Crunchy Chic Peas

Hello! Last night I made crispy chic peas using this recipe.

Drain the chic peas then add olive oil and seasonings

Spread them on a pan and bake for about 45 minutes on 350.

An easy, healthy and crunchy snack

For dinner last night, I was out of produce so I made cheesy quinoa with cabbage on the side.

Snuck some veggies in this meal

The cheesy quinoa was really good. I used nutritional yeast, parmesan, hot sauce, dijon mustard, pepper, garlic powder, some chicken broth, and a string cheese.

Speaking of cheese, I made another batch of popcorn and decided to top it with nutritional yeast like a lot of you guys had recommended. It was great!

Popcorn is the best.

Hope everyone had a great weekend!

Question of the day: It seems like hummus is all the rage, especially in the healthy living community. Do you love hummus?

2-Way Popcorn

Hello! Last night I went out to dinner with some of my co-workers and decided to order a chicken sandwich with french fries. I don’t think I’ve eaten fried food in over a month. It was quite tasty but I felt pretty full afterwards and an hour later, I was hungry again.

Source

I’m all about indulging, but it seems like such a waste to eat something that our bodies digest so quickly. Later in the evening, I hit the gym and when I got back, I made a sweet snack.

Peanut Butter Popcorn!

I popped the kernels and added coconut extract, vanilla extract, honey, and a big spoonful of crunchy peanut butter. Yum!

Salty Popcorn

I made the remainder of my popcorn with salt, garlic powder, and pepper to have on hand as a snack. Popcorn is so versatile.

Whatever Regina. Check out my lunch for today:

Italian gone healthy

It’s spaghetti squash paired with sweet potato pizza from Meredith’s blog.

The sweet potato paired really well with cheese. Who would have thought?

Have a great day!

Question: What’s your favorite flavor of popcorn? Kettle corn or buttery corn?

Healthy Snacks

Last night was a cooking kinda’ night. I wanted to make some things that I could snack on for the week that were healthy and tasty so I opted for some homemade popcorn (if you can call popcorn homemade) and LaraBars (definitely homemade).

Easy popcorn to snack on for the week

Homemade LaraBars Balls

For the popcorn, I just popped the kernels in canola oil over the stove and added garlic salt, pepper, and grated Parmesan cheese. I’ll snack on this for a few days but the only problem is that after the first day, the popcorn gets a little soft but it’s still good. (Low budget, low standards for me!)

The Larabars were a little bit more of a challenge because I have a very small and weak food processor so you could say I got a workout in during this cooking session. 😉 These balls are just 2 cups of dates combined with 1 cup of peanuts. (I accidentally started with a 1 to 1 ratio and had to add a few more dates and raisins to balance out the texture- oops!) After combining it with a food processor 1,000 times you roll the dough together and form little balls. I added some pumpkin and cinnamon to a few of mine.

And there we have some snacks for the week- success!

It’s crazy how easy it is to use up the foods in the pantry. I am definitely well over due a grocery shop but I can still get by just by using what I’ve got. I do plan on going shopping this evening to get produce and such.

I had some vegetable soup leftovers for dinner last night that I made on Sunday evening.

What’s your flavor, soup?

I used frozen broccoli, frozen carrots, 1 onion  lots of red pepper flakes, pepper, sriracha, chicken broth, and coconut milk. Next time, I’ll add less chicken broth and more coconut milk to make the soup a little thicker.

Chicken vegetable soup for the soul

Lots of good eats on a low budget from a kitchen noob.

After the cooking sesh, I headed over to the gym for a second workout of the day. I double blasted as my Mom would say. 🙂 My Hawaii trip is just around the corner and I’ve got to get beach body ready. I completed 30 minutes on the elliptical followed by an upper body workout. It was later in the evening and I didn’t finish my workout until 9:00 pm, definitely a little late for me, and I felt sleepy this morning. Hope everyone is off to a good week.

Have a good Tuesday!

Question of the day: What are your favorite homemade (or store bought) healthy snacks?

‘As you walk and eat and travel, be where you are. Otherwise you will miss most of your life.’ ~Buddha

“If you want to be happy in a million ways…”

For the holidays  you can’t beat home, sweet home! This freezing cold weather has gotten me in the mood to listen to Christmas tunes. (I love Christmas music so any excuse to listen to it works for me!) I am feeling more awake than usual because I managed to wake up at 5:30am! (Who am I?) When I walked outside this morning in pursuit of the gym, I was greeted with some uncomfortably cold weather combined with a beautiful sunrise.

I’ll take a beautiful sunrise any day

I shuffled over to the gym and decided to jump right into a circuit workout. I needed something to keep me busy so I skipped the traditional cardio and instead, I did some strength training combined with cardio inspired by hard and fast Crossfit workouts. I had a great workout. Check out my workout page to see my entire routine.

Since I woke up so early this morning, I was able to have a complete breakfast before hitting the gym. This almost never happens since I’m usually in a hurry but I woke up pretty hungry and decided to throw together a protein-packed meal.

turkey bacon + a cheese and spinach omlet

the real reason I woke up early perhaps?

I ate my breakfast in front of the television opting to watch music videos. Yeah, I still love watching music videos! Also, I didn’t want to watch a TV show because I may not have ever made it off the couch and into the gym. Next time you need a little inspiration to hit the gym, try watching a few favorite music videos or listening to some music. It’s definitely one of my motivators.

Can’t forget these puppies

Backtracking a bit, guess what I had for dinner last night? Spaghetti squash! I know, I probably should give it a rest but in an effort to use up my groceries, I figured I could cook the rest of the squash last night to have for dinner and then have the leftovers for lunch today. And this time, I perfected my recipe. I was so excited that my meal tasted great and looked pretty! I’m very much a “throw it together” type cook, which gets me into trouble so I’m starting to learn what can be thrown together and what cannot. (I learned my lesson the hard way during a baking experiment.) 😉

Into the pot went greens, tomatoes, seasonings, and olive oil

the color makes it almost look pretty! 🙂

After the cooking, I added some goat cheese and parmesan cheese.

Shh don’t tell- I use Kraft parmesan cheese!

And let me tell you, the results were great, if I do say so myself! 😉

So much squash!

This meal was definitely a success and I even had enough to pack for my lunch today. That is the kind of cooking I like.

Can’t judge leftovers my it’s looks…

After dinner, I made my way back to the kitchen for a little more cooking. I’m all out of snack-type foods so I’ve been trying to get creative with making snacks for the day. (I usually eat two snacks a day- one in the morning and one in the afternoon.) The popcorn kernels were sitting on my shelf so I heated up some canola oil and made some popcorn. It’s crazy how much popcorn I made! I paid less than $2 for a big bag of plain corn kernels, which I can season however I want but buying the already prepared microwavable popcorn is much more expensive and contains more sketchy ingredients. I’m all about the plain kernels.

Seasoned with butter, salt, pepper, and garlic salt mmm

After storing lunch away for the next day, I had dessert on the brain, naturally. I saw some recipes online for a micorwavable one-person chocolate cake that I had been meaning to try so last night, I finally got around to trying it.  I ended up using a much smaller amount of ingredients then most of the recipes called for; I used 1 tablespoon of cocoa powder, sugar, flour, a pinch of baking soda and baking powder, and then added a touch of canola oil and egg whites. (I opted for egg whites because a whole egg is usually too much for a single serving dessert.) I mixed all the ingredients together in a mug and it looked like it would be equal to about 4 bites in total so I popped it in the micorwave for only 30 seconds and it trippled in size and looked delicious!

it’s magic

I totally just threw together ingredients to bake this concoction which is never a smart idea but it surprisingly turned out really well! (Take that, baking!) This dessert was perfect and I was actually satisfied afterwards. What’s not to love about a mini chocolate cake? Add some rainbow sprinkles and I’ve found my perfect meal!

I’ll admit I’m a little too obsessed with sprinkles

A chocolate-y dessert and it’s Friday– now we’re talkin’! Hope everyone has a great Friday and a relaxing weekend!

 

Some creative ideas to do this weekend:

• Undoing your week at the office – Huffington Post
• Healthy weekend diet tips – Fit Day
• Good activities to do with the family – WebMD