Tags
30 day challenge, clean food, dessert, diet, gluten-free, healthy, healthy food, kid-friendly, protein waffle, quinoa bowl, recipes, salad dressing, tuna, vegan, water
I’m beginning and ending this day with water. That is my pledge. Drink 8 glasses of water – no problem – done! Just let me have my coffee first then do my workout, then I’ll down this:
While taking the inordinate amount of time it takes to drink 32 oz of water and the three bathroom breaks, I thought about my food choices for the day. I need to do 2 different workouts today due to missing one yesterday because of grocery shopping. I both want my food to be as “heavy” or nutrient/protein dense as possible, but I would also like to branch out and move around meat choices and try both vegan and gluten-free options. Mission “mostly” accomplished – I was able to put together vegan-gluten free options for everything but supper. Sorry…I’m a newbie, you have to give me my fish and pasta at dinner tonight.
There are many recipes for today as the “other” choices, namely vegan, are new and were surprisingly tasty. I want to say lunch was the best – it was a veggie and grain bowl – but actually the breakfast protein waffle was really good too. As a side note, however, it is caked to the waffle iron in a way that I still haven’t quite mustered the courage to clean. Each day is a new food adventure, sometimes it’s messy:
Breakfast:
1 Protein Waffle
1/2 banana
32 oz water
….
Lunch:
1/2 cup quinoa
1/2 cup chickpeas
1 cup broccoli
dressing (recipe below)
chopped scallions
1 tablespoon chopped almonds
squeeze of lemon
32 oz of water
…..
Supper:
1 cup whole wheat spaghetti
1/2 cup marinara sauce with garlic, basil, chile and parsley added
3 oz Italian Tuna
1 teaspoon shaved Parmesan
2 glasses of Perrier
……
Treat:
2 tablespoons “chocolate” mousse (link to recipe)
The Protein Waffle comes courtesy of Rebecca, a friend of pancakes. I tried the initial pancake recipe in the waffle iron. Let’s just say it didn’t work and not get into how it exploded goo all over the waffle iron. In the end what came out was some kind of flat hockey puck-like substance. Pancakes and waffles are strangely not the same beast. Waffles cook at higher temperatures and much faster, so they need a boost when it comes to their “rising” power that a slower and more leisurely pancake experience doesn’t require. After two tries, I balanced out wet to dry and in the end had to add a little baking powder to make it “fluff” right.
Flourless Protein Waffles:
- 1/2 a mashed banana
- 2 eggs
- 2 tablespoons almond milk
- 1 scoop vanilla protein powder
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 1 teaspoon cinnamon
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
- 1 teaspoon coconut oil
Mix all the ingredients together, adding the mashed banana in last, whisk until blended. Pour batter onto hot waffle iron. Done in 2.5 minutes.
Lunch today is part of a continued inspiration to cook more vegetarian meals. I found this simple recipe from another food blogger: 86 Lemons. I had leftover broccoli and substituted quinoa (which I prefer) for brown rice. Otherwise, the recipe is identical and it serves 6. I adjusted it to serve 2.
Broccoli Chickpea Quinoa Bowl
- 4 cups broccoli florets
- 2 cups cooked brown rice
- 1 15 oz. can garbanzo beans (chickpeas), drained, rinsed, patted dry
- ½ cup sliced green onions
- ¼ cup sliced almonds
- ¼ cup chopped cilantro
- 1 Tbsp fresh lemon juice
- 2 Tbsp Dijon mustard
- 1 Tbsp olive oil
- 1 tsp Tamari (gluten-free soy sauce)
- 1 small garlic clove, minced
- ¼ tsp red pepper flakes
- salt and pepper to taste
Fresh food bowls are delicious and I am ready to dub them my favourite lunch, followed up by 32oz of water. For dinner tonight, I wasn’t the cook. My partner has some favourite recipes that he likes to make from time to time from his childhood and Tuna Spaghetti is one of them.
When I first heard of Tuna Spaghetti I wasn’t very thrilled, but I have since changed my mind and palette completely with regards to pasta and different fishes – even canned tuna. The recipe is -for all intents and purposes- an Israeli one. I don’t really know if it comes from Israel, but my partner’s father does, and he makes this as one of his signature dishes – so we’ll grant his dish the same national status even though most of its ingredients come from Italy. We usually eat this dish with olives, but in the name of lower fat – we cut the olives tonight. (They were missed by all.)
Roni’s Tuna Pasta
Use Italian Tuna, we use Rio Mare which is a Yellowfin tuna packed in olive oil. To bolster your marinara, Erik added 2 minced garlic cloves, 1/4 cup parsley and 1/4 cup basil and 2 tablespoons chile flakes. This sauce has PUNCH and while it is simmering you remove the tuna from its oil, and slice it length-wise into chunks against its grain. You fold the sauce and tuna into the pasta, then I like to top it with shaved Parmesan.
Although the allotment on pasta when you’re doing restricted calories is kind of small (my picture is a candy bowl on a dessert plate), it is completely satisfying. Satisfying enough that I completed my second workout afterwards.
We finished the food for the evening with cocoa-honey avocado mousse – a favourite that we found earlier in the month. Recipe earlier in the blog under The Even Better Cadbury Egg.
Delicious food day – well spent and well ended with a single glass of Perrier with a twist of lime.