My dog Cissie turns 5 today! I can’t even believe we’ve had her for so long. I feel like a parent – it seems like just yesterday that she was a puppy!

Happy birthday to my little bear!

Now onto the weekend recap!

On Saturday, Steph and I completed the required pool dive for our scuba diving certification! It was hard for me to figure out how to breathe at first, but a lot of fun once I got the hang of it. Even though we were just in a pool, it was cool to swim around at the bottom and be able to look up at all the people bobbing around above us. I can’t wait to go open water diving in Hawaii in two weeks!

By the time we were done, it was 4 and we were both starving since we hadn’t had a chance to eat lunch. On our way back, we went to Satay Malaysian in Hoboken and had a bite to eat.

Steph ordered the chicken pad thai. She was excited!

I had the coconut milk bubble tea and a brown chicken curry. The bubble tea was delicious and the chicken curry had quite a kick to it! It filled me right up.

Later, my sister was in the mood for a second dinner so I made her one of my egg white and hummus wraps and we shared some sweet potato fries. I love when she comes to visit because I usually don’t get the opportunity to show her that eating healthy can be quick, easy, and delicious.

The next day, we hit the mall before going to my favorite Indian place, Raaz, for lunch! It was all really delicious, as usual. I finished off with two gulab jamun.

For dinner, I threw together the following in a bowl: lemony whole wheat pasta with kale and chicken sausage. Yum!

Lastly, I’ll leave you with these two photos of the birthday girl being sleepy!

Happy Hump Day!

A new goal I’m adding to my June goal list is to participate in WIAW every week this month. I’m hoping it’ll keep me much more accountable for my eats, especially switching it up because I am absolutely a creature of habit. This month’s theme is sensible snacking!

8:30 am: Breakfast

Breakfast was my usual overnight oats. I’m not too adventurous with my breakfasts, sadly. Occasionally, I’ll try something different and like it, but the oats are just so easy to make and so delicious! Ah well. I do change it up on the weekends though.

I enjoyed them with a big blob of Peanut Butter & Co’s Mighty Maple. I finished off the jar today so I get to have overnight oats in a jar for breakfast and start my new jar of sunbutter tomorrow!

11 am: Snack

I brought some pineapple chunks to work today! They’re so delicious. It’s like eating candy, which I don’t mind one bit.

1:30 pm: Lunch

For lunch today, I had another awesome salad from my building’s cafeteria. I’ve been loving their healthier choices lately! They’ve had a lot of beans, quinoa, barley, and other grains, which I love throwing on top of my salad.

Today I went for spinach and romaine with some tofu, roasted sweet potatoes, grilled chicken, mediterranean-style orzo, and spicy feta. Yum! I also had a few more pineapple chunks for dessert.

2 pm: Tea and snack

I decided to try some of my friend Angela’s loose tea around lunchtime. She got it in Switzerland! Neither of us could read the package, so I have no idea what was in it, but it was good! Really fruity, but also a bit tart. Perfect with some agave.

I also finished off my pineapple chunks a little later, around 5 pm or so.

8 pm: Dinner

I just bought a new package of Al Fresco Buffalo Style Chicken Sausage, which I haven’t tried yet. I was so excited to today! I was in the mood for something lemony and had half a bunch of broccoli left over from the other night, so I threw this together.

I started out cooking my penne in a pot on the stove, while also chopping up half a chicken sausage and microwaving it. When the pasta was almost done, I threw in my broccoli and let it boil with the pasta. Then I just drained it all and threw it into a bowl along with the chicken sausage, a little bit of olive oil and lemon juice, and some grated parmesan cheese. So good and easy! I’ll be making this one again.

So overall, a pretty good eating day! Though my snacking wasn’t so sensible… I should work on that. Have a nice night!

Sunday success! I actually managed to be productive today.

First success of the day: I finally got off my lazy ass and made Katie‘s fudge babies. My blender’s not the greatest and struggled with the dates, so I had to throw in about a quarter of a banana on top of her original recipe to get these doughy enough to shape.

My poor iPhone camera just can’t handle balls (ha), so sadly any photos I took came out looking like poop. But don’t let them fool you, these came out amazingly! I’m 100% sure these’ll be gone in less than a week.

For lunch, I made a lazy lunch of leftover pasta with tomato basil sauce and a single turkey meatball. Trust me, I ate enough of the fudge baby batter that this was enough.

And before dinner, I decided to tackle Beth‘s recipe for hearty black bean quesadillas. Black beans, corn, cilantro, onions, and garlic went into a bowl…

Which I then threw plenty of cheese and spices into…

To get these! Mmmm. I ate one and popped the rest in the fridge. Some of them will be going to my parents’ house next weekend for my sister!

Fingers crossed for an equally productive Monday at work!

From Wikipedia:

Gulab jamun is a popular dessert in countries of the Indian Subcontinent such as India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Nepal and Bangladesh. It is made of a dough consisting mainly of milk solids, traditionally, khoya, an Indian milk product (buffalo milk) is rolled into a ball together with some flour and then deep fried, but at a low temperature of about 300°. It is then put into a sugar syrup flavored with cardamom seeds and rosewater, kewra or saffron.

What it doesn’t mention is that it is both delicious and dangerous for the waistline!

To backtrack a bit, my sister and I decided to hit up a brunch buffet at an Indian restaurant just around the corner, Raaz, after a full morning of shopping. It’s by far one of my favorite places in Jersey City! My boss and I try to go to their weekday lunch buffet whenever we’re having an especially slow day.

We absolutely inhaled the food, so the only thing I managed to get a photo of was the gulab jamun! I didn’t taste any rose water or anything else in the syrup though. It just tasted like ordinary maple syrup to me. Still good though.

I dropped my sister off at the train station in the afternoon and went to the gym for a short run and a full body circuit.

While making dinner, I spotted this article in my new issue of Women’s Health. To sum it up in one quote: “If your food and dishes have a high color contrast, you’ll serve yourself less.” Interesting…

Dinner was whole wheat rotini with turkey meatballs, spinach, and my favorite red sauce: Francesco Rinaldi’s hearty tomato and basil sauce.

So keeping in mind the color control article I just saw, I decided against using my favorite bright red bowl for my pasta and instead used my new green and white bowl. It’s part of a set that I just bought at TJ Maxx a few days ago. Love it!