5 miles down

Morning salad.

This morning I woke up vibrating with agita.

I got up and strapped on my running shoes and the dogs didn't blink an eye.


These are the beasts that do every thing they can to wake me up to get them to dish out their food - every.single.morning.

Abby looking sweet and beautiful - She is definitely not sweet...

Not today. 

I am sure they are exhausted from me flopping around in the bed all night like a fish pulled up on the dock. Yes, I am fun to sleep with...


5 miles done and I get home to the dogs dancing around in ecstasy. 


Apparently me arriving home in a good mood is a wonderful thing.


The dogs enjoyed some smoked salmon while I made a morning salad. 

It started out with some good olive oil.

This is my go to salad when my stomach is giving me trouble. I found it here (scroll down to the delicious daily vegan salad) and it has very little fat but tons of flavor - just what a body needs when you are feeling very belligerent about having to give up fat laden foods.

I steamed up 1/4 of a potato, a handful of green beans, 1 carrot and 1 cup of broccoli florets and then I assembled the dressing.

1 tsp of olive oil, 3 tsp of balsamic vinegar, 2 pinches of dried oregano, 1 Tbsp of fresh chopped basil, 1 Tbsp of nutritional yeast and a dash of dried garlic, cracked pepper and salt.

If you have to eat lots of salads it is best to get the prewashed stuff.

About 2-3 cups of lettuce went into my salad bowl and everything got mixed together.

I highly recommend this salad and when my stomach was at its worst I was known to eat this dish 3 times a day.

True story.

And I wonder why I have trouble eating enough protein...


And a big call out to Gourmet Runner who just finished her first marathon - Congrats!!!

Vegan 'chicken' marsala (Gardein)

Gardein Chick'n Marsala with a side of steamed broccoli rabe.

While I thoroughly enjoyed all the rich and wonderful food at the Foodbuzz festival (and the eating out that occurred after the weekend) I was careful to be conscious of how much fat I was ingesting.

Of course, I had to guess for many of the meals but I did a fair job - my stomach held up well for the weekend and it has only been in the last day or so it has started to rebel.

Sigh, the joys of having a stomach sensitive to high levels of fats...

When I spotted this at the store:

I knew that this chick'n masala would be a great way to kick off the next week of low-fat eating.

I was also curious to try out some of the Alexia food products after enjoying them out at the Foodbuzz festival. 

Alexia did hand out $1 off coupons and while I did have one in my pocket when I went in the store - I completely forgot to use it. 

So, while I am down $1 at least I get out of putting in a disclaimer - score!


The Gardein package contained two chick'n breasts with sauce. What I really liked was that each chick'n breast was individually sealed with its sauce packet.

And if you are like me and never read package directions - make sure to NOT put this in the freezer (like I did) because the cooking instructions assumed a refrigerated product not a rock hard frozen one.

Live and learn.

About five discs of the frozen potatoes equals one serving  so they went into the microwave for 1 1/2 minutes and came out creamy and warm.

The frozen chick'n patty took a while to cook - it being frozen and all - so I ended up with less sauce than I think is intended.

 
The texture was pretty darn good - I would not be fooled into thinking I was actually eating a chicken breast but it was pretty close.

I ended up drizzling some balsamic vinegar on top to make up for the lack of sauce.

So the fat gram total for my breakfast comes out to be:

Gardein Chick'n Marsala                        6g

One serving of Alexia mashed potatoes  6g

2 cups of steamed broccoli rabe            0g
 -------------------------------------------------------
Total:                                                   12g

Not too bad for a decent sized meal. 

I am shooting for around 20g of fat per day since this seems to be the fat level that calms my stomach.

Fun stuff, huh? 

But I figured if there are any readers who have a fat intolerant stomach like me - you might be interested in how I try to balance it so I can enjoy the occasional indulgent meal (or weekend).

I loved the Alexia mashed potatoes but they were almost too yummy - I think I would have an issue with portion control if I always had these in the freezer.

For the Gardein Chick'n masala - I am going to hold off on a definitive opinion until I try making it when it is unfrozen:-)

I hope everyone is having a nice relaxing weekend!