A Lesson In Popcorn

I love popcorn.

It’s one of my favorite snacks – so light, airy, and crunchy. I gave up making that pre-bagged popcorn a while ago and started making mine in the microwave with just 2 things:

I love knowing exactly what’s in my popcorn and being able to control the ingredients myself.

I just buy the bag of popcorn kernels and as long as I have brown sandwich bags, I’m ready for a bowl of popcorn at any time!

First, I take 3 Tbsp of kernels and put them in the sandwich bag.

Fold the top of the bag over twice, just so it stays closed and lay it on one side in the microwave.

Set it for 2 minutes and let it go!

Depending on how your microwave works, it may take a bit longer or a bit shorter, so just listen to see when the popping slows down.

While the popcorn is in the microwave, I get out my “finishers”:

Olive oil, salt and a big bowl is all you need for awesome popcorn.

When the popcorn is done popping, I take the bag out of the microwave and carefully open it up – watch for the hot steam!

I pour in between 1 – 2 tsp of olive oil

Sprinkle in as much salt as you want

Then comes the fun part  🙂

Shake the bag up and down to get the oil and salt distributed, pour into bowl and enjoy!

This is my favorite way to have it, but you can do any seasoning you want!

• Sugar/sweetener to make it kettle corn
• Oregano and parmesan for Italian popcorn
• Chili powder, cumin, garlic for Mexican flavor
• Cinnamon and sugar for a sweet snack
• handful of m&m’s or chocolate chips

What’s your favorite popcorn topping?

I’m a purist when it comes to popcorn and really love it with just olive oil and salt, but I do love some good kettle corn and this awesome caramel corn from Ocean City.

*Make sure to check out Rebecca’s Chobani giveaway!*

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Run, Rain, Repeat

Thursday is over! I am so happy this weekend is almost here – we have some fun anniversary plans for this weekend and I can’t wait!

The weather stayed pretty decent most of the day – it was really cloudy all day, but of course, it started pouring as soon as we got home. Thankfully, it stopped not too long after so we went out for a run around 6:30. The sky still looked pretty scary, but it only drizzled a few times while we were out.

Weather wise? Pretty good.

Run wise? Blech. This was probably the worst run I’ve had in a while. I had pretty bad side stitches for most of the run – I didn’t stop, and I’ve still been just trying to breathe through them and they do go away, but they just kept coming back today. It wasn’t horrible, but it wasn’t great. It did feel good to be outside, though.

Dinner tonight was a repeat of last night with a few changes.

I had Nick grill 2 steaks last night (about 1 lb. total) so we split one steak last night and split the other one tonight for our salads. The only thing we had to do tonight was put the rest of the salad together – easy!

Tonight, mine had:

• 2 cups romaine
• 1 cup broccoli slaw
• 1/4 avocado
• 1 roma tomato
• 1-2 Tbsp red onion
• 4 oz. or so of steak
• Thai dressing from recipe
• orange slices
• scallions

I liked this salad even more with the tomato and avocado – I think I’ll use those on this salad from now on. And yes, those are my pajama pants  🙂  I am not going to get into a different outfit after running/showering. Don’t pretend you don’t do the same thing.

I’m off to work on a special post for tomorrow and then have some of this:

It was so fun reading about your gifts! They were so sweet, and it’s awesome to see what things people have really cherished.

With all this anniversary stuff, my mind is on all things wedding!

What is one thing you’ve always dreamed about for your wedding? (whether you’re already married or not!)

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Aching For Activity

Ah…the weather is just beautiful today! I am so ready for these headaches and soreness to really start going away because I really wanted to run after work, but I don’t want to push it. Nick and I did take about a 30 minute walk after work, and that was really nice – it is seriously just the perfect weather: in the 70s, clear blue sky, slight breeze….I guess this made up for the fact that it was in the 30s last night!

After our walk, I started on our stuffed dinner –

I made the Greek Orzo Stuffed Peppersfrom the April Eating Well, but with a few changes….like always  🙂

• Instead of steaming the peppers, I roasted them in a 425 oven for about 25 minutes (mainly because I was cooking zucchini, too, so I just threw everything in the oven)
• I doubled the amount of orzo to use up what I had and so we might have some leftover for a lunch or two

The zucchini was just sliced and dredged in a mix of cornmeal/soy parm/pepper and cooked on a baking sheet in the oven with the peppers. I flipped them once around 13 minutes? and then baked for 10-15 more minutes.

I’ve had a pretty bad headache all day, so I’m going to take some more meds, watch American Idol and have some of this:

 

What’s your favorite tv or movie-watching snack?

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Leftovers to the Rescue!

Ah….the long awaited post. I’ve been waiting all day for this! I was so upset I didn’t have my cord at work.

 

I’m telling you – lunch was not very exciting or filling!  I hate when I pack my lunch the night before thinking it will be great and then I don’t really want it when it’s time to eat. This is why I wish I could eat at home!

Oh well – it still tasted good. It just didn’t hold me very long, so I was pretty hungry this afternoon.

Tomato and Basil Soup

 

Steamed mixed veggies

 

and a hard boiled egg for some protein!

 

I didn’t have much for snacks at work, so I ended up having this princess sucker I got at work. It didn’t fill me up at all, but it did take my mind off my stomach for a while.

 

Nick and I were heading to some friends’ house after work, so I brought leftovers to eat in my office.

Glamorous? No.

But if we didn’t bring dinner with us, we would have to drive 30 minutes home, eat, and then turn around and drive 30 minutes back out to town and then go back home. So….leftovers in the office it was  🙂

We ate some of the leftover ww gnocchi/chard/white bean meal from Sunday night.

Yum – these leftovers had even more flavor tonight!

 

We had about an hour to burn before heading over to their house, so we went to a bookstore to look around and got some snacks. I didn’t want any actual food, but my stomach wasn’t filled yet, so I got a fat free steamer with some sugar free amaretto syrup in it.

 

I have to say – I haven’t had splenda/artificial sweeteners in a while, and my stomach is all bubbly! Do you think it’s from that?

 

Now that we’re home, I’m snacking on some popcorn with olive oil and salt, blogging, and watching AI. I’m having a super hungry day for some reason.

 

 

Today has been a loooooong, hard day – I’m going to sit here, relax, and possibly look through my new ww magazine that showed up today.

.

(photo courtesy of Greta Yorsh)

I’m so excited about starting a heart health series on Bran Appetit! I’m starting to get my ideas together and I hope to have the first part posted sometime in the next week. If there’s anything in particular you’re interested in (general heart health, heart healthy meals, exercise, etc), let me know and I’ll try my best to incorporate it into the series!

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Crashed!

Not my computer, thank goodness!  just me!

 

 

Today was beautiful outside, so we decided to run outside after work instead of going to the gym.

 

About an hour before we left, I had a Blueberry Z-Bar!

 

 

 

Review: This was my first time trying the Blueberry Bar, and it is by far my favorite!!!  It smells and tastes like the best blueberry poptart ever!  You can see little bits of blueberry in the bar and it still has the little drizzle of icing on the top. I’m glad I tried it, but a little sad too – I got this at the Trader Joe’s near my parents, but we don’t have a Trader Joe’s or Whole Foods and I can’t find this flavor anywhere around here!  I have tried the Chocolate Chip and Honey Graham before and liked them, but this one was awesome!!!  Definitely try it if you get the chance  🙂

 

 

We ran for about 30 minutes and then headed home.

 

Dinner was leftovers from last night – the pasta was actually better the second time. I think the dressing had time to soak in to everything.

 

 

 

After we ate, I ran to the grocery store to get a few things since we have a busy day today. I got back home around 8:30, put everything away,  made some popcorn with olive oil and sat down to watch What Not to Wear. 

 

 

 

I laid down on the couch when there was about 15 minutes left of the show and was planning on getting back up once it was over to blog – well, I woke up on the couch around 12:30 instead! So, we just got up and went to bed  🙂  Oops!  

 

Be back soon for the breakfast post! It’s in the making right now.  🙂

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