Zucchini Gratin for One

I finally tried my PBFit that I got from Sam’s Club a few weeks ago.  I tend to like my peanut butter on the smoother side, so I did 2 tablespoons of the powder with 2 tablespoons of water.  I smeared them on top of sliced bananas, and topped with my pumpkin granola and had an egg white “omelet” on the side with some of the dried guajillo pepper salsa from taco fiesta night.  It was the perfect balance of sweet and savory.

Since I am nearly cough free, I thought “I am going to walk three miles at lunch, and then hit the gym after work and do 30 minutes of strength training. . .” but, let’s just say that after not working out for nearly a month, I had to take it slower.  I ended up doing a two mile walk at lunch.  Each day I’ll just have to build on that so I don’t risk making myself sick again.  (note to self – get your flu shot!).

The second mile wasn’t too bad of a pace!  Lunch was just leftover beef tacos – each taco had an ounce of beef in it with some baby spinach and more guajillo salsa – I swear you guys, if you make that salsa, you’ll want to put it on everything.

It was just me for dinner last night.  While Jacob and I declared it Meat Monday, he had to work until 8:30 – no worries, I cooked his dinner when he got home, sans the zucchini gratin.  In the summer zucchini is one of my favorite veggies, but growing up I think he said his Mom made it like once a year?  So he’s a bit zucchini’d out!  I have no idea what made me think of making a gratin as a side dish to my steak, but all the recipes that I saw on Pinterest called for baking for an hour or more.  Ain’t nobody got time for that?   So I just winged it and came up with this zucchini gratin for one.

Guys.  Wow, this was a company worthy dinner and it was just for me on a Monday night!   Since I am the queen of spices (I think I have about 50 to choose from!) I made Bobby Flay’s coffee rub – the only ingredient I left out of the rub was the coriander.  I let the rub sit on the steak for about 30 minutes while the steak came to room temp.   And while this side dish may seem a bit high in calories, before dinner I was only at around 800 calories for the day, so it’s all good.

Since the steak was pretty thin, I only cooked it for 90 seconds a side – perfect medium rare:

When Hannah and Jacob are both away for any length of time, Rummy gets REALLY clingy.  Like she didn’t want me to do anything – she stood like this for probably five minutes and every time I tried to do something on the computer she’d knock my hand away!

Good news!  I got the quote for the floors, and it was right at the price I thought it would be.  I stopped by the store on the way home and paid the 50% downpayment – the floors are scheduled to be installed the week of October 19th – so theoretically I could have everything down by Halloween instead of Thanksgiving! 

I will just be happy to use that half of the house again when it’s all done.  The living room and dining room is 700 square feet of my 1200 square foot house.  So this photo will be a long distance memory when it’s all done!

So for the first time in a long time I hit 10k steps!  Today my goal is to hit 11k and keep working my way back to where I was. 

Alright – going to try to get some steps in before work – it’s 52 degrees and looks like it could rain, but I am going for it.  Make it a great day!