First Meatless Monday!

I know as soon as Melissa reads the title of this post she will jump up and down!  As part of the Skinny Snowman Challenge, one of the ways to earn points is to have a meatless Monday.  Um, turns out I didn’t read all the rules until last Monday, so I missed on this opportunity last week.

Meatless Breakfast Casserole for One:

Serves One:  417 calories, 14 fat, 43 carbs, 6.5 fiber and 27 protein

• 1/4 cup egg whites
• 1 egg
• 1/4 cup canned black beans
• 3 ounces cooked potato, sliced
• 1 ounce diced stale bread
• 1/2 cup baby spinach
• 3/4 ounce of cheese

Layer the potatoes on the bottom, then top with the stale bread.  Mix the black beans, egg whites, egg and chopped baby spinach together.  Pour over potato and bread mixture, top with cheese and bake at 350 for 20-25 minutes, or until the eggs are set. 

I’ve said before I pre-cook potatoes over the weekend to have on hand.  Canned sliced potatoes would be a fine substitute.

I loved the addition of the black beans for extra protein.  Although a small warning – this was perfectly fluffy when I pulled it out of the oven.  I made it Sunday night and refrigerated it, and then it took like 3 minutes in the microwave at work to heat up, and it got a bit dry.  No worries – lots of Tabasco was used!    So next time I know I will be reheating it before eating it, I’ll under cook it just a tad.

See that apple in the first picture?  That was 1/3 of a honey crisp apple!  It took me nearly the whole day to eat the whole thing – at a pound of apple, I am counting that as my 3 fruit servings for the day.

While I am still trying to speed up my 5k time, I never thought about adding an app on my phone for HIIT intervals on the treadmill.  I love free shit, and found this one:

You basically tell it what your warm up is, your work out, rest and how many reps you want to do and it totally tells you when to switch it up.  I ended up doing a 40 minute workout – 5 minute warm-up, 5 minute cool down.  My run was 3 minutes, my rest was 2 minutes – and my fastest 3 minute run was at a 10 minute mile pace. 

So with 10 minutes being a warm up and cool down walking at a 3.0 mile pace, that’s not too bad!

I am doing the group exercise class again tonight, so I’ll be getting plenty of strength training from that class.  I will probably swim at lunch just to get away from the office.

A meatless lunch.  Huh.  When I was cleaning out my fridge I realized I had a package of firm tofu that I never used and it was nearing its expiration date.  I went on www.tastespotting.com and found a recipe for pad thai soup.  Holla!  I adapted it for one serving.  Because let’s face it.  A lot of shit we eat our significant others wouldn’t touch with a 10-foot pole – am I right ladies?!

Pad Thai Soup

• 1 serving – 424 caloires, 8 fat, 31 carbs, 7.6 fiber and 32 protein

Ingredients:

• 1/2 a cup of shredded daikon radish
• 1/2 cup shredded carrot
• 3 cups low sodium chicken broth
• 1 cup chopped fresh baby spinach
• 2 oz. Dreamfield’s pasta, uncooked
• 1 teaspoon sriracha
• 1 teaspoon fish sauce
• 3 sprigs of lemon grass
• 4 ounces firm tofu, pressed
• 1 clove minced garlic
• cilantro for garnish

Press out the tofu in a paper towel for 15 minutes.  Put everything but tofu and pasta in a pan and bring to a boil.  Add pasta and cook according to package directions.  I happened to use lower carb Dreamfield’s pasta, because I didn’t have any pad thai noodles on hand.  Remove from heat, and stir in cubed tofu.

The broth was super spicy, and I love the citrus notes from the lemongrass – just be careful not to eat the lemongrass.

I decided to make stuffed peppers for dinners, but made mine more of a Mexican stuffed pepper.

Mexican Stuffed Pepper

• serves one – 382 calories, 10.5 fat, 55 carbs, 14 fiber (!) and 20 protein

Ingredients:

• 1 large green pepper
• 1 cup baby spinach chopped
• 1/2 cup cooked white rice
• 1/2 cup canned black beans
• 1/2 cup of baja fresh salsa (or your favorite jarred salsa)
• 1 teaspoon buffalo Tabasco
• 1 ounce cheddar cheese

Cook the pepper on fresh vegetable setting of your microwave.  Let cool slightly and remove the stem.  In a skillet, add remaining ingredients and cook for about 5 minutes, just until the spinach starts to wilt.

Stuff the pepper, top with cheese and bake for 15 – 20 minutes at 350.  I had to bake mine longer since they were cold from the fridge, about 25 minutes.

This was delicious.  Super spicy and completely filling.  The nutritional stats say that this dish provides 206% of Vitamin A and 225% of Vitamin C!

Who knew I could live a day without eating meat?  Let’s just say there will be bacon in my near future – ha!

So I earned 65 points today on my Skinny Snowman Challenge.

Another warm weather day here in Chicagoland – high of 55.  Yesterday it got up to almost 70 degrees – so crazy!  Although I did look ahead on weather.com and we’ll have snow flurries by next week.

Alright, off to put my food together for the day – I have a new pork dish for lunch called carne adovada.  I plan on serving it over rice and steamed broccoli, but doesn’t this look delicious?!  I lucked out because my store had pork stew meat for only $1.99 a pound!

Have you ever had this dish before?   Make it a great day!