Mmmm..Meatloaf!

Good Morning! It's friday the 13th! Ahhh!

Thankfully, I'm not superstitious at all, but I do have a super awesome and healthy meatloaf recipe to share today!

I love my dad's meatloaf and it is really delicious, but it is your typical meatloaf with fat filled ground beef and pork. So once I moved out, I was on the search to find a healthier version of meatloaf...until I came across this recipe on Meals and Moves. I changed it slightly to make it my own, and it turn out awesome! I was surprised how good it was. I'm pretty sure my healthier version could take on the full fat version any day. :)

Easy Turkey Meatloaf 
Adapted from Meals and Moves

Ingredients:

• 2.5 lbs 93% Lean Ground Turkey
• 1 large onion, chopped up fine
• 2 eggs
• 2 cups of old fashioned oats
• 1 15 oz can of tomato sauce
• 1/2 tsp salt and pepper
• 1/2 ketchup

Directions:

1. Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.

2. With clean hands, mix all of the ingredients, except for the ketchup, together in a large bowl,
until combined. 

3. Grease a 9x13 glass baking dish with non-stick spray and spread meat mixture evenly into it.

4. Cover with foil and bake for 45 minutes.

5. Remove foil and spread a layer of ketchup evenly onto the top of the meatloaf. Bake for another 10-15 minutes.

Makes 16 servings. 

~160 calories per serving

And here's a random Artemis picture of the day...

He's so weird!!! 

What is your favorite comfort food meal?

Recent Eats and Turbofire!

Happy Friday!


I hope everyone is having an awesome day so far! The husband and I are going over to his grandparents' house later to have a small BBQ. It should be fun! I'm bringing a crunchy asian slaw (It's a Hungry Girl recipe and so yummy!) and a bacon potato salad, which I must say is by far the best potato salad I've ever had! When I was working, one of my co-workers brought it to a potluck we were having and I could just not stop eating it! It was that good! Anyways, if you would like to make it also, click here for the recipe. You can change it up however you want. I substituted fat free ranch and light mayo for the full fat stuff, and I used the pre-cooked bacon that you just have to microwave, as I think it's a bit lower in calories than the raw bacon. 


So, I know a couple posts back I said I was starting the Jillian Michael's Body Revolution program, and I did get through the first week, but to me it seemed like it wasn't giving me a high intensity workout and I wasn't pushing myself to get through it like some other workouts I have done in the past. Since I visit my parents at least every 4 months for 2 weeks at a time, I kept in mind the equipment that was required in different programs as I looked for a new one. P90X was out of the question and so was Chalean Extreme. So that left me with only 2 other options: Turbofire or Insanity. I have never done Turbofire before, but I did get through the first 2 weeks of Insanity before I had to stop because it was hurting my feet like crazy, even with shoes on! So Turbofire it was! I'm on day 13 of 90, and I've never had this much fun working out before. And I have to say that the workouts kick my butt as well! I literally have sweat dripping off of me by the time the video is over. So, is it easy?..No!   Fun?...YES!!  

I've been bad about taking pictures of meals lately, so here are a few pictures I did manage to get before scarfing down my food. :)

Breakfast 

Blueberry Banana Oats

Cinnamon Apple Cranberry Oats

Too much of this lately..This has been my breakfast everyday for the last week or so. I'm coo-coo for pancakes!

Along with a side of watermelon..which doesn't seem to last long at all in our house. 

Snacks

Green Monster!! RAWRRRR! :)

"I can't believe it's not a milkshake!" Milkshake

And..more of this. I'm going to turn into a watermelon soon.

Lunch/Dinner

Turkey Pastrami Wrap with a side of cukes

Apple Raisin Chicken Salad with Raspberry Vinaigrette

My infamous chef salad..so delicious. We eat this on a regular basis. 

And here's some cute kitty pictures. :)

He's such a happy kitty...and spoiled! hehe

Enjoy your weekend!

Protein pancakes!

It's the weekend! Although, everyday is pretty much the weekend for me. Sometimes I even forget what day it is until I look at the calendar.

Breakfast

I started off the morning with some protein pancakes, rooty tooty fresh n' fruity-style..

Protein Pancakes


Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup rolled oats
• 1/2 cup hot water
• 1/4 cup liquid egg whites (or 2 egg whites)
• 1 scoop (30g) any flavor protein powder (I used ON 100% whey in vanilla)
• 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1 tsp baking powder
• pinch of salt
• 1/2 tsp vanilla

Directions:


1. In a bowl, add rolled oats and hot water, then let sit for 1-2 minutes to let the oats "cook" until they are soft. Add the rest of the ingredients to the oats and mix well.
2. Preheat a skillet to medium-low heat, spray with non-stick spray and pour in half the batter, spreading it out a bit with a spoon.
3. Heat until partially cooked and carefully flip pancake.
4. Cook on the other side for 1 minute then plate it up.
5. For the strawberry topping, I just heated up a handful of frozen strawberries in the microwave for 1 minute, then broke them up into the pieces with a fork.


While I enjoyed my breakfast at the computer, I had a little visitor eyeing the last bite of my pancake...

And then he claimed what was his...

Needless to say, I did not eat the last bite of my pancake. It was covered in fur after this incident!

At the end of April, I signed up to join Foodie Penpals for May, so today I went and did some foodie shopping for my penpal, and also picked up lots of fruits and veggies while I was out. I frequent the 99 cent only store often for fruits and veggies, and today I picked up 3 lbs of plums, 6 lbs of oranges, 2 lbs of kiwi, 4 lbs of apples, and 3 mangos, all for only $12! I love bargains!

I was starving by the time I got home from my shopping adventure, so I fixed a quick lunch.

I had some sliced turkey on a sandwich thin with lettuce, tomato, and a queso fresco & chipotle laughing cow wedge. On the side, I had a huge mango from the 99 cently only store and some cucumber slices. It was delish! I also had an unpictured plum too.

And now it's time to go watch the season finale of The Secret Circle...and then I should probably stop procrastinating my exercise. By the way, Cardio 1 of Body Revolution will kick your butt! 

First post eats! Yay!

Hi everyone! I'm so excited to finally start my very own food blog! I have been stalking many other food blogs daily for the past 5 years or so, and now I get to join the blogging world family!

This morning I decided to fix a yummy egg white and cheese breakfast sandwich on a whole wheat english muffin, with an unsweetened applesauce cup on the side (we're out of fruit, argh!).

And a close up of the melty goodness...

Mmm! It was delicious! Way better than any breakfast sandwich you could get from McDonald's or Dunkin'. Speaking of Dunkin' Donuts, I'm missing their iced coffees. :( I was born and raised in Florida and there are DD's everywhere! However, that is not the case with Cali. Can you believe there is not a single DD in the entire state?! While I do enjoy Starbucks, DD is just more reasonably priced.

And on that note, I would like to share my caramel latte recipe!

 

  Sugar Free Caramel Latte

Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup any milk (I use regular skim milk because it froths better than almond milk)
• 2 tbsp sugar free caramel flavored syrup (My local Dollar Tree carries these)
• 1 tsp instant coffee (I used Nescafe Clasico)
• 3 tbsp hot water
• a milk frother or whisk

Directions:

1.Pour milk into a measuring cup and microwave for 2 minutes.
2. In a small cup, add instant coffee and water, then heat for 30 seconds.
3. Add caramel syrup to milk and use frother to create foam. The milk should double in size.
4. Pour milk slowly into your cup, holding back the foam with a spoon, then top with foam. Slowly  pour the shot of "espresso" in the center of the foam. Stir (if you like) and enjoy!

This little gadget is so awesome! I got mine from Amazon.com. It's just the cheap IKEA one, but they also have a $20 one called the Aerolatte. Although, if you have an IKEA near you, I think it's only $1.99 in store. 

Click here to buy one, you know you want to. :) Free shipping too if you have Amazon Prime. 

And now, it's time for you to meet our kitty-child, Artemis! It's been almost a year now since we adopted him from the pet shelter last August. He is probably one the happiest cats I've ever had. He loves laying in laps and always wants to be near us, even right on top of our heads when we're sleeping. You'll probably be seeing a lot of pictures of him because he's always doing something crazy!

Before I had lunch, I decided to do day 2 on phase 1 of Jillian Michael's Body Revolution. It was a nice workout, but not all that challenging really. I'm hoping as the days progress in the first phase, it will get a bit more intense. Although, this is probably only as much as I can do right now. I came down with a bad flu 3 weeks ago, 2 weeks before I would have finished P90X. That made me so angry but what can you do, right?

I'm planning on continuing with the Jillian Michael's program for at least a month or more(the whole program is 90 days), then stepping it up and trying Insanity for the second time again. The first time I tried it, I only made it through the first 2 weeks before my feet were killing me. The pain only lasted for a couple seconds, but it was stopping me from being able to do the moves correctly. My plan this time is to go barefoot and use an extra thick mat designed for high impact exercises. Lets hope it works!

By the time I was finished with my exercise for the day, I was starving! I wanted to keep my lunch on the light side though since the husband and I were going out later to the Cheesecake Factory.

Here's what lunch looked like:

Om nom nom nom!

A simple BBQ chicken sandwich with lettuce and laughing cow cheese on a sandwich thin, with a side of baby carrots and some jicama! I have never tried jicama before until recently and I discovered that I really liked it! It's almost a cross between an apple and pear, but with a slight peppery taste. 

Oh no, he's awake!

And now it's time for me to go dig into my lunch and watch some Revenge!