Jillian overload pt. 2

Food updates!

The Whole Wheat Pasta with Zucchini, Tomatoes, and Lemon Yogurt Sauce was divine. It also made excellent leftovers that I ate for lunch yesterday (and I plan on eating the rest today). I've never cooked with greek yogurt before, but a lot of these recipes called nonfat plain greek yogurt so I ended up buying a large tub of it. The yogurt mixed with fresh lemon zest, parmesan cheese, whole wheat pasta, zucchini and tomatoes was very very tasty.

The No-Cream "Creamed" Spinach was also delightful, but not how you quite expect "creamed" spinach to be. Maybe that's because most of the creamed spinach I've ever had also had a very salty and vinegar-y type of flavor added to it, but this recipe only uses fresh lemon juice for that extra tang. When it's warm, it's delicious.

I sort of burned the Banana Blueberry muffins, but regardless they make an excellent addition to my already made Oatmeal Chocolate chip muffins. I wish they had more of a banana taste to them. The next time I make them, maybe I'll throw in an extra banana. Chad loves the Oatmeal Chocolate chips muffins and he actually finished off the whole batch last night. I'll definitely make another batch this weekend.

Last night for dinner, I made:
Roasted Chicken with Spinach Pesto: Also another hit with the husband! He had an intense hockey game last night, and ate a big bowl of this afterwards and loved it. It uses whole pasta (I used penne), and the pesto is made of fresh spinach, fresh parsley, walnuts, olive oil, lemon zest, lemon juice, a touch of cinnamon, and other spices. I roasted a big chicken breast (about 1 lb) in the oven, and then sliced it up into thin slices. Then I tossed the chicken, penne pasta, and the pesto together is a large bowl. YUM!
One thing that I forgot to do was mix in a half a pint of cherry tomatoes. You were supposed to toss those in with the rest of the pasta, but I forgot and they are still sitting in my fridge. Oops. Regardless, we agreed that the tomatoes would have made a nice addition but were definitely not needed. I'll remember next time, though.

Tonight, my dinner will be Chicken Stuffed with Artichokes, Feta, and Black Olives. Jillian's recipes actually says to use pork tenderloins, but I'm substituting chicken breast because I'm not a big fan of pork. I'll probably have leftover No-Cream Creamed Spinach with it, and/or steam some frozen vegetables to eat on the side. We'll see how hungry I am.


So far, since I've been eating nothing but whole unprocessed foods this week, I can tell that I don't feel as "empty" as fast. Before, I was eating two granola bars for breakfast and would get that empty stomach feeling in less than two hours. Now that I'm substituted the granola bars with the muffins and fresh fruit, I can tell that I don't feel as drained and empty as fast in the morning. I'm going to contribute it to the fact that the muffins are much more nutritional and aren't packed with weird chemicals.
I also haven't experienced the "sugar crash". Around 2:30 or 3:00pm, I would always feel like I was going to fall asleep on my desk. I don't feel that as much now.

I have some other thoughts too, but I'll wait until I'm done with my "diet" on Friday morning. Chad and I plan on eating somewhere Friday night, where I'll probably indulge in a good bit of processed food for the first time in a week. That will be the real test to see if I feel any different afterward.