sunday, a variety of foods & calories

each day i become more & more creative in the kitchen & try new things. this sunday has been a day full of a variety of foods & calories. for breakfast i decided to go all in & try waffles; not just plain ordinary waffles either, i included blueberries! my breakfast dish turned out great. i enjoyed 4 whole wheat blueberry waffles with real maple syrup & a sliced up banana with light cinnamon on top. the waffles were garnished with a bold texas pecan roasted bean coffee & a sliced pink lady apple.

for lunch kristin & i made a pasta salad with whole wheat pasta, some of the best tasting olives, some super rich sun dried tomatoes, some roasted peppers, & some simply amazing artichoke hearts that had been seasoned in olive oil. we enjoyed this lunch with a glass of red wine also.

for dinner we hit an old favorite - manuels. kristin had her usual 3-sauce mushroom enchiladas & i enjoyed a bowl of tortilla soup & migas with black beans for dinner.

kristin was feeling super good about her 16 mile run yesterday so we went over to NXNW for apple crisp. it was by far the best apple crisp ever. it was so good that we had to order a second plate of it & this time with 3 scoops of vanilla ice cream instead of the 2 it's normally served with.

for a late night snack i had one of my very own recipes that only i would enjoy - a warm wheat tortilla with crunchy natural peanut butter & go lean cereal added for crunch. i actually had two of these puppies with a cup of dark roasted coffee.

it was amazing day for this foodie. i enjoyed a wide range of foods & calories today. i am looking forward to the new week as i begin marathon training for the san antonio rock 'n roll marathon where i'm sure to make good on my calorie intake from this weekend!

raw foods diet

not sure what i was thinking... as usual i'm from one extreme to the next. i got the bright idea to try a raw foods diet. i've been following in kristin's foot steps with the vegetarian thing for a while now. of course on the 4th i celebrated with a burger on the grill & kristin stuck true to her diet & went for the portabella mushroom. from time-to-time i do enjoy red meat & i couldn't imagine giving up seafood. i used to think i couldn't live without chicken, but since kristin became a vegetarian we just rarely buy it & i can't remember the last time i ate chicken (probably about 3 months ago).

anyhow, i'm back to working out (like a normal person, not an ironman) & with the working out my super healthy diet has returned too. while at the store this friday kristin grabbed some carrots & snap peas to enjoy as snacks. we also bought some red cabbage & after we got home & chopped things up i started nibbling on a bit of each raw vegetable. right then & there i told kristin i was going to try a raw foods diet for a week. only seven days, why not?

meal #1 (dinner) was easy & quite simple. in-fact it was just more of what i ate as a snack earlier that day. red cabbage, carrots, & snap peas. by 9PM last night my tummy was grumbling for more & something with a bit of substance. i had a glass of green tea & forced myself to bed early so i wouldn't give in to eating something cooked or processed.

meal #2 (breakfast) i actually felt good when i woke up this morning. probably even dropped a pound or two. kristin was well into her morning oatmeal when i headed to the kitchen to figure something out. oh BTW, no way i was giving up coffee (or tea) on this diet. i was well into my second cup of joe when i started making my breakfast. i pulled a pear, an apple, some blueberries from the fridge. i chopped up half of the pear & apple & tossed them on a plate. i grabbed a handful of blueberries & threw those on the plate too. it didn't seem like enough... i headed to the pantry & grabbed some dried prunes & some flax seed & added them to the morning treat. surprisingly i was full & feeling very good again.

meal #3 (snack) i enjoyed the other half of that pear & apple i chopped up for breakast. i also had an apple cinnamon lara bar on the drive to the gym. i had no idea that the lara bar was a raw food either. i knew it didn't contain anything that was processed, but i didn't realize it was a raw food. thankfully that little bar held me through my afternoon gym workout (25 minutes elliptical, 15 minutes treadmill, back & core workout).

meal #4 (lunch/post workout) by the time i got home from the gym, feeding trevor's cats (he's out of town), & picking up more raw veggies at the store so i could keep this silly diet up i was starving. i fixed a heaping bowl of salad to include spinach lettuce, 1/2 of a roma tomato, red cabbage, carrots, snap peas, & broccoli.

meal #5 (snack) the other 1/2 of that tomato :)

by dinner time i'd thrown in the towel. kristin & i fixed up vegetarian stir fry consisting of mushrooms, broccoli, carrots, & red cabbage all tossed over steamed brown rice. while i'd given into the "cooking foods god" it wasn't like i was eating another burger or something. the raw food thing was fun but not knowing how to eat beans or grains without some cooking or processing i would have been feeling some real hurt come tomorrow.

oh, for dinner i had a plum... a raw plum at that.

burgers are back!

since we parked the grill in the garage & moved into rosedale (9 months ago) we haven't made or had burgers. that all changed tonight - we made burgers & we made them with a whole new style & attitude. don't get me wrong, the "old" burger was amazing & super healthy. this "new" burger however was off the charts & reflected the new style & attitude that we have both adopted since moving back into this great city.

the "old" burger was made with super lean beef or bison meat seasoned with rancher's steak rub from wildtree herbs. we used whole wheat buns, smoked provolone cheese, sliced avocado, & sauteed baby bella mushrooms. sounds pretty tasty doesn't it?

the "new" burgers - let's call them the rosedale burgers are jazzed up to better suit our new lifestyles. remember, kristin became a vegetarian in october off last year & while i haven't completely kicked the meat habit i've grown to love & crave vegetables with everything that i eat.

kristin's rosedale burger was made with a portabella mushroom cap. she used a whole wheat bun from whole food's bakery, goat cheese, oil curred olives, & grilled garlic artichoke hearts. it was the best looking & best tasting vegetarian burger she's ever had.

brian's rosedale burger was made with a half a pound of bison meat seasoned with cracked pepper & sea salt. i used a seduction bun from whole food's bakery with avocado spread on one half of the bun & garlic hummus on the other half. i also topped this beautiful burger with baby spinach salad, oil curred olives, & sun dried tomatoes.

on the side, we both enjoyed roasted sweet potato sticks seasoned with olive oil, cracked pepper, & sea salt.

we washed these rosedale burgers down with a 2005 claret from becker vineyards. this claret was light, crip, & full of berry flavors.

it was simply an amazing burger night in our austin home & we'll enjoy future rosedale burgers very soon.

green gold

i've blogged a few times now about my new love affair with the food network & i've been raving for months now about all the new veggies i've been enjoying since kristin became a vegetarian. more recently i've been stepping up to the plate (oven) & cooking more for kristin & i. last week i introduced us both to a new tofu & black bean taco recipe that we both fell in love with. i cooked this up last monday & kristin liked it so much that these tofu tacos appeared on the menu two more times later that week :)

i proud to show off my new talents in the kitchen & i find that as long as meat isn't involved i do pretty well. cooking grains & veggies is so much easier than meat in my opinion. a few weeks i made backed some green gold (brussel sprouts) & they were amazing – don’t you think they look awesome? so simple too: break them fresh off the stalk, rinse them, toss them on a cooking pan, drizzle on the olive-oil, shake on some sea-salt, & crack some fresh pepper. toss them in the oven for 45-minutes at 450-degrees remember to shake the pan every 15-minutes so they bake/roast on all sides.