Healthy and Sane

Entries Tagged as 'fish'

Dinner with the family – entertaining part II

December 7th, 2009 · 18 Comments · Cooking Light, Ellie Krieger, dessert, entertaining, fish, salad, salmon

After making a successful dinner for my dad last weekend, I decided to make a 3+ course dinner for my aunt (she’s here from Russia for 2 weeks) and my parents. I really love having people over for dinner, but I also get a little nervous about making sure that everyone’s happy. Adam was a big help in prepping the space. The Christmas tree was ready for our guests…

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Our house smells like Christmas!!

Fresh flowers in the vase…

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And the dining room table set…

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Everybody – have some wine! [This was a fantastic Chianti my dad brought.]

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FIRST COURSE

We started with a nice salad: mixed greens, arugula, roasted apples, pomegranate seeds and hazelnuts

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I thought all the salad ingredients complemented each other really well – the sweet and savory balance was spot on (she pats herself on the back…). :D

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I followed this recipe for the dressing (cut the oil by 1/2).

I also decided to make little appetizers with the Pepperidge Farm puff pastry (I received a free coupon for it from Foodbuzz).

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These guys were inspired by a pasta I used to love at an old local restaurant in New York.  They’re topped with vodka sauce, roasted asparagus, sun-dried tomatoes, pine nuts and a graded parmesan. Delicious!!

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My plate:

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SECOND COURSE

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The star of the show: sweet-spicy glazed salmon. This is one of my favorite salmon recipes – I follow this recipe from Cooking Light, substituting 1/2 honey mustard and 1/2 country dijon mustard for Chinese-style hot mustard.

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Haricot verts, steamed then sauteed in a tiny bit of EVOO with garlic.

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Couscous pilaf (recipe based on p. 12 of The Best of Cooking Light, Great Plates) – ww couscous, dried cherries, almond slivers, lemon zest and S&P.

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My plate (I ate 1/2 of it… getting stuffed!)

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The salmon was a hit! This glaze is fabulous!! :grin:

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The cherries in the couscous were my favorite. I <3 cherries :D

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Let’s not forget the veggies. Simple preparation doesn’t mean simple taste.

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DESSERT

The almond, cherry chocolate clusters made their appearance on the dinner table. This recipe is already becoming a staple in my entertaining repertoire because it takes just minutes to make and everybody loves these clusters!

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All 12 were gobbled up! :mrgreen:

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My aunt also brought a dessert – a local specialty called “chuck chuck.” Her mother-in-law made this particular batch with nearly every ingredient home-grown. This is little homemade pastry noodles, fried then covered in a honey glaze. The eggs are from the chickens they have and the honey is from their own honey-combs. Pretty awesome. We picked on this sticky mess all night. Mmm…..

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Teas galore :)

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My first portion (I had a whole lot more of the chuck chuck)

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Family pic for evidence ;) Happy bellies…

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I’m really in the holiday spirit now!! Thank you, parents, for my early Chanukkah cash. I’m off to shop! Oh, I have to go to work first? Ok, ok… :D

See you guys later! :mrgreen:

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I feel like I deserve a medal

November 20th, 2009 · 13 Comments · Ellie Krieger, fish

Hehe, that title is so true about yesterday. I woke up in a good mood (again) and was determined to make it a good day; a day that won’t be ruined by overeating and self doubt. So that’s exactly what I did :D Let’s talk through it…

BREAKFAST

It was Thursday, which meant a CEiMB meal. I always have mixed feelings about breakfast choices because it’s hard to make them on a weekday. This recipe for peach french toast bake chosen by the lovely Liz of The Not So Skinny Kitchen, called for most of the prep the night before and required just baking in the morning. I could handle that!

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As you can see in the above picture, I used blueberries instead of peaches because that’s the only organic frozen fruit TJ’s carries (that’s where I went for my groceries this week). Peaches are very dirty fruit (pesticide wise) so I definitely was not going to buy the conventional kind to follow the recipe to the T. Blueberries are delicious in their own way, anyways. :grin:

I’ve actually made this baked french toast before and if you read here, you’ll see I liked it (last time I also used berries instead of peaches). This time I added more cinnamon to the batter and baked only 2 servings (allowing for extra room in the pan); the baguette pieces browned up nicely, but I thought the batter was a bit bland. :( It was delicious, but not OMG-I-can’t-wait-to make-i-again-but-for-now-I’ll-eat-both-servings-delicious. Could be a good thing ;) I’d add some sugar to the egg mixture, because it was almost savory, despite the fresh fruit and brown sugar on top.  A dollop of oikos was perfect on top!

LUNCH

Leftover chicken-butternut tagine

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Now that I knew what to expect and didn’t have crazy high expectations, I enjoyed it :)

SNACKS

This is where the proud moment comes in. I was in the Flour Bakery neighborhood and the day before decided that I was going to get their “granola bar.” Don’t be fooled by this name, this is a pastry, an incredibly delicious pastry!

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This thing was giant! As soon as I got it, I knew I should only eat half. It took a lot of will power, but I split it in half, and put the rest in a little ziplock baggie. I’ll definitely enjoy it another day :D

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Mid-afternoon I got a bit hungry and wanted to reach for the other half of the granola bar, but instead had a perfectly crunchy and juicy apple. A pastry is not a good way to satisfy hunger; an apple is!

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I’m SO proud of this rational thinking and very mindful eating. Don’t you guys think I deserve a medal for this one? :lol:

DINNER

I went to the gym after work (took a Group Power/boot camp hybrid class) so dinner had to be very quick if I was going to continue with healthy choices (Adam and I were both staaarving). It came together in seriously 5 minutes flat with the help of some leftovers :) I bought some wild cod at TJ’s on Wednesday, which I defrosted overnight. When dinner time came, I rubbed the fish with Zesty’s Texas chicken rub, and broiled it for a few minutes (the slices were very thin so that’s all it took). While the fish was broiling, I microwaved some leftover mushroom mashed potatoes and popped some fresh snap peas in the micro for 2 minutes with some S&P and red pepper flakes. Easy, healthy and delicious! :D

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Yum! :D

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After dinner, I finished the container with apple and carrot shortbread cookies (only a few little ones left) – unpictured. It was a great eating day and my attitude was the best part of it all. Eating mindfully and treating my body right feels gooood!! :mrgreen: Happy Friday!

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Don’t psych yourself out

September 24th, 2009 · 24 Comments · Boston, breakfast, fish, restaurant reviews, salad, snacks

I went for a run today. On my training schedule it read “45 minute tempo run.” I have a confession: I’m not only nervous about my upcoming half marathon, but recently I’ve been also getting nervous about my training runs. I feel like I should be able to do them perfectly, or else I’m going to miserably fail on race day (I don’t even know what “fail” means in this case… I guess that I’ll have the urge to walk the entire time and give in). So as I started doing my warm up walk, I started panicking a little bit. Will I be able to do it? What’s a tempo run really like outside (I usually do them on the treadmill for more precision)? All these negative thoughts about how there is no way this tempo run was happening today were going through my head. So instead of giving up, I changed gears. I told myself to just run for 45 minutes and not worry about pace. If I want to run super slow, it’s fine. As long as I’m running, that’s already a good thing I’m doing for my body… and for my half marathon training. Guess what? Once I got going, I totally got into it. I had my music on the highest volume, blasting Lady Gaga and Britney, and I ran… I ran faster than I’ve run in months! In 45 minutes I completed 5.24 miles – that’s 8:34 minute miles! I felt fantastic!! Was it a tempo run after all? Probably not. Was it a great run? Yes! So I think my message here is that you need to be flexible, and don’t psych yourself out. When I first started running, I hated it. I did it because I thought it would help me lose weight faster, so when I saw a run on my schedule, I’d often find an excuse and skip the gym that day. I bet if I went to a kickboxing class (or anything else) that day instead, the pounds would have come off faster. Oh well. You live, you learn :D

TODAY’S EATS:

Breakfast: banana oats topped with banana, raisins and walnuts + coffee

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It’s been too long since I’ve had oats (and bananas for that matter). This breakfast really hit the spot!

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Mid-morning snacks: 1/2 apple-walnut raisin bar from co-worker’s fiance (whom I had dinner with that night so I wanted to taste her cake to give feedback – that’s my excuse ;) ) + tea

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This cake tasted so moist and buttery. I was shocked to find out that she used this recipe was from Cooking Light and that there was absolutely no oil or butter. Seriously shocking!

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+ I made a dent in my bar collection and tried the Heart Thrive apricot bar:

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Wow, this bar was absolutely fabulous. First of all, who doesn’t love a heart shaped bar?! I was half-way sold just by the shape! Secondly, I really love dried apricots so again, I had high hopes for this guy – and it delivered! It was almost like a dense cookie. Very “meaty” – doughy, oaty (I know that’s not a real word :lol: ) with subtle dried fruit flavors. I have another one in the stash, and am already looking forward to it. It would be great just as an afternoon snack with a cup of tea. I really think they can market these as heart healthy cookies!

Lunch: leftover corn tortilla casserole (not as good the next day :( )

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Mid-afternoon snack: local peach :grin:

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Dinner was a bit of a special treat. I went out with my friend Katie (she’s also my co-worker’s fiance and baker of the above pictured apple cake :D ), whom I haven’t seen in months. We always end up at a great little restaurant and end up chatting the night away. This time we decided to go to Stephi’s on Tremont, a sister restaurant to a more upscale Stephanie’s on Newbury street. I started with a glass of The Drunken Goose sangiovese blend, which later turned into 2 glasses :mrgreen:

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… and had a little slice of this incredible garlic bread. Wow, this was bread perfection! Katie and I each took a little slice and moved this loaf to the other side of the table as to not tempt ourselves with it. Good stuff!

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For my entree I ordered the Asian yellowfin tuna salad - seared sashimi grade tuna with chilled udon noodles, charred hot cherry peppers, shredded carrots, cabbage and cucumbers, bean sprouts, spicy peanuts, toasted coconut and sweet chili dressing.

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This was another winner! The tuna really was of highest grade, and melted in my mouth. I got the dressings on the side, and actually ended up using the balsamic vinaigrette I asked for, which I think was a good move. I tasted the other dressings and they were all intensely sweet. I wanted to taste my food, not just sugar! I also loved the crunch of the peanuts and the freshness of the entire dish. Yum :D

Stephi’s has a huge salad selection, so I think it’s a great place to have lunch or dinner with a friend without overdoing it, calorie wise. They also have some incredible sounding comfort food, for a more indulgent night with the hubs. :) The place has been on my must-go-to list since it opened, and I’m glad I finally tried it. We’ll be back there soon, for sure! :D

Great great day. How was yours? Now tell me – do you have a workout schedule you try to stick to? How flexible are you with it? Do you ever get nervous about your workouts (or training runs) like I do? Any tips and tricks to keep going, instead of psyching yourself out? I want to hear from you!! :)

Have a fabulous day! :mrgreen:

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Interval training, taking it a minute (or 2) at a time

August 13th, 2009 · 15 Comments · Cooking Light, Ellie Krieger, Uncategorized, breakfast, dessert, fish, running, snacks

I planned on doing a post on interval training for a while – nothing technical, just my thoughts + experience. I know that some of you hate it with a passion, but I am a strong believer that that’s how you improve your endurance and speed in the long term. Those little bursts really do go a long way. They train your body and legs to move a little faster than they’re used to and push you slightly past your comfort zone… even if it’s just for a few minutes. A few of my friends and readers asked me how I started running and how to get past that certain mileage plateau.  I probably talked about how I started running before (if not, I’ll do a separate post on that) but on the latter question my answer is “Interval training!”

I personally love interval training! I love it not only for its benefits, but because it breaks down my workout into short little intervals. Instead of thinking about running for 30 minutes, for example, I think about running for the next 1/4 mile (~2 minutes). Of course I have to do it all over again once that interval is over, but I take it one interval at a time :) I actually look forward to these workouts because they always seem to fly by. On that note, I was just NOT feeling it yesterday. I got on the treadmill (by the way, I prefer the treadmill for interval runs because it’s a little more precise/ takes other variables out of the equation – although doing intervals outside is definitely a great workout too. Probably even harder.) and the second I started moving I was just “over it.” It wasn’t physical at all; I was running at the same speed as my previous runs and felt fine. I just felt mentally exhausted and wanted to get off asap. I knew I needed to fix my attitude, otherwise I’d be in for a torturous workout, so I got off the treadmill for a few minutes! I did a few laps around the perimeter of the gym and thought about how I was just planning on doing a post about how all you have to do to complete an interval run is take it a minute or 2 at a time. That’s it! It was quite ironic that this is the exact workout that seemed to defeat me and not the 8 mile run I completed on Sunday. I was going to tell you that you can do anything for 2 minutes, and then I realized… I can do anything for 2 minutes! So I got back on that treadmill and did just that! I had only 5 intervals left at this point (out of 7 I planned on). They were still not the super energetic ones I’ve had in the past, but I still completed my workout and felt great about it!

How I do my interval runs:

  • Warm Up: I start them like any other workout with a brisk walk to warm up my muscles. The walk after 0.20 miles (for some reason this seems to be the magic distance) becomes an easy jog for about 0.30 miles. Then I’m ready to start!
  • Intervals: Choose the number of intervals you will do that day and their distance. Yesterday I had 7×400 on my schedule (that’s 7 intervals ~ 1/4 mile long). You can start with a smaller number of intervals and increase them by 1 once or every other week. You can also do shorter or longer intervals (I’ve done 200 meters and 800 meters before; 400 is my favorite!). Set a pace that’s faster than you’re used to but that you’ll be able to do all those intervals at without dying ;) I used to do really fast ones when I was just running a few times a week and had plenty recovery time, but now I set it a little lower because I don’t want to completely kill my legs and risk injury during a run the very next day. So anyway, you do let’s say a 1/4 mile interval, then recover for as long as you need to (I usually recover between 0.15 and 0.25 miles). Recovery can be a brisk walk or a slower jog (for example my intervals yesterday were at 8.0 mph and recovery runs at 7.0). You may be breathing a little hard during your intervals, and the recovery period should get your breathing down to normal. Recovery intervals may also get longer as you get more tired. It’s okay! The point is to finish the number of (fast) intervals you planned on. It does get easier and when you get comfortable with the speed of those fast intervals, your recovery time will diminish. That’s when you know you need to increase the speed of your intervals (we’re all about challenging ourselves here, right?)!
  • Cooldown – I like to jog for a little bit longer after my planned interval session, and finish with a brisk walk again.
  • Stretch!

Hope this was helpful to some of you :D Onto food…

I had hummus for breakfast! This is a FFL english muffin with peanut butter hummus on the left half and maple walnut hummus on the right half (added a few walnut crumbles to that one for extra fat for satiety) + 1/2 banana and red grapes. Yum!

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Mid-morning snack: 1T almond butter + rainbow carrots (delicious, but NOT good running fuel, btw – partly responsible for my terrible run, it was just sitting like a rock in my stomach)

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Lunch: leftover mac and cheese + V8 vegetable juice + an organic apple

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Post work/pre-dinner snack: chocolate mousse hummus straight out of the container (I’m obsessed with this stuff!!!!!!!!! It tastes like black bean brownies)

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+ unpictured red grapes + a fudgy mocha brownie (dinner was only going to take 30 minutes but I was still starving and impatient, so I figured I’d have dessert first ;) )

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Btw, I brought a bunch of these brownies to work and everyone LOVED them! Boys that usually want the full fat stuff were going back for seconds. I think this is the first time I’ve got rave reviews from them. Usually they say my stuff “tastes healthy.” :?

So you’d think I spoiled my appetite for dinner with all of those snacks… nope! For dinner I followed this recipe from Cooking Light for seared mahimahi with edamame succotash. It used up 3 things our of our freezer (corn, edamame and yellowfin tuna) so I was happy about that, but also this dish was so flavorful! I absolutely loved the little marinade for the succotash and I learned a new trick on how to make roasted peppers. Sweet! The fish came out perfectly cooked as well. Overall – great success (say it with me in your best Borat accent :lol: )

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Mmm, perfectly marinaded veggies…

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And that’s Wednesday for ya! I’m super excited about meeting some bloggers at JP Licks today, then I’m off to a pre-wedding celebration for a co-worker of mine. My co-workers don’t know about the blog, so I probably won’t take any pictures. We’ll see… I may just tell them. :mrgreen:

How do you feel about interval training?

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Eating like an adult – responsibly

August 7th, 2009 · 11 Comments · Cooking Light, The Best Light Recipe cookbook, breakfast, dessert, fish, salad, salmon, snacks, sweet potato

First of all, thank you all SO much on your comments on my previous post! It sounds like most of you have seen yourself at a lower weight and realized that in fact, it’s not “worth it” to stay there, so you eased up a bit. Very interesting. I’m definitely more accepting of my body lately but I’m not going to pretend that the fact that I’ve been working out hard has nothing to do with it. I’m more accepting of my body because I think it’s looking better but also I am starting to truly question whether this “fight to be thin” is actually a road to more happiness or a self-destructive journey. It’s not so dramatic, really, but you get the point ;) I should also mention that you guys sure know how to flatter a girl. I was blushing reading most of the comments. :oops: It’s funny because I almost didn’t post that pic of myself, thinking that I looked terrible, but decided to go for it. I guess you liked it :lol: Thank you SO much! Perhaps everyone’s comments are starting to register too – maybe everyone is not wrong and I’m the one who’s setting expectations that are too high. I had a little story to tell you guys, but we’ll save it for another day – ok? :)

I ate really well today. By “well” I mean healthy AND delicious foods. I also made some choices I’m proud of. If you’ve been paying close attention, the last few days had more than 1 treat. I honestly was not beating myself up over it (hello, progress!) but I also would like to treat my body with respect and I think that 1 sugary/fatty treat a day is plenty.  So today I made a conscious choice to eat a lot cleaner. It was not about deprivation but rather moderation. I already bought a treat to enjoy tomorrow so I know it’s only a day away. I made a comment to my husband the other day that sometimes we need to stop eating like kids, who don’t think of consequences their food choices may have on their future bodies or health, and act like adults. Eating like an adult today to me meant that the chocolate chip cookie that I purchased at the farmers market will wait until tomorrow. I plan on fully enjoying it then with a nice cup of tea :D

The day’s eats:

Breakfast – 1 egg + 1 egg white + 1 sl. of American cheese + 1.5 sl. bacon on a Food for Life english muffin

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Pre-workout snack: local peach :)

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Lunch: baby spinach, grape tomatoes, cucumber, 1/4 avocado, 1/3 giant sweet potato + 1T Annie’s organic goddess dressing

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+ TJ’s 100 calorie dark chocolate bar (it was for the anti-oxidants ;) )

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Mid-afternoon snack: TJ’s ww low carb tortilla + 1 Barney Butter packet + 1/2 banana

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Dinner was spectacular! I was craving salmon and we haven’t had it in a while, so I decided to go to my go-to salmon recipe I raved about previously here (check out #8 of top 8 meals in 2008). In case you didn’t link there, this is the sweet-spicy glazed salmon from Cooking Light (recipe is available online here). I kind of think my salmon pic looks better ;)

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The green beans look unassuming in the back of that picture but they were beyond amazing too! I followed a recipe for skillet green beans with garlic and lemon from my current cookbook obsession :lol: The beans were a little spicy, saucy and so flavorful. I could eat a whole pound of them in one sitting – easy! :mrgreen:

And now we get to dessert. I haven’t caught the “raw food bug” but I was intrigued to taste the famous raw banana soft serve that’s been all over the blogosphere lately. I had 2 frozen bananas sitting in the freezer waiting to be used up for a green monster or banana bread, and this was the perfect opportunity to give them a new life :) After about 3 minutes in the food processor, the bananas became beautifully creamy and produced a delicious soft serve!

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Wow, that’s just bananas? That’s it? Yep! Amazing!!! Adam and I shared this portion. I couldn’t help but add a few walnut crumbles to “spice it up.” What a perfect way to finish a great meal… the healthy way!

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As you can see above, eating like an adult did not mean that there were no treats. The treats were just much healthier, so really it’s about balance.  That chocolate cookie definitely has my name on it tomorrow, though ;)

Hope you finish the work week strong and have some fun plans for the weekend! :cool:

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