Some of My Favorite Things

Happy Friday, y’all!

Today was a good day!   I got a lot accomplished, despite having gone out with my husband on “date night” last night. (We had a babysitter watch all the kids).

Today we found out that our boat is ready, (it needed some work after the winter) and since it’s hotter then the devil here in Georgia, we are extremely happy about this.  Tomorrow I am lake bound! Can’t wait!!  I’m the type of person who needs instant gratification, everything needs to be done yesterday. I’m fairly impatient, as you can tell at times.

Today I want to share some of my favorite foods with you.  I eat a lot of them on a regular basis, but try to switch them up by adding different spices and this and that.  Lets start with my all time fave, eggs.

Eggs are an inexpensive complete protein source.  They can be cooked a ton of different ways.  I used to only eat the egg whites, but now I throw in a whole egg to that mix, or cook two whole eggs for breakfast.

One of the ways that I like to cook eggs starts with my spraying a bit of olive oil with my Mysto sprayer in a frying pan and sauteing mushrooms.

White Mushrooms

Then I whisk together the eggs and probably a tablespoon of herbs de provence, which you can find in the spice aisle.

and then it is supposed to look something like this:

Fave Eggs!

I also added some low-fat feta. These are fantastic tasting!

Then, there are of course, the 2 whole eggs, sunny side up, on one slice of preservative free whole wheat toast…

Sunshine on my plate, lol

Another favorite of mine recently are Larabars.  They’re kind of high in calories and fat, but they only have 5 ingredients and are good and clean! I like to eat them after the gym, for some reason…and they also have ones with chocolate! Sometimes you can find them on sale 10 for $10…and they also just came out with mini bars, which are obviously less calories and fat.

Another favorite food of mine is the salad.  I’ve been alternating between romaine and spinach…the spinach has 1 more gram of protein, but more sodium then the romaine…it just depends on how I’m feeling that day!  Cover it in some kind of protein (I favor grilled chicken), veggies, and a tablespoon of a clean dressing, and you’ll be full for HOURS.

The salad pictured is actually spinach, feta, homemade salsa, purple onion, mushrooms and dressing. YUM!

I have recently been into drinking cream in my coffee.  I hated to buy it, because most half and half has HFCS in it and some sort of preservative.  After reading every label in the grocery store (does anyone else do that? I feel retarded standing there reading everything! It takes twice the time for me to get my shopping done sometimes, if I’m looking for items I don’t buy on a regular basis!)

At any rate, I found a creamer that is just that: cream. And it’s not skim milk, so it doesn’t turn my coffee gray, lol.

The way coffee is supposed to look

My cream:

CLEAN!!

Here is a pic of the ingredients:

Highly recommended if you’re a coffee drinker like myself.

Since I recently got a Vitamix,

which is essentially a very high powered blender, I have been making smoothies! It can also make natural nut butters, but I haven’t gotten that far yet…and soup that comes out HOT!  It’s a fantastic little machine and really worth the money.

I made my first green smoothie ever, and the only reason it was green was from spinach, not some weird dirt-like protein powder, lol.

Then there was a pink one, which had mango, banana, strawberry and vanilla protein powder:

Pretty in Pink Smoothie

My other favorite thing recently: plain old water.  I’ve been drinking 80-100 ounces a day (or trying my best, my absolute minimum is 60 ounces).  It is so important to get enough water in.  Guess what? For those of us that retain water, drinking water will get rid of that excess bloat from whatever.  I was never a big water drinker, but now I can’t get enough! (Along with red wine, but that’s a story for another day )

My other favorite things are my kids, as many of you know.  Some things that happened during the last 3 months:

Soccer Time!

We found out that Sophia is kind of a natural athlete, and she loves to play soccer!

Aidan and Me

Aidan graduated to 5th grade, Sean graduated to 3rd…and also climbed almost all the way to the top of a rock wall:

Sophia graduated from pre-k and is officially on her way to kindergarten:

and we took a trip to Stone Mountain, GA.

And decided to walk down the mountain which is a mile, and then another mile back to the park!

That was a super-fun trip!

There’s lots going on this summer, so I hope to bring new and exciting foods and trips to the table for you all to see.  I missed you guys while I was gone! And I missed blogging. Thank you for all of your condolences and well wishes.

Jessica