T.G.I.F.
I don’t know how you all feel, but this has been a LONG week. I’m feeling very worn out. And this weekend only has more in store for me! I have two tests on Monday and homework, but I also feel like I still have a lot of catching up to do. But I’ll get there. Slowly powering through.
I will say, something that has really helped me stay sane is sticking to my eating and workout schedule. It’s very tempting when I get up, to go right to my desk and get some work done so I feel caught up. But I think that burns me out even more. Doing my workouts in the morning helps me start off the day feeling accomplished, and eating healthy and regularly helps me keep up my energy.
This week I’m going to share what I ate for this week, breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Although, I can’t share photos of my dinner because I forgot to take them 🙂 but it was really good! Plus, the blog I got the recipe from has a better picture which makes it look even better.
Quinoa Fruit Salad
Okay, first thoughts: interesting combination…. Second thoughts: wow, this is delicious.
Unfortunately I’m not going to share the recipe because I got it through my fitness app which is paid. The app I use is called We Glow. I personally really like this app, I really like the workout programs, and of the recipes I have tried, I’ve really liked all of them and they’ve been very simple, easy to follow. Added bonus: this dish looks pretty, so I feel like it already gives a boost to my morning. I cooked the quinoa on the weekend, and would cut the fruits in the morning. Sometimes once you cut fruit, it doesn’t last very long in the fridge. It only took a few minutes to cut, so it wasn’t a big deal. 10/10 recommend (also recommend the app or any paid fitness program if your motivation is low, or if you don’t really know what to do/where to start. Paying motivates me because I’m losing money, so I better be using it!).
Buffalo Shrimp Salad
This salad was a winner. This was actually supposed to be buffalo shrimp lettuce wraps, like lunch burritos, except the ~healthy~ version. Yeah. I tried them! They were….boring. And tasted like a mouthful of lettuce. So, I converted this into a big salad instead because I felt that the lunch needed more color and excitement. This turned out really good. I don’t typically finish salads because I get bored while eating them and tend to eat all the goodies first. This is probably the first time that I devoured a salad. 10/10. I also don’t usually like iceberg lettuce because, well, it’s iceberg lettuce, but I think it was actually the better choice for this salad because it let all the other flavors really show. SO this salad was a mix of iceberg lettuce, tomatoes, cucumbers, red onion, buffalo shrimp, cranberries, strawberries(!!!), olives and balsamic vinaigrette for the salad dressing. it was an interesting mix but such a good mix. It was also a good opportunity to use some ingredients in my fridge that were probably going to go bad soon. Great way to just combine everything and enjoy.
Easy, Creamy Beef and Shells
Yes. This was easy, creamy, and delicious. I found the recipe on Pinterest, from the blog Kitchn. Unfortunately I don’t have pictures! This also didn’t last me very long because it was so good that I just kept eating it. I loved this dinner. It was so so easy to make and it was one of the few recipes that didn’t have a mile long ingredient list or instruction list. There were a few big differences between mine and the recipe I followed. For starters, the recipe calls for a 15-oz. can of tomato sauce, and I bought pasta sauce (which to me is tomato sauce). Looking at the photos in the Kitchn blog, there are smaller cans of tomato sauce that are literal cans. I don’t think there’s a big differences between the two, but mine was a little hard to measure out because it was a full jar of sauce. So I think this made my finished dish more liquidy, but it was still really good. I also didn’t include as much cheese. The recipe calls for 2 cups of cheese, which I had. But after the first cup of shredding, I felt lazy, so my dinner only had one cup of cheese. For me it didn’t make a huge difference, but I’m also not a big cheese lover. if you love cheese, definitely do the full 2 cups. I also used half and half instead of heavy cream, mostly because I couldn’t find heavy cream. This was such an easy and cozy meal. Great to have after a very long day of sitting in front of the computer. It was also nice to have something a little heavier after a lighter breakfast and lunch.
Other than that, not a whole lot going on. I’ve got a lot of work to do…but I also bought a new Switch game soooo, we’ll see. Looking forward to at least taking a mini break today, even if it’s just for an hour. In other news, I hosted champagne tasting with some of the girls last weekend. I think we were all caught off guard by how quickly the champagne hit us but it was still a lot of fun! I also made my first cheeseboard! And to be honest, I’m really proud of it, so I thought I’d share a picture 🙂
To be continued…
Gabriela
I’m also back to my usual schedule again which is so nice. I’m going to the gym in the morning, cooking my meals on Sunday, etc. Normally when I go grocery shopping I go to Sprouts for all of my veggies and then head over to Trader Joe’s for everything else. I did this because I always thought that Sprouts was relatively expensive for things other than produce, but this week I did all of my shopping at Sprouts and it was so cheap! And I bought so many “actual” groceries (which isn’t usually the case). It was so exciting to NOT spend a fortune!
Gabriela Maria 