What did you eat today?

[Catrin]

How do you roast your kale? I've never done it; I usually just saute it with bacon and some garlic. Not that I'm tired of bacon and garlic, but...

Also, roasted parsnips (and other root veg, but not potatoes) and cauliflower with a nutmeg+apple cider glaze is fantastic. Good with pork, if you eat it. or chicken. (And I did a maple-mustard glazed version earlier this year. Sooooo good.) Anyway.

I found a decent recipe for making parsnip oven "frys". I no longer eat white potatoes and was curious how they would be, it was fine.

Roasted kale is easy, and my favorite kale for this purpose is Lacinto Kale (sometimes called 'Dino' kale because it looks like a reptile's skin). Actually I prefer Lacinto to other kales but any of them will do - I just slightly prefer the flavor of Lacinto Kale. Trader Joe's is currently selling already-cleaned packages of it for a good price

Rip the kale into whatever size you desire, toss with oil of your choice and a bit of sea salt and black pepper, and roast in a 350/400 degree oven for 15-20 minutes. Yummy! Make more than you THINK you will need for of course a lot of volume is lost in the cooking. Play with the roasting time as there is a fine line between done and a bit too-well-done

[Catrin]

Today:

B: eggs scrambled with mushrooms and baby spinach, bacon, coffee, and a couple of strawberries
1 hour workout
L: roasted pastured chicken quarter, big salad with mixed salad greens and veggies with a bit of walnut oil as dressing
Dinner will feature bone broth with carrots, onions, mushrooms, and left-over roasted chicken. I wish my body tolerated wine better, I bet a nice wine would go well with dinner...and there will be 2 squares of 88% endangered species dark chocolate to go with the Founders Breakfast Stout (a chocolate coffee stout

[spokewench]

B: rice chex, 1% milk, strawberries, coffee
L: liverwurst sammy with swiss cheese on freshly baked wg bread, fresh tomato from the garden (liverwurst is one of those things I adore from childhood and never eat any more, I know most people don't like it, but YUM!), lemonade
D: 1 piece of pepperoni pizza and salad with vinaigrette, blue cheese crumbles, and pecans. (My hubby ate the entire rest of the pizza while I was on a board meeting telephone call, wow that boy can eat!), 1 glass cabernet sauvignon
1 small chocolate cookie

[Crankin]

B: 2 scrambled eggs with yellow pepper and mushrooms, blueberries, coffee
S: 5 walnuts, 2 dried apricots
L: DH and I went out, as he's been in Asia for 10 days. I had a cup of minestrone soup, half a spinach salad with salmon, 1.5 glasses of red wine, coffee
D: curried apple chicken salad with apples on a spelt roll, blueberries, cup of herbal tea.

[spokewench]

1 piece wg wheat bread with peanut butter and cherry jam, coffee
L: patty melt sammy from the deli
D: salmon, rice, salad with blue cheese crumbles and vinaigrette, 1 margarita

[Catrin]

Today:

B: bacon, eggs scrambled with mushrooms and spinach, coffee
L: chicken salad made with roasted chicken thigh, onion, tomato, boiled egg, spinach, walnut oil
2 hour mountain bike ride
D: spaghetti squash bolgonese made with grass-fed ground beef. It was great! I've not had spaghetti squash before and the sauce was quite good - that was also a first for me. I will make this again and I've enough left over for a couple of meals. 1 beer with 2 squares 88% dark chocolate.

[Crankin]

B:2 home made waffles (DH makes them) with walnuts and dried cranberries, 2 turkey apple sausages, coffee
S: almonds and dried apricots
L: 4 slices chicken breast, quarter of an avocado, very small slice of Machengo cheese, an apple
15.5 mile ride, kind of fast
S: raisin Ezekial bread with soy nut butter
D: went out for DH's birthday. I managed to control myself pretty well.
shared a plate of fresh mozzarella, tomatoes, and proscuitto with DH. I had sea bass for my entree. I ate 3/4 of it, 2 asparagus, did not touch the mashed potato. 2 glasses of red wine. Since restaurants in the North End rarely have dessert, we walked over to Cafe Paradiso (sigh, I want to go back to Italy) where I had coffee and one chocolate almond biscotti.
Proud that I avoided all of the bread basket and I had the least offensive dessert! The biscotti was probably the best I've ever had and totally satisfied me.

[Catrin]

Yesterday:

B: eggs scrambled with mushrooms/spinach, bacon, coffee with cream
L: bone broth with pulled chicken, kale, mushrooms, onion

Wanted to ride so bad yesterday I was singing the Queen song in my office...but it was wet and icky, so headed to the gym to workout on my own and attended a 30 minute Bosu class.

D: Mixed greens salad with veggies and the very last of the spaghetti squash bolgonese with added coconut milk to get my calories up to the right level for a hard workout day

[Crankin]

haven't posted in a couple of days...
B: whole wheat tortilla cheese crisp with low fat cheddar and ham, an orange, coffee
Then, the rest of my day went downhill. I had a meeting at lunch time near Boston, and than had to rush back to Acton to get my hair colored. I ate my nuts and cranberries/chocolate on the way to my meeting and a Luna Bar on the way to the hair place. After that, I went to the gourmet farm market and bought a veggie salad with marinated artichokes and some whole wheat rolls, for home. I ate half the salad in my car and then went to a client.
S: I was about to faint after my session, so I at one of the whole wheat dinner rolls in the car and stopped to get some salmon at the fish store.
D: salmon with cumin rub, quinoa, salad, 2 squares dark choco;ate, glass of red wine

One day of eating like this and I gained 1.5 lbs.

[Catrin]

Yesterday (rest day):

B: Sausage/Veggie Frittata, strawberries, coffee with cream
L: Roasted chicken breast with roasted carrots and onion, mixed greens salad with carrots/mushrooms/onion with extra virgin OO for dressing
D: bone broth with chicken, kale, mushrooms, 2 squares 85% dark chocolate

[Crankin]

Another weird day of eating.
ate a few almonds and 2 dried apricots before a very hard boot camp.
B: OK, DH had his annual meeting of the managers who work for him at the house. When I came home from boot camp, he had a spread of bagels and light cream cheese (we had lox in the fridge) that I could almost taste. Somehow I resisted and made myself an egg scramble with a yellow pepper and the remaining artichoke salad, strawberries, and coffee. I was still in my gym clothes when they started arriving.
L: another long and tense lunch time client session, but I ate all of my nuts and cranberries before going in, so I wasn't hungry. I ate the left over spaghetti squash and marinara with an apple around 2 PM at my desk.
Snack/dinner: My last client of the day is in a short term residential program, so I got home at 4:00. I was very, very ravenous. I had a piece of Ezekial ww bread with some hummus and then saw some left overs in the fridge. Some of DH's employees left their left over lunches (they went out). I took one which was half of a veggie wrap, ate the veggies and had a couple of bites of the wrap. Felt guilty, but still hungry.
So, I ate a cup of soup for dinner, with 3 slices chicken breast, some avocado, and an orange.

[Owlie]

Today:

B: bacon, eggs scrambled with mushrooms and spinach, coffee
L: chicken salad made with roasted chicken thigh, onion, tomato, boiled egg, spinach, walnut oil
2 hour mountain bike ride
D: spaghetti squash bolgonese made with grass-fed ground beef. It was great! I've not had spaghetti squash before and the sauce was quite good - that was also a first for me. I will make this again and I've enough left over for a couple of meals. 1 beer with 2 squares 88% dark chocolate.

Did you make your own sauce?
I like spaghetti squash, don't get me wrong, but I don't like it as a pasta substitute. I like treating it like other squash (there's a Moroccan-spiced version out there that I'd love to try) as a side (or as part of a curry or something), but to me the squash-marinara combo doesn't work well. The squash is too sweet and, well, squash-flavored. Or at least, the one I got was. That said, spaghetti squash is really good as part of a Thai-style curry, because the sweetness complements the flavors, and it acts like noodles. I used chicken and a bunch of random veggies I found in the fridge with it.

I'm quite excited for squash-and-apple season. I found a bunch of new recipes for squash and pumpkins (soup I might actually like! muffins!), and there are about six pounds of Honeycrisp apples in my fridge. (Yes, I'll eat them all.) I'll be talking out of the other side of my face in January when there's no prospect for fruit other than apples from cold storage for a while, but I'll be excited while I can.

[Catrin]

Yes, I made my own sauce - I cook everything from scratch these days as I no longer eat processed foods of any kind. While that means more kitchen time & I still count calories, but I enjoy those calories more than I have in a long time. It wasn't a marinara sauce though it did have a couple tablespoons of tomato paste. The 'sauce' was mainly grassfed ground beef/pork, veggies and coconut milk. Wonderful!

Yesterday:

B: sausage/veggie frittata, coffee with cream
1-hour hard group training session, vegan protein shake afterwards
L: mixed green/veggie salad with roasted chicken breast, macadamia nuts. EV olive oil/garlic for dressing
30 minute easy bike ride (pedal problem called a short end to it)
D: roasted chicken quarter, 1/2 roasted butternut squash with coconut flakes/coconut oil

[spokewench]

So, I bought some nice organic butternut squashes yesterday that were on sale. My favorite way to cook this and I will do this on Saturday or Sunday is to
cut the squash in half pre-cook the squash so they are almost done; make a marinara sauce with onions, carrots, celery, garlic, tomatoes, a bit of tomato paste, lots of basil, all pureed in the blender. Saute turkey italian sausage (out of casings), onions, diced zucchini, Make a filling of leftover rice/cottage cheese/onions/diced zucchini squash, italian squash. Pile the filling as full and round as I possibly can on top of the squashes, pour some marinara over the top, place a thin slice of mozzarella on top and bake for about 30 minutes or until all bubbly! This is soooo good.

One piece wg toast, butter, coffee
Snack - crackers
1/2 liverwurst sammy with swiss cheese on wg bread
meatloaf, roasted golden beets, potatoes and zucchini, 1 glass red wine

[Crankin]

B: small, whole wheat dinner roll, dipped in olive oil, 3 slices chicken breast, avocado slices, blueberries, coffee
L: veggie burger on a spelt roll with tomato and avocado, an apple
24 mile hilly ride, not so fast, but at the end, my friend's tire blew up (literally), so I sprinted about 3 miles back to her house and went back in my car to get her
S: nuts, cranberries, chocolate bits
D: grilled tofu and eggplant in a hoisin sauce
glass of red wine

I woke up feeling awful, and my sinuses are rebelling. Could be the reason for my increased hunger and slight weight gain.