. For instance, this morning I took this screenshot of my info:

The Fitbit also provides a graph of your activity levels throughout the day. Below is my chart from yesterday, where I note all the major activities that spiked the chart. The smaller increases are things like cooking, casually walking around doing things, showering, etc.

Here are my stats at the completion of what I deemed Sweaty Sunday:

Not too shabby right?! I’m amused by it noting an equivalent of the floors I climbed — as you can see, yesterday I climbed the tallest Sequoia!

Another reason I was interested in getting the Fitbit was for its sleep tracking. I have mild sleep apnea and don’t usually feel well rested when I wake up in the morning, so I was curious to see how many times it would say I wake up during the night.

To get the gadget to start monitoring your sleep, you slip it into the provided wristband and hold the Fitbit button down in order for it to start the timer. When you get up the next day, you hold the button down again to stop the timer and complete its sleep tracking. [I’m sharing this little tidbit with you because it took me a bit to figure out, as the Fitbit comes with no manual. I had to do some Google research on my phone at bedtime the first night to figure out how to work this feature.]

When your Fitbit syncs the next day, you’re able to see your sleep info from the night before. Below is actually the best night of sleep I’ve recorded in the past week. I only woke up 18 times compared to my typical 25-30, WOOHOO!

Another feature that I find really neat is the ability to sync my Fitbit info with the iPhone app I use to log in my daily food intake, MyFitnessPal. I have used this app for awhile and find it useful to monitor my nutrition and to see if I’m lacking somewhere, consuming too many carbs, not getting enough of a certain vitamin and so on. So now, I still log my eats into MyFitnessPal, and then it’s reflected on my Fitbit page. Below is a snippet of yesterday’s info:

I’ve also found that I like using the timer feature on the Fitbit. I’ll click it on before I go for a long walk with Harley, and am able to see how long our walk was and how far we went.

The Fitbit is most accurate as a pedometer and isn’t good for monitoring some of my usual workouts  — such as biking, yoga and weight training. So besides walking or hiking, I still log my workouts into MyFitnessPal. (I do this as accurately as I can by wearing a watch that monitors my heart rate.) Initially, I thought the device would be able to monitor my heart rate during exercise. However, once I add the workout to MyFitnessPal, it syncs with my Fitbit info and adjusts accordingly.

So far, I’m really enjoying my Fitbit and the info it provides me with. Even though I workout and go for long walks with my dog on a daily basis, this gadget motivates me to get up and move as often and as much as I can. If you’re looking for a tool to help you step up your game in living healthily, I totally recommend getting a Fitbit!

One Sweaty Sunday

Well, another weekend is coming to a close. As always, the past few days have gone by quickly!

Lately it’s been warmer than usual in San Diego. 90 degrees and hotter is typical for a lot of places in the summer, but it feels pretty toasty here since I’m used to it constantly being my ideal temp – 75! I started off my Sunday sweating outdoors when I took Harley for a long walk to burn off some of her crazy puppy energy. She’s been really feeling the heat and tuckering out quickly, and by the end of our walk around the neighborhood trail, her tongue was out and she was ready to relax in the AC.

When we got home, I wanted to exercise and I did 2 workouts from Jillian Michaels’ 30 Day Shred DVD. Her routines are no joke! About half an hour into it, Adam walked into the house and said, “Wow, you’re really sweating!” Why yes, yes I am. Mission accomplished! 🙂

Post living room workout, Adam and I headed to La Jolla for an afternoon at the beach. We went to a good surfing spot (he surfs, me not so much) I had never been to before, which was in a gorgeous area with elaborate homes and cliffs that people were parasailing near — hence the photo above. It was a nice hike from our car down to the beach, and my glutes definitely got a workout heading back up.

Usually on the beach in San Diego it feels nice and breezy, but today I was feeling hot. It was one of the rare occasions when I took a dip in the Pacific to cool off!

Moving onto food, this evening’s dinner was pasta primavera, a dish I enjoy making when I want to clear out any veggies from my kitchen that are nearing the end of their prime:

When throwing together a pasta primavera meal, you have a lot of choices as to what you feel like including.  Here are the basic guidelines I always follow:

#1 – Pick your veggies. For me tonight, this included broccoli and zucchini that were nearing their end, cherry tomatoes, red bell pepper, and spinach, along with some fresh basil to give it some pizazz. I usually adopt an “everything but the kitchen sink” mentality and include any veggies I have around.

#2 – Pick your pasta. Angel hair, penne, elbows, spaghetti, rigatoni… the possibilities are endless! Tonight I used whole grain farfalle.

#3 – Boil a pot of salted water and cook pasta according to directions. Meanwhile, chop all your veggies into bite sized pieces.

#4- Choose a sautéing liquid. To keep the calorie count low, I used white cooking wine. You can also opt to use any kind of oil or broth. Heat a bit of the liquid up, along with a few cloves of minced garlic (optional).  Saute veggies until softened, adding liquid in every so often once it absorbs.

#5 – Combine veggies and cooked pasta.

#6 – Season with whatever you wish — I added Italian seasoning and mixed up salt and pepper. Add some flavor with either a bit of olive oil, balsamic vinegar, and/or butter, and combine well.

#7 – Optional: Sprinkle a bit of grated cheese on top for added flavor.

It makes for an easy breezy, healthy and yummy meal!

I’m off to watch tonight’s episode of True Blood, so I’ll leave you with an awesome quote I recently came across: