Hunger Solved

Posted on March 27, 2012 by Jen @nutcaseinpoint

I’m baccccccck!

Just got back from seeing The Hunger Games, and if you must know, I was a tad disappointed. They left out some characters, omitted parts, and it seems the beginning was drawn out entirely too long, with the games themselves going by rather quickly. And wait, did Cato cry? I don’t remember reading that. Sorry, no spoiler alerts here.

Of course I’m legally obligated (not legally obligated at all, but I feel I am supposed) to watch all the movies now since I have read all the books- it’s only fair. Meh

So here’s what I came up with for dins pre-movie date:

Chicken Breast stuffed with Spinach Blue Cheese and Bacon

(I came up with this because I scanned my brain for what was sitting in the fridge, then Googled recipes that contained those items. See?! We can all be geniuses sometimes!) recipe from here

4 slices bacon
2 chicken breasts
5 ounces spinach (about 1/2 bag of fresh spinach) sauteed, patted dry, and cooled
1/2 blue cheese
1 tbsp all purpose flour
1/8 tsp salt
1/8 tsp pepper

Cook the bacon until crisp. Set on paper towels and let cool.

Preheat oven to 350. In a medium bowl, mix the blue cheese and spinach. Stir in the crumbled bacon.

Using a knife (or someone who can do that part for you) slice through the center of each breast creating a pocket. Stuff the mixture into the pocket. If you have toothpicks, use them to secure it shut

Blend the flour, salt and pepper on a dinner plate. Take each breast and coat the sides with flour mixture.

Over medium-high heat, quickly brown each sides of the chicken before placing in a greased baking dish and covering with foil. Bake for 30 minutes.

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Since Tyler doesn’t care for potatoes of the orange variety (some may call those sweet potatoes), I made baked potato wedges coated with olive oil, s&p, basil and rosemary for him; and sweet potato wedges with olive oil and s&p for me. (roasted about 25 minutes, flipping halfway through)

His

Hers

He got the bigger breast. (Hey, I thought that was MY job in this relationship!)

******

In the spirit of all things for St. Patrick’s Day coming late this year, I sported the socks mom and dad sent me. Kept me nice and cozy for the movie!

Layla so wanted in on that photo shoot.

Meatless Monday

Posted on March 26, 2012 by Jen @nutcaseinpoint

Mmmk mmmmk, let’s talk more about meeeeeeee. No one seems to be interrupting or even commenting, so I’ll take that as a go-ahead.

I ended up doing 30 minutes of cardio at the Y, then finished off with arms. (I already did a full body workout and extra abs this am!)

I’m gonna jot down some gym pet peeves. It really doesn’t matter what gym you go to, you will most definitely see some of these things. Feel free to add on others I fail to mention.

Wanderers. These people look as if they feel satisfactory enough by just having made it to the gym, yet they have no idea what to do. And if they do decide on a machine, it’s for about 45 seconds until they change their minds. Then, because they weren’t on the machine for that long, they feel they are exempt from having to wipe it down. People, I still don’t want your germs.
Creeps. I’m talking to you, fellas. Stop checking out the girls with the tights spandies or the low cut tops. Yeah, they’re asking for it, but it’s rude. And gross. And us laddddies feel inclined to either talk to management about you, or just confront you in person. If it gets to that point, you should just be embarrassed.
Another one for the boys: Why do you always have to grab your junk between sets? NO ONE wants to see that. Plus, I gag.
Sweaty gorillas. I fall under this category. MAKE SURE TO WIPE OFF ANY EQUIPMENT. Otherwise, it’s like the skit from Jackass 3 where Steve-O drinks Preston’s sweat. Not pretty.
Groups. Do 14 teenage boys need to huddle around one piece of equipment? No. This isn’t social hour.
Naked people. Ugh, they make stalls for a reason. It takes all my might not to gasp in horror when I round the corner and find wrinkly boobs. I just worked out hard, I might be prone to fainting, and nakedness doesn’t help the cause.

One thing I LOVE about my Y here in Calgary is that there is no equipment signup. AKA: No one’s is going to tap you on the shoulder and demand to see the ‘time elapsed’ on your machine to make sure you are not cutting into their allotted 30 minutes. That system is not effective. Anywhere. I have been to this Y a crap ton of times already, and not once have I seen a problem. Good job Crowfoot YMCA!

Phew. I feel better now.

In honor of National Spinach Day, lunch consisted of a Green Monster (frozen banana, 2 handfuls baby spinach, almond milk, 3 ice cubes and a splash of vanilla) and an english muffin topped with Trader Joe’s Cranberry Apple Butter (When you have an obsession and you have limited packing room, you make room for necessities)

After some domestic chores, (laundry, change bed, grocery shop and ~~take a bath~~)—> ok, maybe that last one isn’t a chore, but I did it anyway, I painted my nails. Woop! Perhaps it was to pay homage to St. Patrick’s Day a tad bit late, or perhaps the spinach smoothie got to me, but the green was calling my name. Warning: Do not zoom in on this picture, I have fierce cuticles. And if you decide to zoom in, don’t judge me, it was a cold winter and I have sensitive skin.

I decided I was going to make tonight’s dinner a Meatless Monday dinner. This was for a couple of reasons; a) We still need to stock up on meats at Costco, and b) I’m sick of chicken.

So, I came up with a little pasta concoction. I packed the meal with a lot of veggies, to make sure a good a good dose of vitamins and goodness.

Whole wheat penne with broccoli, yellow pepper and fresh green beans. Drizzle with EVOO and add a dash of salt.

Ahhh, back to that grocery store trip I mentioned. Only wanted to get some produce to fluff up our pasta dish, but decided to check out the yogurt section to see what they had going on (again, I have to wait for our Costco run, but argh, I couldn’t help myself) Ok, so they have 3 different brands of greek yogurt. Liberte, as I have mentioned before, and two other brands I have never seen. It took me forever to figure out what they were because all the dang containers were French-facing-front! I am sooo not a fan of this two language thing. Anyhoo, none of the yogurts were 0% or even 1%! They were all regular fat, whatever that may be, and contained 18g of fat per serving! My indulgence in that aisle was quickly squashed. I can wait.

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I am almost done with Mockingjay! It took me longer than usual to get through because of my meltdown-of-a-week last week. I am hoping to finish tonight! Does anyone have any suggestions on what I can read next? I don’t like serious books or Jodi Picoult or sci fi (The Hunger Games is an odd exception)

Weekend Update

Posted on March 25, 2012 by Jen @nutcaseinpoint

Yes, I’m still here. And yes, I have lots to show and tell.

By the way, here’s a post hair appt shot. I thought it was alright until I realized I cut off the top of my head which defeats the purpose.

Let us start with Friday evening. Tyler and I had a double date with Joe and Twyla at Shanks. We had dinner and drinks there (obviously I was too excited to take pics of that, but I did remember to snap a few of bowling right after.)

I think it’s a pretty good deal: food, alcohol and bowling all under the same roof. BAM. Friday night success.

Yesterday (Saturday) morning started off fantastic. Tyler made us a B&E breakfast

While I fumbled around with the idea of making some type of banana baked good.

This is what I came up with:

Banana Chia Muffins

1/4 c. softened butter
1/2 c brown sugar
1 egg
1/4 c water
2 large mashed bananas
1 c whole wheat pastry flour
1/2 c all purpose flour
1 cup oats
2 tsp baking soda
1 1/2 tsp vanilla
2 1/2 tbsp chia seeds

In a small bowl, cream the butter and sugar. Add the egg until fully incorporated.

In a medium/large bowl, combine the flours, baking soda and oats.

In another small bowl, mashed the bananas, chia seeds and water.

Slowly mix the banana mixture and egg mixture into the dry ingredients. Stir in vanilla.

Bake in a prepared muffin pan at 350 degrees for 15-17 minutes.

This recipe is the bomb.com. For added awesomeness, I highly recommend slathering those puppies with almond butter. Go ahead and thank me now!

******

This was a great meal to prep us for an incredibly busy day ahead…we had season 2 of The Walking Dead to watch!

This shot makes it look like the TV screen is filthy, but I promise you that is what the Intro Credits look like. Mom, I am not a slob.

We started with a couple episodes, then decided it was too much to take on at once and slapped another coat of paint on the walls. We played my iTunes throughout the living room speakers. I will not divulge which of us chose the 90’s music playlist (me). We Shooped and we Called Him Big Poppa and We Got Jiggy With it. Then it was back to more Walking Dead.

Once again, we had to break it up, so we hit the grocery store and liquor store (those really do go hand in hand) and made ourselves a nice little feast.

Another episode of The Walking Dead later, these came out:

Dead Frog multi-pack. Tyler and I made sure to sample each one. We actually took notes on what we thought. I am going to post a review of them in my next post, so look out for it!

And yet another episode later, I whipped up some homemade M&M cookies (Tyler’s fave)

I am telling you guys, these where the best cookies I have ever made. I threw the dough together while Tyler made dinner and let it refrigerate for about 2 hours before baking (I now think that is the key). The result was a thick, chewy wonderful cookie. I used the recipe from this site and just subbed the chocolate chips for the M&Ms. I HIGHLY RECOMMEND YOU MAKE THIS RECIPE!

We watched as many episodes as we could before our eyes literally could not stay open any longer.

This morning, when we woke up, it was “Hey good morning, I love you.” It was “Hey, wanna watch another episode of The Walking Dead before breakfast?”

Obviously, I agreed.

Then Tyler made me this:

Eggs Benedict with black forest ham. I mmm’d and ahhhh’d with every bite.

I must now get back to the last two episodes of, you guessed it, The Walking Dead. Beer review and more to follow!

Rumbly in my Tumbly

Posted on March 22, 2012 by Jen @nutcaseinpoint

Yesterday’s walk was apparently super strenuous. After I threw back that smoothie, I got up to rinse the glass, and boom- hip.in.pain. Like couldn’t stand up straight pain. Like I had flashes of Life Alert commercials and those bath tubs with doors for old people commercials. Ack, I was surely close to death. And everyone knows if you’re home in the middle of the day and your hip hurts, you take a bubble bath. So that is what I did. just following protocol.

It wasn’t all that peaceful. About halfway through, the doorbell rang and all three dogs flipped their shit and barked nonstop for 5 minutes. Had I been more mobile, I would have gotten out and….. Nope, still wouldn’t have done anything.

Moving on to dinner, I found a really appealing recipe for Buffalo Quinoa Mac and Cheese on Jessica’s blog. I was won over by quinoa and I had the boyfriend on the brain for the buffalo part. I ran over to Safeway for the ingredients and got to work.

Hold up. Let’s go back to the part where I go to the store for the ingredients. I couldn’t remember if we had any chicken in the freezer, so I swung by the meats and picked up an ‘economy’ pack of 5 *that’s right, FIVE* chicken breasts and it was TWENTY-FOUR DOLLARS. What the hell?? I just about went into cardiac arrest. And that’s like the store brand, non-organic stuff. Ugh, I die.

I threw all the schtuff together and WHAM, this happened:

Tyler and I scarfed this deliciousness while watching Survivor. Then…… Either my body went back into lactose-intolerant mode OR I was having sympathy pains for Colton (pff, we all know that’s a crock. Him and Alicia got all bitch-ass-ness on Christina. Karma was not kind to him! Bwahaha.) Back to me: I died. I sucked it up and helped Tyler put a second coat of paint on the walls, but I thought the end was near. I was in bed by 7. And had to skip my workout. And I cried more about that. Because I was feeling so fat and gross and nasty and blughk. Better to be in bed and miserable than to spew said miserableness in front of fellow gym go-oers. You’re welcome, fellow gym go-ers.

I’m still in bed in recovery mode. There appears to have been a minor snow fall last night, so today’s scheduled hike may have to be for a later date. But—–> I will workout today! Come hell or high water or further digestive issues! Go me!

Anyone else have to hole up and miss workouts and hate their life until you finally feel better again and get get a good, hard workout in?

That was a run on sentence, but I don’t care.

Halfway through Humpday

Posted on March 21, 2012 by Jen @nutcaseinpoint

Some recent downloads:

Birthday Cake– Rihanna

Liv Tonight– Nelly & Keri Hilson

Turn All the Lights On– T-Pain feat. Ne-Yo

I Don’t Wanna Care Right Now– Lupe Fiasco feat. MDMA

Too Close– Alex Clare

Drive By– Train

Does anyone have any suggestions that I can add to my music collection?? Purdy please?!

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Let’s get back to my Humpday, shall we? I was itching to do something today, so what’s free and easy? A walk! It looked nice out, and boy was I right!

Hey, Napoleon, how much you wanna make a bet I can throw a football over them mountains?!

Speaking of Napoleon Dynamite, I’mma tell you a story. Picture it: Freshman year at college. Making friends. Drinking CHEAP beer. Being silly, Studying (that one’s for you, mom and dad), and what not. So on a random trip to Wal-Mart- the mecca of keeping college students entertained- I decide to buy a hamster and name him Napoleon. BUT, it had to be pronounced ‘Na-po-leoooo(silent n)’ If I knew how to add a sound bit of the correct pronunciation, I would. I bought him a pink wheel and a pink castle and snuck him into my dorm. (The dorm nicknamed The Virgin Vault because of strict security to not allow any boys to come in and visit us awesome froshie gals). Anyhoo, Napoleon lived the life at college. I often let him roam the halls in his little ball and I would often get instant messages from other girls in the dorm saying they saw him roll by. Often, it would be girls on other floors. He was a magical hamster that could handle the stairs.

Weird tangent, but now you know. Sadly, Napoleon’s life was cut short when I left him in his cage at home while I went on vacation to Florida that following summer. When I came back, I realized he ran out of food, so I fed him Craisins. Turns out, Craisins are poison to those little fellas. RIP Napoleon: 2004-2005.

*Cough, cough* So, today’s walk. Beautious. Like, not a cloud in the sky. Layla was happy as a clam. So was I. Minus the wind. And wind burn I discovered upon return. Minor deets.

Yeah, I take a lot of pictures of my dog. You would too, if you were (dare I bring it up again) unemployed. At least I’m giving her all the atteny-ten-ten-tion she deserves! I always justify her spoiledness by reminding people of the fact she was a rescue pup and was shot in the face and is missing a bit of her left ear and is deathly afraid of garbage bags. With that, she can have all the walks she wants.

Now here’s where I will display the extent of my artistic photography:

No clouds, bright blue sky, and a glimpse of tree branch on the bottom left. Boom, done. (*Note: I did take the lovely picture you see on the header of this blog!)

Lunch today was going to be the Creamy peanut butter chocolate avocado smoothie I saw on get healthy with heather, but I swapped the avocado for spinach when I found that my avocado should have been tossed about a week ago. whoops. Here’s my modified recipe I took from her blog: