I <3 Frozen Yogurt!

Can’t believe the weekend is almost over! Where did it go?

Breakfast was non-fat plain Chobani with raspberries and blueberries. It was a little too bland for me, so I added some Bonne Maman jam too. Is it just me or does Chobani seem thicker than it used to be? I was so full after this big bowl!

Lunch was a spinach salad with mushrooms, grape tomatoes, herbed tofu, and feta cheese.

Then it was time for us to head out of the house. We took a drive by the house that my sister-in-law bought last week! It was cute and in a nice area. I’m excited to see the inside now.

After that, we went to Mayfair Mall to check out the laptops.

I’ll definitely be getting one of these very soon. The reason that I didn’t buy it today was because I want to clean some items off of my current iBook a bit more before having the Apple store transfer items to the new computer.

I played with Photobooth for a while. 🙂

Then it was ice cream/frozen yogurt time in Wauwatosa!

Craig and I are signed up to get a free scoop of ice cream from Baskin Robbins for our birthdays. He picked out cherry and it was tasty!

Right near Baskin Robbins, there is a new frozen yogurt place! It just opened in June of this year. After becoming a bit obsessed with frozen yogurt in Florida, we longed to have a place like Menchie’s or Pinkberry in Wisconsin. We finally have it with Yo Mama!

Here’s how it works:

Craig always goes for the fruity combinations and I go for chocolate, caramel, etc. Today, I chose Dulce de Leche and Cake Batter swirl. I topped it with heath bar crumble, brownie bites, & cookie dough. Fantastic combination!

Our total for two came to $8.31, which this numbers freak got excited about because my birthday is 8/31 and I love when it pops up unexpectedly at a cash register like that. I know, I am a dork. The yogurts were 45 cents per ounce.

The interior is cute and reminded us of Menchie’s in Orlando, Florida.

Love the wood on the exterior.

I’ve come to the conclusion that I could open up my own frozen yogurt place and just eat it all the time that way. 🙂

We walked down the street and I was reminded that I still need to check out the French Cafe Le Reve and the olive oil place next door sometime.

What a great afternoon with Craig!

I needed to burn off some of the frozen yogurt, so after a little cat nap with Karma sprawled out on my lap, I hit the gym. I biked for 25 minutes (my ankle is not in tip top shape again, so biking is mainly what I have been doing lately) and lifted weights. I even went to the “men’s weight” area and used the barbells in there to do some Body Pump moves. I was so proud that I broke through my fear of going in that area. Now I’ll never be scared again (I hope).

This is so wrong, but while I meditated, I started craving a BLT. Well, we didn’t have any bacon, so I was imagining a tempeh BLT sandwich and that’s what I made!

Like frozen yogurt, tempeh reminds me of Florida because the first and only other time I tried it was while we were there in February. I had it in my Whole Foods salad bar creation and I liked it then.

I cooked it up on the stove and topped it with spinach, mayo, and roma tomatoes.

Time to go watch a movie, since I have been half ignoring it and half paying attention.

How was your weekend?

Lunch at the Milwaukee Public Market

I was so excited when I woke up this morning and realized it was my Friday since I am off for the next four days! I have a huge list of various things I want to do over the long weekend, but I also want to build in some relaxation time.

Breakfast this morning was my usual yogurt and coffee. All week, I have been eating Chobani with the strawberry rhubarb crisp and it’s been great to look forward to and has filled me up. Today was the first day I didn’t eat that combination. I guess I don’t easily get sick of certain foods.

Even though it was super gloomy and windy out today, I decided to head over to the Milwaukee Public Market for lunch. It was jam packed in there, which was great to see!

I picked up a Turkey, Apple, Brie panini at the West Allis Cheese and Sausage Shoppe.

It was pretty good–I liked the flavor combination, but I could see adding mustard and arugula too.

This was my view during lunch.

I didn’t people watch because I read Water for Elephants instead. I am 70% through and I hope to finish it tomorrow!

I also dropped off a cooking class registration at the main office of the market. I signed up for the June and July Summer Harvest classes. The recipes sounded really delicious! We’ll learn how to cook recipes with “vegetables, herbs and fruits grown in Wisconsin at the peak of their flavors.” There are three total classes, but I didn’t want to sign up for August until I really know if I like the teacher. I’ll risk it being sold out by the time I decide to sign up. The only other cooking class I took at the Market was a couple of years ago and it really inspired me to think about what I was putting in my body. The teacher was excellent and I loved the recipes. That class was where I first learned about quinoa!

Of course, while at the market, one must pick up dessert from one of the various yummy bakeries. I chose a Peanut Butter Buddy from the C. Adams bakery.

I left work early today and picked up these books from the library. I want to buy the weight lifting book, but I like to preview books from libraries before I fully commit. The cookbooks were recently featured in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel Food section, so I figured they would be great to put on reserve and check out. I’ll let you know how all three are, because I hope to look through them all this weekend.

Dinner was just a vegetarian Qdoba burrito. I only ate half and then I didn’t feel so good from it, so I ended up skipping yoga. Boo. Need to get to the gym tomorrow because I miss it!

Time to go read some other blog posts–I have way too many blogs in my google reader. Isn’t it hard to keep up if you follow a lot of bloggers?

Speaking of bloggers–most of you will probably be very interested in this NY Times article. It’s titled, “My Blog Is Also Paying My Bills.” It features Molly Wizenberg who wrote A Homemade Life, which I am currently reading in between Water for Elephants. The best quote from the article is “I tell people if they want to start a blog just to make money, they should quit right now. You have to love it and be passionate about your topic.”

Addicted to Chobani and Quinoa

I am sure most bloggers do what I do and look at how people searched to ultimately land that searcher on their blog. Someone searched “chobani addiction” today and landed on my site! This search led me to believe that in fact, that searcher may be correct, I have a Chobani addiction. I eat it every day and miss it when I don’t eat it. But, I have been like this about yogurt since I was about five years old. Yogurt really does seem like the one food that helps my Ulcerative Colitis too.

So, I titled my post “addicted to Chobani and Quinoa” because I feel like I have been eating a lot of both lately and never seem to tire of either.

I had a good Monday! It helped to see the sunshine out after a gloomy weekend. I was busier at work than I have been recently, which I like because then the day goes by more quickly.

Had an excellent breakfast of Chobani plain yogurt with fresh blueberries, chia seeds, & raspberry Bonne Maman preserves (miss my Wild Blueberry, but these will do).

At work, I snacked on some banana bread before going into a meeting and I am glad I did because the meeting went on longer than I wanted it to.

Lunch was blue corn chips, a ham and cheese sandwich and an apple, carried to work in my new apple cozy thingie. 🙂

I also had some Trader Joe’s dark chocolate for dessert and some almonds in the afternoon.

I went to the gym after meditating and did a full circuit of weights plus biked 11.17 miles over 31 minutes. I wanted to do more and had the energy, but it was getting late and I had to eat dinner. I seriously wish I could spend two hours plus at the gym sometimes, but just need to manage my time and probably could only do that on the weekends.

When I was bored and lived in alone in California, I did go to the gym for two plus hours because I enjoyed my time at the UC Berkeley gym so much and I really needed the exercise high from the low I felt living there every day.

I cooked up quinoa with various veggies and chickpeas for my dinner. Craig also had his version with chickpeas, red peppers and tomatoes. He’s not too keen on my feta cheese, artichokes and kalamata olives.

I didn’t clean a lot over the weekend, so I accomplished something tonight by doing dishes and vacuuming. I hate having a dirty house. I can deal with piles and some things not being organized, but I hate seeing dirt in the form of dishes lying around and dirty surface areas.

That’s all I have for today. Hope you had a good Monday!

Yoga at work

Thank you all for your sweet comments about my ankle. Love how supportive the blog world is. 🙂 It means a lot to me.

I woke up in pain this morning, probably around 3 or 4 a.m. and then it was hard to sleep after that. Made for a tough morning at work!

Breakfast was Crunchy Nut cereal and coffee.

At work, I snacked on some almonds and I had part of a french cream baked good someone brought in. I needed comfort food after feeling pretty down about my ankle.

Lunch was an Amy’s Vegetable Lasagna and an apple. The frozen meal was really good.

We had our first yoga class at work today and it was great to do yoga in the middle of my work day. Especially because my back had been twisted in a weird way sitting at my desk all morning. Kind of strange to do yoga with co-workers, but you get over that fact quickly when you focus on feeling good and stretching. I am so thankful that my workplace is focusing on health and wellness programs now.

I wore my ASO ankle brace and that helped. I felt pain in certain poses, but it really wasn’t that hard to do yoga with the injury. I tend to believe that yoga will help, not hinder me. I made the mistake of not exercising a lot when I went through the same thing last February and then the physical therapist said that my ankle was so weak as a result.

After yoga, I went to a meeting and then I decided to leave early and use sick time for the rest of the day. I couldn’t elevate my leg properly or keep icing it at work, plus I was super tired. Not sure why I am making excuses for myself, but people probably think it’s weird I went home because of a sprained ankle. Let’s just say sitting at my desk and having my left leg propped to the side and then twisting my body towards my computer wasn’t so much fun! I also may take off tomorrow so I can rest some more and properly take care of myself.

I went to the gym tonight to lift weights and bike. I did some of my old physical therapy exercises too. Biking wasn’t so hard because I put most of the pressure on my right side instead of on my left.

Dinner was just pepperoni pizza. You know what that looks like, so I didn’t bother with a photo!

Ok, this post is all about my boring ankle, but that is what consumed my day I guess. Onto more fun things…

I ordered the 3G Kindle tonight! Bummer that I couldn’t use the $50 in gift cards that were attached to my account because I received the bonus $25 gift card free with the mother’s day promotion. Oh well. Craig and I have a bunch of things we want to order, so we’ll use that $50 on those items.

Night!

Beer Battered Tofu using New Belgium Beer

Hooray for a good day at work! I was able to get away from my desk for a little while and work with the public, which I’ll admit can either be really fulfilling for me or really frustrating. Luckily, it was fulfilling. It was nice to get away from my desk too.

Breakfast this morning was Eggo fiber plus calcium frozen waffles and a coffee. My coffee tasted excellent and I think the trick is sticking to Starbucks coffee when I make it at home. I really have only found a few other brands that even come close in flavor. I know some people don’t like Starbucks and think it tastes burnt. I also like Peet’s coffee, which is based in California, but you can find their beans at the Fresh Market. That’s the strong coffee that got me through grad school!

At work, I snacked on a banana because I had wanted to eat it for breakfast, but knew it wouldn’t fit in my little tummy so I chose to eat it around 10 a.m. with some raw almonds.

Lunch was a Bruschetta Boca burger on an Arnold’s Thin, an apple and two peanut butter girl scout cookies.

After work, I went straight to the Metro Market grocery store in downtown Milwaukee and picked up some ingredients for my dinner.

I made beer battered tofu for dinner using New Belgium Mothership Wit beer and Bob’s Mill cornmeal.

I literally came up with the idea for beer battered tofu as I laid in bed the other night, thinking of what I could make for another New Belgium beer recipe. This recipe is one that I didn’t create on my own, but had to adapt from here. Like the person who posted this recipe, I don’t like fish, so that is why I wanted to make beer battered tofu.

* 1 (16 ounce) package of drained firm tofu (firm works well, but extra firm will make it easier to handle) or 1 (16 ounce) package extra firm tofu (firm works well, but extra firm will make it easier to handle)
* 1 (12 ounce) can cheap beer
* 1 1/2 cups flour (I used whole wheat, but regular white works too)
* 1 cup cornmeal
* 1 tablespoon paprika
* 1 tablespoon garlic pepper seasoning
* 1 tablespoon parsley
* 1/4 teaspoon salt
* 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
* 3/4 cup canola oil
* tartar sauce or sweet chili sauce

Directions:
Prep Time: 10 mins
Total Time: 30 mins

1. Mix beer and flour in a bowl until you have a thin batter. Sometimes this uses more or less flour. Just adjust until it looks like a thin pancake batter.
2. In a second bowl, mix remaining 6 ingredients.
3. Cut tofu into 1/4 inch thick slices. I got about 10 or 12. Place slices on 1 piece of paper towel then place a couple of paper towels on top of the slices and pat to dry a little.
4. Heat oil in heavy skillet or cast iron pan until one drop of water splashed in spits around the pan.
5. Carefully dip slices of tofu in beer batter shaking off the excess. Place in cornmeal mixture and tap each side to get coating to stick.
6. Place in hot oil and fry until golden about 3 minutes each side. Remove from pan and place on paper towels to drain.

7. Serve with tartar sauce or sweet chili sauce.

It tasted yummy and was oh so appropriate for this week’s British fever with the royal wedding. I seriously LOVE tartar sauce and it’s such a shame I don’t eat fish to enjoy it more often. I even dip french fries into it when Craig gets fish and chips at a restaurant.

Since my stomach has still been acting up, I felt really full after eating tonight, but dragged myself to the gym. I was excited to workout, but my body didn’t feel the same way. I was bloated and my legs felt so heavy when running on the treadmill. I cranked out 2.0 miles exactly and walked for a warmup and cool down, so I did a total of 24 minutes. I also lifted a few weights, including free.

Once I got home from the gym, I had to meditate right away and here I am blogging late tonight, around 9, so it’s off to relax a bit and then get ready for bed.

If you use WordPress–be aware that they must have changed something because I just noticed that my “allow comments” button wasn’t checked like it usually is automatically. Ever since they adding this “writing helper” widget at the bottom of my post, it must have changed something.

The home stretch

I’m in the home stretch now with my work program occurring over the next two days. After seven plus months of planning, it feels good to be concluding this event. Even today’s workload was a bit lighter as a result, which feels wonderful.

Still, I am looking forward to kicking back on Saturday night, with a hard cider in my hand, watching a movie (I get DVDs from the library and the ones I had on hold all seem to be coming in right now) and just relaxing. The movies we are getting to watch this weekend include the final Stieg Larsson movie, The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest, and the Oscar nominated Winter’s Bone. I have to wait on getting two others until next week so we don’t get “movied out.”

Breakfast was Stonyfield vanilla yogurt topped with strawberries and chia seeds, again. Seems like I like this combination since I’ve had it a couple of times this week!

Snack mid-morning was hot chocolate and a trail mix bar.

I ate lunch at the library while listening to a story by Alice Hoffman. My co-worker joined me this time and it was nice to hang out with her over our break. I laughed because about two months ago, I had convinced this particular co-worker and some others to try greek yogurt after I raved about it before we started a meeting. She is now hooked on it and has gotten her boyfriend and mom to love it. Her mom is a big Chobani fan like me. Wow, it’s kind of weird because she said that I influenced all three of them by just convincing her to try it. It’s a really nice feeling.

Lunch was a veggie sandwich with greek olive hummus, cucumbers, red peppers and a slice of pepper jack cheese. I also had a red delicious apple and an Activia peach cobbler dessert yogurt. I brought along a chocolate chip cookie for dessert.

Dinner was a leftover slice of pizza I had forgotten about and some brussell sprouts topped with Arizona Dreaming spice from Penzey’s and a bit of sea salt.

Dessert was a strawberry banana Chobani.

I let dinner settle in my tummy and then went to yoga. Shoveling the really heavy snow last night sure made a difference in how sore my back was today during yoga. It felt good to stretch!

I have to get to bed early tonight, so have a good one!

Kopps, I love you.

Friday recap…

Breakfast

it was my first time trying the vanilla Chobani flavor and I liked it–the vanilla wasn’t that prominent, but it also wasn’t overwhelming, as can be the case sometimes with vanilla flavored yogurts.

My morning snack at work was just some Newman’s Own pretzels and a hot cocoa.

Lunch was a salad with feta, tomatoes, spinach, cucumbers and an olive oil/balsamic vinegar dressing I threw together. I had an applesauce, a bunch of carrot sticks and two pieces of yummy chocolate (kit kat and my fav moser roth). The kit kat wasn’t in the pic below because I got it from a co-worker. I figured, “it’s Friday, why not indulge in two pieces of chocolate!”

I came home to find lots of goodies–my package from Tina at Trading Up Downtown…

…and a new Glamour magazine in my mailbox.

I paged through it and found this article to read.

I think I would like to try going vegan for a week or more and see how my body feels as a result. But, this article just left me craving red meat, which is a rare craving for me.

We didn’t eat dinner until 7 something…very unusual for us and I was starving. The red meat craving led me to craving the place where I could get the biggest cheeseburger that was thin and delicious in our area. No McD’s for this girl, so we headed to Kopps Frozen Custard. Not that it is any healthier, but it sure tasted delicious!

Mmm…pure food bliss.

We also indulged in vanilla custard. Sharing a dish was perfect! I really wanted Turtle Sundae flavored custard, but we compromised on vanilla.

“Date night” continued in the way that two geeks who are now married date. We headed to Best Buy nearby and walked around. I hadn’t been in there in ages. My husband loves technology and so do I, so I drooled over the Kindle, new phones, danced with the Kinect system, looked at cameras and majorly drooled over the Mac laptops.

I really need a new one soon to replace my 2004 iBookG4. She has lasted me a while, but is quite slow now. Yes she is a “she” because her name since day one has been Granny Smith.

When we left Best Buy, we saw this typical Wisconsin van. 🙂

I was a bum and didn’t work out last night. We watched the movie Going the Distance when we got home. Kind of cute. Craig thinks I look like Drew Barrymore in the movie, but mostly I just think we have the same hairstyle and I kind of speak like her sometimes.

Onto the Saturday recap.

Running out of blog titles title

Tonight is a good example of why morning workouts are probably superior to afternoon ones. I got home from work later than I wanted to, made myself dinner, sat on the couch, then laid down on the couch and eventually took a little nap that turned into an hour of sleep. No gym for me tonight, boo. I guess I will save all of my energy for tomorrow morning’s workout and work twice as hard then.

Breakfast today was plain old honey nut cheerios with skim milk and a coffee.

Lunch was the rest of the noodles from last night’s dinner mixed with some fettucine alfredo sauce. I also had a pretty big salad of spinach, tomatoes, cucumbers, green peppers, sunflower seeds, pepperoni slices, feta cheese, and olive oil/balsamic vinegar mixture for a dressing. The apple pictured was a wonderful Pink Lady type that I saved for a 3:30 snack.

Plus, I had a sweet tooth today so I went to the cafe and got a baklava. It was almost too sweet for me and I only ate half.

Oooh, look at all of those yummy, gooey layers. Love baklava!

Dinner was a whole wheat tortilla with refried beans, tomatoes, shredded cheddar cheese, and Frank’s Red Hot sauce. I normally don’t buy refried beans, but love to eat them on nachos at restaurants. I received the can that I used for tonight’s meal from my mom because she got it free and doesn’t eat refried beans. Now that I had them, I know they’ll end up in my grocery cart more often because I love the flavor they offer in this kind of meal.

I picked up a new Bill Bryson book at the library tonight, so that book is calling me. It is called At Home and covers the history of domesticity. Should be an interesting read and I’ll share my thoughts on it as I go. I am a big Bill Bryson fan. I’d have to say my favorite authors are him and David Sedaris.

Time for this tired blogger to go read before bed! Good Night!

Back to “the usual”

It’s time for me to get back into my routine, which I find awfully boring to present to my readers compared to traveling. Truthfully though, I actually seem to enjoy reading people’s routines and seeing their daily meals rather than hearing about their travels. Maybe it’s because I love traveling and I get a bit jealous?

Back to showing you my meals and talking about my regular day, including the workouts I am incorporating into my routine after a vacation without them.

I started out my morning back to work with some Honey Nut cheerios and a bowl of blueberries. I desperately wanted to make stove top oats with a banana and pb, but with having to scrape my car off for 20 minutes and de-ice, that wasn’t happening.

Snack at work was a cup of hot cocoa with marshmallows and a trail mix bar.

Lunch was my leftovers from yesterday’s meal at The Cheesecake Factory and an apple. I also had a moser roth toffee chocolate bar for dessert.

I realized that before I left on our trip, I really was packing huge lunches at times. I think I am going to try cutting back a bit and watching my calories.

Dinner was a Strawberry Banana Chobani with a few cheerios on top and some of my naughty cheesecake.

My meal reflects this, but I was pressed for time because I stayed at work later and then had to get to my yoga class.

I had a piece of toast with peanut butter and a glass of chocolate milk when I got back from yoga.

Yoga tonight was excellent. I really love this teacher’s class because he always changes up the poses every week. I am always learning something new. My body needed yoga badly after our vacation! It felt so good to stretch.

Well folks, I need to start limiting my computer time and read a bit tonight since it’s already quite late.

Rest day recap

Aaah, this rest day was exactly what we needed.

I had a yummy bowl of Apple Cinammon Oatmeal with peanut butter for breakfast. I also had a peach yoplait and coffee on the side.

After sitting at breakfast a lot longer than we normally have during this vacation, I went back to the Lululemon Athletica outlet. Since last Friday, I had thought about purchasing the Speed Up tank. Sometimes walking away and thinking about purchases is a good thing. I had tried on my normal size and it seemed a little tight in areas. I asked the girl in the fitting room if their sizes ran a bit small and she said they normally are the same size you always wear. She said the top I chose did feature a tighter fitting material, so I went with the next size up.

I like the mesh features in the back and the little zipper pocket.

I thought this tank would be perfect for yoga, especially because of the longer length. But when I mentioned the yoga factor at the checkout, the cashier was really nice and reminded me that the zipper may get in the way. I’ll just try it out and be careful when I do poses on my back.

I tried on pants and sports bras at Lululemon too and just wasn’t feeling the way either items fit. The girl at the fitting room was really helpful. Did you know that if you buy Lululemon pants at the outlet (which are about 40% off retail), you can get them hemmed for free at your local Lululemon? All of the pants I tried on today were super long, but I still wasn’t loving how they fit in other areas. I actually think I prefer Gap Body’s pants for yoga and cardio.

When I got back from the outlets, I read a bit of The Omnivore’s Dilemma and then Craig and I got ready to head out of the hotel.

We went to Giordano’s deep dish pizza for lunch. Yum! Seeing that we only have had the opportunity to eat deep dish when we have gone to Chicago, we took advantage of the fact that Florida also has deep dish pizza.

Two pieces of this sausage and cheese pizza was so filling for the both of us! Leftovers for tomorrow’s dinner!

After filling up on yummy pizza, Craig wanted to drive by the hotel he stayed at with his family when he was a kid and we knew it was just down the road. It was still there, but too bad it’s probably going to be torn down soon because it’s no longer a working hotel and there are no tresspassing signs all over the property.

When we got back, we sat by the pool and went in the hot tub. We think the hot tub has been broken this whole time, because it really wasn’t that hot. It looks like someone was working on it tonight, so hopefully we’ll get a chance at a real hotub tomorrow night.

I enjoyed reading Fitness magazine poolside.

My dinner ended up being a peanut butter cookie Larabar and a small apple.

Oh and my husband scored me a white chocolate chip cookie from the front desk. I savored it’s goodness while watching Watson on Jeopardy. I am a total Jeopardy geek, so I was excited to see Watson in action.

Tomorrow, we are off to Kennedy Space Center! We chose the best tour to get close to the launch pad. Too bad we are missing the actual launch by a mere 6 days. Boo!

Time to get organized for our little road trip.

Have any of the readers out there been to Kennedy Space Center? Any last minute tips for us? We have read that it’s hard to cram everything in during a day trip, but we’re going to try to do it.

Good night!