Friday, March 30, 2007

Fruits & Veggies

After a week of lunches that included a good amount of fake meat and some processed foods (plus I ate pizza twice this week for dinner) I decided to simplify things for Friday and end the week with a lunchbox full of fruits & veggies. I'll admit, I did it for the sake of convenience too because there's really nothing easier than filling lunchbox containers with veggies. But they're delicious too and will make for a nice reduced calorie way to end this week. I'm gonna' have to be better this weekend than I was last weekend if I'm going to see any weight loss come Monday. I am determined to eat better this weekend and hopefully try to get in a couple of good walks. But anyway, back to the fruits & veggies...

In the green container I've got something that I had never tried before; Dill Green Beans. I just spotted them on the shelf the other day at the grocery store and they caught my eye. I thought they sounded interesting. It says on the can that they are good cold too, maybe as a snack. And boy are they right. These things are yummy. If you've never had them before, just imagine Green Beans in pickle juice and you've got a pretty good idea what they taste like. I like pickle juice, so I, of course, love these.

The purple container just contains some Cooked Carrots. I normally like to jazz these up with a little Brown Sugar and make them taste like the sweet carrots that you might get at a Japanese restaurant, but since I'm trying to cut calories I skipped the sugar this time. The Green Beans and the Carrots both came out of cans, which I know is not the best way to eat your vegetables. One of them has 13% of your Sodium RDA and the other has 15%, so that's not exactly great, but it was a convenient way to get some veggies and I made up for that (a little bit) with the other two choices in the lunchbox.

I've got a Blood Orange there in the red container that I've already peeled & sectioned. I absolutely LOVE these things, and I had never even tried one until a month or so ago. A coworker eats them all the time and finally convinced me to try one. There was no looking back. I've been eating these things like they're going out of style. DELICIOUS!

And then I whipped up a few more of the little things that I call Raw Fudgy Treats (because I can't think of a better name). They're just equal parts of Raisins & Walnuts processed in a food processor until they turn into a "dough" that you can roll up into little balls and then roll in Coconut, or Cocoa, or whatever you like.

So there you have it. I don't guess there's that much to say about a bunch of fruits & veggies. I really need to start having more of my lunchboxes look like this, well, maybe without the canned stuff. This stuff is extremely filling to me, especially when you consider the lower calorie count. You get a lot more "bang for the buck", which is exactly what I need if I'm gonna' get down to my goal weight any time soon.

I'll be back Monday with another lunchbox. I've got a few ideas in my head right now because there have been several really interesting recipes making the rounds on the internet here lately. If I have the time, and energy, on Sunday I might try whipping one of them up.

Thanks for reading my blog this week and I'll see everybody next week.

Have a great weekend!
BLOOD ORANGERAW FUDGY TREATSDILL GREEN BEANSCOOKED CARROTSFORK & SPOON

6 comments:

Tracy said...

Wow, now that's a healthy lunch! I think I might feel deprived if I ate only fruits and veggies though. I'm a big time bread and pasta girl.
I like those "fudgy treats" though...I'd like to make them this weekend. You say they're just raisins and walnuts? Do you soak the raisins first? My kids have a sweet tooth and I'm always looking for healthier sweet things to send in their lunches.

Ms. Meander said...

looks wonderfully healthy, but...those blood oranges! how gorgeous! did you get them here in JC? I haven't seen any. storm's birthday party is this sunday and it would be great to have some blood oranges for the fruit bouquet i'm making for her party table.

also, was it filling enough?

oh - i managed to sneak some veggie hot dogs by on storm today, and she ate them and liked them and didn't even realize it. considering that little kids have a lot more tastebuds than we adults do, i'm really happy about that. what i did was i cut them up as i was planning to for what i was making (i was making little hot dog "flowers" for her lunch, so they were sliced on one end like octopi legs). then i soaked them overnight in a marinade of bragg's, a little teriyaki sauce and a dash of liquid smoke mixed with water. that upped the salt content to be closer to meat dogs, i think, which was the main problem we were having with the tofu dogs. it seemed to pass. that's a lot of to-do for a hotdog, but i figure that if i can get their tastebuds more accustomed to the analogs, it will require less and less futzing around as time goes by. i hope. either that or i'll eventually have a nervous breakdown.

Mary said...

The blood oranges scare me! I had to scroll down to your description to figure out what they were before I read anything else. And canned food looks weird. :D

kennyboy said...

Hey tracy. Thanks and no, I do not soak the raisins. Just throw equal parts of raisins & walnuts into the food processor and go to town. :o)

Hey melanie. Yeah, this filled me up, but I'm sure my stomach has probably shrank from what it used to be since I've kinda' cut back on my eating.

I just got the blood oranges at Kroger over here on State of Franklin. They had plenty when I was there last.

And kudos for all your hard work on the hot dogs. I've seen some people cut those hot dogs up like you describe, where they look like an octopus, in some other bento lunchbox pictures. It's CUTE.

That's a good idea soaking them too to make them saltier. That sounds like something that I would like to try sometime.

:o)

kennyboy said...

I agree mary. Frozen or fresh veggies look so much better. Those green beans in dill pickle juice though are really tasty, especially cold.

But yeah, fresh or frozen ones are definitely prettier.

:o)

Tamara said...

Thanks for putting up the "recipe" for your fudgy treats. I love Larabars but they are so expensive and I have been wanting to experiment with making something at home like it. Last night, I made some with raisans and pecans (because I had no walnuts) and they were great, and incredibly easy in the food processor. Thanks!