It’s Wednesday. Which could only mean:
the link up party that is WIAW! Thanks to Jenn for her hosting duties!
These eats are from yesterday, aka: my first official day back to class. I TA on Mondays, but right now there’s a little SNAFU with my class. So really, Monday ended up being an extra day of vacation. I guess I can’t complain about that too much, can I?
But here’s Tuesday:
Breakfast
(ignore my sink of dirty dishes…and the fact that the microwave makes for messy oatmeal. Oops).
Yes, I’m still going on my oatmeal and eggs. It’s weirdly addictive! This version has 1/2 cup oats cooked with 1/2 cup unsweetened vanilla almond milk and 1/2 cup water, cinnamon, french vanilla stevia and blueberry jam (buried under the eggs) with 2 eggs + 1/4 cup egg whites. Yup, almost every morning.
A few hours later, it was gym time.
The package I got last week came with amino powder, so I’ve been trying it before my workouts. First off: it actually tastes like kool-aid. And that makes my inner six-year-old so, so happy. And it actually seemed to add a pep in my step at the gym, so I guess it works! The directions recommend to have a scoop before and after workouts, but there’s amino acids in my protein powder (that I always have post-workout) so I’ve just been taking it before.
Post-Workout
Yesterday’s workout was a high-rep upper body workout + 10 minutes of treadmill intervals. After being away from weights for 2 1/2 weeks, I’m happy to be back at it! And surprisingly, the gym wasn’t ridiculously crowded, but I’ve heard it gets worse in the afternoon. Yup, January Joiners…I’m excited for people that want to get in shape, but I’m allowed to get whiny when it means I have to wait for equipment/do my best not to accidently whack somebody with a dumbbell. I just have to wait a few weeks for it to thin out a bit!
The post workout smoothie – vanilla protein powder, almond milk, spinach and a frozen banana.
And baby carrots…because I need something to crunch on, clearly.
A little while later, I also snacked on some chicken.
(not the whole thing, just a few pieces from the container). Yes, I consider cold chicken (leftovers from the whole chicken I did in the slow cooker the night before) to be an appropriate snack. It makes me happy. 
Lunch
Then I decided I should probably utilize said chicken and make an actual meal.
Spinach, spaghetti squash, marinara sauce, chicken, avocado and olive oil. This will have to be recreated soon – it was delicious! Lately I’ve been increasing up fat intake, and I’ve been really enjoying it. Bring on the avocado! 
Dinner
After lunch I was off to my first class of the semester. One down, This will be my last semester of course work, which is actually pretty nice. After April, it’s all about working on my thesis for about a year (hopefully) and then I’ll consider my education done. I’m still not sure about the “what do you want to be when you grow up” question, but I do know that I don’t want to move into the Ph.D/research/professor realm. Where does that leave me? I’ll have to get back to you on that (the class I had was my research and professionalization seminar, so this is on my mind right now).
While I was in class, I had dinner stewing in the slow-cooker:
And, I was cooking with booze again Seriously, I may start doing this more often. Last night’s was a slow cooked white wine pork tenderloin:
Ingredients:
- 1 pound pork tenderloin
- 1 onion, chopped
- 1 cup water
- 1/2 cup white wine
- 1/4 cup soy sauce
- dash of pepper (maybe 1/4 teaspoon)
- 3 peeled garlic cloves
Directions:
1. Place chopped onions in slow cooker, followed by pork. Add water, wine and soy sauce.
2. Stud the tenderloin with garlic and add pepper.
3. Cover and set to low. Cook for 6-8 hours.
Tender enough to shred, pulled-pork style. And delicious! Eric added BBQ sauce to his, but I just added a bit of the liquid and onions from the slow cooker and I thought it was flavourful enough on it’s own.
Served with a spinach salad and baked sweet potato (in the oven again! I’m on a roll).
Yea, I think I’m going to be experimenting with this cooking-with-alcohol thing a bit more. On my tilapia post, Laura pointed me in the direction of her tequila-lime tilapia recipe. Yea, that’s a must-make. Because alcohol always cooks out, don’t you know 😉
Because my day would not be complete without it. Camino’s dark chocolate coconut – one of my favourites.
Snack
The bedtime snack:
My delicious (albeit messy) bowl of Greek yogurt, chocolate casein and crunchy peanut butter. I would seriously be the worst food stylist ever – My meals and snacks tend to look not-so-put together a lot of the time. Note to self: eat prettier food.
And on that note, I’m off to my Wednesday class today. Advanced stats: wish me luck. Going to need it with this one 
<— Do you put effort into making your meals ‘presentable’? Considering that a lot of what I eat ends up on the internet, I should work on that.
<— Do you struggle to figure out what career moves you should make? I honestly change my mind every 20 minutes about what I want to do for a living. I feel like it’s going to be a very ‘trial-and-error’ sort of process.
Better With Sprinkles 