Archive for February, 2013

February 28th, 2013

Thursday Things

by Tiff

Today’s post is a quickie, but there were just a few really small but really good things worth sharing.  And by “a few,” I actually mean five.

1. Yesterday’s workout started with a cold, early walk with the hubby. He even carried the flashlight.  What a gentleman.

walk

2. Despite the hat hair from my bundled walk, my hair turned out pretty well.  Not bad for not even washing it, eh?  Good hair days make everything better.

thursday

3. I made it out of the health food store for under $30!  Woohoo!  Lots of natural a/o organic goodies, and I even picked up turkey meatballs for Kev (half a pound free)!  Okay… the ice cream wasn’t free, or even on sale, but who can pass up mint chocolate chip???

earth fare

4. The grocery stop lead to this awesome dinner.  Well, Kevin’s was awesome.  Mine was just good, but hey – still better than bad!

meatball    chicken wrap

5. Lastly, Game of Thrones: Season Two finally arrived yesterday.  Thanks Netflix!  I watched the entire disk last night… oh wait, the jerks only put two episodes on a disk.  Sigh… oh well, at least I have something to look forward to.  Bring on disk two!

netflix

I hope you guys are having a nice Thursday.  What’s been making your week special?

February 27th, 2013

Hey Baby, What Did You Eat Wednesday?

by Tiff

“Hey Baby” is right!  Did you all hear the news?  Jenn, the lovely WIAW party host, just announced this week that she is expecting a little one.  Congrats to her and her family!

It’s the last WIAW of February.  Can you believe it?  Time flies, eh?  I wasn’t loving my workout or my eats yesterday, so lets skip back to Monday’s instead.  Mkay?  (I actually just didn’t have photos of most of yesterday’s eats anyway.  Bad blogger, bad!)

First Breakfast: rice cake with peanut butter (followed by a 3-mile run with a warm up, incline intervals, and cool down plus a new back/biceps workout I hope to share soon)

treadmill

Second Breakfast: protein oats with berries (this never gets old)

oats

Snack: 10 raw almonds

Lunch: cabbage soup (this should last about 4 days)

soup

Snack: 1 egg and 1 pink lady apple (fiber + protein + delicious)

Dinner: 1/2 baked pork chop, baked sweet potato, and nature’s candy (aka – roast Brussels sprouts)

sprouts

Snack: olive tapenade hummuz crispz (if you’re wondering, yes… it bugged the heck out of me to intentionally misspell both “hummus” and “crisps”)

hummuz

  • Brussels, yay or nay?
  • Best thing you ate so far this week?
February 26th, 2013

Sometimes things just work

by Tiff

Ever have a couple ingredients you’ve been wanting to use, a fridge of leftovers, and a dinner to make?  Yup.  We’ve all been there, haphazardly throwing things together and hoping for the best.

Sometimes it flops, but other time, it works oh so well.  Luckily, Sunday night was the latter.

hot

I had a hard time naming this recipe.  In fact, I didn’t measure ingredients or have much of a plan when I started.  Whenever I decide to make it again, I’ll be sure to update with real measurements.  Actually, I’ll also be doubling the recipe!

I know the pictures don’t do it justice, but if I had known it would be so tasty, I would have retrieved the better camera!

dinner

Kitchen Sink Enchilada Tacos  (serves 2-3)

Ingredients

  •  2 small/medium chicken breasts, cut into large chunks
  • 1 TBS olive oil
  • 1/2 medium yellow onion, diced
  • 2 jalapenos, diced
  • 8 oz frozen spinach, defrosted and drained
  • 1/2 can diced tomatoes with juices
  • 4 or 5 chipotle peppers, diced
  • 1-2 tsp cumin
  • shredded cheese to your liking (I used about 3/4 cup lite Mexican blend)
  • 5 small wraps, TJ’s Reduced Carb tortillas are perfect

Directions

  1.  Bring a medium pot of water to boiling.  Add chunks of chicken and boil until thoroughly cooked, approximately 15 minutes.  You can do this while defrosting your spinach or chopping the vegetables.
  2. Heat oil in a pan on medium, and add onion.  Cook 3-4 minutes, and add jalapeno.  Continue cooking until vegetables soften.  Add the spinach, diced tomatoes, chipotle peppers and cumin.   Stir and let simmer on low or medium-low.
  3. Once chicken has cooked through, remove it from the pot and shred or cut it into small pieces.  Add the chicken to the veggie pan.
  4. Although I baked my wraps in a square Pyrex dish, I think these would be just as good simply wrapped as soft tacos.  They’re not saucy enough to justify baking, but I happen to think most things taste better out of the oven.  Don’t forget the cheese!

By the way, these were the two fun ingredients I wanted to use.  One is from TJ’s, and one isn’t.  Both are friggin’ amazing.  Yup, I think I’ll double this recipe next time I make it.

tj    

  • What was your last kitchen sink meal?

 

February 25th, 2013

Sometimes You Feel Like a Nut

by Tiff

Sometimes you feel like a nut; sometimes you don’t.

I felt a bit like a workout nut on Friday.  I was really banging out my shoulders with high-rep pyramid sets while working my abs for active rest.  It felt pretty good!  Another regular told me I was “lookin’ jacked.”  Saaawheeeeeet!  I may not be trying to get totally “jacked,” but I was happy my hard work is paying off.

arm love

arm love

Of course, then came Saturday.  I should have worked out first thing in the morning, but I didn’t.  Kevin and I met a guy who wanted to buy our boat, and sadly, the sale occurred at the exact same time as my favorite spin class.

bye boat

bye bye boat – gonna miss her!

Figures.  After running a few errands in the rain on the way home, we stopped into Panera to warm up a bit.

bread

bread bowl of happiness

You can imagine how I didn’t exactly feel like working out after all that bread and French onion soup!  So I skipped.  Like I said, sometimes you don’tJillian was there waiting for me Sunday morning before Kevin was even out of the bed.  Get ‘er done.

jm

a little Sunday sweat never hurt anyone

Side note… anyone tried these babies yet?  Ohmahgaw, y’all…. so good!  Picked one up at TJ’s yesterday for 69 cents.

zbar

Zbars for kids are good for Tiffs too

By the way – the winner of the Mediterranean Snacks giveaway is Kammie @ Sensual Appeal.  Email me at lovesweatandbeers at yahoo.com for your goodies!

  • Tried any good new foods?
  • Did you work out this weekend?
February 22nd, 2013

Mediterranean Snacks Giveaway

by Tiff

Happy Friday!  Oh geeze – so glad the weekend is finally upon us… or at least pretty close.  Come on five o’clock!

Have you ever had those hangry days where you just can’t get full?  Yeah… hate those.  I had one yesterday.  I started my work day at Starbucks, and though I stuck to my nonfat latte, I think maybe the smell of everyone’s toasted bagels, warm oatmeal, etc. started me off on the wrong foot.

starbucks

I had an early lunch, followed by an afternoon snack shortly after noon.  Dangit.

Luckily the mailman rescued me by delivering a lovely box of healthy snacks.  Woohoo!  Mediterranean Snacks kindly sent me a few goodies to try.  (And Cleo kindly cat-bombed my photo…)

snacks

I tried two kinds of Hummuz Crisps, olive tapenade (which I was soooooo excited about) and roasted garlic.

hummuz

Both crisps were really good, but I have to admit, they weren’t as flavorful as I was expecting.  I think they’d be great with dips though, like a feta dip, tapenade, or even hummus.  Yeah yeah yeah, they’re made with chickpea flour (Gluten Free), so there’s already some chickpea flavor going on there, but I’m hummus-crazy like that.

medsnax

I know, I know… this is great new for me and my hungry belly, but what’s in it for you?  Well a giveaway, of course!  You have all weekend to try and win a mixed case of Mediterranean Snacks® Baked Lentil Chips® or Lentil Crackers or HummuZ crispz™!  Here’s how to enter:

  • MANDATORY: Go and “like” the Mediteranean Snacks Facebook page, and leave a comment letting me know you did.
  • OPTIONAL: Follow @medsnax on Twitter, and comment letting me know you did.
  • OPTIONAL: Follow me on Twitter @LoveSweatBeers, and comment letting me know you did.
  • OPTIONAL: Tweet about the giveaway with a link back to this post.  Comment about that too.

Have a great weekend!

THIS GIVEAWAY HAS CLOSED