Foodie for a day

I was such a good food blogger today (minus my snacks). I don’t know if it was knowing I could easily post a picture blog on the new computer, or what.. but I was all about it. So here are my eats for the day: (also apologizes that these are not very pretty - I eat over half my meals for the day at my desk at work!)

Breakfast: Strawberry Chobani with 2 TBSP flax meal and 1 TBSP vanilla almond granola. (BTW I love flax meal and I highly recommend you eat it. Also, it really cheap. I buy flax seeds in the bulk bins at the natural foods stores. I can get half a pound for less than $1. Then I grind it up in a coffee grinder myself at home and refrigerate the meal to keep it from going rancid). I also had some spanish peanuts on the side. I've been insatiably hungry the past few weeks and my doctor told me to add more fat to my breakfast. Since I naturally prefer non-fat dairy, I'm having to add it in the form of nuts. I don't mind! I ate this around 8:30 am

Then around 11, I had half a grapefruit. I’m really sad this is my last one! In Texas we grow GIANT grapefruits that are so sweet and juicy. I love them. I topped mine with truvia. Super yummy!

Lunch was around 12:45. This is not a typical lunch for me – normally I have leftovers from the night before. But last night’s meal (grilled bean and cheese/sweet potato fries) did not transport well so I had this instead. The star was a hummus/cheddar Sammie with pickles on toasted WW bread. Alongside I ate Food Should Taste Good (my favorite right now) sweet potato chips. I also had some baby carrots and two kiwis. I also had a pure La Croix on the side (yummm)

For the first part of my snack I had this baby apple I stole from sweet tomato’s dessert bar last Friday. Then I came home and couldn’t keep my hand out of the pantry. I hate having days like that! No matter what I ate, I didn’t feel satisfied. I had a few small handfuls of tortilla chips, a string cheese and some Spanish peanuts. I did not photograph these, I apologize!

Dinner was a frittata that I made for the first time. The recipe is from eating well and it’s a Potato and Zucchini frittata. I don’t eat white potatoes very often so it was nice to have them. I am trying to eat more eggs because they are cheap, full of protein and fat! I am running low on protein and fat since I’m not eating as much meat lately. So I’m working to like eggs more (I’ll tell you why I don’t really like them another day). I made the frittata with home fries, sausage and toast on the side. I originally didn’t plan on making the home fries, but found myself with two extra potatoes from Thanksgiving last week and thought they sounded good. This is a HUGE dinner for me normally, but I still thought I would share! It was GOOD!

This is 1/4 the frittata

Yummmmmy!!

Eat that meat

Get ready, because I'm about to pull stories from like a million directions.

Heather sent Stef and me an email last night discussing some issues she's having with protein and how she noticed that lately she hasn't really been eating meat. It's funny because Stef was a vegan at some point and Heather actually prefers meat substitutes (like boca burgers, etc) over beef. I have always been the stickler that says, "Guys there is no way I could go without meat for even a day. It's too hard." SO the two of them did a no meat challenge a few months ago and I politely declined my participation because I've ALWAYS said that giving up meat is not enjoyable for me.

So when Heather posted her blog about labeling herself a "flexitarian" this morning, I was just expecting to read it and go on about my day. But as I read her blog, I realized that the topic of meat has been on my mind lately much more than I actually thought it was.

I've always loved chicken. Chicken has been a staple of my diet and even before I started watching what I ate, I mostly ate chicken. I would have the occasional beef thrown in from time to time and very rarely I would eat pork (aside from bacon). Turkey was always on sandwiches or on holidays and other than that - it's been CHICKEN. I actually have been eating much more beef and pork since I started watching what I eat. My favorite way to eat chicken is grilled and when I sold my house, I sold my grill, and the foreman is absolutely no comparison for my old propane grill. Therefore, I've been a little bored with chicken as of late and needed to switch it up!

But here's the problem with chicken, and well meat in general. It's super expensive! And therefore, for about the past 4-5 months Matt and I have been buying the huge bags of frozen breasts at Costco. You can get a 10 pound bag for like $18. It's a steal of a deal. I've found that usually if you defrost the chicken in the refrigerator for a day or two, you probably wouldn't be able to taste that it was frozen. Or at least, that's what I thought (we'll come back to this.)  So every time that I'm coming up with a meal, I usually pick a carb - pasta, bread or rice, pick a veggie and pick a meat. In the past month or so I committed myself to eating more vegetables, so lately it's been more often two veggies and a meat. Sometimes I have a carb, other times I don't. Well, frankly I get bored of this and more frankly, the meat has been my least favorite part of my meals lately because I've been eating mostly that frozen chicken. The chicken is so thin, it's hard to do much with it. Grilling has been boring. Baking I've done a few times and frankly I'm sick of the taste of sautéed chicken. I'm not a big sauce eater, so that isn't much of an option. I'd love to stuff some chicken breasts and bake them, but you can't do that very well with these frozen breasts. I've have been wishing some days that I didn't have to eat a meat at all. That's not fun, is it!

Also in the mix, I have been trying to empty my pantry and all the beans in my pantry in the past 3 weeks. I've had some DELICIOUS bean meals in the past few weeks, ones with a meat and ones without. Why did I think I didn't like beans? Beans are the perfect combination of protein AND fiber, and well they are pretty awesome nutritionally compared to chicken.

Do you see where I'm going here? No more frozen chicken, Laura.

The last indication that I need to stop eating this frozen chicken happened this past weekend. My mom bought some amazing fresh chicken breasts from Whole Foods. I forgot how great chicken can taste when it's fresh and simply seasoned and grilled. AMAZING. It made the foreman grilled breast I had yesterday with some BBQ sauce taste like fast food. My family started talking about how great the chicken was and my brother mentioned he can't eat those frozen breasts anymore because they are frankly, awful.

So imagine all of these ideas coming together in my head and being topped off with the realization Heather is going to become a "flexitarian". She really got me thinking about all these little cues that I hadn't put together yet.

Now let me be clear, I am NOT saying I'm a flexitarian. After all, I still love meat. I still hate meat substitutes (you won't be seeing ANY tofu on my plates anytime soon). I still live in TEXAS people - throwing meat out of my diet is out of the question and I won't do it. I love beef, pork, chicken and turkey (seafood? ick!) And I will definitely still be eating it. But I'm not going to eat sub quality meat any longer. I'm giving up those frozen chicken breasts cold turkey (haha). And since I'm saving for school and poor and still don't have a wonderful propane grill (I miss you grill), it looks like I'm not going to be eating as much meat as I used to. I'll start incorporating less meat into my meals at home. I'll just be checking the grocery store for meat on sale and either freezing it or using it that week. I know it sounds weird that I won't eat frozen chicken but I'll eat chicken I bought from the store that I froze myself - but trust me, the difference is unbelievable. But now it's more beans for me! I'm actually a little excited as I keep thinking about all the recipes I can make with beans! Who knew!

(as a side note, I never realized how fantastic it would be with Matt living with me - because I can make what I want to eat each night and he'll either feed himself or eat some of the stuff I batch cooked for him on the weekends. This was NEVER the case when we didn't live together. I always felt like I had to make him something and I just ate it too. Ick)

So now I need to figure out some ways to make tasty meals from dried beans. I've only made beans that were dried once or twice and I wasn't impressed. But canned beans are HELLA expensive (I buy the organic versions that have low sodium or no salt added), so this is my mission for November. I'm SUPER excited!

Thank you Stef and Heather for being my inspiration for non-meat meals!