So I forgot to take my camera and iphone today when I went to work. I guess I’m still in vacation mode. Doh I know – a big blogger no-no. Have you ever done that? I felt so naked all day. Not only did I not have my camera and was unable to take my food pictures, I can’t check my personal email from work so I felt disconnected from the world (I had over 50 new emails when i finally picked up my phone!!). As far as food pics – luckily I took a picture of dinner last night (and ate the leftovers for lunch). I’ll have to describe my snacks to you, okay? Let’s start with dinner since today is CEiMB Thursday.

This week’s recipe for grilled zucchini roll-ups with herbs and cheese (recipe here) was hosted by My Table, Their Table. Some CEiMB members make their weekly recipe on the weekend and just post them on Thursdays but since my blog is journal-like, I typically am “forced” to make the chosen recipe actually on Thursday. The grilled zucchini roll-ups sounded great but I knew I needed to make something else for dinner to bulk them up. Enter – big salads!

I’m not going to lie – these babies were even smaller than I anticipated and were kind of a pain in the ass to make. I think it I had all day to make them and was lucky enough to use a real grill instead of a tiny grill pan (thus necessitating 4 batches, with a “break” to stop the fire alarm from beeping) and then leisurely rolling them, it could be fairly easy. I mean all you have to do is slice the zucchini (I used a mandoline), grill them, then stuff them, right? Time was not my friend today, so I kind of got flustered and gave up on the mid-way. We didn’t need that many for dinner anyway and the rest of the zucchini ribbons could just be used in a de-constructed salad.

I used fresh thyme instead of parsley, and cut the fresh basil into ribbons. I also apparently used more filling than 1/2teaspoon/roll since I ran out of the goat cheese after making only 9 rolls (see above). The biggest test is of course the taste test. What did we think? I LOVED them! Well I love all the ingredients individually so it was a no-brainer, really. Adam liked them too but thought they had too much cheese (I guess Ellie’s proportions would have been right up his alley since he basically scraped a bunch of the goat cheese out. The horror. ). Overall I’d recommend this recipe if you are able to take your time.

With the roll-ups I served us some fun salads – arugula, cherry tomatoes, ham, grilled zucchini, cannellini beans, pine nuts and goat cheese. Drizzled with some lemon juice and a teaspoon of EVOO.

I liked this dinner but I’ll admit it was more “me” than “Adam.” I think the chef gets to be selfish once in a while, no?

Rewind to…

BREAKFAST

Ww toast with nutella + coffee

Yes, I’m on a nutella kick now after vacation.

+ a green monster – skim milk, frozen spinach, frozen banana, frozen strawberries, almond butter, ice, xantham and guar gums. Yum!

LUNCH

Leftover cuban inspired mac & cheese (recipe based on the Pink Apron original). I had to healthify it, though, so for 4 servings I used 8oz pasta, 4 oz lite mexican blend cheese, 1T butter and 2/3 of the rest of the ingredients. Oh and I didn’t realize that we ran out of eggs so I omitted them and I used skim evaporated milk instead of whole. It turned out pretty yummy (leftovers were actually better than fresh). The pickles were awesome in this version of mac&cheese. Trust me!

WORKOUT

I worked out for the first time in 6 days today! The last time was my favorite yoga class last Thursday and I went back to it today. I brought all of my workout gear to Aruba but it just didn’t happen. I felt surprisingly tight at first (like I’m sore from working out too much, haha maybe lifting those drinks was a workout after all) but eventually relaxed and got into it. I hope to get a real sweaty workout tomorrow. I am way overdue!!

SNACKS

1 orange, 1 small packet of sommersaults, 1 nut box from Tatte (it’s my treat every few months – today was the day) and lastly another ww toast with nutella. I kind of felt guilty for overdoing it in the sweets dept today but they all did taste amazing so I’m hoping tomorrow I’ll just naturally crave cleaner eats. Let’s cross our fingers for that.

All right, sorry for the lack-luster post. I have lots of topics I’d like to post about but it’s not in the cards today. You’ll just have to check back here soon. My bed is calling my name. Gnight!

The first thing I did this morning (after making some coffee) was to google what that meant. Eek, maybe not the best idea! People out there have some whacky interpretations, although I did find that it’s a very common dream. Have you had it before? Not fun, not fun at all. Some interpretations did say that it means you may be worried about expressing something and that your voice may not be heard. Before going to bed last night, I was prepping for a presentation in front of our credit committee. Maybe I was worried about that? I plan on kicking ass during committee today – no need to lose any teeth over it.

Now let’s rewind back to yesterday’s eats. It was one lazy day!

BREAKFAST

Mashed banana, pb & j sammie on a FFL english muffin + coffee

+ 2 coconut macaroons

[all together = 430 calories]

LUNCH

Mixed greens, pinto beans, avocado, corn, salsa and grilled shrimp

I cooked the shrimp on the George Forman grill… quite the set-up!

The salad was awesome. If I can make a healthy meal like that without a kitchen, anyone can!

[330 calories]

SNACK

Power bran muffin + Barney Butter

This guy was the last one in the freezer from a batch I made last month

Barney Butter – I’m all out now

There was about 2.5T left. I made sure to get every bit left.

[439 calories]

[180 calories]

DINNER

Ham, avocado + dijon mustard on ww pane + a half-sour pickle and baby carrots

So, so good…

GETTING SNACKY AT NIGHT

[70 calories]

[73 calories]

[200 calories]

Do you ever remember your dreams? Ever tried to figure out what they meant?

So here is the deal – I’m stress eating veggies right now. I guess it could be worse!

Adam and I just got back from a really awesome dinner (guess what kind? haha) and a few moments after plopping myself on the couch, I went back for the leftovers. So good! I’ll post about dinner separately. The pictures came out too good to be buried in this monster of a post you’re about to read (hopefully, lol).

So let’s go back to my reason for stress eating… prior to dinner we went to a tile store to pick out the back splash for our kitchen. We actually knew exactly what we wanted to see (saw pictures online, fell in love with them, basically planned the rest of our kitchen around them) and wanted to see the tiles in real life before forking over the big bucks. Here is what we came to see (the tile on the left)…

The 3 little squares on the wood (which is a model cabinet door of our kitchen) are the countertop colors we were trying to pick out. We loved the different colors all combined together in a tile mosaic, but I thought the brown in the tiles looked too cold compared to the warm cherry wood cabinets. Starting over…

Tiles, tiles, everywhere!

Which one would you choose?

We finally picked the tile in the middle (the monochromatic look actually looked super sleek!) but it looked light blue in the store and looks lifeless in my pics! What we actually thought we picked out looked more like this (but a little lighter)…

Blue-ish gray, right? Well in real life it looked super blue (too blue!!). I’m freaked out. Did my camera capture the wrong light or is the lighting in that store completely distorted? The tile we picked out was called “gray” but it looked blue-ish in the showroom. Will it actually look like boring gray in our house? Ok so basically that’s why I’m freaking out and eating veggies. Yeah, you don’t want to be in my head sometimes!

KITCHEN REMODEL UPDATE PICS

There was more improvement on the kitchen than just me confusing the hell of myself and Adam trying not to get too frustrated with my indecisiveness. We now have recessed lights!!

And the light switches have been relocated. Awesomeness!

We also have our electricity back! Oh the simple things in life…

FOOD

Aside from reading a little more about dSLRs…

Yes, I am a digital SLR dummy! … I’ve also been eating. I’ve been eating some handmade chocolate truffles…

Chocolate coconut macaroons (ok, actually one macarooN)..

… and (whoa) real food too! Note: this is food from the last 2 days.

BREAKFAST

Yesterday: yogurt with oats, banana slices, pomegranate seeds and pecans + coffee

This morning: Au Bon Pain whole grain bagel with sundried tomato cream cheese and tomato + coffee

I haven’t had a bagel in ages. This tasted like heaven!

LUNCH

Yesterday: Niman Ranch ham, cucumbers and hummus on TJ’s whole wheat Tuscan Pane + baby carrots

This sandwich was the bomb! Cucumbers and hummus are amazing together. I can picture little tea sandwiches on soft bread with just cucs and hummus. Mmm…

Today’s lunch: 

I put this together with food that was rescued from our backyard after our fridge was working again (Adam took all the food outside in the cold last night since it was colder there than in our apt). Not sure if I was brave or stupid to do this. Still tasted great!

brown rice + pinto beans + Niman Ranch ham

and grape tomatoes + cucumbers in nonfat yogurt, S&P (this is a Russian classic, typically made with sour cream. The yogurt works great too!)

SNACKS

Can you say food porn? 1/2 banana with Barney Butter

Clif zbar chocolate brownie

It was actually REALLY good! A little small though, so I’m calling it a snack instead of dinner.

DINNER

Horrible pictures – delicious food! This is a few bites I got at Samurai last night.

Ika sansai: squid salad with mango, mountain string beans and vinegar

This was so incredibly flavorful! The squid was marinated with lots of ginger and lemon. I actually couldn’t taste the mango but seriously – the squid was the best!

Sunomono – seaweed and cucumbers served in lightly seasoned rice vinegar

As you can see, I ordered it with seafood, which was very lightly grilled (basically raw). This was NOT seaweed and I did not enjoy whatever veggie it was because of the weird rice vinegar but the fish was great. I love sushi!!

So that’s my past 2 days in a nutshell (except for tonight’s dinner which you’ll see tomorrow). I was working until nearly midnight last night (with that short break for dinner) so I am definitely ready for bed tonight.

Sorry for the information overload here. What can I say, I like to “talk.” Who’s ready for the weekend?!!!