What I Ate Wednesday, 9/24/14

What a dreary and chilly second day of fall here in Raleigh! I’m totally fine with the cooler temperatures, but the rain really puts a damper on my mood. 😛 (unintentional pun). It also makes me want to take naps and be a lazy pants. No good. Luckily, I think it is clearing out and tomorrow will be nicer. Yay for sunshine! Anyway, I’m sure you didn’t come here for a weather forecast, so here’s the delicious food I put in my belly today…

Breakfast

I ate my usual oatmeal this morning made with unsweetened almond milk, a tablespoon of local honey, cinnamon, chopped walnuts, and banana slices. I had coffee with organic half and half in my adorable Frankenstein coffee mug that I bought from Carolina Pottery a few weeks ago. This seems like a good opportunity to let you all know that I LOVE Halloween! It’s definitely my favorite holiday (yes, even over Christmas). In fact, I’m seriously considering putting up a Halloween tree this year and just leaving it up through Christmas. I also love pumpkins and pretty much anything else having to do with fall, so be prepared for some fall/Halloween themed posts from me (and Lynda goose too)! Okay, moving on…I also had some water.

Lunch

I did not eat any snacks between breakfast and lunch which is pretty unusual. I normally eat lunch well after noon and am always starving if I don’t have a snack. Today was no different, but I just didn’t remember to bring a snack with me to work. I couldn’t take this picture fast enough….I was so hungry. Oh wait, I did eat some crackers while I was waiting for the sweet potato to cook. So this random lunch consists of: a sweet potato with coconut butter and cinnamon on top, a spring mix salad with cucumbers and some Bolthouse Farms Ranch dressing, some grapes, and some mandarin orange slices. Oh, how I love sweet potatoes!

Dinner

My dinner was baked Salmon, peas, and french fries. To drink I had a lightly sweetened iced tea with lemon. So random, but it was good.  I topped the salmon with 1 tablespoon of unsalted butter, minced garlic, and fresh lemon juice. The fries are by the brand Alexia. I guess you could consider these a little healthier than the average french fries. Definitely better than fast food fries that are made in a fryer, but still a french fry nonetheless. The peas were just frozen peas that I steamed in the microwave and added a tiny bit of salt. I love peas! “Give peas a chance!” If you know where that’s from, you are awesome and had a good childhood and watched lots of Nickelodeon.

Well, that’s everything. I hope you all have a wonderful rest of the week. Thanks for reading!

Bows and Arrows,

Ashley

What I Ate Wednesday, 7/2/14

Hey guys! Happy Wednesday! I hope your week is going well and hopefully this is a short week for most of you guys thanks to Independence Day. Keeping my fingers crossed that this tropical storm threatening to hit the east coast doesn’t ruin all of the fourth of July festivities for us! I had a pretty busy day today between work and running errands, so I actually didn’t eat very much. Here is what I did manage to eat today…

Breakfast

Are you shocked!? It’s not oatmeal. I made some muffins on Monday night and I had a couple left, so I figured I better eat them. These are peanut butter banana muffins, which I made on Monday spur of the moment and just happened to have all of the ingredients on hand. They turned out pretty good. They are not overly sweet, so they’re perfect for breakfast. The recipe I used can be found here. I also had one scrambled egg and some strawberries and delicious blueberries from the farmers market. I had some coffee with organic half and half in my adorable coffee mug from Marshals. If you can’t see it, it says “luv my cup of joe”.

Lunch

I didn’t really eat lunch. I just munched on a bunch of raw mixed nuts. These came from Target. I tend to buy a big huge container of them so there’s always something quick to munch on if I am busy but going into starvation meltdown mode.

Snack

After work I picked up an Americano…just because. Do I need a reason? :-p

Dinner

We picked up food from Jasmin Mediterranean Restaurant for dinner. This is a chicken zaki with a side salad. Oh, how I love Greek and Mediterranean Food! I would eat it everyday if I could afford it. I also had water with this and some throughout the day, although I didn’t drink nearly as much water as I usually do.

I think I will make myself a big glass of water now and call it a night! Thanks for reading.

Bows and Arrows,

Ashley

What I Ate Wednesday, 5/28/14

I think we skipped Spring and jumped right into Summer.  It was 93 degrees outside today!  I sat outside for breakfast this morning because it was 78 degrees, but it warmed up quite fast.

For breakfast:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I ate one slice of whole-wheat toast with all natural grape jelly and a scrambled egg.  I also made myself a fruit smoothie.  I used frozen blueberries, raspberries, strawberries, mangos, and pineapples, and blended those with Simply Apple and Simply Orange juices.  It was delicious!  And no, I didn’t eat the plant.  He was just hanging out with me on the roof deck so he could sun tan.  🙂

 For lunch:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I drank a glass of Simply Lemonade with a few raspberries that I muddled and added to it.  I ate a pear and some Tostito’s chips dipped in guacamole.

 For dinner:

 

 

I had quite a small dinner, because I was at work during, but here ya go.  I ate some raw baby carrots and celery dipped in ranch dressing and one of the StarKist to go tuna salad lunch packs.  I drank a hot Roobios Chai tea from Teavana.

 

 

 

 Currently:

I’m currently nomming on some Doritos in the cool ranch flavor, because I got home about 15 minutes ago and I’m too lazy to go make myself something.  I’m being quite ravenous right now, so no picture of the Doritos!

Goodnight everyone!

Have an awesome Thursday,

Lynda

 

What I Ate Wednesday, 3/12/14

I opened at the coffee shop today so my day got off to an earlier start than usual this Wednesday. As Lynda may have mentioned in one of her WIAW’s, I tend to eat a little bit more on days that I open. This is probably just because I am awake for more hours or it could be because of all of the delicious pastries we have at work that are a constantly tempting me! Overall, I enjoyed all of my food today and I am especially proud of the dinner I made tonight, but we’ll get to that in a bit. 🙂

Breakfast

At around 6:30am I made myself an Americano with one raw sugar and some half and half. I brought some Kashi Go Lean Cereal (Cinnamon Crumble flavor) and a banana for my breakfast. I sliced up the banana and ate it in my cereal. I think this is my new favorite cereal and with 10 grams of protein it is actually somewhat satisfying unlike other cereals.

Snacks

 

A few hours later I ate a mandarin orange that I brought from home. Around 10am I bought myself a bran muffin from work to eat. These muffins are soooo delicious. We order these from a local bakery and some of our customers are just crazy about these things and I totally understand why! They have carrots and raisins in them. They are not overly sweet like most of the other muffins we have…they’re just perfection.

Lunch

I knew I wanted to eat the rest of the leftover pork tenderloin I had made the night before for dinner for my lunch today. I wasn’t sure what to do with it, so I just microwaved it and made a sandwich with it. It was actually better than I expected it to be. The sandwich has a little bit of mustard and a slice of muenster cheese. I decided to slice up about half of a cucumber to make a quick little cucumber salad to go with it. I kind of just made something up for this. I sliced my cucumber and let it soak in a mixture of white vinegar, water, salt, pepper, and a little bit of sugar. It was tasty! I also had some water with my lunch.

Snack

Around 4pm I wanted something sweet so I made myself an iced chai tea latte. I made this with the Tazo chai tea concentrate and organic 1% milk. I’ve talked about this stuff before. Yum yum!

Dinner

Now on to the dinner that I am sorta, kinda, very proud of! 😛 I made steak…and it was actually GOOD! Yay! Don’t ask me what kind of steak. I don’t even remember and the package is in the trash and I don’t want to dig it out. It was nothing expensive, not a sirloin. I don’t know?

I pulled out my McCormick Montreal steak seasoning and saw a recipe on the bottle for a marinade, so I followed that recipe. It was really simple. It was some olive oil, a little soy sauce, and the Montreal seasoning. I let the steaks sit at room temperature in the marinade for around 30-45 minutes. I then heated a skillet on high with a little vegetable oil in it. I put my steaks in and cooked them until almost done and then added about 1/2 tablespoon of unsalted butter to the pan. I cooked this for myself and my boyfriend and I got his steak perfect…those were his words, not mine!! It was cooked just the way he likes it. Mine was a thinner cut and it cooked a little faster and was therefore a little more done than anticipated, but the flavor was excellent. I am only this excited because this was essentially my first (maybe second) time cooking steaks on the stove and it turned out really well. That doesn’t happen all that often with me.

In addition to the steak, that I won’t shut up about, I had green peas (the kind in the steam fresh microwave bag) and a sweet potato with some cinnamon and butter on top. My boyfriend isn’t a big fan of sweet potatoes (which I find difficult to accept at times haha) so I made him some organic yukon select frozen french fries from the brand Alexia. I tried a couple also just to see how they were. I have tried the sweet potato fries from this brand, but never the regular fries and I think both kinds are really good. I like that these are organic also! Lastly, I had water with my dinner.

That is all of my delicious food for today. I am just sitting here drinking water and thinking about eating one of my little mini Hershey’s dark chocolate with almonds bars. Seems like a good idea!  Hope you guys have a good rest of the week.

Bows and Arrows,

Ashley

What I Ate Wednesday, 1/15/14

It’s Wednesday and that means another WIAW post, of course! Here is what I ate today. Enjoy!

Breakfast

I switched up my usual breakfast today just for you guys! Because I had to work today I brought the components of this breakfast with me to work to eat whenever I had a break. I very rarely have time to eat my breakfast before work because well, I don’t get up early enough for all that. Usually I have to get up around 4:30am, but this morning I was able to sleep in until 6:30. Woohoo!

So, this is a toasted whole wheat english muffin with Kroger organic peanut butter, cinnamon, and a sliced banana on top. I used to eat this a lot and I had forgotten how yummy it is. Very simple, but tasty nonetheless. I also had an Americano with one raw sugar and some cream. Today at work we were trying to create a Valentine’s Day inspired drink, so I also had a few sips of a honey vanilla latte and a chocolate covered strawberry mocha (created by Lynda).

Lunch

I almost forgot to take a picture of this which is why it is half eaten. Oops! This is a Caesar salad (organic romaine lettuce, parmesan cheese, croutons, and Bolthouse Farms Caesar dressing). I also brought some red, seedless grapes and I just had water to drink. Before leaving work I made myself an iced soy chai latte to take home. I don’t usually prefer soy milk, but I think it is really delicious with chai. I did not get a picture of the drink. I’m sorry!

Dinner

This doesn’t look like a very impressive dinner, but it turned out pretty good. It’s Caramelized honey dijon chicken and broccoli bites.  I’ve been really into mustard lately, which is weird because I absolutely despised mustard, and pretty much every other condiment except for ketchup, as a child. This is my second time making this chicken and my boyfriend and I really enjoy it. The recipe can be found here. The broccoli bites are from a recipe I recently pinned on Pinterest. I’m always looking for new ways to cook vegetables and although this is definitely not the healthiest choice I think it’s better than no veges at all, right? I was actually thinking this would be a good one for my boyfriend when I first saw this recipe. He is even pickier than me about vegetables! Sure enough, he ended up liking it more than I did. I think they’re worth making, especially if you have a picky eater on your hands. I wouldn’t say it’s my favorite way to eat broccoli, but it was still good. Recipe here.

Snack/Dessert

Okay, I did NOT eat all of this, but I just wanted to show you all the remaining Christmas candy I still have that just sits there tempting me. The problem is, if there’s chocolate/sweets in the house then I’m going to eat it. Well, duh! I usually don’t buy sweets, unless I’m having a girl problem meltdown (TMI..I’m sorry). It wouldn’t be a problem if I could practice self-control with such things, but I can’t usually so I just don’t even go there. I like having these individually wrapped chocolates though because it’s easier to control yourself with these. I ended up eating one of the Ghirardelli dark chocolate’s. Nom!

Well, that is everything. I’m just sipping water from my hello kitty water bottle as I type this. Going to go watch some Sons of Anarchy and call it a night. Hope you all are having a great week.

Bows and Arrows,

Ashley

 

 

 

What I Ate Wednesday, 12/18

This Wednesday was not a typical one. I graduated from college! Well, technically I finished my degree work in July, but yesterday was the actual graduation. Because this was a day of celebrating it was not really a day of healthy eating. I had to be at graduation at 8:30am and of course I was running late, so I had to choose between making coffee or my typical oatmeal breakfast. I didn’t have time for both. Take a wild guess what I chose? Coffee, duh! I did manage to toast a piece of bread which I had planned to put grape jelly on. But, instead I ate it plain because I couldn’t get the stupid jar unscrewed and didn’t have time to fight with it. I didn’t even think of taking a picture of that, but I think you guys know what toast looks like. 🙂 So, graduation happened and about 4 hours later at the ole Cracker Barrel some tasty foods were consumed.

Breakfast for Lunch

I decided to get french toast, eggs, and sausage! Considering I very rarely have any breakfast foods other than oatmeal I thought it sounded good. Also, I guess my one piece of toast for breakfast wasn’t enough toast for one day. Yes, I had so much food it wouldn’t all fit on the same plate. In my defense, I wasn’t able to finish it all!

Snack

After lunch I headed to the mall with my mom and brother to do a little Christmas shopping. Our first stop was Starbucks. I had a small Cinnamon Dolce Latte, no whip. Let’s not talk about the unnecessary amount of calories and fat this added to my day. It’s all good!

Dinner…sorta

I’m not used to eating such a big lunch, so I stayed pretty full for a long time. I decided to just make a salad for dinner. This is just organic spring mix salad with some Ranch Sunflower Kernels from Nature Box that Lynda gave me sprinkled on top. It also has some shredded cheese and the yogurt based Bolthouse Farms Ranch dressing that I love so much. I didn’t have any other veges on hand to put in it, so that was it.

I also drank water throughout the day and with each meal. I’m pretty sure I ate a graham cracker at some point after dinner too. :-p Lastly, on an unrelated note, I will leave you with my favorite picture from Wednesday. My lovely Grandmother and myself.

Thank you all for reading!

Bows and Arrows,

Ashley xoxo