Eats, treats, the sippy cup war

One day I started taking pictures of everything that I was eating but never posted it. Here are some eats!

Quinoa w/ squash (nice to have pureed stuff around!),
agave, cinnamon and pb on top!

1/2 a balance bar (1/4 is pictured)
These are now out of my house for good!
TOo many ingredients and too processed.

Pear, yum!

whole foods duplex cookie & thin mint!

Dr Praegers! with 1/2 a slice of cheese and ketchup

Homemade snack bar -
wheat germ, agave, coconut, chocolate chip, maple syrup
flax

peppers, zucchini, avocado, chick peas, tofu and hummus/nutritional yeast
YUM - this was so tasty and I added in croutons with Ezekial bread :)

Now I basically only took pictures until mid afternoon and then forgot -
so any dessert that I ate isn't on here, as well as evening snacks and dinner.

Cooking for Nick is so enjoyable and fun these days -
he eats mostly whatever we are eating so I'll make extra effort to make things with veggies for us.
Whenever I am trying to make something in the kitchen he comes over and wants whatever it is.
I feel like he could eat ALL day long. I just have him eating 3 meals a day with the milk a few hours later before naps. Maybe I should put some snacks in there too but first I want to get the milk drinking down!

Nick really liked this kale gratin below!

Barley Kale Gratin (adapted from Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone)
2/3 cup barley
1 large bunch kale
2 T. butter
3 T. whole wheat flour
1 1/2 c vegetable stock
1/4 to 1/2 cup mozzarella cheese

Boil 1 quart water and cook the kale (pick leaves off of stems for cooking) for 8-10 minutes till tender. Drain the kale and puree with 1/4 c of the cooking water till smooth. Add the barley to 1 qt boiling water and simmer uncovered until tender, around 30 minutes.
The sauce w/ the kale

Added in the barley!

Preheat oven to 375, melt the butter in a small saucepan, whisk in the flour, then add veggie broth. Cook until thick - stir constantly. Combine all seasonings and transfer to a buttered baking dish.

Bake until browned on top, 30 minutes.

Ok - this picture does NOT do it any justice at all - it was REALLY tasty!
Kale is a super veggie!

Sippy Cup - we are transitioning from Bottle to sippy cup and today is day 3 no bottles. The first 2 days were kind of tough, Nick drank only about 8 ounces, maybe 10. Today he was up to 15 - we are getting there. Still, though, he's drinking them before naps and before bed (from the sippy cup). Once we get the sippy down, I think we can move to just drinking it throughout the day? How do you do it with the milk in the cup?

It's the last week of the month, and my grocery spending this month has been $351. I was hoping for 250-300, but I did reduce it. I will not shop the rest of the week! I'm going to keep trying this for next month and try to keep it at 250-300! I did well but had to spend a certain amount at Trader Joe's to get money back this month for a special offer.

Milk Winner & Vegan/Gluten Free Pancakes

DHA Milk Winner!
#7: Lifestudent - send me your address so that I can send you the DHA chocolate milk coupon!
Pancake Sunday!
Today I tried these pancakes ala Avery and holy moly - they were awesome!!! I had been making all different kinds - protein pancakes - too dry, experimental pancakes, amazing grass pancakes - yea.. all were pretty terrible but these were AMAZING. And great for Nick too!

Avery's Vegan & GF Pancakes: (5 good sized or 8 minis)

In a blender (or if you are lucky enough, a Vita-Mix):

a chopped apple
a banana
1/4 cup almond or your choice of milk
1 T. flaxseeds

BLEND AWAY!

Obtain the rest of the ingredients and mix together while the blender mix sits for a few:
1/3 cup dry oatmeal
2 T. whole wheat flour (or flour of your choice)
1/4 tsp. baking powder
cinnamon
vanilla
1/4 cup almond milk (or choice milk)

Add these in and blend again. Let it sit for a few more minutes while you heat up the skillet.
Use coconut oil, or whatever you use on the pan so that it doesn't stick. I love coconut oil because a little bit seems to go a long way. Cook away! Avery suggested 4 minutes first side, 3 minutes second side.

Taste: you could taste the apple-banana flavors, very moist and sweet! No syrup needed! I did put some peanut butter on top. Haha.

THUMBS UP!! A must make.

NICK was a fan but he is really into dropping all his food on the floor!

2009 Marathoners - Nike store has tons of Chicago and NYC marathon shirts on clearance.

We are having a HEAT WAVE here - it's mid 40s!! I ran 3 miles outside today. It was sooo slow and I walked up the hill in my island circle here - with all of the snow I just ran 15 laps around my island - it felt SO good to be outside. I couldn't fathom another step on the treadmill. I can't wait for spring!

The snow hangover

I've definitely been in a rut this week - I'm calling it the snow hangover. I'm ready for spring! Some days are definitely just harder than others, where I'm thinking back to my "old life" where I had a routine and got up and went to work and felt like I was accomplishing something. This usually happens while I am cleaning the floor for the 3rd time because Nick won't open his mouth to eat after a few spoonfuls, chucks his own spoon and sippy cup on the floor with food on it, then grabs a placemat from the table, and pulls everything to the floor, including 1/2 a container of blueberries. Oh man. How much easier would it be to just stand in the front of a room and teach kids about the Pythagorean theorem? I'll tell you: 100x easier. However, in the end, I know I'd regret that, and miss watching my baby grow up - I can't tell you how many new things he does everyday that are so cool. The little things, like him saying 'mama' when I go get him from his nap or get him out from the car, melt my heart.

A post I was thinking about was going to be about SLEEP. They reported that Bill Clinton after some heart surgery said he was going to sleep more and have less stress. I spend many days tired, but most nights I get 7-8 hours of sleep. If I go swimming, it is more like 6 hours but I feel that I make up for it by sleeping 9 hours on the weekend. How many hours of sleep do you get?
Do you feel that it is essential to your functioning? I know that if I do not get enough sleep, I need a nap - and I'm not a napper, but there have definitely been days where I've been up with Nick most of the night and then slept 2-3 hours during the day to catch up.

What else is going on?

• Check out the DHA post from the other day. Most of you knew what it was, and I feel like I was in the dark!
• Running and swimming are feeling good. I was reading my posts when I was around the same time with Nick, and I was definitely running more!
  
• I feel the same way about maternity clothes as I did with Nick and I hate all my clothes! I think that I am getting bigger faster with #2. It was funny re-reading my posts from with Nick, I was seriously concerned about gaining too much weight.
  
• My food shopping goal is doing great - luckily this is a short month, but I am on track! I will post about it at the end of the month.
• My eat lots of fruits and veggies goal is being assisted by the green plant drink, juices, and jelly. Veggies are hard to get down!
• I signed up for my 7th Broad Street Run coming up on May 2nd. I plan to walk/jog this year and just finish but I couldn't end my streak.
• I am doing a 10 mile race at the end of March but haven't run 10 miles straight outside since the Philly marathon.
  

DHA

DHA


DHA seems to be the new thing - my doctor gave me prenatal samples with DHA in them, and then I saw them in milk at the grocery store.

WHAT IS DHA?

DHA is a fatty acid, naturally occuring in some fish and:

• For the developing fetus and infants, it is essential in brain functioning & nervous system development & visual abilities
• supports brain, heart and eye health
  
• starts accumulating in the 2nd trimester in baby's brain (Horizon site)

Pregnant women are now recommended to get 200mg DHA/ day.
It is said that it is hard for children to reach their daily value.


What do you think?
I had never heard of DHA until about 2 months ago, which means with Nick I did not take any supplements and since I do not eat fish, I probably did not have much of it, if any. Is it the new fad or trend or something just coming out that is important?

HORIZON DHA OMEGA 3
When I went on my coupon search a few weeks ago, there was a coupon for HORIZON DHA WHOLE MILK, and they had it at Whole Foods so I tried it for Nick's bottles.
I also tasted it myself, and it tastes no different than your standard organic whole milk. We were already buying their normal organic milk without DHA. I also came across it in SILK's soy milk, but I started taking in too much soy and stopped buying that.

Are you interested in trying Horizon's Chocolate Milk + DHA Omega 3? Leave a comment below telling me what you think about DHA - had you heard of it? What do you think?

Mike from Horizon sent me a free coupon to try it out, but I have been unable to find it locally, even at my Whole Foods.

I will mail one lucky winner(selected at random) a free coupon for the chocolate milk! I will pick and post on Friday Feb 19, my due date with Nick!

For more info on the milk and DHA, click here. Also check out Horizon products coupons here. You will have to register first.

welcoming an old pal; new eats;walking baby

On my shopping trip this week, I picked up a few new eats: Trader Joe's green plant drink and Ezekiel bread. The juice has all kinds of fruits and veggies in it and the color isn't that appealing, but the taste was good - aftertaste was sweet. Helen recommended the Ezekiel bread which is flourless, organic, and made from grains and legumes. It is a complete protein, just like eating eggs and milk (from the website). It contains 18 amino acids. Helen was my Dana Farber teammate last year for Boston and if you check out her blog, she is 10+ years cancer free and training for Boston in 9 weeks! I wish I was training too! The bread is not as soft as your normal whole wheat bread, but it is tasty! Good for croutons and grilling.

On the left here, I received 8 POM juices from one of my favorite companies, POM. I'll remind you of the benefits - tons of antioxidants, improved blood flow, slows onset of prostate problems and on and on. It is tart and refreshing! Check out my full post on that here. It rocks. And helps me to get in some fruit, along with green plant juice !





And then - it had been a while since I purchased store bought peanut butter. Well, I bought Trader Joe's natural creamy and I'm back in love. Welcome back, my peanut butter love! I spent yesterday eating PB & J on crackers, and adding the peanut butter to everything I was eating. I don't need it - definitely not as bad as before, but it's so good! Love the creamy non thick texture (my homemade ones seem to be dry).

Then! Have you heard about the protein ice cream recipes going around? I first saw this on HEAB's blog where I then found Mae's blog and I am impressed as ever. I had been making smoothies which were turning out to be like icees at 7-11. I asked Mae for some advice and my "ice cream" (scroll down to the bottom of post for Mae's recipe) was delicious this morning for breakfast! I put it atop a delicious whole wheat/sweet potato/peanut butter flax pancake with a dollop of cream cheese (one of my latest loves). The "ice cream" to me is like a mousse consistency and tasted like cocoa.




Here was my recipe adapted from Mae's with what I had on hand:

• 4 cubes of ice
  
• 1 tbs protein powder (hemp chocolate)
  
• 1.5 tsp nutritional yeast
• 1/2 tsp xanthen gum
• 1/4 cup sweet potaton
• 1 tbsp cocoa powder
• 1/2 c almond milk + 1/2 cup skim milk

Toppings: unsw. coconut,chocolate chips and a dollop of peanut butter and squirt of agave.



I made Bill some non - wheat pancakes with peanut butter agave on top for some love.
Pancakes:

• 1/2 cup flour of your choice
  
• cinnamon
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1/4 c sweet potato
• 1 TBS ground flax
  
• 1/2 c milk (almond + skim was tasty)
  

And last, HUMNUT(cheese) sauce ala Mae. I took a scoop of hummus, a tbs or so of nutritional yeast and water, mixed them together and added them to my black bean burgers this weekend for a delicious nutritious treat. If you haven't tried the humnut sauce yet - delicious. I've been adding to my tortilla pizza every Friday!



Nick walks! 1 year and 1 week old - he took his first steps on Saturday night just before we headed out to dinner. We thought his balance was great so we have been playing "Pass Nick" - usually he would just give into us and think it was funny and be silly. This is from yesterday - he was so happy.'

another snow day

seriously? First we got dumped with 2 feet over the weekend and now another 2 feet ??
Couldn't leave the house today! Good thing for exercise TV and the treadmill right?
Nick was not a huge snow fan - but he's getting used to it.



I took the opportunity to make some black bean sliders - which Nick decided to just drop the pieces on the floor. He wasn't into them, don't you love that when you take the time to make something?
And Averie/HeAb's Maple Nut Oaties. These were very very sweet - I would reduce the sugar (maple syrup and agave nectar) next time by half.


I liked reading everyone's comments about eggs - I definitely need to clean up my act and start buying farm fresh or cage free. It was a big step for me to even eat eggs about a year or 2 ago - I was anti eggs for a long time, they just grossed me out and as a vegetarian I didn't want to be into them. Many of you said eat the yolk! And I don't know why I skip it - cholesterol? Fat?
I want the proteins from the whites but what all is in that yolk? I haven't had a whole egg in a very very long time!

Left over cake, left over cookies - there is way too much sugar in this house, and we're stuck here! Brutal.

Breakfast for dinner

Had a few veggies with dinner - spinach and roasted peppers in my egg white omelet. I put the omelet in a flat out wrap. Yum yum! Food Buzz sent me a coupon for a dozen Eggland's Best eggs. I had had them before but didn't know their benefits. Here are some of the benefits from their carton:

They have higher levels of nutrients than standard eggs: vitamins A, D, E, B2 and B12,
and lower levels of saturated fat and cholesterol. The eggs don't taste any different, but with all of the extra benefits - I'll take it!

I have been buying huge 3 dozen egg cartons when I go to the market, since I eat egg whites and bake often. I have definitely cut back eggs and used flax eggs (1 tbs flax + 1/4 cup water) for much of my baking when possible, but one thing I have been questioning is whether I should be purchasing organic eggs. Do you buy organic eggs? Eggland's Best makes them - but I feel like buying organic when I am only going to eat the whites is a waste! However, I should probably keep everything consistent.

Challenges - how am I doing

I'm going to be honest - the challenge of eating certain servings of each food group - not happening. I failed that by day 3. I am trying to eat more fruits and veggies, but trying and happening are two different things.

The food shopping challenge is going really well. It's almost the 10th, I didn't shop this week and hope not to - I'm still doing the meal planning, and trying to use what is here.

Swimming has been awesome - running has been ok. My knees are definitely weak along with my ankles and I'm slacking off on yoga. I haven't rejoined my old gym though I keep thinking about it. By the time I take action it will be spring and probably a waste. I would totally pay for yoga by class I went to but they don't offer that option. Speaking of spring, I can't wait! We have about 2 feet of snow on the ground and 12-18 more inches are headed this way. Oh man!

Nick's birthday party

Nick had a fun party today. Here are some pictures!

Favors for the kids - totally forgot to hand them out.

breakfast laughing at him so he'd wear his hat

singing

Faceplanting - again

He got a big boy chair and lots of gifts

My main goal was that I was going to enjoy everyone and not get caught up worrying about people. I mostly wanted to hang out with Nick and his baby buddies and parents. It was great! I did not feel like I missed anything. Next time I would just ask someone to take a video, I forgot!

Nick's first birthday!

The Nor'easter of '10
2 feet of snow

Well - we got around 2 feet of snow so the party was rescheduled, but we had fun with the little guy today. It was nice to have him just to ourselves actually. Around lunch we sang to him and he had the banana muffin with the chocolate/cream cheese frosting. I think he ate all of the frosting off and totally dove into the muffin!



Back in October or November, Mama Simmons had posted a video for Moana's birthday so I've been working on one of them ever since. It is so long (20 min!) but here it is!




Watching Food, Inc now - I feel so bad for the animals. :( Yuck.

Handicap & Birthday

I started tutoring the son of a woman that I swim with in the mornings. A few weeks ago (I never told anyone at swimming that I was pregnant) - she told me people at swimming were asking about me moving from the faster lane to not so fast lane. I thought it was kind of nosy but ended up telling her I was pregnant. I assumed she'd tell everyone so that I wouldn't have to but she didn't tell anyone! I'm still going first in the lane I moved into and beating all the people I used to beat so really no one should be asking questions, I think she was just being nosy. One day last week a girl in my lane asked me what the deal was - you can definitely see that I have some extra space in my belly now - she just said, what's the deal, are you pregnant? Now what if I was just gaining some weight? I'd never ask this! So - the secret was out. I went on Wednesday and no one asked me (the girl wasn't there) but today somehow we were mid set, and the guy who was going behind me says, "how are you feeling, are you doing ok?" and I was probably looked at him like "HUH?!" I was far in front of him so I didn't know why he was asking me. I said "I'm fine?" and so he said "Oh ok - I didn't know you were pregnant." Just because I'm pregnant doesn't mean I automatically can't lead the lane or swim fast - I was kind of peeved as I left the wall to do the second 175 in the set. Later on the guy wanted to go first for a couple of sets and he did fine, but I felt like it was because he found out I was pregnant and thought he should go in front of me. I don't see it as a handicap. I'm still hanging in there.

Nick's first birthday party is supposed to be tomorrow at 4 pm- and here is the forecast:
They are calling for 6-12 inches. Here's what I was doing all afternoon:

Pasta salad with some additions
(I added broccoli & zucchini & whole wheat bowties &omitted eggplant)

cupcakes pre-icing

cookies pre-bagging

the mess of a kitchen

the veggies getting ready to be roasted for the pasta salad

The homemade 3 tiered cake stand with cupcakes and Nick's cake up top
Nick's cake:
icing - peanut butter, cream cheese and agave nectar, scant milk
cake:
1 cup whole wheat flour
1/2 cup ww pastry flour
1/8 cup agave nectar
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
3/4 cup plain yogurt
1/2 cup buttermilk
2 tablespoons coconut oil
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 egg whites
cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger
Complements - wholesomebabyfood and gf gidget
This cake turned out ok, but too much whole wheat flour I think!

These banana muffins Christine posted on her blog turned out very yummy -
this would make a good cake I think.
(top right and lower muffin)

2 tablespoons coconut oil
2 tbs agave nectar
1/2 teaspoon of vanilla
2 very large ripe bananas
1/2 cup ww flour
1/2 cup ground oats
1 heaping teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

I put icing(pb/cream cheese) on one for Nick's birthday breakfast tomorrow.
It's the one with the 1!



The kid favors
The birthday boy

The birthday cake - from the store !

We will have to see if the show will go on or be postponed until Sunday. We picked up the cake, bought a few balloons, and have to let the food people know (sandwiches) by 11am.. hoping that we can still have it. Either way, can't believe my little baby boy is turning 1. One year ago was the last day I taught a class! :(

Here is this Friday's HumNut Pizza:

containing black bean slider, tomato sauce,humnut sauce, avocado, spinach balls, and mozzarella cheese.

Challenge check- in:
Well ... I have not been adding up how much of what I have been eating but I have been making an effort to incorporate veggies - I made spinach balls yesterday and have been eating lots of tomato sauce. :)

Saving on shopping!

I had my first grocery trip of the month on Monday - now I was also buying things for Nick's party this weekend, but it was around the same amount that I normally spend. Before I went, I went through every item on my list and went to see if I could find an online coupon or had one from the store. I also looked at the circular so I knew what was on sale.
Some great sites that I found were:

Coupons.com
Smartsource.com

I saved $15 in coupons! My grocery store also doubles coupons up to a dollar so this was great!

Meal planning week 2 is going well! This week looks like:

Monday: Tofu w/ green beans and potatoes
Tuesday: Spinach Artichoke Quiche with black beans and tomato sauce
Wednesday: Turkey Burger (Bill), black bean sliders (me and Nick) with bulgar
Thursday: Salmon and leftover black bean sliders
Friday: Pita pizzas!
Saturday: Nick's birthday party food
Sunday: leftovers

I've added nutritional yeast to my egg white omelet (decent) and a scoop to tonight's sliders.
It reminds me of the cheese popcorn you get in a big tin.

As far as my challenge, I'm still struggling on my veggies and fruits. If I were not pregnant, I don't think it would be as bad a problem - I'm definitely just not into them !! If I hit a salad bar I think I would do a better job though.

My ankle and knee are just two sore spots that I am keeping my eye on and need strengthening!
Today's swim was great because not many people went out in the 1-2 inches of snow that arrived through the night. I had a really good 2700 yds!

I'm considering the switch over to wordpress. Anyone have advice? So far, I just really do not find it user friendly.

February's challenge

With Nick's diet, I find that it is easy to follow the recommendations in super baby food as far as how many servings of each food group he should be getting each day. Now with my own, I don't do as good of a job. When I got pregnant with Nick I went to see a nutritionist and she gave me a list of how many servings I should be eating of each food group. Over the past few days I just feel like I haven't been planning out my eating so it has been all over the place. MY challenge for this month is to follow the serving sizes - the biggest challenge is going to be the veggies because I haven't been into them. This is between 1800 and 2700 calories. The only thing that I don't like about is that I don't know where some things fall in - like protein powder, protein bars, etc - but maybe I should stick to the natural, whole foods.

The goal is each day:
3-6 veggies (1/2 c cooked, 1 c raw)
3-5 fruit (3/4c blueberries, 1/2 banana, 1 kiwi..)
12-15 starch (3/4c cereal, 1/2 bagel, 1/2 pita, 1 slice bread, 1/2 c oats, 1/2 c potato, 1/2 c beans)
5-7 protein (1/2 c tofu, 1/2 c beans, 1/4 c TVP, 2 egg white, 1 oz cheese, 2 T PB, 1/4 c hummus)
2-3 milk (1 c milk, 3/4 c yogurt)
5 fat (1/8 avocado, 1 tsp oil, 1 tsp butter, 1 T cream cheese, 1 T pb)

Today I had vs (Goal):
Veggie: (3 to 6): 2
Fruit: (3 to 5): 1.5
Starch: (12-15): 7
Protein:(5 to 7): 6.5
Milk: (2-3): 2
Fat: (5): 2

I didn't know where to put a cookie so I put it in starch/carbs. I bought V8 fusion on my February shopping trip today, so that will help with my fruit and veggies but oh man - I am low on them right now! Here's how the day ended out:

1959 calories
62.3 g fat (28%)
262.7 carbs (big and I didn't even eat the recommended starch amount??) (52%)
105.6 g protein (20%)

Need more fruits and veggies.


My knee seems ok- ankle too - I have not run outside now in a good 2 weeks and I'm dying!
I used amaranth to make Nick this lentil/apple/pecan loaf and it tastes really good - like an apple pie to me. The taste of the amaranth blends in! :)


The nutritional yeast - I'm totally new to it - but it seems like it would be a good base for a sauce/dip and is fine to sprinkle on popcorn. Besides popcorn though, I'm not sure that I would eat it by itself on anything else.