yep, I biffed it

I know it’s a little delayed, but I hope everyone had a great holiday weekend!  I sure enjoyed the extra day.  I don’t know what it is but that one extra day makes such a difference in getting things done and feeling ready to start the week again.  We didn’t really have any specific plans or go to any BBQ parties, but just made time to get things done, go on a bike ride and also to relax a little bit which was really really nice. 

I made some progress on my sports nutrition project and have decided to do it on a supplement/ergogenic aid called FRS.  It is endorsed by Lance Armstrong, along with other athletes.  It’s main component is an antioxidant called quercetin, along with other antioxidants and a little caffeine.  I’m not sure that this product will cause someone to have amazing athletic abilities, but some of the research is somewhat favorable for it.  The only question I have is that FRS does contain the same amount of caffeine as 1/2 cup of coffee, as well as green tea extract, so how much of the energizing effect is from quercetin and the other antioxidants and how much of it is from caffeine alone?  We’ll see.  I’m also meeting with my advisor tomorrow . . . eek!

Today was a pretty normal kind of day except for one major thing, I didn’t use my car!  Chris and I decided to bike to work this morning now that we work pretty close from each other and live not too far from work.  It is about 16 miles each way for me and not too bad.  Well, the morning stretch wasn’t bad at all.  I wasn’t too tired, even though we had to leave the house by 5:30am, and the temperature was just perfect and actually slightly cool.  On the way back, well, it was 98 degrees, very windy and I felt like my legs were going to give out.  I also managed to experience my first mishap with clipless pedals.  Let me explain . . .

Shimano 105 – the tip of the shoe goes about where my finger is and you push your foot it until you hear a ‘click’  Seems easy right?!

In the beginning of our ride home I felt pretty good, a little tired from getting up so early and working all day, but good.  I fueled up with a banana, 1/2 a luna bar and 1/2 package of luna moons with lots of water throughout the day of course, but I could tell my hunger wasn’t satisfied.  I had been ravenous all day.  It seemed like I couldn’t tame the flames of my metabolism no matter what! 

 

By the last stretch of the ride home I was feeling a bit shaky tired and knew I better finish the last of the luna moons I had with me.  At this point we were on a nice straight path, so we decided to stop there rather than at the street to grab a quick refuel.  Well, as I went to stop I completely spaced that I was locked into the bike.  Since we didn’t stop at a stop sign or light I didn’t register and think of clipping out!  Yep, there I went teetering and cursing before I fell hard into the dirt on the side of the path right on the side of my a*#  gosh dangit!  How could I let that happen?!  I thought I had escaped the curse when I successfully finished my first ride with them, in a group no less, without falling over.  Ah well, I guess everyone has to fall over sometime.  Only the better reason to pick right up and keep at it.  I have a nice goose egg bruise on the side of my bum, ouch!  I still really like the pedals because the are very efficient with transferring the energy from your legs to the momentum of the wheels or something like that.  It’s like instant gratification :)  

Anyhow, when we finally made it home, I was, and can you believe it . . .  RAVENOUS!!  I made grilled fish tacos the night before and boy did they hit the spot for leftovers.  I had to have 3 of them before I even started to feel satiated, and then proceeded to have a 1/2 cup of cantaloupe and a mochi.  Mochis are the best invention ever and I usually get them at TJ’s for a special treat (another reason TJ’s rocks my socks off).  They are little pockets of chewy, gelatinous coating filled with creamy ice cream!  We like the mango flavor, but they also have chocolate and green tea I believe, yum!  And there is about 100 kcals in one.  

oooh!  And another little snack that I just love and seems to disappear all too quickly is True North.  I hadn’t tried this flavor before, and it’s sure yummy!  Just have to be careful like most trail mix because in 5 clusters there is 170 kcals.  Great, concentrated energy! 

I found this recipe from CookingLight (what’s new?) and I thought I HAD to try it!  I love fish tacos in the restaurants, not the battered kind, but the nice grilled ones, topped with creamy lime cilantro sauce and crispy cabbage.  This is one of those recipes that really tastes like it does in the restaurant, well pretty darn close!  I adapted it a little bit, mostly increasing everything because it wasn’t really enough spices to flavor the fish.

Grilled Fish Tacos with

Creamy Lime Cilantro Yogurt Sauce   

Ingredients

Sauce:

• 1/2  cup thinly sliced green onions
• 1/2  cup chopped fresh cilantro
• 3/4 cup low-fat greek yogurt
• 2  tsp grated lime rind
• 3-4 tsp fresh lime juice, more for sprinkling
• 1/4  tsp salt
• 2  garlic cloves, minced

 
Tacos:

• 3 tsp ground cumin
• 3 tsp ground coriander
• 1 1/2 tsp smoked paprika
• 1/2 – 1 tsp ground red pepper
• 1/4-1/2  tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp  garlic powder
• 2 tbsp brown sugar
• 1 1/2  lbs red snapper fillets (I had halibut in the freezer)
• olive oil spray
• 8  (6-inch) corn tortillas
• 2  cups shredded green cabbage

Preparation

Preheat oven to 425°.

To prepare sauce, combine ingredients in a small bowl; refrigerate.

To prepare tacos, combine spices in a small bowl; sprinkle and press spice mixture evenly over both sides of fish. Place fish on a baking sheet lightly coated with oil. Bake at 425° for 9 minutes or until fish flakes easily when tested with a fork or until desired degree of doneness (alternatively you can use a grill pan for about 2 1/2 min per side). Place fish in a bowl; break into pieces with a fork. Heat tortillas to your liking (we like to get them crispy). Divide fish evenly among tortillas; top each with cabbage and sauce; sprinkle with more lime.  So good!!!

Whew, that was a long one, hope you are having a good week so far! 

Any good biff moments for you?

nice and refreshing

ahhhh, Fridays, the love of my life, I look forward to you all week!

Overall the week was good!  Progress has been made in my thesis in that I am meeting with my chair next week to get the ball rolling and hopefully I can come up with a topic that will be both interesting and doable.  I’m really interested in the coconut water topic, but there are no studies out there that I can find as of yet.  This would not be good for me in that I wouldn’t have any suggestions or methods to base my research off of.  Any of you with an MS out there have any suggestions for me as I embark on this crazy journey that you wish you would have done differently?  I’m still trying to learn the proper protocol for everything, and I can’t believe all the grammatical rules, yikes! 

I am sooooorrre today!  My muscles are not liking me at the moment, but I tried to win them over with some chia, flax, wheat germ oats love this morning :)  Workout week looked something like this . . .

tuesday – hip hop

wednesday – kick box (always makes me sore) I think my HR monitor is freaking out because it has told me twice now I maxed at 222, um cardiac arrest?!

thursday – first jazz class in a long time and I have definitely lost a lot of my technique and my hips were in shock.

friday – spin

I have to say though that since I’ve started cycling, my exercise classes have been feeling a lot easier and I don’t get very winded.  Granted I am still sucking air like a girl on my rides trying to keep up with the pros, other things are now feeling easier, just for conditioning.  I’ve got my clipless shoes, so now I just have to get the pedals.  Why did I decide to start something so pricey, geez!  I’m really nervous about this because you are practically locked into the bike and I can just imagine myself falling over while screaming ‘I can’t clip out!!!’  oh dear. positive thoughts.

Many of you around the blog world have been joyously praising the new fall weather coming your way and I’m jealous!!!  Please send some out my way!  It’s still freaking hot here and I look forward to the days when I can actually do activities outside in the afternoon without dying from heat stroke and bake lovely comforting warm casseroles without heating the house to oblivion.  So because of that I have a nice refreshing pasta dish, adapted from my pasta idol Giada, that is great really at any temperature and very refreshing! 

Lemony Roasted Chicken & Broccoli Pasta 

Ingredients

• about 3 bunches broccoli, trimmed and chopped
• 1/2 box of your favorite long pasta (I usually make fresh fettuccine, but in a crunch we had spaghetti rigati)
• 1 (14-ounce) can reduced-sodium chicken broth
• 1/3 cup fresh lemon juice
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 3 cups shredded roasted chicken (from about 1 roasted chicken)
• 3/4 cup freshly grated Parmesan
• 1/2 cup pine nuts, toasted 
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 tablespoon lemon zest
• Salt, freshly ground black pepper and all-purpose seasoning

Directions

Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil.  Add pasta and cook until 4 minutes from al dente, then add broccoli and finish cooking together.  Reserve 1/2 cup liquid; drain and rinse with cold water. 

Meanwhile, bring the broth and lemon juice to a boil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Boil until the broth reduces a bit. Add the garlic and chicken, simmer on low.  Add broccoli and pasta to the chicken broth and stir to combine. Add 1/3-1/2 cup of Parmesan, pine nuts, oil, and lemon zest. Toss to coat, adding some of the reserved cooking liquid, 1/4 cup at a time, to moisten if needed* Season to taste. Sprinkle with the remaining Parmesan and serve.

*note  this is a really light sauce so it will seem as if it’s not ‘coming together’  give it time and some good light stirring.  The chicken and broccoli will absorb all that lovely juice.

  

It’s great as a cold salad for leftovers too! 

If you couldn’t tell, I’m really looking forward to the extra day this weekend.  We don’t have any specific plans, but I do hope to make some progress on my school projects, organization and sanity, along with other house stuff like cleaning and wash.  Oh and hopefully a bike ride in there somewhere.  Tonight I plan to get together with a good friend for a little bite to eat and some drinks :)

Hope you all have a lovely weekend! 

 

this one’s a keeper

Yay for midweek!  I don’t think I get really excited for the weekend until Thursday evening when my classes for the week are over.  But, then that just means more studying and work for the weekend, boo!  But I am excited for the 3-day weekend!  Woo-hoo!  That extra day just makes all the difference.  Have any fun plans? 

Not all too much going on this week, I’m still trying to decide on a project topic for sports nutrition.  I’m very indecisive with pretty much everything.  I asked the green valley cyclists group on Yahoo! groups and they had some interesting ones too, including Quercetin, Optygen, and Hypoxico.  I’m actually interested in the altitude training, but I don’t think that would be considered a supplement?  I guess blood doping and EPO are pretty well-known in the cycling world, but of course they are illegal.  Living at high altitudes and training low has been shown to improve performance.  One must live at least 12 hours/day at a high altitude for 3-4 weeks, along with training, to see improvements.  Can you imagine sleeping in a altitude tent?  Very interesting!  I appreciated all your suggestions, it’s too hard to choose which one I’d like to do.  It’s amazing to me how many performance enhancing agents are out there, kind of scary and boy are they expensive!

In other news, Chris is still really enjoying his job so far!  This makes me happy too because there is just a different feeling in the house, and a more positive vibe.  I’m one of those people that can ‘feel’ the emotions of others.  Have you ever talked with someone that just sucks the energy right from you?  Or someone that just makes you feel calm and happy?  For some reason, I’m really in-tune with little things like that and I can almost ‘feel’ it.  Weird!   

He also started biking to work yesterday.  I think once the weather cools down here a little bit (we are still averaging 103 F days), I’m going to try my hand at it.  I could really only do it on Tuesdays or Fridays since I can’t ride to school from work.  That might be kind of fun, but I’m sure I would forget something and have to walk around work in spandex bike shorts, oh no!!  It’s only about 15 miles one way, but may be a way to sneak in some extra training/exercise.  I can’t seem to find time to get a ride in before work since I have to get ready by 5:30am.  We’ll see how it goes!

Oh the life of a Basset!  Buster is doing well too, and is as stubborn as ever.  His ears haven’t been too bad and we clean them at least 3-4x/week.  

I have an awesome recipe to share with you!  This is just one of those meals that I keep making time and time again because it’s a real keeper.  It has a bit of clean-up in the kitchen, but is really great to make the components ahead of time on the weekend and then savor the flavors during the week!

Walnut-Crusted Chicken and

Summer Squash Baked Couscous 

(adapted from CookingLight and FOOD)

For the Couscous:

• 1  (14-ounce) can less-sodium chicken broth, divided
• 3/4  cup uncooked WW couscous (you could also use quinoa)  
• 2  cups sliced yellow squash (about 3 small) – used the ones from the farmer’s market!
• 1/2  cup sliced green onions
• 2  tbsp fresh basil (1 tbsp dried)
• 1  tbsp fresh oregano (1/2 tbsp dried)
• 2  garlic cloves, minced
• 1/3  cup shredded fontina cheese
• 1/3  cup grated Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese
• 1/4  cup  egg substitute (or 1 egg)
• 1/2  tsp salt
• 1/4  tsp freshly ground black pepper

Preheat oven to 400°.

Bring 1 cup chicken broth to a boil in a medium saucepan; stir in uncooked couscous. Remove from heat; cover and let stand 5 minutes. Fluff couscous with a fork.

Heat a large nonstick skillet over medium-high heat. Coat pan with a little olive oil. Add squash, onions, basil, oregano, and garlic; sauté until slightly golden. Set aside.

Combine fontina and Parmigiano-Reggiano; set aside. Combine couscous, squash mixture, and half of cheese mixture in a large bowl; stir in remaining chicken broth, egg substitute, salt, and pepper. Spoon mixture into an 8 x 8-inch baking dish lightly coated with cooking spray. Top with remaining cheese mixture. Bake at 400° for 25-30 minutes or until golden.

For the Chicken:

In a food processor, pulse about 1 –  1 1/2 cups of toasted walnuts, 1/2 cup bread crumbs (I used TJ’s garlic ciabatta) and 1/2 cup grated parmesan  - place this mixture in a large shallow pan, like a baking dish.

In another shallow pan – combine about 3 egg whites.

Take about 1 pound of chicken breasts, make sure they aren’t too thick and pound them down first.  Place the breasts in the egg white mixture then dredge in the walnut mixture, pressing down.  Shake off excess and place in a large skillet coated with a few good glugs of olive oil.  Cook over medium-high heat until slightly firm and cooked through (about 4-5 minutes per side depending on thickness); drain them on paper towels.

 

We really enjoy this recipe and it’s great for leftovers, especially salad toppers :)  Sorry for the lack of pictures with this post!

Oh and remember when I posted about perfection a little while ago with Jessica Setnick’s take on the topic?  I would recommend you read it if you get the chance, very eye opening.  She also wanted to tell those of you who would like to work with individuals and eating disorders to check out her new site www.eatingdisorderjobs.com  The site’s re-launch includes information for students and new graduates who are interested in the field, including Advice from the Experts – stars in the field and how they got into eating disorders, and advice they would give to others interested in the field.  All this in addition to job postings and upcoming events.  Any readers are welcomed and encouraged to sign up as members at the site to access all the info!  

Hope your week is going by fast!

What’s one recipe you could make time and time again?