Daily Archives: April 28, 2011

Lentil Chili and Love Handles

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Don’t you just love those meals that make planned leftovers that are even better the next day?  My go to Lentil Chili, which I found on the Whole Foods recipe page, is exactly that.  It reheats nicely and the flavors are even more developed the next night or even 2 nights later.   Recipe easily doubled.

Lentil Chili (adapted from Whole Foods Recipes)

  • 4 cups low-sodium vegetable broth
  • 1/2 medium yellow onion, chopped
  • 1/2 large bell pepper, chopped (i prefer green, but red, yellow, or orange work just as well)
  • 3  garlic cloves finely chopped
  • 2 teaspoons salt-free chili powder
  • 1/2 (16-ounce) package green lentils (about 1 1/8 cups lentils)
  • 1 (15-ounce) can no-salt-added diced tomatoes
Toppings:
  • 1/8 cup chopped cilantro
  • non-fat greek yogurt
Bring 1/3 cup broth to a simmer in a large pot over medium-high heat. Add onion, bell pepper, and garlic and cook about 5-8 minutes or until onion is translucent and pepper is tender. Stir in chili powder and cook 1 minute, stirring constantly. Add lentils, tomatoes and remaining 3 2/3 cups broth. Bring to a boil, reduce heat to medium-low and simmer, partially covered, 30 minutes or until lentils are almost tender. Uncover and cook 10 minutes longer. Stir in cilantro and add a dollop of greek yogurt on top, then serve.
Cook green peppers, onions, and garlic in 1/3 cup broth until tender and translucent
add chili powder and stir constantly for 1 min
Add diced tomatoes, lentils, and remaining vegetable broth; bring to boil
Bring to a medium-low simmer and cook partly covered for 30 mins
Uncover, cook another 10 mins and Voilà, dinner is served.

Served up with a dollop of greek yogurt and side of steamed broccoli

I just love how simple this recipe is.  It’s fat free, but with the amount of flavor and how quickly it fills you up, you would never know.

Now on to the love handles!  I’m currently multi-tasking by blogging and working on my school work at the same time, but I just took a mini-break and did a 7 min love handle workout by the Tone It Up girls.

It only took 7 mins, but I have so much more energy now and just instantly felt better and more motivated.  I’ve been loving all the workouts Tone It Up has been posting, especially to get us ready for bikini season!  They’re simple and relatively quick, yet super effective to the point where you can feel the burnnn.  Plus, they have great recipes!

Time to get back to my paper, then its off to bed.  I’m already thinking about breakfast tomorrow…I’m feelin either protein pancakes or a smoothie.  Depends on how many times I hit snooze in the morning ;)  Night!

Just another day

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Today was just another day, but a LONG productive and successful one at that!  And now we’re officially over the hump and onto the final sprint to the weekend.  Weee!

I of course started with breakfast.  I don’t think I could ever skip breakfast.  It’s only the best meal of the day.  Even if it’s a quick one like today that consisted of a toasted kamut bun spread with almond butter and topped with sliced bananas and a sprinkle of chia seeds.

I did a double workout this morning.  A 40 min PiYo (pilates and yoga mix) class that worked mainly abs and inner thighs (since April is inner thigh month according to my instructor) and then an hour-long Cardio Sculpt class which incorporates both cardio and weight lifting.  I think Cardio Sculpt is one of my favorite classes since we work the full body and get in some cardio all at once.  I can work up a serious sweat within the first 15 mins of the class.  Its amazingg!

I got home and whipped up some VMA fail.  It was such a bad fail that I didn’t even finish the cup.

Vega Chocolate Protein Powder + spinach = no go

You never know til you try it, but adding spinach to every shake I make is not a good idea.  At least I tried.  The only reason I was able to get more than half of that cup down was because of the peanut flour goodness on top.  Three cheers for peanut flour!!

After attempting to finish both my VMA fail and strategic management paper, I hit up Babes Chicken House with some friends for a artery clogging good ol fried chicken lunch.  I actually ended up ordering just the side veggies because I try to stick to eating just organic and free range meats when I do actually eat meat..  Plus, I don’t eat fried foods all that often, or at least I try to think that. My fried food weakness is french fries.  YUM.  But I’ve been so good I haven’t had them in over 40 days!  Woot!  I did however eat two deliciously fluffy biscuits that left me feeling guilty ALL afternoon.

It’s a good think I made enough for leftovers from dinner last night because I definitely did not have enough time to prepare anything that required too much prep time.  I just reheated last nights lentil chili and quickly steamed some baby spinach and called it dinner.  And as I expected, it was just as delicious as it was yesterday!

Last Nights Dinner – Lentil Chili with a dollop of greek yogurt and a side of steamed broccoli

Recipe to come tomorrow!  Night!