Man, exercise is the best. I was in a seriously crappo mood last night and this morning, and I forced myself to bike to the gym and work out and felt SO much better! My muscles felt better and my BRAIN felt better! I actually know someone whose doctor told her that she could either take antidepressants every day for the rest of her life or exercise regularly.
It really is true, though, that our bodies are designed to be active. I feel so much healthier when I work out!
To refuel, I made the. best. lunch.
Al fresco, in the sun, with refreshing homemade iced tea.
So here’s how this evolved: although not scorchingly hot, I was still plenty warm after biking home, so I wanted something cool and refreshing, and I knew it needed to involve leftover chicken. I am kind of over green salad for at least a little while, so I decided on a chicken salad with a twist, roughly modeled on the Waldorf salad. While there are few things I LOVE more than a good chicken salad, there are few things I HATE more than a nasty, gloppy, bland, mayo-y chicken salad.
So I give you:
East Meets West Indian Influenced Waldorf Salad
3 oz leftover chicken (mine was poached), chopped into bite sized pieces
1/4 of a granny smith apple, chopped
1 tablespoon walnuts, chopped
1/2 tablespoon plain nonfat yogurt
1/2 tablespoon MANGO CHUTNEY (!!!!!!)
squeeze of lemon juice
generous amount of black pepper
Combine ingredients. Serves 1.
THAT’S IT! The combination of flavors and textures was TO DIE FOR. I know it doesn’t seem like a lot of dressing, and I would’ve added more if I thought I needed it, but I’m telling you, it was PERFECT!
I had the salad atop toasted spelt bread, with snow peas on the side (just raw! so sweet and delicious!), and another quarter of the apple along with the last of the pineapple.
I’m especially pleased with this meal because I was reading Shape magazine at the gym, and it said that after a workout, you should refuel with protein (chicken), healthy fat (walnuts), complex carbohydrates (whole grain bread, veg), and water (the iced tea). GO ME! Along with that, this meal was DELICIOUS!
Tracking back to last night, we had some bok choy that needed using. I found this recipe, which we pretty much followed, just subbing full grown bok choy for the baby.
It was yummy! It had a very velvety texture, and seriously you cannot go wrong with shiitake mushrooms. They are the best.
On my continued use up the chicken quest, I made fried rice ish.
We have jasmine brown rice (isn’t that cool?! You usually only see white rice with jasmine. We found it at another awesome Asian grocery store, Great Wall), so I cooked that up and towards the end tossed in orange zest, frozen peas, and chopped up ginger.
I know traditionally fried rice has eggs and more seasoning, but I’m egg’d out from the weekend, and I didn’t want any seasoning to clash with the jasmine. So then I dumped the rice out of the pan, sprayed in some cooking spray, threw in the chicken just to heat it up but then it stuck so I deglazed with some cooking rice wine and threw everything together.
The jasmine brown rice has a GREAT texture, but this dish was a little bland.
Nothing some Sriracha couldn’t cure!
One final note: congratulations to my leetle seester, who is now a high school graduate!
I’d just like to point out I’m not THAT much shorter than her (it’s a bit of a sore subject for me!) She was in heels and I was in flip flops!
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