My tummy is happy

Three wonderful meals today!

I tried a wonderful new breakfast recipe this morning. I was actually looking forward so much to trying it that I was thinking about it as I was falling asleep. I made the Pumpkin Protein Pancakes from Carrots-n-Cake, with a slight modification.

The recipe as written calls for:

2 tablespoons canned pumpkin

1/2 banana

1 egg

1 scoop vanilla protein powder

1 tablespoon ground flaxseed

1/2 tsp cinnamon

1/4 tsp nutmeg

Mix all in a food processor until well-blended. Preheat skillet over medium-high, spray with cooking spray, then add batter. Cook 2-3 minutes on the first side, flip, then cook 1 minute more. Makes 2-3 pancakes. (2 regular-sized ones, which I did, or 3 small ones.)

My modification is that I only used 1/2 scoop protein powder, mainly because I had figured out the nutritional stats and entered it into My Fitness Pal before I realized my mistake and just didn't feel like correcting it. I may have lost a few grams of protein, but I saved some calories. (stats using 1/2 scoop protein powder: 228 calories, 8.5 g fat, 20.2 g carb, 20.1 g protein.)

Since I get up earlier than Dwight and I like to eat right when I wake up, I made mine first using my Magic Bullet. The batter is really very thick, and while it worked just fine, I pulled out my mini food processor for Dwight's and it worked way better.

I ate mine topped with a tablespoon of peanut butter and the other half of the banana. Just. So. Good!

But what to do with the leftover canned pumpkin, you ask? Well, I scooped it into a quart-sized ziploc, flattened it out, then scored it into fourths using a wooden spoon and stuck it in the freezer. Now when I go to make the pancakes again, I can just break off one of the 2 tablespoon sections.

This is my helpful hint for the day: I do this with my leftover tomato paste too, and when I saw someone write about it on a blog, I realized that maybe everyone DIDN'T do it that way.

Lunch was at Jam's with my friend Genola. Both the fish tacos and the conversation were wonderful!

And they gave me enough energy to mow the lawn. It has cooled down a bit, but the grass is growing like crazy. It looks like it will be a twice a week job for the next few weeks. Good thing I like doing it.

I found a recipe the other day on Iowa Girl Eats that is a copycat of the Chili Lime Chicken Burgers from Trader Joe's. I've never had the TJ burgers, but these sounded incredible so I decided to make them for dinner tonight. I rounded up the usual suspects:

I chopped all the veggies up, mixed them with the chicken, and formed four patties. After preheating the skillet on medium-high, I cooked them for four minutes on each side. At the end I put a slice of cheese on each burger and covered the pan for about half a minute to steam and melt the cheese. The "guacamole" was just a mashed up avocado with salt, pepper, garlic powder, and a little lime juice. And how great are those sandwich thins? They are a wonderful substitute for a bun. And for 100 calories!

I decided to make some shredded Brussels sprouts for our side. We had them at Thanksgiving and everyone loved them. I used a pound of sprouts, trimmed and cleaned. They need to be shredded fairly uniformly; I thought I could do it by hand last fall but I couldn't get them thin enough so I had to pull out the mandoline. I also shredded two shallots.

In a large skillet, melt a little bit of butter with some olive oil (maybe a teaspoon of each) and add the shredded veggies. It took about eight minutes to cook - just make sure they don't get too wilty and overdone. I think it would be delicious to brown some pancetta before adding the veggies - maybe next time.

I also had some red bell pepper left over, so sliced it to add some color to dinner. I can't even tell you how good this meal was, but there was moaning .

The recipe is printed out and will go in the "Will Definitely Make Again" file.

So what a happy day - gorgeous weather, three great meals, and wonderful company. Life is good!