Mini fry bread

I felt very Little House on the Prairie (or possibly something out of the Grapes of Wrath) this morning as I made my first attempt at making fry bread.
The dough is incredibly simple and I adapted a recipe I found here.


The dough is really sticky so I flattened each piece out with some flour.

My first few attempts turned out awful. I didn’t have the oil hot enough and then it got too hot.
But on the fifth try it started to come together.



The dough doesn’t have much flavor on its own which is probably why people sprinkle them with cinnamon sugar.
How did I eat them? Topped with homemade hummus and cucumber slices, of course!


The fry bread turned out wonderful, crunchy on the outside and light and airy in the middle.
And my homemade hummus tastes even better the second day



Happy Thursday everyone!

Mirrors and side salads

It turns out that when you spend most of the morning staring at your new hair color with a compact mirror, you don't get much work done.

I know, I was surprised too...

But I did realize that I need a much bigger hand mirror. I cannot fully appreciate the glory of my new hair color with this tiny compact mirror :-)


I am busy trying to tweak an old recipe for dinner so I wanted something simple and fast for lunch.

Salad with raspberries and cubed tofu.

I wasn't too hungry so this was more of a side salad.

And since cubing tofu can take so much time, I picked this up at the store.

I tossed everything in a fat-free raspberry vinaigrette.

I hope everyone is having a great Saturday!

Walking on air

I was out walking the dogs this morning and my friend drove up and exclaimed, "Hey skinny!"

My response, "Huh?"

My friend said, "You really are looking much thinner!"

Now I am walking on air. Yes, I have been working on the healthy lifestyle thing since January but this is the first time someone has noticed a big difference.

Normally, I would run home and weigh myself to see what the scale says. Today, I resisted doing that since that usually gets me overly focused on eating.

But I just had to share!!


My lunch was very colorful:

My version of Bibimbap - without the rice.

Instead of a bed of rice, I used a bed of shredded cabbage.

Then I chopped up the rest of the ingredients and arranged them in the bowl.

Broccoli, cucumber, red cabbage and carrot.

Then I mixed up some homemade dressing:

Mirin
Rice vinegar
Udo's oil
Nutritional yeast
Garlic powder
Black pepper

I cooked a 1/2 cup of ground turkey in a skillet with some:

Soy sauce
Mirin
Honey
Hoisin sauce

This gave the turkey a nice barbeque-like flavor.

Even though it looked so pretty as it was - I mixed everything together:

This was the best lunch I have had in a long time - I encourage you to make it - soon! And you can easily make it vegetarian by using tofu instead of ground turkey.

The soy wrappers will be making an appearance at dinner - no worries:-)
 
I am off to hit the gym and celebrate being thinner!

All wrapped up and ready to go

I realized today that most of my black yoga/workout pants have holes in them - Yikes!

It is a good thing I have been wearing over-sized t-shirts to the gym otherwise I would have been flashing everyone my business. Not cool.

I am going to be frugal and fix the smaller holes and be smart and toss the ones with the big holes before I accidentally wear them to the gym again.

For lunch I made some hummus lettuce wraps.

Hummus, cabbage leaf, chopped carrot and cucumber and some lettuce leaves.

A spoonful of hummus with a sprinkle of paprika.

And I broke out my favorite water bottle.

Two olives and a bowl of strawberries to round out lunch.

They should call the 5-day split routines 'The workout plan for the those with short attention spans'.

I am loving it and I find the resistance I feel (a.k.a.  the whiny internal voice that tries to talk me out of going) is minimal if I know I only have 4 or so exercises to do.

Oh, and I am not counting the 30min of cardio I do each time. The cardio, for me, is the enjoyable part so I don't even think about it.

My favorite gym personality

There are lots of personalities at the gym. 

The Talker

The Poser

The Serious, iPod wearing, Leave Me Alone Type


but the gym personality that is my favorite made an appearance today -


The Screamer


There are two types of screamers - 

1) The type that actually lifts heavy weights and they workout with a vein bulging (possibly stroke inducing) intensity. That one is not my favorite.


2) The type that clearly rarely works out, never lifts more than 10lbs but they give the performance of a lifetime with every lift. And my ultimate favorite is the screamer that ends the lifting scream with cave man like panting and grunting.


I would really look forward to going to the gym if it could be guaranteed the screamer would show up every time.


After my fun filled time at the gym I put together a salad (with some protein) for lunch.

Tomatoes, carrot, brown mushrooms, turkey breast, cucumber, spring mix and homemade salad dressing.

The dressing was a mix of Udo's oil, lemon juice, nutritional yeast, black pepper, mirin and rice wine vinegar.


I contemplated adding in some pickled cabbage but I ended up leaving it out.

Turkey for muscle building protein!

For dessert it was all about the berries:

Sliced strawberries and blackberries.

Time to get back to work!

Bye, bye blue cheese

My sister gave me some disturbing news today.

It seems that aged cheeses such as blue cheese (which as you all have seen I have been eating quite a bit of lately) can trigger migraines.

With one tear dramatically spilling down my cheek, I gave away the rest of my Point Reyes blue cheese to my neighbor. 

And then I recovered and went home and made this:

A simple salad with butter lettuce carrot, cucumber and almond slivers.

 
I made a simple dressing with 1 Tbsp. of Udo's oil, 2 Tbsp. of balsamic vinegar, a pinch of oregano, a pinch of dried basil and some cracked black pepper.

I like using this Tupperware container to mix the dressing.

It has a screw top which guarantees I will not fling salad dressing all over my kitchen when I mix it - which has happened before...

And then I realized I should add some protein to my salad - 

Turkey.

For dessert I enjoyed this plump beauty - 

A juicy plum.

Can you tell I have been having way too much fun with Adobe Lightroom?

The program makes it really easy to give photos that extra bit of oomph!

Oh, and I forgot to tell you what the dragon fruit tasted like. It tasted like a cross between jicama and kiwi - but I am not completely sure the fruit was actually ripe - which could account for the lack of taste.

Hummus and an afternoon of socializing

We did go socializing this afternoon.

Abby and Scout - Abby is still settling down after the noise at my place - Scout was worried about her.

Scout's owner was kind enough to invite us over after hearing about the barrage of noise on the roof.

Abby took a few minutes to relax - but with the help of Scout (who is the calmest dog on the planet) she was soon fast asleep on the couch :-)

Connor was not that bothered by the noise - but I think he may have just been putting on a manly show for Abby - because within 10 minutes he was stretched out on the carpet snoring.

Thanks, Scout!

 Dinner was fast and easy:

Hummus, lettuce, carrot and cucumber.

I am soo hoping they will not be working on the roof tomorrow :-(

Light and savory

Lunch time! 

Lettuce, celery, cucumber, carrots and kiwi.

 A big chopped veggie salad was just the ticket.

I mixed 1/2 Tbsp. of blue cheese dressing + 1 Tbsp. of fat free raspberry balsamic dressing.

I went light on the dressing - but it still needed something extra.

Enter the blue cheese - 

I am off to go check out a European market - if I am lucky I will return with some french cheese - mmmm :-)

Tortilla tea sandwiches

For some reason I woke up with a craving for tea sandwiches. You know the kind - tiny triangles of bread with cream cheese and cucumber.


After inspecting the contents of my fridge - I realized I didn't have any cream cheese and the only bread I had on hand was a hearty wheat - not what I really wanted.


So, instead, I took a corn tortilla and browned it in a little coconut oil in the fry pan. When both sides were brown and crispy - I cut the tortilla into four triangles.

Then I mixed tuna fish with mustard and pepper. I put a heaping teaspoon of the tuna on each square and topped with some thinly sliced cucumber.

 

It was a nice light breakfast. 


On my ongoing quest to try to include sardines in my diet - I opened a can of these:

They turned out to be huge and plump - take a look - 

 There were only three filets in the can so I put one aside just incase I get brave enough to try one :-)


The dogs gobbled downed one nori wrapped sardine each.

Anyone have a great recipe for sardines?? One that minimizes the fishy taste?

Did someone call me?

I was in the mood for something I could scoop up with veggies for my lunch today.

Tuna with carrots, celery, cucumber and baby tomatoes.

I mixed the tuna with some mustard, black pepper and garlic powder.  I would have included some mayonnaise - but with tuna - I can not be trusted with the mayonnaise. Half the bottle will be used before I can blink.

A garnish of black pepper and mustard.

Did someone call me??

Ahh, yes, Abby and her obsession with all things fish related :-)

The dogs did get a small taste of the tuna - trust me on this...