Chicken Pad Thai

Happy February 1st and almost groundhog day! What do you think, will he see his shadow? I will totally believe whatever Chuck, the Staten Island ground hog (Phil's cousin) predicts.  I am hoping his prediction will say we are on to a speedy spring, but somehow I just think it's not going to happen. I am currently counting down the days until February break (9 school days) and then until our Costa Rican vacation (too long to count down till)! 

These are the snacks I brought for the car and for the weekend. You would have thought we were going away for more than 1 day.

apple, luna bar, cliff bar, mix of goji berries, 

raw cacao nibs, almonds and maca and plain chobani yogurt

This weekend we went to our nephew's baptism and it was really nice. Everyone loved the hummus, bread and baked ziti we brought.  

We also stopped at the jeweler's and got my rings checked and cleaned up so they look all brand new and shiny. While we were there we saw a 7 and a 1/2 carat ring...it was insane and basically looked fake, it was SO huge. I didn't get to go to my favorite ice cream store because of the snow, but we did have dinner at The White Dog Cafe, which has an all organic and grass fed cuisine. We had an amazing dinner, I got an amazing warm spinach and mushroom salad that had melted goat cheese under the spinach salad. Then I also had pan seared tuna and Danny had the filed. I should have taken pictures because everything was SO amazing. 

Anyways, it was back to reality today. I knew I had a faculty conference after school so I woke up and started my day with Fitnessista's winter shape up workout. When I came home I did 45 minutes of an on demand yoga from Exercise TV. It was a HARD, I did what I could, but my flexibility just isn't there yet. I definitely have seen a difference since I started a couple of weeks ago though!

For dinner I wanted to make something different and I knew I wanted to make chicken. I remembered a recipe from Hungry Girl for pad thai so I whipped out the cookbook, but I changed it around a bunch. It is super tasty and very healthy, absolutely NO guilt! 

Chicken Pad Thai

Ingredients

1 package organic thin sliced chicken, cut into strips

2 cloves garlic, minced

1/4 onion, diced 

4-6 mushrooms, sliced

1 (14.5 oz) can fire roasted tomatoes

1 large handful cut up carrots 

5 mini bok choy (cut up)

1 tbsp light teriyaki sauce

2 tsp natural peanut butter

3 egg whites

sea salt

black pepper

Spray non stick cooking spray in a sauce pan and brown the garlic and onion on a low flame. Cook the chicken on both sides for about 3-4 minutes. Add the fire roasted tomatoes. Let cook for about 5 minutes. Add mushrooms, carrots and teriyaki sauce. Let simmer for about 5 minutes. Add the bok choy and peanut butter. Sprinkle with sea salt and pepper. Add the egg whites and continuously stir the pan until it is cooked. Cook for another 5 minutes and serve. 

This was a great change of pace from the italian and Mediterranean dishes I have been making in the past couple of weeks. I served it with long grain brown rice, "spaghetti" zucchini and whole wheat bread (leftover from this weekend). You could even serve these with udon noodles or tofu shirataki. 

Also in updated news, I DID stick to the budget this week, coming in at pennies under $100 dollars. I did have to put a couple of things back at the checkout. I left things I really didn't NEED for the week at the end and when I hit the $100 mark, I had the cashier stop. I only wasn't able to get 3 things, I think it was 1 can of pumpkin, and I can't even remember the other two. I was so proud of myself I talked about how amazing I was the entire way home and Danny was proud of me too. Have a great night, we are off to catch up on the DVR and/or glee.