Work Week Eating

I've fallen into a good eating routine during the work week; I think I'm finally getting in enough vegetables and I like the taste of everything. I need to clean up my dinner/evening eating a bit, but the portions are reasonable, so I'm letting it be for now.


Breakfast - Green Smoothie:
Version 1: Water, Parsley, Celery, a little bit of fruit (e.g. grapes, apples, berries), Hemp Seeds or other hippie mix-in

Version 2 if really hungry: Almond Milk, 1/2 banana, 1/2 avocado, 1/2 apple, lots of Kale, hemp seeds

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Mid-morning snack:
If super lazy and really hungry, a protein bar (ThinkThin, Zone, Clif, etc.)
otherwise, home made baked good like banana bread made with almond flour

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Lunch:
- Roasted vegetables (mix of brussels sprout, golden beets, carrots), cooked in coconut oil--on top of raw kale
- Some kind of animal protein
- If still hungry, a piece of fruit

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Late-afternoon snack examples:
Dark chocolate, delicata squash or sweet potato with cinnamon/sugar

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Dinner:
Generally  whatever is in the fridge/cupboards to snack on (nuts, cheese, tortilla chips).

Post-workout in evening, might do an Almond Milk with Whey Protein shake (using Optimum Nutrition's Chocolate Coconut flavor for the protein) 

Strength: Two Month Check-In

A few minor milestones to note on my progress:

• Graduated to using 25# dumbbells for bench press sets (thought I would be using 20# forever)
• Ran 4 miles in 36 minutes (PR for this length, especially good given that I've only run 2 times in the month of October)
• 10k run PR @ ~57 minutes (9:17 pace)
• Back squat: 4 x 5 @ 120# (needs work to get to 5 x 5)

Kale & Cheese Quiche

Made a quiche for a team lunch and thought this was the best base recipe I've ever used--it received a lot of compliments, too (not typical for my cooking). I based what I made off of the recipe from this blog.

I'm only listing the filling, I did make a pate brisee crust with it that worked really well, too.

Kale & Cheese Quiche

1 leek, chopped into small pieces
1 bunch of kale, loosely chopped
4 large eggs
Approx 1.5 cups milk or cream or half & half (see step 5)
1 cup shredded cheese (used blend of Fontina, Gruyere, & Swiss)
1 Tbsp. butter
Salt & Pepper to taste
Dash of Nutmeg

1. Sautee leek in butter until cooked through
2a. When the leeks are about 3/4 of the way done, throw in the kale and cook down
2b. If I was serving this to others, I would steam the kale separately and blot out excess water
3. Whisk eggs in a measuring cup that can hold at least 2 cups of liquid
4. Add salt & pepper to taste and a dash of nutmeg to eggs
5. Pour enough milk into egg mixture until it reaches the 2 cup line marker, whisk mixture
6. Spread leeks & kale onto a blind baked pie crust (or empty pie dish if making crustless)
7. Layer half the cheese onto leeks & kale
8. Pour egg & milk mixture on top
9. Sprinkle the rest of the cheese onto the pie
10. Cook at 350 F for about 40-50 minutes