Date Night {people}

Last night Ian and I went to people, a tapas bar in Wicker Park.

We started with their red wine sangria (I could not win with this picture, sorry guys!).

It was good but it didn’t wow me. It was also really really weak. Now, I’m not trying to get hammered on date night, but if I’m drinking I want to taste a little bit of the alcohol. I kind of felt like I was drinking a juice box 😉 .

Our first small plate was an order of the patata bravas: potatoes, roasted red pepper aioli.

This dish may not look like much but it was packed with so much flavor! Plus, I’m not going to deny that I love home fries and these patatas reminded me of a spicy, salty homefry. Yum!

Next we had the pastel de vegetales: pan seared seasonal vegetable cake, tomato buerre blanc.

This was another winner and I think Ian was surprised to find that he really liked it as well! The cake had a nice doughy texture and the sauce was very flavorful.

We also split an order of the gambas: cazuela style sizzling chili shrimp, garlic bread.

The shrimp were good, but nothing I wouldn’t expect from a restaurant. I skipped out on the garlic bread so I can’t comment on it but Ian seemed to like his piece.

Lastly, we had the scallops: yukon gold potato and vegetable sofrito, crispy serrano.

The scallops were really good and I’m picky with scallops. However, I guess I didn’t read the menu close enough to see that there was ham in the dish! It wasn’t a big deal though, I just took one of the scallops off the plate and let Ian have the other two plus the sofrito. I don’t think he minded too much 😉

Now after all that food you’d think we’d be stuffed right? Wrong. The plates were so small (except for the patatas) that we both were not full. Unfortunately, none of the non-meat items looked good at the moment so we left the restaurant a little hungry.

No worries though, there’s a small ice cream/coffee bar/custard shop just down the street from the tapas bar that we had been waiting for an excuse to try ;).

Ian got this amazing-looking stacked banana split with custard, whipped cream, etc.(think banana split in cup-form) and I had a single scoop of pistachio ice cream.

Mmm pistachio ice cream is my favorite, but I must have looked really silly walking around Chicago in the winter, eating an ice cream cone, and wearing gloves 😛 . Totally worth it though and the small cone was the perfect amount to satisfy my sweet tooth!

After dessert, we headed home and caught up on t.v. (ahem… Friday Night Lights) and I’m happy to say I was tucked in bed before midnight. I like to sleep on my weekends!

Breakfast
I woke up hungry this morning so I decided to make steel cut oats for breakfast. I added 1/4 cup of oats, 3/4 cup of water, 1 tsp chia seeds, and then about 5 cashews to the pot and warmed it over medium high heat. Once the oats started to thicken, I added in 1/2 a smushed banana, cinnamon, and vanilla extract. I let the oats cook for about 15 minutes, stirring occasionally, and then added some almond milk for creaminess.

While my oats cooked, I enjoyed some french roast coffee with my new favorite coffee creamer, Coffee Mate’s Peppermint Mocha.

While it’s not the healthiest of creamers, it does taste pretty good, and it brings me back to the days of Starbuck’s Peppermint Mocha (well, almost!).

Once my oats were done, I topped them with some thawed and warmed strawberries and a mixture of peanut flour, water, and maple syrup.

I don’t know if the way I cooked the steel cut oats was very different from last time, but I definitely liked them more this morning!

Plans for today include homework, a short run, and some quality Ian/Sonic-time.

Do you make steel-cut oats? How do you normally prepare them?

What are your Saturday plans?

Fatigue and Hunger: Why I Want a Milkshake Right Now

I am most definitely not the first blogger to post on the relationship between lack of sleep and hunger. Most notably, Katie recently wrote a great post on fatigue and hunger, the affect of winter on sleep, and how protein may affect your ability to sleep. I’m not in anyway trying to claim creativity here! I just would like to share with you some interesting facts I came across today while doing a little research.

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One study that collected data on 1,024 volunteers found that:

people who consistently slept less than five fours a night had significant differences in the hormones leptin and ghrelin as compared with people who slept an average of eight hours a night. Leptin is produced by fat cells. Low levels of it are a signal of starvation and a need for a bigger appetite. Ghrelin, meanwhile, is produced by the stomach and is an appetite stimulant–the more ghrelin you have, the more you want to eat. The study subjects suffering a lack of sleep had 16 percent less leptin and nearly 15 percent more ghrelin than those who were well rested did.

So it appears that if on average you don’t get enough sleep, you actually will have a larger appetite which makes you want to just keep eating and eating and eating. Not good!

In addition, research suggests that lack of sleep may affect hunger differently for men than for women. This article states that after sleeping only four hours, men will consume on average an extra 263 calories the following day while women will consume 329 extra calories. Similarly:

Both men and women ate more protein-rich foods on short sleep, but only women ate more fat. While men ate the same amount of fat no matter how much sleep they got, the women averaged 31 more grams of fat after sleeping for four hours.

Crazy, right? And while this study did have a small sample size (so it’s difficult to make any firm conclusions) who can say they don’t crave more carbs/fatty foods when they’re tired than when they’re well rested?

…but 31 grams of fat is a lot!

Plus, the really scary thing is that you feel hungry!

I definitely need to work on getting more sleep.

Anyway, after my 4 hours of sleep last night, I have been a hungry little monster today!

Lunch was Ian’s leftovers from P.F. Changs.

I’m not sure what the actual menu item is called but it was some sort of noodle, shrimp, and veggie dish. I added some edamame to boost the protein a bit because I thought it might keep me fuller longer.

I also had two clementines.

And snacked on 1/2 a granola bar for awhile until I realized I was being ridiculous and drank a mug of tea and then half a mug of coffee. The liquid filled me up and the caffeine made me feel a little more awake, both of which I needed at that moment.

I want to be hungry for dinner tonight (date night 🙂 ) so I really didn’t want to spoil my meal by snacking all afternoon but the liquid seemed to do the trick today.

What are your tips with dealing with snackiness or hunger due to being tired?

On a happy note, it’s FRIDAY AFTERNOON! Enjoy your weekend guys 😀

Wasted Wednesday

Hah, I bet the title of this post caught your attention! I’m sorry to disappoint you but I did not spend my Wednesday at a bar knocking back drinks (unfortunately :P), rather I spent it running those time-consuming errands that seem to just suck your time soul away.

For example, there was some trouble delivering a package to my apartment so I had to run over to the Post Office to sort it out. I innocently thought this errand would take about 10 minutes, well an hour later I left the Post Office empty-handed. No package in sight!

Anyway, by the time I got to work I was not only running late, I was about to chew my arm off. So lunch was had immediately upon sitting down at my desk.

Salad with arugula, tomatoes, mushrooms, edamame, and two shrimp from last night.

Blood Orange Chobani with TJ’s Trek Mix granola

Hah, I laugh at this lunch now. After a 10 mile run and running errands by foot, this kept me full for about an hour and a half. Poor planning on my part! I supplemented by having some Pop chips at my desk and then making a delicious afternoon snack when I got home after running more errands.

I put half of a cut-up apple (the rest will be in my breakfast tomorrow, stay tuned it will be a good one 🙂 ) in a bowl and sprinkled it with cinnamon, oats, and a little brown sugar and then microwaved it for 90 seconds. I let it cool for about a minute and then added some ricotta cheese.

Yay, makeshift apple crisp 😉

I’m joking but it was actually very good and super easy to make.

Dinner
One of Ian’s friends is in town for the night and while I was invited to dinner I opted out so I could have some alone homework time and Ian could spend some time with his buddy. I took advantage of dinner alone to make something Ian would never eat in a million years, savory oatmeal!

I used Chelsey’s recipe as a guideline but added more nutritional yeast, green onions, and crumbled tempeh to my oats. I just wasn’t feelin’ an egg and I figured the tempeh would create an interesting texture in the oats. It did!

I topped mine with some Cholula hot sauce and dug in. Why has it taken me so long to make savory oats? What’s my problem? 😛

Homework, homework, and more homework tonight. I need to get stuff done so I can enjoy the weekend (aaaand Jersey Shore tomorrow night 😉 ).

Have you ever tried savory oats? What did you use as toppings?

Alcatraz Premier {Nerd Alert}

This post is going to be pretty short on words because I am busy watching the season premier of Alcatraz, the new show by J.J. Abrams.

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I was a big fan of Lost, so I’ve been looking forward to this show for awhile. What can I say? I’m a huge nerd 😛

I spent most of the day working on my neglected homework. I did take a break to eat lunch (of course) and to make Ian pumpkin muffins for grab-and-go breakfasts this week.

I used this recipe from fANNEtastic food and Ian tried one and loved it. If you’re craving healthy pumpkin muffins, this recipe is for you 🙂

Dinner
I was finally able to find the ingredients I was looking for in Chinatown yesterday at Whole Foods, go figure. So tonight, I made Eat, Live, Run’s fire-pot soup.

I had to make a couple of slight changes due to ingredient variability but I followed the recipe pretty closely. I used a little more tofu and a little less shrimp (I thought we had more frozen than we did) but it came out really well. It was light but filling and didn’t weigh me down like some Thai soups can.

I also had a glass of wine with dinner.

“Dessert” was pumpkin protein pudding with raisins and TJ’s crispy rice cereal.

Yum.

Back to Alcatraz!

Do you watch any t.v. shows religiously? Or, were you a Lost fan? I watch Jersey Shore and Top Chef pretty frequently. I dvr others but don’t get upset if I miss an episode.

Friday in F(ph)otos

Have a great night!