megabyrd

Getting in touch with our inner HEALTH NERD!


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Hey Yall!! New Dressing!!

Hellooooo Megabyrders!!! I apologize for my extended absence! Got a new schedule so my time is spread pretty thin these days! I wanted to pop in and endorse a delicious salad dressing I brought at WalMart yesterday!

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Yes, that is correct: Pumpkin Apple Spice Vinaigrette :-) I am happy to report that it tastes AWESOME and I would highly recommend you pick it up on your next office visit if apples and pumpkin appeal to you! Below is a pic of it drizzled over my spinach salad with parmesan baked chicken! (Also on the blog under protein and real food!) Enjoy guys!! Happy Healthy Eating!!

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Chickpea Salad + Breakfast

Let’s start with breakfast this morning!

Egg white omelet with mushrooms, broccoli and spinach:

 

All chopped up and ready to cook!

 

I put some canola oil on the pan and then poured out some of the egg whites.

 

 

And because I can’t do anything in a timely manner, I scrunched up the omelet and put it in a small Tupperware to eat at work with some salsa!

 

It was great – and a sneaky + easy way to squeeze in some veggies SUPER early in the morning! Always a win when you can do that.

Next up – chickpea salad (also known, as I discovered last night, as garbanzo beans).

I was in the canned veggie aisle for a little longer than I’d like to share looking for CHICKPEAS. I couldn’t find them anywhere. When I finally found them, it was because one of my lovely best friends pointed out that they are garbanzo beans. Mystery solved – Publix does indeed carry chickpeas.

I didn’t feel too smart after that. I made up for it, however, by creating a yummy salad that I will use all week long.

2 cans GARBANZO beans
1/2 can black beans
1/4 cup onions (optional, of course)
1/2 bag packaged ‘stir fry’ veggies (snap peas, broccoli and carrots)
1/2 of a cucumber, sliced
as much of any type of cheese you want! I used Gorgonzola
2 tablespoons of olive or canola oil
4 tablespoons of balsamic vinegar
salt and pepper, to taste

I can’t reiterate enough how DUMB I felt after realizing my mistake. Whoops!

 

I can’t dice onions, well, I don’t like dicing onions, so I opted to be lazy and buy them like this!

 

Another lazy thing… I could have bought fresh ingredients but I just simply didn’t feel like prepping all these individual items. Next time maybe?

 

Almost ready!

 

…cheese. The best part.

 

Proof that I wasn’t 100% lazy with my prep for this dish…

 

And then I got to eating it today for lunch! It was well worth all the assembly!

 

Happy Monday to all you folks out there! Enjoy your day!!!! :)


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Spaghetti + Kale Chips

Oh, and SO much more!

THE Menu

Kale chips
roasted mushrooms
spaghetti squash
roasted broccoli
roasted Brussels sprouts
roasted asparagus

Whew, that’s a big menu! One of my best friends came over so we could make our weekly Wednesday dinner together! I couldn’t get enough of the spaghetti squash last time, so we re created that!

It’s so difficult to cut in half! Once it is, though, it needs to be rubbed with olive oil and sprinkled with a bit of sea salt.

Those go in the oven for 45 minutes at 400 degrees – but that may vary depending on your oven.

Then we started prepping all the ‘sides’.

So those are all the veggies – and they were tossed in some olive oil, sea salt and pepper and thrown into the oven to soak up the heat and roast away.

You guys, those kale chips – as simply as they were made – were the best part of the meal! They are healthy little potato chips. They were as light and crunchy as one, anyway, and tasted phenomenal.

While those veggies were roasting, my friend got to work on the tomato sauce, which is the exact same as last time – but here it is again.

2 small cans tomato paste
1 diced tomato (large pieces)
1 clove fresh, diced garlic
salt
pepper
fresh basil, julienne

Then, all the veggies came out:

And it was time to PLATE UP!

At this point, I was starved and LOADED my plate. Probably too much…

And a nice close up:

And that was my dinner of broccoli, asparagus, Brussels sprouts, kale chips, spaghetti squash and mushrooms. Honestly, it was so delicious and I was so grateful to have SO much leftover for lunch today! :) Happy Thursday to everyone!


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Pumpkin Almond Pancakes

I haven’t made it obvious on here just how much pumpkin means to me.

We have a love affair that only comes around from time to time and when it strikes, it’s passionate.

Give me anything with pumpkin in it and I’m the happiest girl in the world. When one of my beautiful best friends and I found this recipe for pumpkin pancakes, we knew just what to do!

1 cup almond flour (homemade, too!)
3 eggs
1/4 cup canned pumpkin
1/4 cup cashew butter (YUM)
1 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon stevia

So, after all those ingredients are placed in a mixing bowl, you get to mixing!

It looks and smells so yummy at this point – just so you know! :) Hold off temptation to snack on the batter, remember, there are three eggs in there.

After the batter was ready, we used coconut oil to grease up the pan and got started.

These suckers took forever to cook right away but they were well worth the wait.

They turned out perfectly.

And that was Sunday morning breakfast for us! They couldn’t have turned out any better.

If you make this, my only suggestion would be to add more pumpkin. I didn’t really taste that flavor as much as I had hoped. They were, however, the best pancakes I’ve had in a while (nothing can really beat pancakes filled with chocolate chips). Oh, these were also a great way to start the day because they are packed with filling almond flour! They kept me full for quite some time which is always a feat first thing in the morning.

Happy Tuesday – if you’re in the cold today, good luck. :)


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Arden’s Garden Cleanse

Oh, the joys of a cleanse. I am not a believer in the advertised results of a cleanse, but I do appreciate the challenge (mentally and physically) a cleanse provides. I do not advocate cleanses for anyone, I  just try them from time to time for fun! <– Maybe I should redefine my definition for fun?

This time around, I tried a simple 2 day detox, courtesy of a local juice shop, Arden’s Garden.

Trying to drink one gallon per day is hard. I actually admit – I couldn’t drink that much. I’m impressed by people who can. :)

Check that out. NO FOOD! Ah!

At least I get to enjoy the juice out of a cute cup at work.

It’s the small things in life, I guess. That truly does not look appetizing at all.

My review on the taste is simple. It’s a cleanse, and therefore, not incredibly sweet or satisfying. It’s a mixture of grapefruit, lemon and orange juice (heavy on the grapefruit and lemon, not enough on the orange). All in all, though, it’s got a decent taste and is comparable to other cleanses I’ve tried. I’m looking forward to some solid food tomorrow. Happy Thursday! Friday is on its way.


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Spaghetti for lunch

Happy Tuesday – yes, it’s sadly only Tuesday. :(

For lunch today, I brought some leftovers of my spaghetti squash with the hope of creating a sneakily healthy lunch today.

The spaghetti squash was already cooked – which you can see in an earlier post. I just brought some frozen broccoli and marinara sauce to create a yummy veggie bowl.

Let me tell you folks – it hit the darn spot!

That’s the star of the show – the spaghetti squash!

Then I added the broccoli and microwaved it for two minutes… When it popped out it was steaming hot so I just added some marinara sauce.

Then the BYRD and I had some play time with our food!

How beautiful is my BYRD?! So – there you have it – a healthy lunch that tastes decadent! I’m enjoying mine right now. Until next time – :)


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Weekend Warrior

Happy Monday to everyone out there!

It looks like it’s going to be a beautiful day today – so let’s enjoy it together.

The weekend festivities included several unhealthy meals (including my favorite greasy pizza a la Pizza Hut!) but also a few healthy things, of course.

Simple Salad & Fruit

baby romaine lettuce (I consumed this the same day I bought it – and it had already started to go bad. I hate it when that happens.)
black beans
pinto beans
shredded cheddar cheese
garlic salt
pepper
red wine vinegar
canola oil

That fruit salad had strawberries, pineapple, cantaloupe, honeydew, grapes, and watermelon. It was some amazing fruit and I easily consumed the entire bowl. :) Proud moment.

Chocolate Almond Butter Banana Overnight Oats (that’s a mouthful)

1/2 cup oats
1 tbsp Hershey’s dark chocolate powder
a couple pinches of chia seeds
1 tbsp almond butter
8 oz Greek yogurt
a splash of soy milk
1 sliced banana

This is a super simple recipe! All you need to do is mix up all the ingredients and let them soak overnight and voila! The next morning, you have a chilly, gooey, satisfying breakfast packed with nutrients.

This recipe would have been better with vanilla flavored yogurt but I didn’t have that on stock. Instead, I used the top portion of the raspberry flavor (the flavoring stuff is usually all at the bottom).

Love seeing all that chocolate powder in there.. :)

Um, and that picture above is why everyone should love overnight oats. They look like pudding and frosting and love all mixed together – which makes me a happy girl! See for yourself:

Enjoy the rest of the wonderful Monday, everyone. :)


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Spaghetti Squash

As promised, I am trying to diversify my recipes on here… While I will always adore and love quinoa, I have to mix it up at times!
So, one of my beautiful best friends is doing a life challenge, similar to a Paleo diet (have y’all heard of that?? :) ). She can only eat certain things and can only use  fresh, wholesome ingredients. In order to accommodate that, she cooked us both dinner last night! Even though I did help a little bit, it was mostly her brains behind this wonderful operation.

The Menu:
Spaghetti squash with homemade tomato sauce
Baked asparagus and mushrooms
Sweet potato chips

First we had to put the spaghetti squash in the oven. It has to be cut in half, smeared with just a little bit of olive oil and placed face down to bake for 45 minutes at 400 degrees (that may vary, depending on your oven!).

Once that was started, it was time to peel the sweet potatoes and use a carrot peeler to get them into tiny slices. Admittedly, I did not help at all with this process! Once they were peeled and sliced, they were coated with cinnamon, sea salt and a bit of olive oil.

They already smelled so delectable before  they even went in the oven. I can’t lie – I was most excited for these!

Next up on the agenda was getting the asparagus and mushroom mixture in the oven. The mushrooms were sliced already, but the asparagus needed some work!

After the ends were cut off, they were tossed in olive oil, salt and pepper.

Then, it was time to just relax and wait for everything to cook.

The sweet potatoes and squash baked for roughly 45 minutes and the mushrooms and asparagus baked for about 20. The spaghetti squash came out perfectly – and it was time to take a fork to it and turn it into spaghetti noodles!

Then the rest came out:

And plating was next!

I love how pretty the spaghetti squash looks! :) The tomato sauce is homemade – and very simple to make!

2 cans tomato paste
1 tomato cut into large pieces
2 cloves of diced garlic
a handful of diced mushrooms
a few leaves of fresh basil julienne

And if you are one to notice details, you can see that the mushrooms didn’t make it to the plating stage of dinner last night. After sampling one, we devoured them all. They were by far the best mushrooms I’ve ever consumed – which is odd because they were made so simply. Who knew?

Overall, this was one of the best meals I’ve ever had and guess what?

There was nothing other than VEGETABLES! My health thanked me for this meal – and so did my taste buds.


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Wait for it…. Wednesday!

Well, as the seasons are changing before my eyes, I think that my food intake will be as well.

The delicious fruits that satisfy me will soon be out of season, which in turn, makes me out of season. Fresh fruit is my favorite thing in the world – especially when grocery stores like Publix cut it all up and put it in a bowl for you. 

What can I say? I can’t cut a pineapple or watermelon but I love the fruit!

So, to mourn the approach of the end of summer fruit season, I stocked up on fruit! Oh, and also some salad. :) There is nothing better than a salad with creamy avocados to really enhance the texture and add some healthy fats.

And let me remind you – as the BYRD would do – DRINK YOUR WATER. Yes, you can have too much water, but typically people do not get enough! So here’s me with my keg… It’s full of water and I try to drink at least one of these a day (52 ounces). The bathroom trips are annoying, but hey, my body is grateful!

Happy Wednesday folks! Hopefully I’ll have some fun recipes headed your way in the next couple of days.


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I Promise…

I promise I eat things other than quinoa! :)

It’s just too darn delicious and too easy to make – which is why it is appearing more and more around here.

This hot treat spared me from going grocery shopping sooner than I wanted to!

Into the mix:

1/2 cup quinoa
1/2 cup black beans (any will work though)
a heaping pile of spinach
as much cheese as you want
some garlic salt and pepper, to taste

I heated mine up in my microwave for about 2:30 and when I  popped it out, the texture of all the items was perfect! The spinach was perfectly melted with the cheese and the black beans had softened just the right amount.

Next up was the quick lunch I packed whilst preparing for a day of jury duty this week… I like quinoa hot or cold, so I have found it to be something I can integrate into almost anything. For my chilled lunch this week, I threw some quinoa, black beans, pinto beans, balsamic vinegar, olive oil, and shredded cheddar cheese into the mix. It was almost like a salad – minus the lettuce!

It was healthy, delicious, and kept me patient as I sat through a day of civic duties – otherwise known as jury duty.

Back to my title, I promise I eat more than quinoa! I highly recommend it because I’ve found it to be so simple yet so satisfying. I can put anything with it, and once you make the actual quinoa, you can store it in the fridge until you use it all! :)

Happy Friday everyone! Enjoy the changing seasons outside. :)

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