And the mystery ingredients are...

Brussel Sprouts

On my quest to try new vegetables and fruits every week I decided that there was no better time than the present to try brussel sprouts.  I can honestly say that I have never tried them.  I don't know much of anything about them really other than the fact that it seems as though you either love them or hate them.  It comes from the cabbage family, it is a leafy green color and it contains vitamin A&C, folic acid and dietary fiber.  Good enough benefits for me to eat it.  So I started thinking about how to prepare this for the first time and I wondered if anyone has any good recipes?  I hear that people steam them, bake them, boil them and even chop them up and throw them in salads and pasta!  So adventurous!



Mango

My new fruit of the week (which isn't "new" because I have had it) is mango.  I have had mango before, but it isn't somthing that I usually buy, so I decided to grab a few since they were on sale.  I am trying to break out of my current habit of buying apples, bananas and grapes.  There is so much more in this world than those 3 fruits and I am determined to try as many as possible.

Lunches for the week are salads galore.  Packed with proteins (egg, grilled chicken), more veggies (carrots, slaw, onion, peppers, tomato) and a dash of vinigrette.  I am really excited to be doing a mixture of salads. I have realized that I usually eat a heavier dinner, so I am trying to keep lunches lower in carbs to balance out my evenings.  I do think its important to have a mixture of carbs all day long.  It makes me feel icky when I just eat vcarbs late at night and then go to bed.  Yuck!

Recent food temptations fought: buffalo chicken pizza, donuts and potato wedges. I decided I am going to try to turn my temptations into reality somehow, so I am bound and determined to make a healthy spin on buffalo chicken this week, so be on the look out for that.  Happy Tuesday!

Girl's Night, Grocery Shopping and New Food

So, Tuesday night was one of our first girl's nights in a long time.  My friends and I have been really busy moving, traveling and working so it has been hard to get together, but somehow all 7 of us were able to get together on Tuesday night.  To say that we had a blast is a complete understatement.  We laughed until we cried and laughed some more and drank too much wine (okay not me because I didn't want to waste the calories).  My girlfriends are amazing and I love them all!  Some of them I have known since I was 7 years old!  They are all great in their own unique ways, but we all get along so well as a group.

What is the other great thing about hanging out with my girlfriends?  They are all a healthy weight and for the most part they make healthy decisions, so hanging out with them doesn't leave me with guilt.  In fact I am surprised I have gone on this long with skinny friends and I haven't started losing weight sooner.  Anyway, we made veggie and chicken kabobs and fresh corn on the cob and it was amazing!

This was before cooking, but don't they look great!?

After having this fresh, healthy and satisfying meal on Tuesday I was inspired to pull out all of my healthy cookbooks and do some meal planning.  My fiance and I each took a book and looked for 4 recipes that we wanted to add to our list.  I went out grocery shopping yesterday and I got everything on the list and nothing that wasn't on the list.  This is normally hard for me.  I used to go grocery shopping and buy everything that looked good to me (which was pretty much everything salty, fatty, cheesy and not healthy).  This time I avoided all of the bad foods like a pro. 

I got to the check out and the person in front of me was extreme couponing.  I have seen the show, so I know how it goes, but to actually see it happen in front of your eyes is surreal.  This woman bought $600 worth of groceries and paid $23.42 for them.  I was SHOCKED.  My shocked feeling quickly turned to bitterness after I checked out and spent $143.00  Blah.  I packed up my food and drove home crabby.  I got home and set out all of my food and then it hit me. I got a lot of good food!  I have tons of healthy options.  I remembered some of the woman's order in front of me and it was at least 10 bags of chips, 6 packages of cookie dough, 20 frozen pizzas, frozen fries, donuts and about 10 packs of pop.  So, when I think about it like that it is easier for me to think,

"I would rather spend $143 for healthy food, than $23.42 for WAY more food than I could eat or need to eat that will not help me get to my goal!"

Having said all of this, if you know a way to healthy extreme coupon I am all ears.  I am not knocking couponing in the least, but it just doesn't seem beneficial for me to extreme coupon since I only have two people to feed and healthier options don't seem to be as cheap as the other food.  Check out my haul below. 

I think I did pretty good!  What do you think?  I had to take two seperate photos because I couldn't fit it all in one photo.  A lot of the things that I got are items that I normally buy when I am eating healthy, however there are some new things that I have heard about or that I saw in the store and wanted to try.

Shantal over at My Journey talked about Veggie Straws the other day, so I had to try them.  They were not disappointing and perfect for someone who misses her crunchy salty chips.

A couple of recipes call for this.  I have to admit I am a little scared of it.

A couple of recipes call for this.  The word germ is kinda of gross, but I am willing to give it a shot!

Some fresh herbs and some deliciously hot jalapenos.

Do you have Salsa Lisa by you?  If you do go and get it!  It is a local MN company and I always try to buy local.  Even better than that though it is freshly chopped, with limited preservatives and thus less sodium (only 80mg per serving rather than like 200+ in other salsas.

Hmmm, Ginger.  Will I like eating you?  I like ginger ale, but actually ginger is up for debate. 

Stay tuned to see what I use this in later tonight when I post the first recipe from our weekly meal planning. :)