The Ugly

Good morning friends! Thanks for such an awesome discussion on Calorie Counting yesterday! I truly appreciate the time that everyone took to contribute their own thoughts. If you haven’t checked out the comments, do! I’ll be replying to more comments later this afternoon. The general consensus is that calorie counting is a personal choice (of course!) but it is good to remember that food is fuel.

I have a whole day of eats for you! I kept things pretty simple yesterday – a serving of raisin bran and unsweetened almond milk for breakfast.

Playtime with my favorite kitchen toy for lunch.

Playtime had a lovely result of a green smoothie I could take with me to work. It had 1 cup of unsweetened almond milk, 1 frozen banana, 3/4 cup frozen blueberries, 2 Tablespoons of protein powder (double the normal for double the protein punch to give me more lasting energy through work!) and a ton of spinach. About 4-6 cups?

Dinner was quick and easy and ended up being something that both Ross and I wanted to go back for seconds on! It involved this ugly:

Uglyripe tomato, that is. They were on sale to match prices with the other price-inflated tomatoes, so I just went with this guy while he was on sale. Not sure if I really noticed much taste difference? The only thing I know is that it doesn’t compare to tomatoes in Italy. I don’t know what it is with the tomatoes in Italy but they are AMAZING! Brilliantly red, perfect non-mealy texture, utterly delicious. It was actually the tomatoes in Italy that converted me to liking tomatoes again! I used to think I hated tomatoes – nope! Just the mass-produced, poor quality American tomatoes.

With our ugly (I’m just going to call it that because it makes me smile!) we made toasted sandwiches of pumpernickel bread, hummus, ugly and spinach. Toasted with a bit of earth balance on each side and you have a perfect, delicious dinner!

I also enjoyed a couple cookies while watching the Bachelor. Seriously? Why did I waste my time on that show? It’s so predictable. And it’s laughable – every girl leaves, “he just made the biggest mistake, I hope he knows what he’s doing!”. Oh well, the silliness of the Bachelor set us up to love one of our favorite shows, Castle, even more.

Breakfast this morning was a repeat of dinner! I think most of you know this, but I have a huge thing for hummus! All I wanted this morning (besides the 32 oz. of water I’ve already chugged) was a savory breakfast and this ugly-hummus-pumpernickel toasted sandwich did the trick!

2 slices of pumpernickel (locally made!) bread, 2 Tablespoons hummus, one slice of an uglyripe tomato and 1 teaspoon earth balance (total combined from both sides). Toast and voila! A savory breakfast indeed!

I’m off to take care of a few errands before a work meeting at 9! See you all later and have a beautiful day! What’s making your day beautiful today? (Me: my husband! I love that we can share our dreams together and truly do all we can to help each other achieve those dreams. I’m so glad I have him because we are one awesome team! Go Team J!)