Meatloaf Salad and Tracy Anderson

I made meatloaf last night and needed to find a way to use the leftovers. I didn't want to make a sandwich since I'm trying to cut down on bread and I needed my salad for the day so I used some meatloaf in a salad and it turned out delicious! I used red lettuce, chopped red pepper, almonds, cranberries, and cut up meatloaf. I threw some raspberry vinaigrette on top and lunch was done.

I also did part of my Tracy Anderson Post Pregnancy DVD. I've got a cold and didn't feel like jumping around so this fit the bill. She has the best abs exercises and usually my muscles are sore the next day. I first started this when Elise was 5 months (she's 2 now)  and still do it occasionally.

Sweet Potato and Apple Salad

I picked up the cookbook while waiting in line at the grocery store a couple weeks ago. It's called "New Year! New You! Recipes". It has a recipe for Sweet Potato and Apple Salad with Vinegar Dressing. I had it for lunch today and it was delicious! Of course I didn't have all the ingredients so had to make some substitutes. It makes 4 servings.

Here it is:
2 small sweet potatoes (8 oz. ea.) scrubbed and poked with knife
2 T apple cider vinegar
2 T extra virgin olive oil (canola oil for me)
1 clove garlic, grated or crushed
1/8 t pepper
2 granny smith apples, cut into 1/2 inch cubes
1/2 cup diagonally sliced scallions ( I used red onion)
1 T raisins
2 T chopped unsalted dry roast peasuts (I used pistachios)

Bake sweet potato at 400 degrees until tender, about 45 minutes. (I put mine in the microwave oven for 5 minutes) Cool completely, then cut into 1/2 inch slices and cut each slice in half.

Whisk vinegar, oil (I used canola oil), garlic, and pepper in large bowl until blended. (I also put in a squirt of honey.) Add potatoes, apples, scallions (or red onion), raisins, and half the nuts. Toss to blend. Sprinkle with remaining nuts.

I doubled the dressing because it seems no recipe has enough. Next time I'll use a sweeter apple because for me the tart dressing and tart apple was too much. It would be really good to leave out the apple and double the sweet potatoes for a healthy potato salad. Mmmm..  That's what I'm trying next time. I must say I'm really enjoying trying new recipes for lunch. I don't have to please anyone's taste but my own. Plus I have salads already made for the weekend. :-)

Chicken Salad without Mayonnaise

I looked up a chicken salad made with cottage cheese and decided to try it today. I was getting tired of the same old salads. It's really good and I feel better that it doesn't have mayonnaise. I put mine on a whole wheat English muffin. I also added a side salad so I'd get more veggies in. Try it, it's really good!

1/2 cup cottage cheese (try and smash it up so it is a smoother consistency)
about 1 1/2 cups chopped up chicken breast (or canned chicken)
dried cranberries
diced celery
diced jicama (I used Granny Smith apple, chopped up)
some curry powder (I added salt, pepper)
and if it is too dry, either add more cottage cheese, or a dollop of light mayonnaise. (I added a couple teaspoons sour cream)

Another Tabata

I took Wednesday off because I went to bed too late Tuesday night and the idea of getting up early and exercising wasn't appealing. So I need to make up for it. I'm doing another Kettleworx, core week 3. I'm going to add another tabata at the end, this time targeting the lower body. I'm only doing one exercise this time, a squat jump jump. From a standing position jump into a wide squat. Then jump your feet back in and do two jumps. You can see in this workout on fitmiss.tv.

Here's how I did: 10, 11, 11, 10, 10, 9, 9, 11

My legs are like rubber now. Off to enjoy breakfast before my morning starts with the girls. Have a great day!

I Broke Down

I did have my salad today. Yay! Nothing too exciting so I didn't take a picture. But I was still hungry after. So I broke down and had a piece of cranberry bread that someone made from Gordon's work. It was yummy, but I'm going to keep it to one piece.

I know it doesn't seem like a big deal but when you're trying to make healthy changes, every little thing counts.  If it was just me in the family I would start throwing out all the things I'm trying to avoid. It's harder when the rest of the family needs to eat too but they don't want to eat your way. My husband loves white rice, I'm trying to move away from the "whites". Move from white flour to whole wheat flour, brown rice instead of white, no white sugar or fructose corn syrup. But these things are still in my house.

So, how do I make the change to clean eating when no one else is? I honestly don't know. But I'm going to keep trying. :)

1-11-11 My Steak Salad

We remembered to take the food out of Gordon's car last night so I'm having my steak salad today. I used romaine again. That turning out to be my favorite lettuce, but I'm going to pick something else next time I'm at the store. Added broccoli, yellow peppers, almonds, and of course steak. I found an all natural raspberry vinaigrette by Olde Cape Cod and it's really good. Anybody try some great salads recently?

1-11-11 End With A Tabata

I'm onto week three of my Kettleworx program. But I'm throwing in a tabata at the end because I wanted to add some intensity. Here's what I'm doing:
Cardio Kettleworx week 3, about 20 minutes.

Then the tabata:

High Knees 53 (running in place bringing knees up as high as possible)
Pushups 13
High Knees 53
Tricep Dips 14
High Knees 52
Pushups 8
High Knees 54
Tricep Dips 17

Remember it's 8 rounds of 20 seconds of really intense effort with 10 seconds of rest. I want to work on my pushups, but the dvd had some too so the tabata ones were hard.  Even if I can't get all the way down, I'm not going to my knees. My goal is to do 20 pushups on my toes going all the way down without a break. Remember you'll need an interval timer for tabatas. So either get a Gymboss or try out this one. It's already set up for one tabata, but you can change it to whatever you need.