What I Ate Wednesday #24

 

I woke up this morning with peaches and nectarines on my mind.  I was having a mad craving for peach pie after eating super sweet nectarines all week.  I just love peeled peaches, but, the fuzz on peaches, unpeeled, just makes my blood run cold.  I just shutter at the thought of my fingers touching that fuzz!  So, my “Peach Pie Protein Pancakes” are really nectarines. I made these super sweet and light pancakes for a delicious “dessert like” breakfast that is a much lower calorie option than eating actual Peach Pie for breakfast.

This recipe is my basic protein pancake recipe with a topping of a “Peach Pie” filling. For my protein pancakes, I use any variety of vegan whole grain pancake mix.  Using the directions on the box, I reduce the mix by 1/3 of the recipe and replace it with 1/3 vanilla protein powder.  I also add 1 tbsp. of vinegar to keep the batter light, because the protein is more dense than the flour.

For the topping, I chopped up one large nectarine, skin on, and 1/2 cup Rainier cherries, pits removed.  I heated a pan on the stove with 1 tbsp. Earth balance butter.  Once the butter was melted, I added the fruit to the melted butter.  Then, I added a splash of vanilla extract, 2 tsp. of brown sugar and a sprinkle of cinnamon. I reduced the heat to low and let it cook until it was nice and thick, the fruit was soft and the natural juices were extracted, creating a syrup consistency.

Andy, Mya and me all enjoyed short stacks with fruit topping, no agave syrup necessary…they were really good!

My dad called me this morning, to remind me, that our local Whole Foods was hosting a vegan lunch buffet for only $5.00! Although Tuesdays are quite busy, Andy said we should go.  I agreed, I would never turn down Whole Foods!  After suffering though traffic in every direction, we finally arrived at Whole Foods to have lunch.  Dad met us there.  He was eager to try the vegan food, he is vegetarian, vegan when eating at my house.

Andy, Dad, and me all got the vegan buffet plate, it was Korean BBQ.  There was not a dish I could pronounce, but is was all really good.  The plate consisted of a slaw, brown rice with an eggplant and mushroom mixture and a huge portion of fruit with azuki beans tossed in a sweet almond cashew cream. It was very good.  I left quite full.

Mya made a plate at the regular prepared foods.  She had tofu, mashed potatoes, a spicy corn slaw, that she thought was too spicy, and a vegan chocolate cupcake.  The cupcake was divine!!!!! The cupcake actually reminded my a Hostess chocolate cupcake with crème filling, minus the high fructose corn syrup and hydrogenated oil!

I picked up a few goodies on the way out of Whole Foods.  One of our favorites, Vegan Chicken Salad.  Just knowing that salad was in the fridge, I had to make it for dinner. Especially since it was too hot to cook on the stove or grill. 

Our dinner was chicken salad on Oat Nut bread with a few baked chips on the side.  Lettuce and tomatoes on mine and Andy’s, Mya wanted hers plain.

Simple and delicious. 

Later, I could not help but have a few chips with Lemon Hummus.

I am a little obsessed with hummus lately.  I think I eat it two to three times a day.  Just a spoonful, but it is just so good with fresh cukes and cherry tomatoes.

That is What I Ate Wednesday Tuesday.  I hope you had some great meals too.

Here are a few new photos of the ever growing Prince along with Xander and Booey!

I hope you all have a great Wednesday. 

What I Ate Wednesday #23

 

It was a super busy Tuesday with unplanned meals.  I had to rely on what was in the fridge, which was getting scarce, even though it looks far from bare.

At breakfast, I was craving one of my tofu scrambles.  I had a tub of tofu, one Field Roast Apple Sage Sausage, some frozen hot peppers, fresh Vidalia onion, two large portabellas, and just about the last of my Dayia Jalapeno Garlic “cheese”. It all came together in a wonderful, super tasty scramble. To top off this super breakfast. I chopped up some fresh tomatoes, onions, and some basil from my garden.  It balanced out the hot breakfast perfectly.

 

After this filling protein and carb packed breakfast, it was off to tennis camp.

We came home starved and had little time to prepare before our next venture out. 

Lunch was grilled Whole Wheat Sandwich Thins, topped with Roasted Red Pepper Hummus, chopped tomatoes, onions and basil. This was a delicious alternative to chips as a base. Only one hundred calories for two rounds.

Then it was time for a Jeep Ride for Mya and Prince.

I found a few extra rolls from the bakery today.  I checked the freezer, and I had a whole box of vegan breaded eggplant.  I also had a half a jar of spicy tomato sauce leftover from the Sunday’s lasagna.  They were all begging to be made into Eggplant Parm Sandwiches. Wish granted!

Me and Mya shared this awesome sandwich with some baked chips on the side.  Soooooo full!

It is going to be another hazy, hot, humid, hundred degree day here in S.E. Pennsylvania.  We will be trying to stay cool, maybe even catch an afternoon flick in the AC, or even the first two episodes of WEEDS we need to catch up on, yay!

Have a happy Wednesday!

 

New Dishwasher

 

So, I have a new dishwasher. 

It works really well.  Sometimes, it even gets assistance from the old dishwasher! They like to share the load.

I don’t think I will find it as amusing in a few months when Prince is 100lbs! 

 

Have a happy Friday!

What I Ate Wednesday #22

 

Happy WIAW!  Has it been hot enough for everyone?  Cooking when it’s 100 degrees has its limits. So does my exercise routine. I kept my time in front of the stove to a minimum this week.  A mixture of short stove cooked meals, a little grilling, and mostly raw salads and snacks. As for my workouts, I have stayed committed to my morning 30 minute cardio.  I weight train and tone 4 days a week for thirty minutes, but my 3pm cardio session has been spotty.  I am too hot and tired to get back on at 3pm.  I am hoping this cooled weather will reignite my 3pm workouts.

My WIAW posts are based off of my Tuesday meals. Waking up Tuesday morning, it was cool for the first time in weeks. No humidity.  The question was, what to make for breakfast on the cool morning. Then, I remembered my neighbor, Mrs. Umpstead, kindly gave me some zucchini from her abundant garden yesterday.  We went over to visit her new 18 year old horse, Bell. She and her family generously rescued her from being put down and gave Bell a lovely 9 rolling acres to live out the rest of her life. Mya was thrilled to meet her.  She fed her baby carrots and got to pet her mane. Bell was gentle and calm.  I will make sure to bring my camera next visit.  Anyway, the zucchini had me thinking about zucchini bread.  But it was 5:45am and I did not want to have 1 hour baking time before breakfast.  So, I then thought, muffins.  They only take about 25 minutes to bake and 15 to cool. 

I quickly located a low sugar healthy recipe, gathered the ingredients, preheated the oven and woke Mya up to help.  She would have been mad if I let her sleep though making muffins.  She hoped right out of bed, asked for some sips of coffee and then got to baking!

By 6:20am the muffins were in the oven, the timer was set, and I hit the elliptical while they cooked.  Baked goods for breakfast seem like such a “cheat” food breakfast.  These seem that way, but they were low sugar, just 1/2 cup agave, packed with 1/2 cup ground flax, 2 cups zucchini shredded, some chopped walnuts, coconut oil and whole wheat flour. They were delish!

  Mya is at a half day computer camp learning how computer games are designed and is even designing her own game and characters.  It is really amazing!  I wanted to prepare lunch before Mya came home.

The lunch menu consisted of using up some corn tortillas, Field Roast Mexican style sausage, and all the other “taco” fixings I could find in the fridge. I still had half of a zucchini left from my muffins, so I wanted to incorporate it into my lunch. I thought it would easily blend into my Mexican sausage crumbles for my taco base.

In the food processor, I combined my sausage links broken into pieces and chunks of zucchini.  I pulsed them until it resembled taco filling, and the zucchini was undetectable. 

I heated the mixture on the stove and added some frozen corn to it at the end.  I poured it in a bowl beside the chopped avocado, chopped tomatoes, diced red onions, shredded romaine,  black olives, Daiya cheese, and some vegan sour cream to mellow out the spicy filling.  While the filling was heating, I cooked the tortillas in my griddle until crisp.  They looked like this…

Then, like this…

After lunch, we visited a few bread customers, and then came home and played with Price and Booey.  They are getting used to each other now.

After the playing commenced, it was time for dinner.  It was now not quite as cool as it was this morning.  I did not feel like standing in front of the hot stove, so I decided to make pasta salad out of leftovers.  I had a whole bowl of leftover pasta and broccoli from last night’s dinner, and all the veggies that were not used from lunch, they were already prepped!  I mixed them all together with some blush vinaigrette with some additional peppers and cucumbers.  Viola, easy pasta salad ready in five minutes!

I was not that hungry at dinner, so I ate a small bowl. A non pictured mini bowl of cereal and berries with coconut almond milk was my 7:30pm snack since my dinner was light.

Can you ever see enough puppy pictures??? I can’t!

Have a wonderful WIAW!