WIAW #3

Ahh, Wednesday, we meet again. 

I tried to come up with exactly how many Wednesdays I've seen in my 15 and 3/4 years of life...let's just stick with 'a lot'. There have been a lot.

Sob story: I used up all my protein powder and chai tea mix. And, to make matters worse, I'm almost out of caramel cappuccino mix! On top of that, I thought my dad had a great stash of latte powder but all I could find was two containers of pumpkin spice, which is not my favorite.

I think this calls for a trip to the Amish store and Whole Foods.

Anyways. On to my eats:

For pre-breakfast (?) I had a cup of caramel cappuccino.
I'm considering making the switch to English toffee or maybe going back to chocolate raspberry. I can't decide; the caramel is pretty dang good, and I don't know if I want to give it up just yet.

a recycled photo of my precious, before it was almost empty   :(

I know what you're thinking (just kidding, I have no idea): "why is this child drinking coffee?"
Turns out, I really like the taste. I haven't been able to acquire a taste for black coffee, but I have gotten to the point now where, if the creamer is flavored, I don't need to add sugar. I can't pour in mounds of plain ol' dairy-free powder and drink it without some form of sweetener, but the sugar that's already in the flavored kinds of creamer is enough sweet for me.

The bitter aftertaste is something I actually like, oddly enough. Some people hate it, some people love it. I am in the latter group...
Which is why I don't hold out much hope for myself in the future. I'll probably end up being a stay-at-home, unemployed college dropout who drinks only water and coffee and eats nothing but Luna bars and cottage cheese.

Breakfast was basic: cereal and soy milk.

I tried Kashi's Autumn Wheat cereal for the first time; I can't say it's as deliciously flavorful as I was hoping, but it's not bad at all. As for the Fiber One bran cereal, I have been in love with that stuff since day one. You'd think bran cereal would be boring and tasteless, but it's actually really good; it's easy enough to pair it with another cereal if you don't like its flavor alone.

Admittedly, I miss the sugary cereal I used to eat as a little kid. Reese's Puffs, Frosted Wheat, Cocoa Krispies, Apple Jacks...the list goes on. I like the cereal I eat now, but I get jealous sometimes when my younger brothers and sister chow down on my old favorites and I'm stuck with the "healthy" stuff.
I guess there's nothing stopping me from eating the sugary, additive-laden, dye-filled cereals that I once lived off of, but I'm afraid I'll become addicted once again. When you get hooked on Reese's Puffs, that is a deep dark hole of obsession you'll be stuck in for a long time. Believe me.

Lunch was simple:
Salad and a sandwich.

Tuna, homemade hummus, baby spinach, & mustard on multi-seed bread; leaf & romaine lettuce with soy nuts, sunflower seeds, and Italian dressing.

I made another little salad (topped with craisins and parched corn) after devouring the first one.

We had a pretty late breakfast; therefore, we had a pretty late lunch. I stayed satisfied for a good while.
Unfortunately, it was rainy and I couldn't lay out and work on my tan. We fair-skinned folk suffer more than those with Mexican/Indian complexions. I have tried every summer, to no avail, to obtain the "bronzed beach babe" look. Basically: I burn, which either fades into baby pink, or into a very very very faint brownish.

To take away from my sorrows, I read a little HP...

...and made one of my favorite no-bake recipes.
I snacked on some of the batter before and after it was finished. Whoops. #sorrynotsorry

Honorable mention:
Last Thursday, I mentioned a product that I loved and was going to buy copious amounts of. I went to Walgreens the other day and stocked up on more Wyler's water-flavoring packets.
Lemonade, pink lemonade, and iced tea with peach; all top-notch flavors. (Strawberry lemonade is still my favorite).

For Dinner I had one of my favorites:

baked sweet potato wedges, steamed corn with peppers & black beans, homemade hummus, and cottage cheese.

I went for YEARS not knowing how good sweet potatoes are. No one else in my family adores them as much as I do, which leaves plenty for me to eat. Mom is gracious and agrees to buy them because I go through phases where I eat them as if they're the only things keeping me alive.

For a post-dinner snack, I had some stove-popped popcorn with sour cream & onion powder. Not solid sour cream and ground onion...but powdered sour cream & onion. Should've been more clear on that one.

Thanks for stopping by for this week's WIAW! Tune in next week and I may have a more diverse diet by then.
(Probably not)

See ya soon ;)

~JK

WIAW #3 ~ Recycled Pics

I'm very good at forgetting. I was all hyped up about my appointment with the eye doctor, I forgot it was Tuesday and I was supposed to be photographing my foods.
Thankfully, I'm a very plain person and I'm able to reuse some photos from last week's What I Ate Wednesday because I eat the same basic foods every day (it's boring, I know).

Breakfast began with a scoop of protein powder, per usual, only this time I used caramel cappuccino mix in place of chai tea. Never will that happen again. Caramel and chocolate do not mix well in my book.

Second breakfast was cottage cheese and an organic Gala apple, topped with cinnamon and almond butter. I also made some more trail mix that I munched on a little bit.
I've been adding new things into my trail mix, but I have yet to find the perfect combination.

By the time I got back from my eye appointment, I was starving (no news there), so I snacked on some more trail mix while making lunch.
Lunch, by the way, was alphabet soup,

salad,

and cheese and crackers, which I didn't photograph.

For an afternoon snack, I whipped up some chai tea/protein powder because I wasn't particularly hungry, and all I wanted in life was a hot drink.

We had guests over for dinner, so Mom made pepperoni & sausage pizza. In fact, while everyone was eating lunch, she had grain grinding in the Nutrimill. She has a fantastic pizza crust recipe that she uses every time we have people over for dinner. There has only been one time in the history of all times that we haven't had pizza, and that was only because one of our guests had a gluten allergy.

(Those white things on my salad are apple slices. Grandma brought up the idea - it's actually really good!)















For dessert, Mom made a chocolate cake topped with whipped cream, sliced strawberries, and mini chocolate chips.

Normally, I don't like chocolate cake; it has an unbearably dry texture and it's just not enjoyable. But this cake was different. It was moist and decadent and amazing.
My actual reaction:

image: Tumblr

I had a buttload of schoolwork to do, so an evening snack was nonexistent. But I had cake so all is well in the world. 

~JK

WIAW #2

I had some free time, so I made my own icon for What I Ate Wednesday...

Let me tell you, it took f-o-r-e-v-e-r. And it's not even that elaborate! Sheesh.
Moving on...

Breakfast was my usual:

Chocolate protein powder mixed with Indian spiced chai.

Second breakfast was a classic choice of cereals and soymilk. (yay for crappy iPod photography and yellow lighting)

Barbara's Peanut Butter Puffins and homemade granola

I didn't think I would like the Puffins cereal as much as I do. I'm really persnickety about peanut butter flavored things - too many peanut butter flavored things have I tasted and deemed artificial because of a nasty, factory-made taste. These don't have that artificial flavor; they taste real. And I like.

Lunch was my duty today.

Toasted cheese minis,

leftover whole wheat rotini & shell pasta, mixed veg (soybeans, green beans, baby carrots, and a little bit of red bell pepper),

 and salad (romaine lettuce with spicy sesame sticks, craisins, and Italian dressing).

I had a cup of coffee (Jamaica Me Crazy & Butter Toffee) but as per usual, I forgot to take a picture. I guess I'm not quite used to photographing everything just yet.

For an afternoon snack, I sliced up an apple.

I then added some cottage cheese and a sprinkling of cinnamon. Definitely my  favorite sweet & savory combination in the fruit category.

I also brewed some cappuccino to sip on whilst I edited some photos. Because I definitely needed more coffee in my system...

Creamy caramel cappuccino

Dinner was one of my personal favorites:

Steamed sweet potato with cashew butter and cinnamon; spinach salad with strawberries, sunflower seeds, and Italian dressing; & half of a toasted multigrain roll with garlic butter. 

After dinner, I made a big batch of oven-roasted almond butter. 

I snacked on a few almonds once they came out of the oven; you've gotta be sure they're roasted to your liking before grinding them up, ya know. ;)

Personally, I've never been patient when it comes to...anything. But making nut butter from scratch - especially without addition of oil - requires an exceptional amount of persistence. The outcome is pretty much always worth it. Especially this time, because I managed to fill an entire jar without eating half of it!

That being said, I broke into the jar for a nighttime snack.

almond butter, banana, and mini dark chocolate chips

Ahhh, Tuesday was a good day of eats. I'm officially addicted to the salad combo I had for lunch; I've had it every day since last Wednesday. 

I'm already looking forward to tomorrow's Thinking Out Loud. More excuse to talk about food :)

WIAW #1 ~ New to This...

I feel the need to introduce myself before this officially commences:

Hi. My name is Janessa, and I'm new to the WIAW bandwagon. I'm relatively new to blogging in general. Serious blogging, that is. 

I feel that, to run a successful blog, I need to start joining in on things as a way of gaining recognition.

Having a couple of friends who read my blog is nice, but I'd like to make more friends; particularly ones who are not-so-new to the world of blogging and can help me out should the situation arise.

And that in short is my reason for joining in on WIAW. Amanda was the first person I ever saw do this, and she's been keeping up with it for a long time. I've put it off for months and I think I'm finally ready to participate.

Wednesday is Waffle Day for me...which means I got to take a couple waffles out of the freezer from last week and dress them up before my visit with the dietitian.

I used this waffle recipe, but subbed the banana for applesauce. Popped two bad boys in the toaster, mashed up half a banana, and nuked some frozen blueberries.

Funny story: my appointment was scheduled for the 25th, not the 23rd. Still, we were able to meet for a good forty minutes before her next client arrived. 

The dietitian gave me some insight on what I should be eating along with how much of it. I visited her once before when I was 13, so it was nice to meet with her again and get more information given the changes in recent events. 

After my appointment accidentally early visit, I ran back home to make myself a drink to tide me over before lunch. 

powdered spiced chai tea mixed with chocolate protein powder

Also, I was in much need of bladder relief and I'm afraid of public bathrooms...

Thanks to Dad's trusty Keurig, we (Mom, the brothers, the sister and I) were back out the door in less than five minutes. We went to the Amish country and went shopping at a bulk foods store and a scratch & dent store. By the time we returned home I was absolutely ravenous and in my hurry I forgot to photograph my mess of Crispix cereal, cottage cheese, soy nuts, sunflower seeds, and 1/2 an apple. I did, however, remember to photograph my salad.

Romaine lettuce, craisins, 'spicy caujan' sesame sticks, and un-photographed Italian dressing.

A crazy combination, but I was hungry and it did the trick. The salad tasted way better than I had expected. New favorite for sure!

I sat down to do some schoolwork, but I ended up spending half an hour browsing through other blogs and touching up on mine. I did, eventually, get around to an Algebra lesson and a couple other subjects. 

By the time 3:30 rolled around, I felt it was high time for an afternoon snack. All that brain work really stresses the stomach juices and such...

Granola with dark chocolate and sunflower seeds; dried pineapple; cashews and peanuts

I have been crazy about this granola for so long! I ate my last batch a long, long time ago after going on and on and on about how much I loved it. I have no idea why I ever stopped making it; I used to have quart-sized Ziploc bags full of it! It's just as good as I ever remember it being. <3

Also, this cappuccino mix is my new addiction. I'm not a caramel person - I never have liked the sticky texture and super-sweet taste - but oh man this stuff is so good! If you're ever in the Northern Indiana area, hit up the Amish stores; they make some amazing cappuccino mix.

I had forgotten about dance class - which I had in an hour - so I packed up a quick dinner before rushing around trying to get my pointe stuff all together.

A tuna wrap with mustard and lettuce; steamed brussels sprouts, baby carrots, and soybeans; string cheese.

I made it back from an hour of pointe, a little late but better than usual. Wednesday night youth group was held outside, across the street from the church under a pavilion with a couple picnic benches. A very exciting game of duck-duck-goose commenced once we were back inside; twenty minutes later, Dad came to pick me up and I was home in time for a little winding down.

While in the Amish store, I came across some sour cream & onion popcorn powder. So I made popcorn and tried it out. The verdict: very tasty. 

I added peanuts for a little protein boost, and I made a little cup of cocoa (not pictured) for the indulgent side of me. 

And there you have it: my first What I Ate Wednesday. :)

Note: I have since realized that WIAW is supposed to be written on Tuesday so that it can be posted on Wednesday. I was confused and shall remember for next week. Maybe. Hopefully.