Go, go, go

Whew! I feel like the secret service has called me out to do some intense food and clothing operations for them.

Operation: Clean out the pantry

Successful

My mom thankfully joined me in cleaning out the pantry. It took about 2 1/2 hours, but we managed. I even kept a tally of the most expired food item in there. Besides the leftover cookies I found in a prehistoric cookie jar (ew), it was the Carnation Instant Breakfast shakes circa 2002. I remember drinking those when I was in middle school. I have no idea how I survived off of those!

Anyways, we got the pantry from going like this:

To This:

Ok, so I guess it doesn’t look that much better, but we tossed out SO much expired food!

Plus I got my own shelf out of the whole gig:

Packed with new buys from the mecca of health food grocery stores, Whole Foods!

Just a few of the highlights include Justin’s Maple Almond Butter, Cacao Powder and Vega Smoothie mix.

Speaking of new buys another Operation was highly successful,

Operation: Summer Clothes

My wardrobe has been just stuck in winter clothes. I have only one light weight jacket and not very many spring or summer clothes.

My mom helped me change this.

Two sundresses with coordinating belts

A white cardigan and a yellow tank

A white lightweight jacket and a yellow cardigan

I swear clothes always look awful when they are laid out on the ground. I’ll definitely be modeling these buys in the next few days for you all

Operation: Food

Somehow in the mess of all of this shopping and cleaning I managed in a very fresh lunch

A sunflower seed butter and guava jelly sandwich, an apple and a yummy salad with walnuts and strawberries

We had beautiful sun for about 5 minutes so I could capture the great light it offered. Soon after a thunderstorm struck. Great light lost

Whew! I am pooped from such a long day!

What have been some great new buys for you?

Shopping and Saving Part 1: Setting Your Budget

So I decided to make the way I shop for groceries a series!

Shopping and Saving Part 1:

Identify & Setting Your Budget

Before we dive right in, if all you get out of this series is this: if you don’t make a list, I highly suggest starting now my Type-A personality will be very happy. The entire way I shop is based off of the list, and I can’t imagine life with out it.

Look at Your Last Grocery Receipt

(source)

For those who don’t pay attention to how much you are spending at the store and want to start, find a few of your last receipts.

A lot of grocery stores now-a-days sort your products on your receipt for you into categories such as ‘produce,’ ‘home,’ ‘bakery,’ and a general ‘grocery.’ Look at it closely.

1. Circle the items in the dishes you cooked.

These are great buys and are definitely labeled as a “need”

2. Now look at the items that you snack on.

For me, these are so-so buys if it is chips, popcorn or something other than a fruit or veggie. If it’s a fruit or veggie, I usually consider this a good buy, unless I’m splurging on a certain item like a starfruit or horned melon, then they stay in this category.  So-so items definitely don’t have to get taken off of the list, but notice how much you spend on these particular items.

3. What you are probably left with is items that you may have splurged a little on.

Was it the kombucha, the ice cream, awesome nut butter that might be fun to try, maybe a couple of chocolate bars thrown in? Ask yourself if you really need these items for now. They’re great to buy every once in a while ,but if you really want to start cutting down your budget these are the items that you need to watch. They can rack up your grocery bill fast than you can say “almond butter”

Set a Goal

If you want to really crunch the numbers add up the total cost for the items you need, about 50% of the so-so items and about 25% of the splurge/want items. This could help you decide on a goal.

Or, what I did was look at my current bill (it was $120/wk) and find a budget that would push myself to not buy the splurge items as much, but still allow me wiggle room to try a new product or two. In my Limit the Bill goal, I set an amount of $75 and eventually I wanted to step down to $50/wk. These were just my preliminary goals. I ended up spending around $60-65/wk and recently I spent less than $40. I found it very comfortable to spend about $60-65/wk and I adjusted my goals to hit around that target in the end.

These tips are just guidelines. This is just what worked well for me.

Next part of the Shopping and Saving series will be formulating the List.

…back to your regularly scheduled program.

Snack

Guys, I had a seriously one awesome snack. It was inspired by Melinh‘s fake apple pie

I chopped up an apple and sprinkled it with cinnamon, like my norm.

popped it into the microwave for a minute, like my norm

OOO! OOO! This is the fun part! Crumble up some graham crackers, I used graham thins, and place them at the bottom of a bowl. Dump the gooey apples on top and gobble up!

There was a little bit too much apple-per-graham cracker ratio, but I’ll fix that next time

Seriously a divine snack. Thank you so much for the inspiration Melinh!

Time to work on some homework and do some reading. Chelsea Handler’s My Horizontal Life is honestly amazing. It’s the absolute PERFECT summer beach read!

What are your grocery shopping saving tips?

An Apple Saves the Day

Hi bloggies! I hope everyone is celebrating mother’s day with their madres

Breakfast

I enjoyed some very chocolate Overnight Oats this morning

In the Oats:

• 1/2 cup quick oats
• 3/4 c. almond milk
• 1 scoop chocolate whey protein powder
• 1 c. water
• 1 T chia seeds
• 1 T flaxseed meal
• a sprinkle of cinnamon
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 1 T chocolate chips

Thrown into the fridge overnight and 1/2 a banana sliced on top.

These were definitely really yummy, but I might like it with out the protein powder, it got a little too choolately.

Snack & Crash

I went into my studio this morning to work on a project and munched on some unpictured trail mix that contained corn puffs, Life cereal, raisins, coconut and lots of chocolate chips. It was at the end of the mix so there was an insane amount of chocolate chips. Apparently this made my blood sugar level spike, then absolutely crash. I started to get dizzy and lightheaded, so I decided to come home for lunch.

Lunch

By the time I got home my limbs were feeling numb and shaky, and it was hard to stand up. I immediately ran to the kitchen and chowed down on an apple.

Though I was still a bit shaky while making my lunch, I started to feel a lot better.

Lunch was inspired by Katie with a quinoa and tuna salad. Thankfully I had quinoa leftover from yesterday, so I just combined that with the rest of the ingredients.

In the tuna salad

• 1/2 c. leftover quinoa
• 1 can tuna
• a couple of blobs of Chobani greek yogurt
• 1/2 a pickle
• onion
• pepper

on top of a bed of spring greens and a chopped organic carrot

It was a phenomenal mix. I’ve never added quinoa to a tuna salad, but it was definitely a winning choice.

Later

Time for an update on my goals from last week and some goals for this upcoming week as well!

Miscellaneous Business

Good Evening everyone! I have a lot of miscellaneous business with lots on the to-do list, a shopping trip, a major assignment due Thursday, and the parents coming in town in just a little bit.

Breakfast

After debating between PB&J oats and toast, I went for the bit more original one of toast. Okay, it’s not really that original. But I did add some strawberries and greek yogurt parfait to it.

One piece of toast covered with Crofter’s Rapsberry Fruit Spread, and the other covered with maca, cinnamon and mesquite.

It was alright, but I missed my PB&J oats. I was also hungry about 10 minutes later and ate an unpictured kiwi.

Lunch

Lunch was eaten during class so I packed it this morning.

A cranberry, arugula (I didn’t have any spinach), turkey and apple sandwich.

Meh, it was alright. The bread was getting a little stale, the arugula wasn’t quite right in the sandwich, and my genius idea of adding apple slices didn’t really work.

I also enjoyed some apple slices.

Shopping

Right after class I ran to go shopping.

I first picked up these!

yes those would be absolutely b-e-a-utiful rock climbing shoes and a really cute chalk bag. I guess I was liking the purple and khaki thing today?

Next I went to the biggest Market of Choice I have ever seen!

omg.omg.omg.

It definitely took longer to navigate a whole new store, but I absolutely LOVED it! I kept seeing all different foods I have seen on the blogworld including VitaTops and a huge stash of Pirate’s Booty. It also had the largest cheese section ever.

I some how made it out alive, barely deviating from my list.

My haul from both Market of Choice and Safeway.

Naan, (a free with coupon) almond milk, organic spring mix, goat cheese, mushrooms, Annie’s Woodstock Dressing, Worcestershire sauce, raisins, a lonely cantaloupe, frozen peaches, brown rice and poppy seeds.

Celery, carrots, bananas, spinach, tempeh, grapefruit, avocado, lemon, apples, red & green bell pepper, papaya spears, orange

The only item that wasn’t on the list was the frozen peaches. I’m excited to make some green monsters with it though!

Oh and you know how frugal I am with my grocery bill with my goal Limit the Bill, so what was my total?

Drumroll please,

Market of Choice       $19.84

Safeway                   $41.22 (almost completely spent on fruits and veggies)

Total $61.06

My totals have been really hovering around the $60 range.

Week 1 $63

Week 2 $64

Week 3 $68

I feel very comfortable at that price point. I think I am going to stick to keeping around that magical number

Snack

I couldn’t wait to dig into Annie’s Woodstock Dressing which is a blend of tomato and tahini, so I cut up a celery stick and dipped.

It was absolutely spectacular. It didn’t go with the celery quite right, but I could see it as the perfect summer dressing.

How often do you go off your grocery list? Week-by-week I’m finding I stay on mine more and have less impulse buys.

A Tale of Three Breakfasts

Good Afternoon bloggies!

So the title of the post originally was going to be “A Tale of Two Breakfasts,” a cute play on the novel A Tale of Two Cities,  but then I was still hungry so I had another breakfast, thus making it 3

I started off with 3/4 of a chopped apple, a dollop of Chobani Greek yougurt, and my beloved puffed millet cereal

Before

After

All mixed up with a sprinkle of cinnamon

Later, when a few of my roomies were awake I was hungry for some eggs

Inside my one egg and one egg white omelette was:

sauteed frozen veggies (red bell pepper, mushrooms and a whole lot of broccoli)

turkey

half of a laughing cow cheese packet

S&P

which created this guy…

Yummy.

I started doing some homework and I was still hungry an hour later! Thus came the third breakfast.

Half of a banana dipped in Maranatha Dark Chocolate Peanut Butter

It didn’t stand a chance

The sun started to tease me again so I recruited Richard and went for a walk.

It ended up going for 2 1/2 hours

We followed the river the entire time and saw some gorgeous scenery

Some ducks and geese also joined us.

At the end of the walk my joints were getting pretty sore and my entire body was pretty pooped out. I could really feel the 5K and the elliptical and the walk I went on yesterday.

It was time for some much needed grub:

An amazing turkey sandwich filled with:

2 slices deli turkey

1 slice provolone

tomato

red onion

apple slices

red bell pepper

greek yogurt

dijon mustard

pesto

Tossed into the toaster oven for a couple of minutes. The toasted bread with the crunch of the apple, juice of the tomato, and melted provolone was just perfect!

What is your dream sandwich? Mine is filled with lots and lots of veggies!

Double trouble

I hope everyone is having a great Sunday evening. My day was spent running errands and studying.

First we have to back track to yesterday.

I snacked on the blueberry goat cheese that I got yesterday at the farmer’s market on top of some Mary’s Crackers.

Dinner was eaten shoveled in my mouth at 4:00 due to having to be at my sorority at 5

A goat-cheese & guava quesadilla (recipe from Barefoot Contessa), with Baja-style corn leftovers and a baby salad beast filled with avocado, red bell pepper and tomato with pear dressing from Trader Joe’s.

The quesadilla was the real star here. It tasted sweet and decedent like a crepe! Absolute LOOOOOOVE.

After the sorority function, we went back to the sorority house and chilled for a while. The sorority house isn’t filled with very healthy eats, lets just say. However apples and oranges are always available so I cut an apple (with a plastic fork), sprinkled some cinnamon and tossed it into the microwave for 45 seconds. I actually had two guys stand behind me and say how hot I was for “cooking” and not just top ramen. Wow. Anyways, everyone wanted a taste of it and loved it! I’m so sad I don’t have a picture of it, but just imagine apple slices with cinnamon on it. If I’m making this again I’m demanding at least a metal butter knife.

This morning’s omelette was posted earlier, so it’s time now for some lunch-action!

No, ladies and gentlemen you are not seeing double. I had another guava jelly & goat cheese quesadilla and a baby salad beast. I can’t get over how much the quesadilla tastes like a crepe!!! It’s so fantastic

I ran off to do some errands. Stopped at Target to pick up a few things but at the check-out line realized that I had forgotten my wallet. I had to run back to the apartment then run back again to Target to actually buy them. I swear my shopping trips can’t ever go right.

I also stopped at Trader Joe’s where I kept in mind the two parts of my grocery shopping goals. My first goal discussed earlier today was to Limit the Bill, by only spending $75 a week on groceries. The second part of my goal, Eat It, Not Buy It, is making me eat the food I already have stocked up instead of buying a lot more.

I have a very limited food storage space that includes half a cabinet for foods I use most often and two small boxes in my bookshelf for foods I don’t use as much.

Yeah, that’s all the room I have. Oh, well and some floor space for cereal boxes.

I apologize profusely for the horrendous camera pics, but I guess it’s better than nothing.

Anyways, so in order to make room and not have food shoved in every nook and cranny I’m going to try to eat what I have, and limit what I buy.

In that case, my haul wasn’t very big from Trader Joe’s

Turkey breast, Oatmeal bread, and Indian Fare’s Jaipur Vegetable and a reusable bag.

I’m very, very, very excited to try the Jaipur Vegetables

I had to rush off to a meeting, which wasn’t bad for once. Hoorah! It tends to help when I’m active in the conversation.

But after I was starving for some stir fry.

I grilled a turkey cutlet season with salt and pepper, and put it off to the side. Then sauteed frozen stir fry vegetables while washing the noodles.

And finally I combined the turkey, stir fry, noodles, 1 T of olive oil and 1 1/2 T of Stir fry sauce over low heat to come up with this beautiful sight.

It was all pretty good except for the turkey which was really tasteless.

I used these noodles

I didn’t even realize the calories on this guy until after cooking them! 20 calories per serving, so 40 total. Holy cow!

I just calculated up the calories on my meal and I’m honestly astounded. I’m not a usual calorie counter, but here’s the stats:

Noodles: 40 cals

Veggies: 45 cals

Turkey: 70 cals

Olive Oil: 20 cals

Stir Fry sauce: 30 cals

Total: 205 calories

Holy smokes! That is nothing for how big and satisfying it was! It’s been 3 hours and I’m still full.

Wow. Well it’s off to bed for me soon. I hope you all get some rest for the week ahead

Are you a calorie counter? Do you just watch them a bit, or not at all?

I tend to as what I call it, “know what I’m eating.” I look for what a serving size is and the sodium and sugar levels as well, plus scanning through the ingredients quickly.

Friday Indulgences

Hey bloggies! I hope everyone is having a really great Friday night!

This weekend I plan to change the layout and the header a bit, so for those who don’t like changes, be prepared

Today’s lunch was some leftovers from last night

INDIAN!!! And to make the mush more appetizing the Punjab Eggplant decided to seep into the brown rice and gajar halwa.

I loved the way I dished this up. It allowed for perfect mixing of all three food with each other. There will certainly be more Indian in the future

I later had the last half of my Chobani pineapple greek yogurt with 1/2 of an apple.

I can’t believe I used to not be able to stomach yogurt but now I’m in love with it!

All day I was craving a run, but I was a bit hesitant and nervous about it. I have problems with my knee, a chronic injury that started when I was training for a half marathon last year. I started to have what started as a dull pain in my knee after running a mile, but after two turned into a very sharp pain. When I would run the two miles back I was in unbelievable stabbing knife pain. I had to give up on training for the marathon and I’m generally restricted to indoor rubber tracks.

I wanted to make sure my endurance was still there so I set a goal of running for 30 minutes on the indoor rubber track at the gym and I DID IT! My knee didn’t give me any problems during the run! I’m so relieved that I can make it that far again especially since it has been acting up again walking around school.

It’s Friday which means Roomie Dinner!!!

I was a good blogger and went into sneaky blogger mode

Pasta made with angel hair spaghetti, chicken, cream cheese, spinach and red bell pepper with steamed carrots.

The pasta was most definitely not light or clean, but this is my one night that I indulge a little since my roommate’s took so much time to make it.

Soon a friend took me out frozen yogurt to catch up on life. We talked for two hours over peanut butter frozen yogurt with Reese’s on top. Once again, definitely not light or clean!

I returned and got to opening a package I received earlier in the day

Hmmm I wonder where this beautiful S come from?

Only Sephora!!!!!

I got a Shu Eumura eyelash curler!

and a ridiculous amount of samples.

I’m so excited to try them out tomorrow

What is your favorite store to shop from?

Mine are Sephora, Victoria’s Secret, Nordstroms, Cost Plus World Market and the Container Store

It’s Peanut Butter Jelly Time

Anyone else listen to that song on youtube thousands of years ago?

If not, you need to. If you have, why not relive the wondrous song as well?

IT’S PEANUT BUTTER JELLY TIME

I swear every time I have PB&J anything that song comes to mind. Does that happen with anyone else?

I PB&J has taken over the blog world recently: both Kath and Emily have at least. Anyone else getting some PB&J cravings with the warmer weather?

I was craving some oatmeal, so I thought I would give into the PB&J temptation

mmmmmm look at that steam on the side of the glass

In the mix:

1/2 c. old fashioned oats

1/2 c. water

1/2 c. almond milk

2 spoonfuls of THE MIX

THE MIX is a mix of flaxseed meal, chia seed, goji berries, and raisins already premade to be put into my oats.

and topped with:

1 T PB

1 T raspberry fruit spread

So glorious.

I got my fruit-kick with a fruit plate… imagine that!

1 small banana, 1/2 of an apple, 3 strawberries

Off to get some errands done. Roomie dinner later tonight and then a fun-filled Saturday! Got the makings of a great weekend

Anyone else really enjoying the wondrous flavors of PB&J? Tell me your creations!

I Love my Indian Food

I also really just love food in general, but today’s afternoon meals were ethnically inspired.

Sorry for the late posting, dinner was super late and I was ridiculously tired last night so this post is going up very late.

After breakfast a chocolate coconut larabar was inhaled

These things are more like candy in my world. So delicious (& nutritious!)

My lunch date did end up coming through so we met at an organic cafe on campus (he was a trooper about this). I got a falafel-esque dish called the Karmapalooza. Though I wasn’t able to take a picture! It felt like it would be really rude to pull out my camera and act like I’m texting. And I was just meeting this guy for the first time so I didn’t feel comfortable being like “oh hey, I blog about everything I eat.”

Anyways, my lunch date got the daal over rice. I told him that the curry was better, but he didn’t listen. Though he didn’t admit it, I’m sure he wished he had gotten the curry too.

I wasn’t able to picture lunch, but this little guy was for dessert when I got back to my apartment

Little in size, high in calories (& deliciousness)

Thankfully, it’s the last of the Easter candy from the Easter Bunny (thanks mom!)

I had to run to a sorority thing-a-ma-bob right during my usual dinner time so I made this beauty for a quick snack to hold me over

a sandwich thin slathered 1/2 T sunflower butter with apple slices on top.

Yum.

The sorority thing was alright, and as soon as I got home I started boiling some water for the brown rice.

But of course thanks to me killing the first pot of brown rice, thus having to boil another pot afterwards, I had dinner at 9PM. Holy cow!

But it was delicious for sure.

Gina’s Vegan Gajar Halwa and Trader Joe’s Punjab Eggplant served over brown rice.

Looks absolutely disgusting but since it’s Indian food it is naturally sooooo good! My lunch date kept joking how Indian food is made to look as disgusting as possible.

How about you, do you think Indian food looks gross?

For me the more disgusting the Indian food looks, I’m probably going to like it better

New Recipe. New Bathing Suit. New Day.

Even though I was in studio for well…let me think…for 6 hours today, today has been going much, much better.

Lunch was packed and brought to studio.

It started with this…

And ended with this

A turkey, cranberry and spinach sandwich on Whole Wheat Sourdough

Carrots–with hummus for some dippage action.

And a chopped up apple.

It kept me sufficiently full. Especially the carrots!

I returned and found that my new Victoria’s Secret bathing suit had arrived!

I love the sequins at the top, but the pink bottoms is pretty much a day glow pink, though it doesn’t show in pictures. I wish it wasn’t quite so bright, but hopefully I can still pull it off.

It has been really chilly here so I heated up a cup of organic jasmine-oolong tea

Pure heaven.

Dinner today was a new recipe. It’s from one of my sister’s cookbooks but naturally don’t have the name of it. Doh!

Essentially its whole wheat pasta shells with tomato, broccoli and chickpeas.

It was very, very good! I’m so excited for leftovers tomorrow. I halved the recipe so I have a ton of the ingredients left. I will be making it again very soon!

I also had a salad on the side with corn, grape tomatoes, and salsa on top.

Now this was disgusting! The salsa tasted very funky. I’m sticking to real dressing from now on.

Afterwards another cup of jasmine-oolong tea was drunk.

Now onto the fun part of my day…

Dying Easter Eggs!!!

Had a blast with two of the roomies Richard and Cally. This reminded me of when I was a kid.

I’m really excited for Easter tomorrow!

What is your favorite childhood memory of Easter?

I have a lot, but I would say the scavenger hunt the Easter bunny sent us around the house to find our baskets! I can’t wait to have kids to do that for them