Meatless Monday?

Meatless Tuesday! I recently signed up for the Meatless Monday thang, which is basically a pledge that you will go meatless every Monday, but I forgot yesterday. Oops. So, I am making today meatless. I guess it doesn't matter which day you go meatless, as long as you do it every week. We will sometimes go several days of meatless, so I think we are OK.

My eating yesterday was a little light so I was pretty much starving all day. I grabbed a greek yogurt and a banana for my breakfast and I think that was a pretty bad idea.

Yogurt and bananas are good snacks or additions to meals, not a good substitute for one. Especially after a good gym session. My stomach was growling by 11 am. So I had to eat 2 saltines that were in my drawer at work. Lame.

For lunch, I had a salad with a few strips of chicken breast on top. This definitely filled me up for the time being, but my stomach was rumbling by the time I got home. I made sure to pack a heftier breakfast for this morning. I think if I would have had a more substantial breakfast yesterday, my lunch probably would have held me over longer. Enter - oatmeal.

This morning I had a beast of an oatmeal bowl. I added the same amount of oatmeal as always (1/2 cup), but loaded up on the banana and strawberries. The water is brown from my chocolate chips that are pretty necessary for my fruity oatmeal. Best combination ever. :) I am still full, so I should be good until lunch.

I made it to the gym early this morning and did a pretty good chest workout. I wanted to get in some abs, but I ran out of time. I did 3 sets of dips, flat chest presses, incline chest presses, and butterfly chest presses with 10 lb dumbbells. Then I did 30 minutes interval running on an incline of 3-4. The people who can do interval running on an incline of like 12 and 14 amaze me...

I am having lots of fun making meals out of what has come in our GoLocal produce box. Since I want to go meatless today, I decided I wanted to make a fun sandwich for lunch. I wanted to use up the avocados and tomatoes so I decided to make a quick batch of hummus so that I could pile everything on toasted bread.

Mike loved the hummus I made yesterday. He is not a fan of chickpeas, but he loves this hummus.

Roasted Garlic Hummus

1 can garbanzo beans (chickpeas)
1 head of garlic
1 tbsp safflower oil, plus a little for drizzling over your garlic
1/4 cup water
sea salt (to taste)
cayenne pepper (to taste)

I learned a while ago that if you want to make hummus from scratch, you have to remove the skins. I remember the first time I made it and brought a batch to work, no one touched it. It was grainy and a little more bitter than I liked hummus to taste. After learning the trick of removing the skins, my hummus became super creamy and tasty, and people can't keep their chips out of the bowl. It takes a little time, but it is totally worth it.

See the skins?

Once you have a bowl of skinless chickpeas, cut the end off of a head of garlic. I didn't have an entire head, so I used several cloves that were in my fridge and cut off the ends. Drizzle the safflower oil over garlic and place in a 350 F oven for 20 minutes.

Place chickpeas in a food processor and add in the roasted garlic, sea salt, cayenne, water and oil. Let the food processor do the rest of the work.

Serve with veggies, pita chips, or spread on toasted bread with avocado slices, tomato and lettuce, which is what I plan to do for lunch today. :) Yum!

Side note: Safflower oil is amazing. It has lots of heart healthy attributes, but it's flavor is like no other. It is a great substitute for olive oil (since I have been out this week) and it tastes awesome on chicken. I grilled some chicken for Mike on Sunday night and he couldn't get over how good it tasted. I didn't tell him, but I am pretty certain it is because of the safflower oil. It is a little thinner than other oils, so a little bit goes a long way.

After I packed our lunches, Mike ate half of the remaining hummus. I guess he does like chickpeas after all. :)

Have a great day! Tomorrow is abs and cardio. See ya then!



Yesterday's Stats:
Calories (-) 200 (Awesome!!)
Sodium (-) 146 (Awesome!!)
Protein (+) 5 (Awesome!!)
But I was hungry all day... so that is not awesome. :)