GC Winner! plus random eatings

Fiiiinally, its Friday!
And that means two things:
1. happy hour will commence at 5:30 pm Sharp and will go till Sunday. Weekend full of picnics and a birthday party for the old roomie (with a pimps and Hos theme… should be interesting)
2. The winner of the Stop and Shop Giveaway sponsored by MyBlogSpark will be announced in a quick second.

I want to thank everyone for entering. I already cashed in on mine and it was super sweet getting this giftcard. On that particular day I only paid $15 for my groceries! woo hoo!
And the winner is number 12, Doreen.
Doreen said…
Following you on FB! Oh, and btw, that pizza looks soooo yummmy!!! Makes me want a slice or two or three!! Doreen H.purposedrivenlife4you at gmail dot com

Doreen, email me your shipping info and i will have your giftcard sent to you!

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I had totally forgotten to bring my new yogurt to work to try! Siggis was on sale and I wanted to try it out. This one sounds more promising that the Brown Cow… but i will let you know. I was grateful to have another goodie on hand that was so lovingly sent to me by carol. z bars. I love these little things! As a matter of fact, I need to make a trip to trader joes to stock up on those babies. awesome for eating as is or crumbling ontop of yogurt.

and she also sent some fitness water. According to the packet it contains as many calories as crystal light contained. my guess is that its more like a gatorade than a juice. I wasnt in the mood for anything super sweet so i used a quarter of the packet in my water bottle 4 times for a grape sweetness… an actual sweetness too- not like watery fruit water.

I changed up my usual shrimp salad and added a piece of steamed tilapia. Verdict: I like tilapia grilled better. Still ate the salad but will grill it next time. and Duh, avocados are amazing. especially with a sprinkling of coarse sea salt. MMM.

My coworker and I go to the same gym so he has been motivating me to go. I was so tired and sore yesterday and he still made me go (nice guy, right) and i did 40 mins on the hill program. My legs are KILLING me today! When I got home I was surprised that i wasnt Starving like i normally am after a workout… i decided to make an egg. And no sooner than i started to make my eggs did my stomach decide it was hungry. I threw in a pack of frozen broccoli and made a fritatta.

More broccoli than eggwhites- still soooo yummy! and 2 slices of arnolds sandwich thins. sprinkled parm cheese on the fritatta. So wonderful.

sealed the deal with cookie dough. I actually have been starting to look forward to this peanut buttery fudgey delight on days i work out! thanks for the recipe Mari!

ANY BIG PLANS FOR THE WEEKEND??? Im gonna have a picnic with mom and dad in the AM tomorrow and then head to the birthday party with the cool theme..

And Not that any of you would know this personally, but what do “hos” wear? LOL specifically, what would you wear to a pimps and hos party?

Rode My Bike!

I said last week I was gonna bike ride to brooklyn…
I didn’t.
But mom did call me and tell me she wanted to go for a bike ride in Flushing Meadow park. Ah, Flushing Meadows… i have such fond memories of this old ass park! Like the time my father took me to a Mets game on Cap day and after the game we went for a walk in the park and it started to rain and the dye on my free hat leaked all over my face and shirt. Or when he took me to The Hall of Science and we got lost in the parking lot and ended up walking around the ENTIRE park to find the Hall of Science when it was a few feet behind the car we parked. We were such boneheads. (i still am)
So i woke up felt the tires on my bike and made a trip to the gas station for some air. Two really nice guys helped me fill my tires and I was really flattered until i realized they were hurrying so they could use whatever air was left on the meter after they were done helping me… smh. I was happy my hands didnt get dirty until the chain popped while riding back to my apt to meet my parents. I fixed it and with my black greasy hands we met up and i had a small brekkie
Protein cookie dough. I knew we were gonna have a big brunch type of thing after the bike ride so i loaded up on protein.
Then my father and I couldn’t figure out how to put my bike on the bike rack. I told you, we are boneheads. My mother got out the car and said “try turning the bike around”…
and that worked.
We got to the park and I was ready to go. Caution: DIVA on a BIKE. EVERYBODY MOVE!
Lots of hills. Lots of stops cuz my seat was not working properly. Finally fixed the seat and rode around for about an hour. Towards the end of the ride there was a MASSIVE hill that was so steep that bikers were WALKING their bikes up… and I decided that I was gonna take on that hill! i adjusted my gears and huffed and puffed ALL THE WAY UP. and the fun part was when i got to go down the massive hill.
No one was hurt.
We finally got to the beginning of the park and stopped for a sip of gatorade.

Mom saw it as a photo op. Thanks Mom. Only you can take the worst picture of me at the worst possible angle. Whatever. Its funny. I am funny. I know how to laugh at myself… and she should be warned that when the camera is out… i might just take a bad pic of her and post it on the internet! SO there.

We had a beautiful brunch that I could not share photos of because i didnt charge my camera. BONEHEAD. But I saved the leftovers for din din.

A De-constructed huevos rancheros if you will. 2 fried eggs, a 2 oz piece of steak (it was originally intended for mickey… but she was a bad girl), some red beans, avocado, and 2 slices of arnolds sandwich thins toasted with spray butter. I love breakfast for dinner!

Around dessert time, i wanted something healthy and yummy. And I remembered that Naomi had a really easy recipe for protein muffins and I had just about everything in stock!

Please see her list of ingredients and try it out! Its amazingly simple. I made a few tweaks:

1.5 cups of oatmeal (it was all i had left- didn’t see a point in keeping .5 cups of oats)

1.5 tsp baking powder

.5 tsp baking soda

1 heaping tbsp of cinnamon

3 scoops of protein powder

1 packet of fat free hot cocoa (she called for unsweetened cocoa… but i had none)

1 egg

1 cup of pureed pumpkin

1/4 cup of milk

I stirred in a big bowl and poured into muffin tins

I baked these babies at 350* for 18 minutes. My apartment smelled like the amish bread that i tortured my former roommate with! so this was promising!

When they were done, i took a big bite.

Love. Next time I’m gonna try with oat bran ( if i can ever find some! grrr) but these are awesome. I have them in the freezer for easy treats.

No clue on the calorie content but its yummy. I smeared one with PB and needed a moment alone.. it was divine.

I might be going for another bike ride this weekend… any recs on “fuelage”? favorite snacks for bike riding?

P.S. Dont forget to enter my $20 Stop and Shop Giveaway! Contest ends Thursday April 29th at 11:59 PM!

Dreaming of Dinner ALL Day

Last Night Mickey and I decided to take a long walk. We didn’t really have an agenda per se but I ended up on Mari’s block and surprised her. I brought her a small pressie and got to hang out at the casa de namastemari. Had a great time with her and can’t wait to drop in on her again soon. (Mari, consider this your warning lol)
Looking forward to the weekend… I have some much needed sleep to catch up on!

For Brekkie, I enjoyed this lovely lovely chobani. Something was missing. It was fine on its own but it needed a lil something more. As noted yesterday about how much i disliked my yogurt in my oats, i decided to add a heaping spoon of PB. I have not been able to satisfy my peanut butter cravings… must be because i am running out of the stuff. I LOOOOVED PB in the yogurt. Not pictured cuz i hoovered it. It reminded me of the peanut butter soft serve at the Lite Choice!

Lunch time I had my usual avocado and hummus sammy on Ezekial Bread. I switched up my hummus from Red Pepper to Spinach Artichoke. I think i found my new crack. I really really enjoyed the spinach artichoke flavored Hummus and thought it went better with the avocados. I also had a cup of progresso light beef stew. Probably didnt need the soup. I was really stuffed. But it was cold in the office so it warmed me up a bit.

I was dreaming of my dinner ALL day.

Zucchini fries. I love zucchini. When I slice them into fries, i stirfry them till they are crisp tender- oh so good! Anyone ever try roasting this bad boy??? let me know!

Skirt Steak. I scored an amazing deal on skirt steak… can you beleive the pic above was sold as ONE piece of steak??? MADNESS! I managed to get 4 servings out of that monster!

Paired it with one of Tu-Lu’s jalapeno cheddar corn muffins! Awesome dinner!
For dessert i wanted something cakey…

and now that i have chocolate protein powder in my possession I decided to try the Protein Cake that all the bloggers are lovin these days. I dont know who started it but i have seen it on Naomi’s blog, Mari’s blog, and Julie’s blog… etc etc.

To make protein cake you need : 1 tbsp of canned pumpkin or applesauce, 1 scoop of protein powder, 1 egg white, 1/4 tsp baking powder, 1 splenda.
Stir it up. And microwave for one minute.
When its done top with peanut butter or jam… or whatever you want.

Verdict: not bad for 100-something calories… and really filling. Will def make again!

Any big plans for the weekend?

Any Ideas on how to use my TUB of protein powder?