Tuesday, April 3, 2012

Elvis Would Approve

I started off the day on the right foot - with an already-made breakfast of delicious overnight oats.  This time I used an almost-empty almond butter jar:


And added the following ingredients:


1/3 cup old-fashioned oats, 1/3 cup almond milk, 1/3 cup Greek yogurt, small handful of frozen blueberries, 1/2 T chia seeds, a small banana (sliced), a pinch of salt, and a few hefty shakes of cinnamon.


I stirred everything up and put it in the fridge overnight.


And woke up to a delicious breakfast - this was a great combo!  I definitely recommend it.  Plus, it turned my oats a pretty pastel purple - bonus!

Last night I also packed up a sandwich to take to school for lunch today (eaten with an apple on the side):


Whole wheat sandwich thins with homemade pesto, hummus, spinach, mushrooms, carrots, and a hard-boiled egg.  When I was a vegetarian, I always had a difficult time trying to come up with lunch ideas that were quick, easy, and healthy.  I was so used to a basic lunch meat sandwich (seriously, just bread and lunch meat - lettuce if I was feeling bold, haha... I was extremely picky) and it was hard for me to think outside of the box - especially since I don't like many traditional sandwich toppings like mayo, mustard, or cheese.  I know, I'm weird.

Anyways, even though I'm not strictly a vegetarian anymore, I've come to realize that sandwiches can be made with pretty much anything you want to put on it.  Now I usually just pull things out of my fridge that I would use in a salad, and make a sandwich with them instead!

Here's a different kind of sandwich:


Almond butter, honey, and banana, grilled on my George Foreman.  Gooey perfection.  Heavenly combination.  Inspired by the King himself, who was a huge fan of peanut butter + honey + banana + bacon sandwiches.  I'm talking about Elvis, of course.  I haven't tried adding bacon, though - I'll save my bacon for BLTs.  Be still my heart.  BLT season is almost upon us.  One time in undergrad I ate BLTs for 2 weeks straight.  And it was glorious.

On the side, I made some zucchini chips following this recipe:


I used my food processor to slice 1 zucchini, which made it SO fast and easy.  There's no way I would have/ could have sliced it by hand.  I sprayed the parchment paper with olive oil, then I placed the zucchini slices on the parchment paper and sprayed the tops of the zucchini with more olive oil.  I sprinkled some kosher salt over all of them, and then added Italian seasoning to one sheet and nutritional yeast to about half of the other sheet.  Popped them in the oven for 30 minutes at 225*, rotated the sheets, then baked for another 30 minutes.

Woops, couldn't resist trying a couple before I snapped this picture.
They could have gone a little longer, but I was impatient and didn't want to wait anymore.  Still delicious!

After class today, I went to the gym and did a repeat of my workouts from last Tuesday and Thursday:  7 minute warm-up on the elliptical, a strength-training plan and an incline interval treadmill workout, followed by stretching.  I'll need to switch it up soon, but this combination is definitely a keeper.  Still loving those assisted pull-ups!  And I ran into the nice lady who commented on my push-ups last week, and she complimented me again.  It's like having my own personal gym cheerleader - I'm a fan!

Have a great night everyone!


It's a little hard to see from the picture, but one of my favorite things is when the water is a lighter color than the sky - if you look to the immediate left of the building, you can see a light gray sheen - that's Lake Erie.
Interesting Articles:

Health Benefits of Lemon Water - I mentioned here that I've started drinking a glass of lemon water every morning when I wake up, and this is a good summary of the benefits of doing so.
Signs of Dehydration - Along those same lines, I've been trying to drink more water in general.
Ten Mistakes New Herb Gardeners Make (And How to Avoid Them!) - This is a great article if, like me, you're trying to/ want to grow some herbs but have a tendency to kill them.  Best line: "...herbs are kind of like college boys: if you give them half a chance, they will focus all their energy on procreation and neglect growth."  Ha!


Song of the day:


"12 Fingers" by Young the Giant.






4 comments:

  1. I'm jealous. You have such an amazing view from your apartment!

    -Cara

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    1. I'm so lucky - my view is definitely one of my favorite things about my apartment. I lived in a couple of basement apartments for about 2 years before I moved here, and I still can't get over being able to see the sunshine and sky so much now. Definitely makes me appreciate living above ground, haha. Thanks for reading :)

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  2. 1) those oats in a jar look good! I love purple oats too :)

    2) the Elvis sandwich sounds magnificent!! I didn't know he loved that combo! how funny

    3) I LOVE LEMON WATER TOO!

    happy Wednesday to you!!!!!!!!

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    1. I love your lists - both in your comments and your posts :) I could eat that Elivs sandwich every day; I wish it counted for a serving of veggies, haha. Happy hump day!!

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