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, 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