Terrific Tuesday

Ha, so I'm not sure why I decided to title this "Terrific Tuesday", it just sounded like fun. Today was yet another day that flew by pretty fast ... does anyone else think time has flown this past week or so?

I came home from work and saw that our sprouted quinoa was all done sprouting. I tried it and it's so good, and I especially love all the added nutrients due to it being freshly sprouted ... I can't wait to have some on my salad for lunch tomorrow! My husband currently has two other things in the process of sprouting, I'll let you know what they are when they're done ; ) ... gotta keep a little suspense, you know? It got all cold here today (high tomorrow is 24 and it's supposed to be windy, yuck ... it could be worse though) ... so I was also freezing when I got home from work so I had a cup of Tazo wild sweet orange tea with some Truvia packets ... I love tea! (I also had a banana, a few almonds, and snitched a few too many bites out of the leftover black bean soup that's in the fridge :s) I've been wanting to make sweet potato fries for a long time now and I finally did it tonight ... they turned out great! I chopped up a couple small sweet potatoes, tossed them in a little bit of olive oil, some chili powder, dried basil and dried oregano before putting then in the oven. I then left them in at around 425 for almost 40 minutes, flipping them over every 10. Before ... ... and after with dinner. With the fries, I had a mini Ezekiel wrap with a chopped mahi mahi burger on it topped with chopped spinach leaves and mushrooms with some less sugar Heinz ketchup on top. Yum! : ) For dessert ... "ice cream" that my husband made yesterday using homeade almond milk and frozen bananas ... (even though I'm already freezing, haha, I seem to get cold easily though). What's the weather like for you? If it's 60 or above, wanna trade?

Mini Pizza, Brussels, and Sprouted Quinoa

How was everyone's Monday??

Mine was good, nothing too exciting happened, but nothing too non exciting happened either : ) I'm still loving my Ezekiel cereal and very happy I decided to try it. I'd been eating Original Fiber One but was almost having all the recommended fiber just in my morning cereal, let alone all my other fiber packed food I eat throughout the day, and while I didn't really see a negative effect, I think it was just too much.
A few days ago we had a box sitting on our floor that needed taken out and here is my dog Adrian picking it up and playing with it ... Hyvee had ground turkey meat on sale and they were stocking it when we were getting some so we decided to stock up on it and just took a box of six pounds and it happened to be the same box. I think she knew it used to have meat in it because she was guarding it from our other dog, Rocky ... they're sure something sometimes, haha.

For dinner, I made pizza on a small Ezekiel wrap.First, I put just the wrap in the oven for about 5 minutes on broil so it would harden up. Then, I blended a little less than half a tomato with some minced garlic and basil and oregano for my "sause". I then added thinly chopped mushrooms, onions, zucchini squash, and part of a chicken breast I had in the fridge that needed used. I then sprinkled it with some more basil and oregano and put a little bit of 2% Organic cheese on it, and baked it on around 325 until it was warmed and cheese was melted. And I ate it with some fresh steamed brussels : )In other news, my husband sprouted some quinoa! It needs to sit longer but here's one he pulled out of them that was done ... Sorry, it's a very poor picture! We've never tried sprouting anything before so it's exciting that it's working ... he likes to experiment with things like that and I enjoy watching! : )Anyways, hope everyone has a great evening! Anyone else have anything good for dinner?

Quinoa and Goji Berries

Well we're just about to Monday again already ...

This morning I tried my new Ezekiel Golden Flax cereal and it was really good. I had it with some frozen goji berries and strawberries.
Then we went to church and my mother-in-law brought me some black bean soup she had made so for lunch I ate some of that (it was good!) ... ... along with some soup, I ate a spinach salad with mushrooms, a half of an apple sliced up, some garlic and herb seasoning, white wine vinaigrette, and topped with pine nuts. Then, halfway through the salad I decided to add a toasted piece of sprouted hemp seed bread. I made some more yogurt last night, as we had run out. Thankfully, my last few batches of yogurt have turned out nice and thick like it's supposed to and it's really good! A little after lunch Erik and I worked out together on the new Boflex ... we did biceps and tri's. I'm sure glad he knows what he's doing because I'd never be able to figure that all out by myself without tons of reading, and probably more!

After working out, guess what I snacked on?? Yep, some freshly made greek yogurt :), with (as usual) ground flax seed and cacao nibs, a packet of Truvia, and some frozen berries. Though this time I topped it with some dried goji berries and sliced almonds. This is our first time trying goji berries. I think they're good, and I think they'll grow on me the more I eat them, but I wasn't sure what to think at first, probably because it's a new taste. Does anyone else have any thoughts on goji berries?

Onto dinner ... my plate consisted of stir-fry veggies, some quinoa, and shrimp. (My husband had ground turkey because he didn't want shrimp). We hadn't ever had quinoa before but I really liked it. Though after we cooked it, we read about how you're supposed to soak it before you cook it and we didn't do that, and apparently if you don't do that it makes the quinoa taste bitter. Does anyone have any tips on cooking quinoa or good recipes using quinoa? Any suggestions and/or comments would be appreciated : )

Hope everyone has a great Monday!!

Whole Foods, Working Boflex, and Penne

What a day! It seemed to have flown by but Erik and I had a good time being together. This morning, Erik put the Boflex together, hooray! He did a great job, and it took about the amount of time we thought it would. Before ... And after... Not long after the Boflex was put up, we were off to Whole Foods. Of course, we got way more than was on our list and just like everytime we leave Whole Foods after unintentionally having spent way too much money we realize two things: 1) We forgot how much we love shopping there and how much variety they have we can't get anywhere in the city we live and 2) It's probably a very good thing we're not closer and that we don't have all that at our disposal every day because we would spend way too much money there way too frequently. Here's a random assortment of a few of the neat things we got (notice the brussel sprout staulk ... my favorite. I had never seen a brussel sprout staulk before and I wanted fresh brussels, so we couldn't help but get it... then there's Ezekiel cereal I'm excited to try, chocolate almond milk, hemp seeds, dried goji berries, a sprouted bean assortment, among other things ... I think this picture is funny ... my husband took it. We had fun with our brussel staulk. It was my sword in this picture. Then, for dinner we had Ezekiel Penne pasta with snap peas, and ground turkey meat, topped with bean sprouts ... yum!! With no meat yet ... And Erik's plate also topped with Organic 2% cheese and hot red peppers. Now I'm off to chill with the hubby for the rest of the evening : )

My Confession

As is evident, I've sort of recently become very interested in healthy foods, healthy eating, etc. When I was loosing some extra weight I had gained after my husband and I got married I spent a lot of time reading about it, and thinking about it, as before I really hadn't cared about what I ate at all and felt pretty healthy (ha, though I didn't eat as 'healthy' as I thought.)

Then I think I reached that age where you just can no longer eat whatever you want and not gain weight. I'm pretty sure I gained the infamous "freshman fifteen" when I started college, etc, and started to realize if I didn't do something, I'd probably just keep gaining weight. That's when I enlisted help from my certified personal trainer, former bodybuilder, health exercise science major husband who taught me a lot! (and who I still continue to learn from).

Now after having lost the almost 20 pounds I had slowly but surely gained in a year or two's time, I feel great and I find I really enjoy health and nutrition. (Perhaps one of these days I'll post what I did to loose weight and get into shape).

I'm finding great enjoyment in blogging about healthy eating, getting comments on my blog ;), trying new recipes, learning more about nutrition, but lately I've had to remind myself that this is not who I am. It's a great thing, but sometimes with my busy schedule I find my priorities slowly shifting.

I'm glad I've realized how much I enjoy learning about nutrition and about eating healthy and I will continue to pursue it and enjoy it ... and hopefully help others along the way.

But despite it all, this is my confession, my life ... (and since I can't say it better myself, I'll borrow The Apostles Creed) ...

"I believe in God, the Father Almighty,

maker of heaven and earth.

And in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord,

who was conceived by the Holy Spirit,

born of the virgin Mary,

suffered under Pontius Pilate,

was crucified, died and was buried.

He descended into hell.

The third day He rose again from the dead.

He ascended into heaven

and sits at the right hand of God the Father Almighty.

From thence He will come to judge the living and the dead.

I believe in the Holy Spirit,

the holy Christian Church,

the communion of saints,

the forgiveness of sins,

the resurrection of the body,

and the life everlasting. Amen."

-the apostles creed-

And this is my prayer for this world, for this nation, for every person, for the Church, for my life ...

"Our Father in Heaven,
may your name be kept holy.
May your government come.
May your policy be done,
on earth as it is in the heavens.
Give us today the food we need,
and forgive us our sins,
as we forgive those who sin against us.
Lead us not into times of testing and temptation,
but rescue us from the evil one.
For Thine is the Kingdom, the power and the glory forever and ever.
Amen."

(A Thousand Questions <--- I watched this video earlier. Ever time I watch it, it's just as intense as the first time I saw it and always makes me tear up and think...)

I want to be known for loving and helping. Lord, here am I, send me.

Grocery List

I'm glad it's the weekend : )

I'm just sitting here drinking some True Blueberry tea as I'm figuring out my grocery list. (Anyone else love tea as much as me?) We're going to get groceries at Whole Foods tomorrow ... hooray!!! (That excites me so much because we live an hour away and we don't get to make it there too often). Typically, we get our groceries at Hyvee (they have a pretty good health food section at least). But there are things that we can't get anywhere here that we have to stock up while we're there.

Produce

• mushrooms
• apples (lots of them)
• tangerines
• tomatoes
• spinach leaves
• baby carrots
• zucchini squash
• couple sweet potatoes
• few lemons
• peppers
• kale
• frozen veggies
  
• frozen berries (no sugar added of course)
  

Meat -- (though we'll probably still have to get our chicken and turkey meat at Hyvee)

• chicken breasts
• ground turkey meat
• shrimp (haven't cooked with it much, but want to try)
  

Dairy

• Organic skim milk (lots of it - for Erik to drink and for me to make yogurt)
• Organic eggs
• Organic cheese
• Non-dairy, buuuut almond milk (for my cereal)
  

Canned/Packaged/Misc.

• Canned tuna/wild salmon
• Almonds (natural)
• Truvia (does anyone else use Truvia, if so what do you think of it ... or what is your favorite sweetener?)
• Organic canned beans (garbanzo, pinto, black, and white)
• Ezekiel bread
  
• Ezekiel Penne pasta
• Ezekiel cereal (can you tell we like Ezekiel/Food for Life food?)
• Ezekiel small wraps
  
• Wild rice (we get a lot and all kinds of different brown/wild rices when we're there that we can't get here)
• Quinoa
• Curry powder (this is a spice I don't have and haven't really ever used that I want to try)
• Tea bags
• Heinz less sugar ketchup
• gum
• frozen veggies (espeically brussels!)
• frozen berries
• cacao nibs

And I think that's about all ... when we're at Whole Foods we not only stock up on certain things, but we kinda splurge and just look around to see if there's anything else we want to try since we don't get to shop there often.

Tomorrow along with grocery shopping our project is to put together the Boflex ... I'm excited to have it up. While I was on the tredmill tonight I coudln't help but staring at the empty space in the corner where it'll go. Have a good weekend everyone!!

Broiled Snacks and Boflex

Tomorrow is Friday, woo hoo! We've just about made it to the weekend. Today I came home to find this in my house (plus three more equally large boxes just like this one) ...... this is what we got with our Christmas money, some Amazon gift cards, plus some more. We've both been working longer hours than normal, so we'd like the convenience of working out at home, plus to save money in the long run on a gym membership, we got a Boflex Blaze. (Now it just needs to be assembled ... my husband told me he'd been reading that a lot of people got it together in 2 1/2 hours, so we shall see!) I'll post a picture of the finished product when it exists, haha.

Today after work I come home and ate a banana and some roasted chick peas.
They were very addictive! I just used a can of chick peas drained and rinsed off, sprayed a baking sheet with an abundance of olive oil cooking spray, sprinkled them with pepper, extra spicy Mrs. Dash seasoning, and some garlic powder and broiled them for about 25-30 minutes. Yum!

And here's a random snack I ate yesterday ... a Cinnamon Almond Broiled Banana (I must like to broil things lately).First, cut a banana in half lengthwise, leaving it in it's peel. Then broil for around 10 minutes on aluminum foil, peel side down, or until banana is browning. Then, leaving banana in peel, sprinkle with cinnamon and chopped almonds or walnuts.

Now I've off to cook some dinner, I'm thinking of having Mahi Mahi burgers but I might have to make Erik an Ahi Tuna burger instead. Edit: I did have a Mahi Mahi burger and it was really good!Then I need to cook some chicken breasts for our lunches tomorrow, and make some more rice, as we're just about out. Edit: Erik ended up eating some of the chicken breast I made.We need groceries so I didn't have tons to work with. We had a little over a half of a tomato so I put it in a blender with some minced garlic and basil and oregano, blended that and marinated it over the chicken breasts and then added chopped onions and mushroom and a little bit more dried oregano and basil. I poured some water in the pan and baked it on around 325 until done. I had to take a bite and I really like it (but I LOVE mushrooms!)Anybody having exciting plans for the weekend?

Puppies and Salad

Not too much exciting to say today ... here's a picture of Rocky and Adrian when they were laying down like good little puppies. Work was fairly uneventful today, but here's what I had for lunch -- same old chicken breast spinach leaf salad with rice, but I mixed it up a little by putting in sun dried tomatoes, sesame seeds, and orange slices. It was good but I didn't spray enough vinaigrette on it so it could have tasted better. And for an afternoon snack I ate a little over half a banana sliced up with cinnamon sprinkled on it and a half an apple with a little bit of peanut butter. (I think the picture makes it look like I had a lot more than I did ... it was on a little plate ... oh well). And now that's it's already 8:00 I need shower, have some tea and almonds, and head to bed. (Yes, it's true, I normally go to bed at 8:45-9, but when you get up at 4:45 it's necessary!) Does anyone else go to bed as early as me? haha.

My Menu For The Day

Well, Monday is over. Did anyone else have a quick Monday? I guess a quick Monday is always good, so I can't complain.

Here was my menu for the day ...

5:30 a.m. -- I started out my day with my typical breakfast of Fiber One with some cinnamon sprinkled in with almond milk, followed by an egg white on a piece of toasted cinnamon raisin Ezekiel bread and a little bit of Heinz less sugar ketchup (I typically eat my cereal before work and then take my half egg sandwich to work with me and drink it with my tea) ...
6:30 a.m. -- about when I eat my egg and toast.

9:30 a.m. -- break time in which today I ate a cup of homemade Greek yogurt very similar to yesterday's (see previous blog for picture and ingrediants) ... typically on my morning breaks if I don't have yogurt I have a banana or apple or other likewise delicious fruit.

12:30 p.m. -- lunch time! I chew a lot of sugar free gum and drink a lot of water in between these three hours, haha, espeically that last hour ... I'm always ready for lunch! Today I had a salad very similar to yesterday's (hey, it was good so I felt like having just about the same thing again!) It was a delicious spinach leaf salad with a little more than half a chicken breast, rice, chopped mushroom, zuchinni squash, yellow squash, onions, avacado, apples, some dried cranberries all with a dash of balsamic vinegar and olive oil, garlic and herb seasoning sprayed with white wine vinegarette. I ate this with some baby carrots.

3:45 p.m. -- I decided to call it a day and go home. I then had a banana and half a slice of Ezekiel bread with peanut butter on it. Yum!

In between this snack and dinner I cheated and had a small apple ... no picture for it.

5:30ish -- dinner time! I made turkey burgers tonight on the good old George Foreman. I chopped up some onions and mushrooms really small and put them inside of the burgers as I made patties. With dinner, we had a bean/veggie mix that included black beans, white beans, pinto beans, garbanzo beans, brocolli, carrots, cauliflower aaaand I had to add some brussels. (I know, some more repeats of recent previous nights, but we love our veggies and don't seem to get tired of them ... except Erik told me yesterday he's tired of brussels, ha, so that's why I gave him the option of beans and other veggies;). Erik had two burgers with organic american cheese on them and rice, and I ate a turkey burger with a slice of cheese on toasted Ezekiel bread (I kinda had a lot of bread today) ... and veggies. Erik's plate (before he added cheese) ... My plate ... Sometime between dinner and around 8:45 I had another small apple :s ... I wasn't indending to have this one but Erik was eating an apple and it just looked so good. I have a big bag of small apples that I got on sale that Erik doesn't like so I just went for it and had another one.

8:45 p.m. -- I then had my usual before bed serving of natural almonds (around 24) and a cup of tea (no almond picture, just tea ... ) And that's a somewhat typical day of what I eat on a day-to-day basis but of course varies depending on what I feel like eating. (and typically minus a few apples :s ... though if I have a case of the munchies I normally try to eat something like carrots or cucumbers or celery rather than fruit ... though today, I did not) ...

I don't quite remember when I actually consciously started eating four to six meals or "mini meals" a day, but I sure never knew you could eat that many times a day and have it be healthy or even be able to loose weight while doing so ... but that's a whole nother blog for another time...

Hope everyone's Monday went well and that Tuesday goes even better! : )

Good Church and Good Lunch

I feel like I blog all the time lately, but I'm enjoying myself and it gives me something to do besides mindlessly messing around Facebook for longer than I should ... anyways, Erik and I got up a little before 7 when the dogs woke us up ready to go out. I ate my usual breakfast of around a cup of original Fiber One cereal sprinkled with cinnamon in almond milk, followed by an egg white on a piece of Ezekiel cinnamon raisin bread (I love Ezekiel bread)!

Then we went to church (church was really good as usual!), came home and had some lunch. I was only going to have some yogurt and tea and eat lunch a little later, but Erik ended up giving me some of what he was eating, so I just decided I wouldn't wait. Anyways, first I had a cup of some homemade Greek-strained yogurt ... I put some flax seed, cacao nibs, and some Fiber One cereal in the coffee grinder, ground them, and put it in my yogurt along with a packet of Truvia sweetener and some raspberries ... yum! And had some Goji berry hot tea. For himself, Erik cooked a Salmon burger ... (we like these burgers, especially when we want something quick and easy) ...... he chopped it up with some tomato, zucchini squash, yellow squash, mushrooms, onions, carrots, half an apple, and added some rice/grains that we cooked yesterday, seasonings, put it with some spinach leaves, and sprayed a couple sprays of balsamic breeze spray dressing on it. I'm glad he decided to share with me because it was really good! Now I really should go do some fun and exciting things like laundry and dishes, hooray! haha.

Health & Fitness Tips

As The Purple Carrot grows, my hope is to post more health tips as I go along. I have only a small compilation thus far, but you can anticipate more healthy food, fitness, and lifestyle tips, as well as workouts, posted on my blog!

Health/Food Tips:

• A better plate of food: Tips to dining out healthy
• Chia seeds: A look into these mysterious little superfood seeds
• NuVal: A great tool to use when grocery shopping when in doubt about nutritional labels
• What is sucanat?: Learn about this natural, brown sugar-like sweetener
• Sprouts: Taking a look at some of the health benefits of sprouts

Fitness Tips:

• Motivation tips: 10 motivational questions for weight loss, exercise, and diet resolutions, answered
• Interview with Tosca Reno: In this exclusive Lesley Lifting Life interview, Tosca answers questions about common health & fitness misconceptions and fears
• Staying active in the office: Tips to staying active when you’re stuck inside a cubicle all day

My Adventures in Raw Foods

Though I don't plan on giving up meat or the cooking of my food anytime soon, I think a lot of raw food diet recipes are neat so I decided to try a couple yesterday on my day off. From what I've experience thus far, a lot of raw food recipes require a lot of prep in that you might have to soak some kind of nuts for hours beforehand, or dehydrate something for hours. Anyways, I decided to try Raw Lasagna and a Macaroon recipe I saw on the same lady's website that I based my raw lasagna recipe on.

"What is raw lasagna?", you may be asking ... the "noodles" are very thinly sliced strips of zucchini. I first made a "crust" out of some ground flax seed and original Fiber One cereal mixed with water, some olive oil, oregano, and garlic. (You were supposed to use sunflower seed instead of Fiber One, but I cheated and used Fiber One, which I'm sure isn't considered raw, buuut I did it anyways because I didn't have any natural sunflower seeds.)
I made tomato sauce by blending about 4 cups chopped tomatoes, oregano, fresh basil, lemon juice, and olive oil. And then I made "cheese" by soaking some cashews for about four hours, then putting them in a food processor with garlic, water, and lemon juice. I layered it by first spreading zucchini onto the crust, followed by some "cheese", thinly sliced mushrooms, some of the tomato sauce, then repeated and added finely chopped onions to the top, some freshly dehydrated tomatoes, a few finely chopped sun dried tomatoes, and topped all of that with coarsely chopped spinach leaves and then sprinkled some oregano and garlic powder on top, and here was the final product ... I was fairly pleased with the outcome, it tasted very good though it probably wouldn't have worked for an actual full meal for us, as Erik could probably eat the whole dish himself, haha. It tasted better today, too, after having sat in the fridge for awhile. It did feel like it took forever to make, but I think that may be because at the same time I was making yogurt, almond milk, dehydrating tomatoes... ...cranberries and making macaroons. (I had fun, if you can't tell!) Here are the strawberry/cacao macaroons I made by blending strawberries, cacao nibs, shredded unsweetened coconut, some pitted dates, vanilla, and water. Then I put them into balls and dehydrated them for about 4 hours to allow them to harden.

After all that, Erik got home from work early (that made me happy, though it was before I had the chance to clean the house good, which was also on my "to do" list), and for dinner that night we had natural chicken tenderloins sauteed with onions, zuchinni squash, olive oil, and balsamic vinegar, eaten with seasoned brussel sprouts and brown rice. Anyways, I think this is more than enough blog for now, but that's how I stayed busy on my day off, and now I'm looking forward to spending the weekend with my husband! Hope anyone reading this has a great weekend : )