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Pineapple Boats Recipe & Tuesday Tangents
Yesterday wasn’t too bad for a Tuesday. When my alarm went off at 6:02am, I negotiated with myself for a good fifteen minutes about going to my first class. I have never skipped a class, and got about 5 hours of sleep the night before. I was really tempted to play hookey, but of course I talked myself into getting up, turning on the coffee pot and jumping in the shower. There’s no turning back after that!
Rather than a lecture, a digital marketing professional who recently launched her own digital marketing consulting agency gave a guest speaker presentation. Right away, she encouraged us to “tweet” anything we found interesting from her presentation. (I had to join the Twitter-verse a couple months ago for my digital marketing class.) At the end of the presentation, she selected 2 “tweets” to win a Starbuck’s giftcard. Who won? Moi. Moral of the story: when you resist temptation to skip your 8am, you will be rewarded. ;)
That gift card was burning a hole in my pocket for all of 4 hours so I naturally stopped in for a pick-me-up before my last class of the day. I used the caffeine in my iced americano to fuel a 7 mile run on the treadmill. New music actually made it fly by, and I’m loving that it is still light outside at 7:00pm. :) Makes me stall going back to my apartment for the evening.
Anyways, I’m bringing up the Pineapple Boats again because they were worth sharing the recipe. With one little side note:
Kerri came up with the Pineapple Quinoa Stir Fry idea. As far as a recipe, we pretty much just “winged” it. I’m such a goof ball and the whole time we were making “Stir Fry” I was thinking “Fried Rice.” So I added a few eggs and cut up the vegetables very tiny. I didn’t realize until three days later, typing this post that “Stir Fry” and “Fried Rice” are not the same thing. (Insert monkey-with-hands-on-eyes emoji here). Regardless, the stir fry/fried rice hybrid was delicious and so I will just refer to it as “fried quinoa” from now on.
Pineapple Boats with Fried Quinoa Recipe:
Serves 2
- One very ripe pineapple, cut in half length-wise (with leaves still on if you’re up for it)
- 1 cup uncooked quinoa
- 1/2 red bell pepper, diced
- 1/2 orange bell pepper, diced
- 1 small head of broccoli, diced
- 1/3 purple onion, diced
- 1 clove of garlic, minced
- 1/2 ripe mango, diced
- 1 whole egg + 5 egg whites
- seasonings of choice
1. Bring 2 cups of water to a boil, add quinoa and cook like normal.
2. Cut out the “meat” of the pineapple halves; discard the hard center and keep the remaining juicy pineapple to add to your fried quinoa.
3. In a large skillet, saute the bell peppers, broccoli, onion, garlic, and mango.
4. Add in eggs and egg whites once vegetables are softened; after eggs are cooked through, add the quinoa to the egg and veggie mixture.
5. Fill the hollowed pineapple halves with the quinoa-veggie mixture and top with remaining pineapple pieces. We had avocado on the side.
Nothing compliments this tropical plate like a good ole’ ponderosa pine tree in the background…
Today I have my last major exam for my senior capstone course, and once that’s over I hope to repeat yesterday’s long-ish run. Guess who made it into the workout playlist rotation this week…?
REBA! Gosh, does this woman ever age!?! I love how happy she always looks :)
Happy Tax Day, friends. Catch ya here tomorrow :)
Biscuits (It’ll make sense later)
This morning I woke up at 4:00am. Try as I might, my body was not going back to sleep. I made myself lay there until 5:15. It reminded me of when I was a toddler and my parents put a clock next to my bed, teaching me to wait until 6:00am to get up on weekends ;)
Around 5:30 I was sipping my first cup of coffee. Now I have a few extra hours in my morning that I didn’t expect, so here I am. Thought I would put together one more spring break post before I break into some new territory with projects I’m working on for next week. A lot of my California friends have different spring break schedules and many are on vacation now, so I feel like it’s still appropriate to bask in the spring-y-ness one more time :)
Any college kid will tell you one of the best parts about coming home is family dinners. If not, then A.) they are lying or B.) their momma’s homecooking left a lot to be desired… (insert smirky emoji here). 
You go 18 years eating the same kinds of dinners at home with your family, until suddenly you’re living on your own. Dining halls, communal kitchens, take-out, fast food, delivery, cooking for yourself….it’s just not the same. I’ve come a long way in following recipes and recreating family favorites, but eating by yourself in a tiny apartment will never compare to eating at home.
In 9 days, we only went to a restaurant once. My parents had LOADED UP on produce at my request (well, they usually do anyways) and we had the most colorful dinners.
I told myself that I was completely inspired to return from spring break and start cooking similar colorful balanced meals……and then I went and got three sushi rolls. It’s a work in progress.
My dad pumped up the tires in our bikes so that I could take a leisure ride around town and he could ride with me on my Sunday long run for the marathon training. I probably spent more time snapping pictures than pedaling. 90 degrees feels like heaven after a frigid Flagstaff winter.
And of course the sea-level (extra-oxygenated!) air did wonders for my marathon training. I was able to get in another great Yasso 800s workout on Wednesday, some cross training, and a killer long run. I set out for 15 miles on my favorite running path at home. This time, I had water and fuel along the way! I used the Vega gel for the first time, which is made with dates, water and grape juice rather than straight sugar like other brands. I felt better about putting something a little more “natural” in my body during the run…..but it didn’t taste great. Seemed to do the trick though because I ran my last couple of miles at 7:00 pace, averaging 7:18 overall.
(Yes, I used a picture from my Warrior Dash Race haha)
Also got to spend some quality time with my girl Missy….HAH whattajoke. That maltese of ours has grown quite comfortable being the “only child” now that I’ve been gone off and on for four years. She onced used to cuddle and love me. Now she has a jealous side whenever I visit my parents. She literally pouts when I take my mom’s attention away from her. (This is coming from a spoiled only-child herself.) She did watch me as I curled my hair, trying to imitate Miranda Lambert’s from the pool scene in her Little Red Wagon music video. Nailed Failed it!
Well this turned into a pretty random hodgepodge of pictures and tangents, didn’t it? Might as well add in a new jam that I’m loving!
*I’ll throw something more organized/themed at you next time. This is what you get at dark:thirty in the morning! <3
Kacey Musgraves, Queen of Country Cool, has been on my playlist since I heard her hit Follow Your Arrow. Biscuits is actually pretty similar, and equally adorable. Good message and reminder to stay focused on myself during the last weeks of college. We need less negative comparisons in our lives because that is just stressful. “Pouring salt in my sugar won’t make yours any sweeter.” Hope you enjoy it as I do. :)
What were/are your Spring Break highlights?!
Limiting My Sodium and Sugar Consumption
My August Nutrition Goal: Reduce Sodium & Sugar intake!
The typical American diet has become reliant on salt and sugar for flavor.
Why? Because both are cheap and don’t amount to significant calories.
But they have MAJOR health impacts on the body.
Sodium hides in many (or most) packaged items, and it’s important to be aware of how much we consume.
- Food is measured under the big umbrella of calories.
- Breaking that down, we have the main “macronutrients” carbohydrates, proteins, and fat.
- Beyond that, we have vitamins and minerals. **I’m not saying let’s start tracking our manganese and gingko biloba consumption (who has time for that?!) but I definitely stay aware of how much sodium and sugar are in processed foods before buying them.
- Breaking that down, we have the main “macronutrients” carbohydrates, proteins, and fat.
Sodium doesn’t just come from the salt in the Morton’s container with the girl and yellow umbrella or in the shaker on the dining room table. The obvious offenders like ketchup and soy sauce are loaded with NaCl. But did you ever think about HOW much salt is on your popcorn, peanuts, and chips? Hint: TOO MUCH.
If you don’t already, be sure to check nutrition labels for sodium and sugar content. Sodium will have a “percentage of daily value” whereas sugar will not.
The government regulations provide a daily recommended value of no more than 2,300 mg of sodium per day. I wish there was a recommended guideline for grams of sugar per day, but I suppose that would be hard to measure with fruits, veggies and other natural sources.
For this month, I will be monitoring my sodium and staying within the 2,300mg/day limit. For sugar, I am trying not to exceed 35 grams per day from packaged items.
I will never NEVER limit fruit intake for calorie/sugar purposes, and veggies are basically the best thing ever to put into your body. So no need to worry about those :) Natural sugar is A-OK and we are more concerned with processed chemicals like good ole’ High Fructose Corn Syrup, corn syrup solids, fructose, glucose, etc.
Salt is virtually calorie-less. So no, flavoring your veggies and pasta with salt won’t add any huge calorie impact. However sodium content DOES play a huge role in our body functions and weight.
Internally: according to health.gov, consuming excess sodium increases blood pressure which puts you at risk for a whole slew of heart problems.
Externally: Salt makes you BLOAT. The NaCl wants to hold onto water. More salt = more water. Water weight is not “fat” and won’t appear as cellulite, but it does show up on the scale and when you try to button your jeans.
Sugar has ALL KINDS of nasty effects.
Sugar contributes to cavities, blood sugar spikes and drops, insulin resistance, diabetes, and obesity.
Learning to reduce salt & sugar:
First step: put the salt shaker down! We literally only have a pepper shaker in my family’s kitchen. Adding salt to foods really packs on the sodium micrograms and overpowers the flavors of fruits, veggies, proteins, and grains. When it comes to cutting table salt, I say go cold turkey. Let yourself taste all of the food’s natural flavors with herbs and spices. Then when salt is reintroduced to your recipes, you will be able to notice the difference. You might not even like the saltiness anymore.
As far as sugar is concerned, it starts in the grocery store. Reading nutrition labels before throwing products in the basket is the best thing you can do to keep from sabotaging your own healthy efforts. Finding low-sugar alternatives to items like salad dressing, pasta sauce, cereal, peanut butter and yogurt will all depend on the choices you make when shopping!
I also think it is better to just eliminate excess sugar completely instead of substituting with a sugar-free aspartame-based sweetener (though I will on occasion, like with skinny lattes). Also try trading sugar and sweeteners with stevia. It’s a plant extract, and has been minimally processed in the raw form. I use it baking! Experiment with recipes and find healthy alternatives that use applesauce, bananas, squash and cinnamon as sweeteners.
*The anti-salt: cucumbers and lemon. That would make a pretty infused water! I’ll be sipping on tea with lemon slices and munching on afternoon cucumber slices :)
