Recent Foods

Hello friends! Sorry I haven't updated a whole lot lately. Things have been busy. I *am* counting cals/tracking food again and trying to lose some weight. Also working out a lot more again. But just not feeling like talking about it a lot. But just so you know it's going on :)

I'm not taking pics of every single bento box I make, but I am still using them for 3-4 of my meals every day and I make a couple for Ian and my dad every day. I am still loving it. Once we move it will be easier because I will have both refrigerators and therefore more space for boxes.... I can give my dad his stuff to keep in his own fridge once I make it. I'm hoping then I can be a day ahead in making stuff and not rushing to squeeze it into my day in time!

Anyway here are a couple of recent boxes I thought I'd share:

This one was packed in my Mr. Bento jar. Love this thing. It would be excellent for a normal/bigger eater to divide their meal into. For me, it's what I like to pack when I'm going to be out for the day. Ian and I packed these when we had to be at the hospital for an unknown amount of time when my dad had a procedure last week (everything is ok). I was able to get 3 meals out of this. One meal was the yogurt and granola, then I split everything else in half for 2 more meals - turkey lil' smokies, string cheese, carrots, rainier cherries, chicken salad, crackers.

A nice little one... strips of grilled chicken and baby carrots with spinach-artichoke hummus for dipping. Actually only ate 1/2 of this and stuck the other half into a box for later along with some other goodies.

Tuna & chickpeas with lemon vinaigrette, string cheese, rainier cherries, 1/2 a nature valley protein granola bar.

 2 laughing cow wedges, some kashi pita crisps, string cheese, hard boiled egg, raspberries. Sometimes my tummy is smaller... this one actually lasted me 2 meals.

Today we went out to lunch at On the Border and I got the lowest calorie thing I could find on the menu - the Citrus Chipotle Chicken Salad w/ Mango Citrus Vinaigrette. It was DELICIOUS and only 270 calories with 25g protein. I actually loved it and probably never would have tried it if I wasn't watching my cals.

Overall this week I feel like half the time I'm awesome - eating great and exercising like nuts. The other half of the time I eat junk and mess up all my hard work. I don't know what my problem is!!! I really want to keep improving on that.

More Kitchen Chronicles

And I just keep cooking and making lunches!! Whew. It's a tough adjustment for me. I don't think I've spent as much time in the kitchen in my entire LIFE as I have in the past few weeks. I'm starting to not hate it. :)

Yesterday I made a version of Shelley's Ricotta Bake Cups - I used salami and a regular size muffin tin. My hubby liked these a LOT. I ate one as an appetizer to dinner, Ian ate 2 and I put the rest in a bento for him for the next day.

Also in the bento - blueberries, leftover crazy corn casserole (that was the last of it, finally!)

Dinner last night were these Potato Sausage Foil Packs which were VERY easy to prepare. Dad grilled them up which is super easy in the packets. Very tasty but in the future I'd double the sausage and halve the amount of potato.

Groceries were down to hardly anything last night so I was only able to pack myself this one little bento:

Some flatbread italian herb crackers, laughing cow cheese, carrots, cucumbers and garlic hummus.

Today I got to the store and restocked on everything!

Today in the mail came the big box of goodies I ordered from All Things For Sale. I am SO excited. I ripped into the box.

(Except the clear boxes... those are just sitting there bc I washed them LOL).

Firstly I got quite a few panda items from there. I went on a bit of a panda frenzy. I had to have the pandas!!!

When you have nothing to compare this to, it's hard to know how small these items are. If you put your hands together to form a circle, that's about the size of the panda. All these items are pretty small. Works for me and the amount I eat. May not work for other adults. GREAT for kids.

Shown with the other small panda items - decorative picks and mini sauce bottles.

I packed myself a lunch in the panda bento tonight. it fits enough for me. :)

The one in back is the bottom tier. It has a small fajita size whole wheat tortilla with PB&J. The green thing is a silicone food separator (also in this box of goodies but I haven't shown the photo yet). Behind that is a turkey & provole rollup. In the front box which is the upper tier, the rest of the turkey & provolone rollup with some baby carrots.

Now I'll share the other goodies I got in this order of stuff.

The green & orange items are all silicone - the long ones are food separators (like I used in the panda box above). The round green are silicone cups and so are the little orange ones, but the orange ones are so small I'm not sure WHAT I'll use them for. I'm sure I'll find something. Then we have the other little animal sauce bottles (it came with the panda which I set aside with the panda photo) and the little white thing in the back is used to fill them. The 4 small lidded containers can be for sauces or who knows what else (I'm even thinking doses of medication that I need to take with meals).

I also got a pink slim bento box. It comes with a lunch bag but it isn't insulated so I'm not sure i would use it.

I like that the box is a locking one. It comes with collapsible chopsticks although I'm not a chopsticks user, but it's pretty neat how they are packed in there. Two tiers and actually seems like it will hold a good amount (a little more than the black & white polka dot one with my panda items).

There's a kitchen drawer right where I pack all the lunches, so I have taken to storing all the little dividers and accessories in there to easily access as I'm packing:

The multicolor round containers towards the top are another new addition that arrived today - Tupperware Smidgets. They hold 1oz and are great for liquids/sauces.

I just wanted to stay home and play with all this stuff, but we had no food so I had to go get groceries. :)

After shopping it was time to make dinner. I tried this recipe tonight: Broccoli Chicken Skillet

I was a little skeptical about the ingredients (stuffing? raisins?) but it was really good.

 

All 3 of us gave this one 5 stars. Tasty, different, yummy comfort food.

AND after dinner I decided to try making muffin tin pizzas. Super easy. You start with some whole wheat tortillas (or whatever kind you want to use) and cut circles out of them. I used my 1 cup metal measuring cup to cut the circles out.

Then you spray a muffin tin with Pam and press one circle into each muffin cup. Fill with pizza sauce with a little parmesan and italian seasoning added. Top with mozzarella and mini pepperonis or whatever toppings you like and bake at 425 for 15-20 mins.

I did 15 mins and they looked great but when I took them out, the tortillas weren't crispy, so they probably needed the extra 15 mins. Anyway these went into some bentos for us for tomorrow!

I also made Ian a salad bento:

Lettuce on the bottom, provolone cheese, shredded carrots, turkey and cherry tomatoes. I tried to arrange it all pretty but once I put the turkey in there it pretty much took over lol.

I made quite a few bentos tonight. A few of them were the leftovers from the casserole tonight with some side dishes and one was 1/2 a sandwich for my dad, nothing too exciting. But I ended up with quite a stack of boxes in the fridge:

The front right is my dad's two boxes for tomorrow (he gets bigger portions and eats 3-4 times per day). The front left are for Ian - two of them involve leftovers from tonights dinner, one is the salad and one is the muffin pizzas.  In the back are mine although they are hard to see. One has dinner leftovers, one is my mini pizzas and one is my panda box. :)

WHEW can I go to bed now? Zzzz

Substitutions, Dinners & Bentos!

Lots to share today :)

Firstly, I would like to share what Ian & I took for movie snacks. We like to stop at a gas station on our way to the movies and pick out our snacks. Cheaper (we got all this for $5) and healthier. I have been mostly low-carbing lately but I really wanted popcorn so this is the route I went.

Ian's choice - Southwest Cheddar popcorn and Fig Newtons. My choice: White Cheddar popcorn and 100 calorie pack mini strawberry poptarts (these are amazing, by the way). We also each got a bottled water. I shoved all this in my purse and we enjoyed a healthy movie-going experience :) by the way, props for me please, I balanced all this on my lap in a moving vehicle to take this photo. LOL! See how often I think of you my blog friends!!

Another substitution I have been making lately is at Starbucks. Believe it or not, I rarely drink my coffees anymore. When I do, they are sugar free UNLESS I have a free drink coupon, then I get whatever I want. This helps because the MOST often I could get a free drink coupon is twice per month, so it will limit how often I have a sugary drink.

My go to drink now:

Iced Venti Green Tea with just a *splash* of lemonade and 2 Splendas. Refreshing & healthy for me. A full serving of lemonade in a venti is 70 calories, so when I ask for just a splash, I wouldn't imaging it's more than 10-20 calories tops. There's very little in there. I have been drinking this almost every day and have stuck to my free drink coupon rule. Occasionally I have a nonfat latte with some sort of sugar free syrup, which only has calories from the nonfat milk, but also sports 10g protein in a grande.

Some recent meals I have made at home:

Some breakfast parfaits. Strawberries topped with sweetened ricotta cheese (sweetened with sugar free vanilla syrup) and some sliced almonds and a little bear naked protein granola. Got this idea from Eggface :)

Sweet & Sour Shrimp Stir-fry. A super quick & easy dinner. Bag of fresh, already cooked shrimp. Bag of stir fry veggies from the produce department. Sautee the veggies for a few mins, remove from the pan. Sautee the shrimp for a few mins. Add the sauce (stir fry sauce with a little orange-pineapple juice and honey, just enough to sweeten it a little), add the veggies back in and toss it all around and you have dinner.

Ham with Leeks & Dilled Potatoes: Recipe HERE. This was really good. Not super low carb with the potatoes, but a cup serving has only 33 carbs and around 380 calories, 22g protein. So for me a good choice. I thought this was tasty, like a comfort food. Nice and creamy with that dilled havarti cheese. I loved it and it was really easy to make.

Now for some more of my recent bento box meals:

The last bit of the lemony tuna-chick pea salad, apple slices (about 1/2 a small gala apple), baby carrots, a small piece of cheddar cheese. The blue box you haven't seen yet, but it is actually the first box I got because Amber gave it to me for my bday!

Next...

Top left, trail mix made at home from peanut, cashews and raisins. Top right, the other half of the gala apple shown above. Bottom right, turkey/salami/cream cheese/mozzarella roll ups. Bottom left, 6 italian herb flatbread crackers, 1 laughing cow cheese triangle.

Plain Chobani greek yogurt sweetened with Truvia and topped with blueberries. In the blue cup, a mix of slivered almonds and raisins to add to the yogurt because I'm out of granola. A small whole wheat tortilla spread with skippy natural and wrapped around a small banana, cut in half.

Today I made this sandwich for my dad & Ian. I can't locate the recipe at the moment. It has roast beef and cucumbers. Then there is a mixture of greek yogurt, mayo, italian seasonings, salt, pepper, green onion. It is on sourdough bread although the recipe calls for rye because Ian doesn't like rye. I split this sandwich in half and gave them each half in their bento box lunch:

For my dad. 1/2 the above sandwich, green grapes, cherries, pretzel thins.

For Ian. 1/2 the above sandwich, cherries, blackberries, 2 kinds of string cheese (one tomato basil, one cheddar/mozzarella mix) cut into cubes.

For Ian. 1/2 a roast beef, turkey & havarti melt on whole wheat fajita size tortilla (he ate the other half last night). Chunks of red pepper. Diced peaches.

Today I  made egg salad. I only had 4 hard boiled eggs so I just sort of improvised Mashed them with a fork, added some plain greek yogurt and a little light mayo, salt & pepper, green onions, dill. It's delicious!!

Made my dad a sandwich:

Made him the egg salad on a multigrain sandwich thin with sides of cucumber and 1/2 a small orange.

TOTALLY FORGOT a photo of MY egg salad lunch, which unfortunately I just ate so I can't do much about it now lol. It was in the cute blue box Amber gave me. I put egg salad in a jumbo muffin cup and had thick-cut cucumber slices as crackers that I put the egg salad on, and the other 1/2 of the above orange.

My spontaneous egg salad making was brought on by the fact that last night I HARD BOILED EGGS IN THE OVEN!!!!!! Yes you heard me right. I saw it on Pinterest Saturday night and then the next day I saw it in my new muffin tin cookbook. It's true.

Not my photo (I forgot to take one). But this is all you do. Place eggs in muffin tin (they can also be placed directly on the rack if you don't have one, but this is easier). Bake at 325 for 25 minutes. Remove from muffin tin with tongs and place them in bowl of ice cold water until completely cool, then peel or store as usual. IT TOTALLY WORKED.

I had bought a 6 pack of eggs and used one for a recipe. I baked the 5 I had left this way. Dad and I ate one last night just to see if this was REAL and it tasted normal. It did :) I made the other 4 into egg salad today. :)

BY THE WAY. I weighed on Friday at 207.8 had been at 209 for a while.... in 4 days of packing my lunches got to 207.8 so I think it's helping :) 206.8 was my low point a month or so back so hopefully will get there soon and on my way down under 200... come on come on!

Bonkers for Bento

 I have gone Bento crazy!!!!!!! You won't believe how seriously ALL ABOUT BENTO I have become in a week's time. Bento is a term for meals, originating in Japan - if you wish you can read a little about them on Wikipedia.

Of course, these have come to America and been very Americanized - it now basically applies to any boxed take along lunch in a container. There are some principles I'm not really getting into - such as the typical types of Japanese foods (I barely eat rice), and the really cutesy way of arranging things/making animals etc... stuff that looks like this:

The principles I AM focusing on that make bento great for me and my family are:

- The concept of pre-packing meals which is something we used to do and have slacked off on. This means good meals are ready to go when we are hungry, and ready to go if we decide to take off and hang at Starbucks for a while, or take off to do something and want to have a meal with us so that we don't default to eating out. If they are already made, we don't have to take time to make them in the moment when we want to leave to do something.

- The concept of creating a balanced meal. When you lay it all out to put into the bento box, it's easy to see what you're doing. For some this may mean incorporating all the food groups in a balanced way (especially if it's for kids). For us, it's great for focusing on the high protein/low carb concept. And because it's already made, you don't have to decide in the moment to make the right choices. It's easy to make the right choice when you are packing the lunch box and you aren't about to eat it right then.

- The concept of making the meal visually appealing through some arrangement, dividing the food, and mixing colors and textures. Cute and fun containers and accessories help too (at least for me). I do think if a meal is visually appealing to you, it makes it more enjoyable to eat and more satisfying. Especially since we are watching what we eat, this is important so we feel satisfied and not deprived. For a kid it's great because they can be such picky eaters.

I don't know why I suddenly decided to go for this other than the fact that lately we have all been talking about getting healthier. I knew getting back to our high protein, low carb ways was priority #1. Last weekend I spent a LOT of time on Shelly's blog The World According to Eggface, since she has SO MANY wonderful post op recipes and eats high protein, low carb. I decided to spend a long time putting many of her recipes into my Paprika recipes app.

I have always noticed her bento style lunches (she uses laptop lunch boxes) and thought they looked so appealing. I've always THOUGHT about doing it. I guess I was finally ready. I took down a lot of her recipes and meal ideas, taking note of all different kinds of things that she puts in her bentos. I started making a list in my google docs of all my ideas for bentos as well.

I started off with a few modest food storage containers. I knew one thing I really needed was silicone baking cups which are commonly used as dividers. I also ordered a few different types of containers, smaller ones for Ian & me, larger ones for my dad. I also ended up ordering some cutesy stuff for myself, but it hasn't arrived yet.

I'm ready to share my first bento box attempts with you all. There are a lot of photos and I will explain what is in each meal, what type of container and accessories I used, and recipes if applicable. I will be continuing to do this on my blog, too.

First round of bentos (very few supplies!)

One for Ian. Turkey slices spread with some whipped chive cream cheese, topped with mozzarella cheese. Sides of cherries and cucumbers.

One for my dad. I am not as strict on low carb with him (although definitely reducing his carbs and upping his protein). I am more concerned with him eating smaller portions and more frequently, and more balanced meals. This one is a half sandwich turkey & roast beef, light garlic mayo, whole wheat bread. Some pretzel thins, cherries, cucumber and a greek yogurt parfait.

 

This is one for myself. Turkey slices with whipped chive cream cheese and mozzarella. Cucumbers and an apricot. (I wasn't able to finish this.) That was my first day. I didn't even have the silicone muffin cups yet. I got those containers at Wal Mart and I like them because they lock well and have a good seal and a slightly domed lid. 

Second round of bentos... 

 This one is for Ian. Notice the new silicone baking cups. I picked up these red ones at Cost Plus World Market. This meal contains dry roasted almonds, blueberries, an apricot, turkey Lil' Smokies, snow peas in the pod and a tomato basil mozzarella cheese stick. 

 

A similar one for me minus the blueberries and with a cheddar mozzarella stick instead of the tomato basil one. Once again, I wasn't able to finish this (I think when I get the smaller bento boxes that will be even better for me!) The pink ruffly silicone muffin cups are also from World Market. Made one for my dad just like these but with an orange instead of an apricot. 

Round 3...

  

That one is for Ian. it features leftover chicken kabobs and corn casserole, both of which you can see in my Memorial Weekend Eats blog post. I added in a cup of peaches. I had the same meal myself, minus the fruit (and still didn't finish it BTW). 

 

That one is for my dad. Half a peanut butter and banana sandwich, a very small amount of his favorite Fritos chips (really trying to get him to cut down!), green grapes and cucumber. When I make all of these I stack them up in the fridge and label them with a dry erase marker.  

Then I came across these cool containers at Safeway grocery store in their seasonal section with all the picnic/outdoor stuff. They are quite a bit larger (for the typical non-surgery adult!) and have 4 removable compartments, so you could use the container however you like.  

 So this one is for my dad in the larger container. It has a salmon salad I made for him with packaged salmon (comes packed like tuna), cucumbers and some Panera Bread brand greek yogurt dip as a binder. Carrots & celery, pretzel thins, pineapple and applesauce. 

 

This one is mine :) The dip is roasted garlic hummus. Some carrots, celery, cheese and pretzel thins. Delicious.

  

This one is Ian's. He doesn't like hummus so I used Panera Bread Greek Yogurt Dip (vegatable dill flavor) for his dipping sauce. Carrots, celery, cheese, turkey pepperoni, blackberries. 

 Another round...

  

 Mine!! Oh my gosh oh my gosh can I tell you how good this is. I made Shelly's Lemony Chickpea & Tuna Salad. I was really skeptical. I love hummus but have never just eaten chick peas. Also, I don't tend to like vinaigrette that much (although that seems to be changing). This one is made with lemon olive oil and champagne vinegar. I have to say it's delicious (although, I just noticed, I forgot the feta cheese oops!). I ate this one today and left nearly half the meal behind. Other items you see are turkey pepperoni and 1/2 a Nature Valley protein granola bar (5g protein in this half!) which makes a nice little dessert. 

  

  This one is for Ian. You'll notice the other half of the protein granola bar. His salad is another Eggface recipe. Shelly's Italian Roast Beef Salad. Minus the black olives because Ian doesn't like them. I also used leftover greek vinaigrette dressing instead of balsamic to suit his tastes. He REALLY liked this salad a lot.

  

 For me. Some celery and apple with honey peanut butter topped with some raisins. My celery froze in the fridge somehow but I ate what I could. I made one like this for my dad too as a snack. 

 And yet another day....

  

This one is for my dad. Received my set of Easy Lunch Boxes containers which are a good size for him. Still restricts his portions compared to before, but more than what I can eat that's for sure! In this box is more salmon salad, this time with a small whole wheat tortilla for him to wrap it in. Grapes, peaches, snow peas and turkey pepperoni. 

 

One for Ian. More of the beef salad (oops I forgot the dressing), some peaches, cherries and mozzarella cheese. 

  

Another one for Ian. He's actually eating it as I type this lol. Blueberries, a block of cheddar cheese, turkey pepperoni, mozzarella, cucumbers, turkey lil smokies. I do hope to not use so much packaged stuff eventually (due to the sodium)... but baby steps right? This new container is from a lock & lock set with 3 containers and a lunch box. I got the same one in a red color. Love the containers and the lunch box. The downside is if you actually want to put all 3 containers in the lunch box, you can't fit an ice pack.

  

Another one for Ian. Leftovers of the beef salad (this one has dressing) and watermelon which is in a jumbo muffin cup. One for my dad. In the square muffin cup is a little trail mix I made with unsalted peanuts, cashews and raisins. The rest of the big box is cantaloupe. There is greek raspberry yogurt (chobani) and some bear naked protein granola with blueberries. He loved this one and lo and behold he got all that protein. (14 grams in the yogurt, 4 in the granola and I'm sure 5-6 in the nuts). 

 That's one of mine in the red lock & lock set. They call it purple but I don't know where they are getting that. It looks red online and looks exaclty that way in person. Silly. Anyway this has turkey pepperoni and cheddar cheese, cucumbers, the same trail mix as above and a little watermelon. I didn't finish this one either.  

Another one made for me. Sitting in the fridge, never made it to it today. Peanut butter banana "taco" on a fajita size whole wheat tortilla. Plain greek yogurt (17g protein!) sweetened with sugar free vanilla syrup, a little protein granola on top. Blackberries.
 

  

 Just finished making this one for tomorrow for my dad. Some of the same tuna chick pea salad in a jumbo muffin cup. A small orange, carrots, snow peas, pretzel thins and part of a nature valley protein granola bar.

  

 Ian just made himself this one. The turkey is wrapped around pickles with cream cheese. Blackberries, cheese, salami, pea pods, his own little trail mix. I don't really know cuz I didn't make this one. Sorry there are SO MANY because it has taken me a while to get to this blog post and this is every single one I have made this week. Today we really benefitted from having food with us becasue we were hungry after seeing a movie. We stopped at Starbucks and grabbed some plastic forks and enjoyed our bentos on the patio:

  

 I will have lots more to share on this topic, especially next week when my more cutesy stuff arrives :) For now though, I hope you enjoyed. I know it's pretty much "just packing a lunch"... but this whole concept is REALLY helping all of us around here. I have links and ideas to share regarding bentos but it will have to wait for another time. Bed time for me :)