Weekend Update: 2/14 - 2/16

This picture is actually from 2 weekends ago when I went to the Hill Country to visit my Aunt. This is my new friend, Stormy, the only horse out of 6 horses that came to say hello. I love how we are both actually looking at the camera...ha ha.

Now to this past week/weekend...

I finally found almond milk yogurt!!!! I used it in my red velvet pancake recipe. Let's just say I was a little surprised when I opened it and it didn't look like regular yogurt...ha ha. I haven't tried it by itself yet, but I know there will be a night I forget to prep my breakfast for the morning, so I'm saving it for such an occasion.

As we were all reminded every day since Christmas, Valentines day was this past Friday. I didn't have much planned, other than trying not to eat the entire bag of m&m's sitting on my counter, and was completely surprised when I got this special delivery from a very special guy who is currently half way around the world!! I even rationed the 24 chocolate covered strawberries to last me through Sunday night...trust me that is a lot of self control for me!

Saturday, I did my one and only work out for the week, (shame shame) an hour and 5 mins on the treadmill! Two weeks ago, I instagrammed that I actually ran a mile for the first time since injuring my knee and since I was able to walk after that I decided to up it a little this time. I ran for a total of 1.5 miles and could still walk Sunday...woo hoo! After my workout, I let my heart rate monitor run a little longer and was surprised to see over 1000 calories when I finally stopped it! I've never seen the calories burned number that high, but then again most of my workouts are 20-45 mins. After my workout, I went back home to a pretty sad looking lunch...tuna and apple. I literally had nothing else...ha ha...I needed to go to the store bad!

To avoid eating tuna and apple for lunch and dinner, I went to the store and picked up some quick and easy meal items. Since starting the yeast free diet (which is more like 80/20 yeast free now) I crave Chipotle all. the. time. But my wallet just can't handle their expensive bowls :( So I decided to create my own! I heated up some black beans and pinto beans with a little seasoning, put those over a bed of torn spinach, put shredded chicken over that and finally some avocado...Delicious! Was it as good as Chipotle?!?! Of course not, but it didn't cost me quite as much ha ha. I had it for lunch Sunday as well and will probably eat the rest of it for lunch Tuesday.

After a very lazy Sunday morning of watching movies (I watched American beauty...one of two Oscar best picture movies I watched this weekend...the other one was In the Heat of the Night), I started working on a winter mesh wreath for Barrett's mom. His mom gave me a mesh wreath idea book for Christmas and picked out two that she "wanted" ha ha. Since all the Christmas/winter stuff went on sale right after I received the book, I decided to go scoop some stuff up and make one of the wreaths she liked. I think it turned out pretty decent. I'm going to surprise her with it this weekend when they are in town. Hopefully, I'll have two surprises for her, but the other one may not happen/get spoiled...ha ha The rest of Sunday was spent doing laundry and other chores while my dinner was cooking in the crock pot (more on that later).

How was y'alls weekend?

Red Velvet Pancakes

I hope everyone has had a wonderful Valentine's day so far. Mine has consisted of lunch with a friend and then tonight I plan on making myself a steak dinner while catching up on some Pretty Little Liars (yes I still watch ABC Family shows).  I know I have a few things to catch everyone up on (like the recap of my yeast free diet), but since these pancakes fit the occasion I thought I would share them today and then do a life recap next week (hopefully...no promises ha ha).

I saw a recipe for red velvet waffles over on Fiterazzi and fell in love at first glance. Since I don't own a waffle maker, I had to make pancakes instead. I also didn't want to deal with making sure I had dairy pills on hand so I didn't make the filling, but it looks amazing. Definitely worth checking out if you don't have issues like me. I changed the recipe slightly so below is my version.

Red Velvet Pancakes
**adapted from Fiterazzi**

2 T Oat Flour
2 T Coconut Flour
1 T Ghiradelli Unsweetend Cocoa Powder (I really do think the better quality cocoa you have, the better tasting things will be)
1 T Stevia
1 T Almond Yogurt
3 T Unsweetened Vanilla Almond Milk (I use the Silk brand)
1 Egg
Red food coloring

Directions

Place all dry ingredients in a small mixing bowl and stir to combine/get rid of any clumps.
Make a well in the middle and add your wet ingredients.
Whisk everything together.
If the color is not red enough...add more food coloring (the one I have is gel like)
Heat your skillet or frying pan over medium heat (I use a medium 10 in non-stick frying pan)
Pour the batter into whatever size/shapes you want. I used a metal cookie cutter with some type of coating over it to make the heart shapes.
Enjoy!

I topped mine with a drizzle of melted dark chocolate chips. Feel free to get creative :) If anyone makes these with the filling, let me know how it is!!!

Weekend Update: 1/24 - 1/26

After surviving the ice apocalypse part 1 last Friday, the rest of my weekend looked like this...

We had a beard shaving party Friday night. It was sad to see the beard go :( And yes I did love the crazy beard.



 

Before and After of the beard shaving party

 

 

Saturday, early afternoon, I watched as he left for his grand adventure.

 

Saturday night I finally got around to trying my hand at Cauliflower mashed potatoes again. Having a legit steamer basket and an amazing food processor really helped. I added a little bit of olive oil, almond milk, salt, pepper and garlic powder to the cauliflower. I love that it made my plate look more like a normal meal!

 

 

Sunday I woke up to enjoy a new favorite of mine, a breakfast cookie along with a new tea. The tea is called natural energy (you might have seen a commercial with Kat Dennings for it) and I don't know if it was the tea or just a good amount of sleep, but I didn't feel tired at all yesterday! Maybe it was all mental...ha ha...who knows.

 

After breakfast, I was a good girl and did my knee rehab for the day. I've been battling pain in my knee for a few months now and over the past few weeks it got pretty bad. With the encouragement of Barrett and Elizabeth, I finally went to the doctor. Apparently, I have something called Jumper's Knee. My knee cap has not been tracking properly so the pain I feel when squatting down is because my knee cap slides to the inside of my leg. The doc has given me several exercises to help it not do that anymore and wearing tape is supposed to help as well. Hopefully by the end of next week I will be cleared for running and jumping again. Since starting the rehab, I have noticed it is less painful to walk up and down the stairs! Yay!!

After rehabbing my knee and face timing with Barrett, it was time to start meal prepping for the week. I made pumpkin blueberry pancakes, coconut tortillas, turkey taco meat, guacamole and hamburgers. I may or may not have done a little happy dance when I saw how perfect my avocados looked...it's the little things :)

 

While all my food was cooling, I took advantage of the nice day and sat outside on my balcony and tortured myself by looking through lots of yummy food magazines...ha ha. I tore out a few recipes to save for when I'm not on a super strict diet. Then it was time for dinner and to watch the Grammy Awards. I wasn't too impressed with them this year.

 

How was y'alls weekend? Did you make anything yummy? Did you watch the Grammys? What did you think?

#nomnomnom

Sooooo...I started a yeast free for thirty days diet. I'm one week and two days into this thing and it has not been easy. I'm doing this more to see if this will help any of the stomach issues I have and the minor weight loss is a bonus. This means no sugar, dairy or carbs for thirty days. This includes no fruit for the first two weeks. For the people who have had to put up with me, I applaud you...the mood swings are not fun...ha ha. I'm slowly learning new foods to eat and have found some I'm in love with...



Roasted chickpeas are hands down my new favorite snack. I made them for the first time this past weekend and already went through one batch. I can eat them just like I eat popcorn. They are made with cumin, chili powder, garlic powder, salt, pepper and red pepper flakes. Yummy in my tummy.

Next up, we have chocolate delights. These little guys have really helped with my sweet tooth cravings. They are made with coconut oil, cocoa powder and a little bit of almond milk with stevia. These can be catered to any ones taste, it just so happens I like them more dark chocolaty. You could easily make them more milk chocolaty by adding more milk and stevia. You can also get fancy and add things to the middle, but I'm in the super strict phase of the YF diet so they are only chocolate. Oh and yes those are tiki mask molds...ha ha...what can I say I don't have any other flexible ice cube trays.



This last new food item was an absolute life saver last week. This is called a breakfast cookie and it is delicious! The first two days of the YF challenge I just had egg muffins, but then felt so completely disgusting (which happens a lot when I eat eggs) that I just couldn't stomach eating them the rest of the week. So then I tried almond flour pancakes. While they weren't bad, they were super dry and since I can't add any fruit, until January 27th, to help add some moisture to them I decided I needed something else to try again. Then came this cookie! I was a little worried about it since I don't really care for protein powder, but honestly after the initial bite everything was smooth sailing! I ate this Thursday through Sunday. Thank goodness you can have oats in things on this food plan.

I will try to remember to recap my whole experience after the thirty days are up, but don't hold me to it...ha ha.

Life according to my phone

This past weekend my family celebrated my Aunt's 50th birthday up at her new lake house and since Barrett was still in town we took a little road trip up to the hill country to celebrate with her and as a bonus he could finally meet the rest of the family...ha ha...4 and a half years later.

This is the view from her backyard. The lake is still down a lot, but one day it will be back to normal. We spent a good amount of time outside playing bocce ball. Since we were first timers, we may or may not have made up our own rules. Then my little cousins (ages 1 through 4) wanted to play so it turned into just rolling the balls back and forth and trying to not let them eat the dirt...yep...still not ready for kids...ha ha.

We also have made it to the movies twice. Figured we should try to go to some we really wanted to see before he leaves for work. The first movie we saw was Lone Survivor. Great movie! If you haven't seen this yet...go see it now. Or don't know if you want to see this movie, just go see it. I don't think I've heard anything bad about it so far. We also saw Ride Along. Pretty funny...Kevin Hart opposite Ice Cube is hilarious. And the way they ended it could be a set up for a sequel.

I also took the dialect quiz that was going around from the NY Times. That's some pretty interesting and accurate stuff. I even took it a second time and made the boyfriend take it as well. Pretty much if I didn't think you would see it from a different blog I told you go to take it...ha ha.

Lastly, I took a Friends Character quiz (I love a good quiz) and some how came out with the character Gunther. I promise I'm not a creep...well not all the time he he.

What have y'all been up to lately? Do you have a fun quiz I should take?!? Let me know!!

January Meal: Turkey and Zucchini Noodle Soup

This is a total "what do I have on hand" makeshift recipe...ha ha. Luckily it turned out pretty good!! On the day I made this, I knew three things...I wanted soup, I had fried turkey that needed to be eaten and I had zucchini that was going to have to be thrown out soon. I looked in my pantry and found one can of chicken broth and thought I can make this work.

What I used...

1 regular sized can of Chicken Broth
1 1/2 cups water
3 small to medium sized zucchinis shredded long ways into noodles
1 T garlic powder
6 oz fried white meat turkey no skin
black pepper to taste

What I did...

Combine the can of chicken broth and the water into a medium sized pot and bring to a boil. While the liquid is heating start shredding the zucchini. Carefully add zucchini, garlic powder and however much black pepper you like to the pot. While zucchini is cooking cut up your turkey into small chunks. Add turkey to the pot. Continue cooking until zucchini is tender.

This was pretty good using what I could find, but when I make this again I will definitely be using more chicken broth. :)

New Year's Black Eyed Pea Casserole

Well it's officially 2014!! Seriously how did that happen?!?! While I'm still debating if I want to create a list of 14 goals to complete in 2014, I thought I would go ahead and share my version of my family's Black Eyed Pea Casserole.

Ingredients

1 pound ground beef
1 can (15 -16 oz) black eyed peas with jalapeno
2 cups cooked rice
1 cup grated sharp cheddar cheese
1 tsp onion powder
1 tsp garlic powder
Lantana or Tony Chacheres to taste

Directions

Brown ground beef in a large skillet with garlic and Lantana. Mix in the rest of the ingredients in the order given. Bake in a 13x9 casserole dish at 350 degrees F for 20 minutes.

 
This dish almost completely hides the taste of the black eyed peas for non fans. I also like to top mine with some hot sauce. This year I used Rod Ryan Show Hot Sauce #ghostpepper and it was delicious!!

For those out there that aren't as picky as I am, here is the original recipe...

Ingredients

1 pound ground beef
2 cans (15 -16 oz) black eyed peas with jalapeno
2 cups cooked rice
1 can canned tomatoes (2 cups), drained
1 cup grated sharp cheddar cheese
1/2 cup minced onions
1 tsp garlic powder
salt and pepper

Directions

Brown ground beef in a large skillet with garlic. Mix in the rest of the ingredients in the order given. Bake in a 13x9 casserole dish at 350 degrees F for 20 minutes.

Really I should have used 2 cans in my version, but I was in a hurry at the store and didn't read the recipe right...ha ha. Other than that, I don't care for onions or chunks of tomatoes so I omitted those.