Sick Day Essentials

If you follow me on Twitter, then you know that yesterday I was feeling less than my best. With the help of Airborne, Advil, and juice, I made it through both of my classes last night which enabled me to get information on my finals next week. However, this also meant that I was feeling pretty crappy as I dumped myself in bed.

This morning I woke up and knew there was no way I would be able to drag myself into work. The energy just wasn't there. And, despite feeling okay, my voice would have led anyone to believe that I was recovering from a tonsillectomy. I had raspy, scratchy man voice. Instead, I worked from home today which I was grateful for and am feeling at 75 - 80% which is a drastic improvement from the morning.

Here are a few of my go-to comforts when I'm feeling sick. Some are food related and others are more for taking care of my overall health.

- Odwalla Citrus-C Juice. Whether it's a mental effect or it actually helps, I only drink juice when I'm sick.

- The comforts of my couch and sweatpants

- The View

- Mugs of tea and water. Today I drank 2 Brita pitchers plus tea, juice, and coffee!

- Good clean foods. Today alone I have eaten a pear, salad, almost half a batch of soup, and baked beans, amongst other things. Is it possible to OD on veggies?!

- A good comforting soup. Today I was craving broccoli soup (broccoli has lots of Vitamin C) so I threw together this quick and easy soup for lunch (and snack, ahem...)

Creamy Broccoli Soup

• 2 chopped carrots
• 1/2 onion, chopped
• 3/4c frozen peas
• 1c frozen chopped spinach
• 4c frozen broccoli florets
• 1/4c uncooked brown rice (I used short grain)
• 4c vegetable broth

Chop your onion and carrots and add them to a non-stick sprayed pot.  Cook over medium-low heat for about 8 minutes or until onion has begun to soften. Add in the rest of your veggies, broth, and rice, and bring to a boil. Reduce to a simmer, cover your pot, and let simmer for 15 - 20 minutes, stirring occasionally. Remove lid and allow soup to cool for a few minutes. Transfer to blender and blend until smooth.

This recipe made 6 servings (1 cup servings) that clock in at 100 calories, .3g fat, 4.72g fiber. I had ~2 servings for lunch and another one at dinner. My body wanted the warm comforts of soup! I added hot sauce and a couple of crushed tortilla chips to it for crunch which was delicious!

What are your sick day essentials? What do you crave when you're sick? Soup, veggies, carbs?

Nerdy Little Book Worm

Once my crockpot was set I hunkered down and cranked out 3 hours of school work. Fun, right? I managed to soak up all of the information in one of my classes while successfully procrastinating accounting. It's becoming my mantra for the fall!

Lunch was a serving of baked beans with an English muffin - half topped with Earth Balance and half topped with tomato paste and red pepper spread.

I took a break when the timer rang to finish my soup in the blender. What did I make, you ask? Split pea soup! Since I have a baby crock pot (1.5 quarts - I got it at Target for $7!!) I halved the recipe and omitted the meat. To make up for the smokey flavor I added in paprika but otherwise I followed the recipe to a T.

I know I did other stuff somewhere in the afternoon but I guess we'll just call it schoolwork since I seem to have entered a memory lapsing vortex.

Somewhere around 5 I had a snack of a pear with a drizzle of nut butter and cinnamon.

And then dinner was a salad with the last drop of black beans and Food Should Taste Goods plus a serving of soup.

I finally tackled accounting and felt quite proud and accomplished when I finished. I snacked on a toaster waffle, unwound, and finally went to bed. I didn't realize until about 10pm that I had hunkered down and got to business and forgot to leave my apartment to run other errands. Whoops!

This morning I woke up to more clouds, rain, and cooler temps. Enter - PB&J hot cereal that I packed to take into work.

And with that I'm off. Monday's my long day so I'll see you all tomorrow unless the blogging bug bites :)

Do you ever get to wrapped up in what you're doing you forget about other "to-dos"? What's your favorite slow cooker recipe? Let's get a nice, gluten free collection of recipes started!

The Best Start to Fall

Can you believe it's the first day of fall? Celebrating Labor Day feels like just yesterday and now we're on the tail end of September! I guess if it has to be fall already, it might as well arrive in my favorite kind of way - with temperatures in the 90s! Way to go DC :-D

This morning my body wasn't quite sure what season it truly was. I craved a bowl of hot cereal but topped it with blueberries, 1/4 of peach diced, and almond butter drizzle. Mmmm.

Work flew by as I spent most of it in meetings that left my head spinning and tummy rumbling by the time we wrapped up. Insert a thrown together lunch of sorts - taco salad! On top of a bed of romaine and spinach I added roasted carrot, broccoli, and okra (what was in my fridge) and Mexican-inspired baked beans plus a toasted corn tortilla and some Cabot lite cheddar shredded.

The beans were super easy to make: I put 1 serving kidney beans and 1/2 serving of black beans in a bowl onto which I sprinkled cumin and chili powder, ketchup, BBQ sauce, mustard and garlic powder, and a tiny pinch of brown sugar. Stir. Microwave for 1.5 minutes, stir, and pour on top of your salad. Quick and easy (TWSS).

The afternoon flew by equally as quickly and a late afternoon meeting squashed my hopes of a triumphant return to pilates class. Drat. I snacked on the remaining 3/4 of a peach plus 1/3c of cereal for a snack before my meeting to prevent any hangriness.

Instead I stopped by Whole Foods for 3 items and left with only those 3 items in mind, plus a few nibbles O:-)

I decided to put to good use a huge batch of black beans I whipped up in the crock pot earlier this week and mark the start of fall with my first batch of soup of the season: Black Bean Soup! I've been craving it and finally had the time to cook.

Ingredients:

• 2c black beans
• 2 carrots, diced
• 1/2c onion, chopped
• 1/2c frozen bell pepper strips, roughly chopped
• 2.5 - 3c vegetable broth
• 1/3 teaspoon cumin
• garlic and chili powder to taste
• 1T soy sauce
• splash of balsamic vinegar
• 1 bay leaf
• 1/3 teaspoon oregano

First chop your carrot and onion. Heat a pan sprayed with non-stick spray and add your veggies. Add garlic powder and saute until soft. It may be helpful to add a couple tablespoons of water to ensure that you don't burn your veggies.

Once the onions are translucent add your beans, peppers, broth, and spices and bring to a simmer. Partially cover the pot with a lid and allow to simmer for 20 - 30 minutes, stirring occasionally.

When veggies are tender remove pot from heat and remove the bay leaf. Once the mix has cooled down a bit pour into your blender and roughly blend until mix is somewhat pureed. I wanted my soup to have a thicker feel so I did not puree until completely smooth. I also left a ladle-ful of soup in the pot unblended. Once you've blended your bean and veg mix, add it back to the pot, stir with remaining bean mix, and enjoy.

This made 4 ~1cup servings that clock in at 150 calories, .5g fat, 9g fiber, and 8g protein.


For dinner I had 1.5 servings on top of spinach and mixed veg alongside a slicee of Udi's toast with some cheddar. Plus a few random nibbles here and there - I couldn't get full!

The rest of the night was spent doing dishes, watching the return of Modern Family, and catching up on Glee which I skipped last night in favor of Biggest Loser. However, I wish I had caught Glee live as Biggest Loser was extremely slow - they spent 1hr 55minutes picking contestants and 2 teasing you with what's coming for the season. Those 2 minutes were the best part. Disappointing. Here's to hoping the season picks up - Biggest Loser is one of my favorite shows!


Alright, bed time for me. I've been sleeping horribly and am hoping to break the streak!


What are your favorite TV shows? Have season premieres impressed or disappointed so far this week? Glee and Modern Family were amazing, BL10 disappointing, and I cannot wait for Grey's Anatomy tomorrow!!

Flying through the week

I can't believe that it's already Thursday. Between work, the wonderful warm weather we've been having in DC, and sunshine, time is flying! No complaints from this girl.

In case you missed it, check out my thoughts on coping with food allergies at my alma mater as compared to some really innovative options at some Boston schools. It's just some food for thought :-)

I couldn't wait to dive into my first breakfast post-Pesach. It was PBJ-reffic with it's BRM and buckwheat whole grain goodness.

For lunch I had this bad boy to tackle. No, I'm not lying - that is almost a full ream of paper of nominations for a committee of which I'm a part of.

I decided to treat myself to lunch and finish up this reading someplace where I wouldn't be faced with too many distractions and background noise. I opted for a favorite Thai restaurant near work since I'd been craving it since Passover started. I got the pad thai tofu with steamed tofu and it was delicious.

That is, until my stomach started hurting as I finished up my serving (only ate about 1 and a quarter cups). Any lingering thoughts about the state of my gluten intolerance vs. celiac status flew out the window as I had the realization that I'm probably celiac and must now be extra extra careful if and when I eat out (which is sometimes the one time I'm less vigilant in my food choices).

My pain cleared up and I was ready for a snack around 5 - had a Fuji apple with cinnamon and PB drizzle.

And, in case I'm not already obsessed and boring you with these pictures, I whipped up a 3rd batch of Spring Greens Soup. This batch contained:

• spinach
• spirulina
• 2 small red potatoes
• 1/2 a large carrot, chopped
• 1/2 head of cauliflour
• broccoli

All blended together for a beautiful green color. And, it tasted pretty good, alongside a salad w/ roasted beets and a few green olives.

I went for a leisurely stroll after dinner and was quite content until about 10 when I needed to take some medicine. I'm supposed to eat something with it so I had a small piece of a new kind of bread (containing brown rice, millet, teff, and other GF whole grain goodness) with some Earth Balance and called it a night.

This morning I enjoyed another bowl of PBJ hot cereal and it's now off to work!

What are you most looking forward to this weekend?

Fabulous Friday

All around, I'd say that today was a fantastic day. It can't be anything but great when new cookware is involved!

Let's rewind though to recap the day.

I was anxious to give my almond milk a fair try this morning in my hot cereal. In the mix:

• 1/4c mix of BRM hot cereal and buckwheat
• 3/4c water
• 1/4c unsweetened vanilla almond milk
• 1/4c thawed frozen blueberries
• 1/2T chia seeds
• drops of sugar-free syrup
• cinnamon
• 1/2T mix of PB and AB

It was a pretty delicious bowl of grains. The consistency was fluffier and creamier than they normally are and I was pretty satisfied when I finished the bowl. I have noticed that my cereal with the sweet potato holds me over until lunch much better than without.

I had a quick morning with a couple of meetings that all went well. I munched on an apple in between and treated myself to lunch at Java Green. It might look like pond scum but this Green Soup was actually fantastic. It's been cold and extremely windy and hot soup sounded like the perfect remedy. The soup had kale, broccoli, kimchi, edamame beans, and rice in a spirulina (seaweed) broth. it was warm, flavorful, and nourishing. No shame in finishing off the whole thing 9this bowl x2.5!

 

  

 

And a special, Harry Potter-esque finish: the spirulina in my  bowl reminded me of divination class where he had to read his tea leaves.

The afternoon went by quickly and I treated myself to these as a fun little snack. Not such a filling pick but it's what I was craving.

After work I met up with my friend, R, for drinks before another gathering we were supposed to go to. We both had a glass of Cabernet Savignon but I only drank about half of my glass. Wine and pain medications don't mix so well. We also had a mini photo shoot at the bar. I'll spare you details and just share the highlights:

 

Our other gathering turned out to be a major fail so instead, I dragged R with my to buy some new cookware (I guess technically baking...) for a couple of projects I have planned for tomorrow. We managed to entertain ourselves, quoting Old School along the way and having ourselves a grand old time.

My foot really began to throb so it was time to head home for some more meds and ice, with dinner thrown in. The only thing that sounded good was an egg sandwich, which I had alongside the last 1/4c of baked beans and a pear drizzled with chocolate PB.

I also picked up an amazing package from my front desk today. A couple of weeks ago I won a contest on Facebook and was awarded cereal for a week from Nature's Path. I tore open the box to discover these treasures inside:

I am so excited to try all of these different cereals, and share my feedback with you too!

Good food, good friends, new cookware, and new treats = fantastic Friday if I do say so myself. Here's to a great weekend!

Facelift and Feeback

A while back, I read this article about Whole Foods promising to return to its roots of good, nutritious food in the year 2010. In recent years, foodies, gourmets, and health nuts alike have been able to shop the store for quality products as well as specialty items that the store carries. As a loyal customer (both because of their plethora of gluten free products and quality, healthful foods) I am excited to see how the stores transform throughout the year and refocus on food health.

Which leads me to my own feeling of needing a bit of change. I think that I am on the cusp of a food rut, and can only imagine that y'all are sick of seeing the same things throughout the week. Part of that is due to time (especially now that I'm working full time) and also because of favorite ingredients.

I am thinking about mixing things up a bit by trying one new healthy recipe each week using a lesser-used or new ingredient. What do you think? What's your favorite recipe that is (or could be) gluten, fish, and seafood free?

I really would love to get your feedback in general about the blog and am inviting you to comment, make suggestions, share recipes, and more! Whether you share your ideas privately or in the comments section is up to you!

In the spirit of mixing things up a bit, yesterday's dinner, while random, was a collection of foods with 2 new items. Craving veggies, I steamed some carrots to have alongside roasted kale chips, a black bean taco, and some egg drop soup.


Kale Chips
1/2 bunch kale, washed and dried, stemmed and cut in 2 - 3 inch pieces
salt, pepper, garlic to taste
canola oil non-stick spray

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Line a baking sheet with foil. Place kale on the baking sheet and spray with cooking spray. Season with salt, pepper, garlic powder and cook for 15 - 20 minutes until crisp.

Vegetarian Egg Drop Soup
1 cup low sodium vegetable broth
1/4c corn
~ 1 T liquid egg whites
1 T GF soy sauce
garlic powder, red chile flakes

Combine broth, corn, soy sauce, and spices in a small sauce pot and bring to a boil. Once boiling, slowly drizzle in egg whites, stir, and reduce to a simmer for another 2 minutes. You may also want to add more pepper or salt, depending on taste.



Off to be productive on a sunny yet cold Saturday. It feels nice to have a day claimed for me to get some errands and cleaning done! I had an apple plus an egg white sandwich for breakfast and am now off to be productive.

Have a good day!