Italian Burgers

Thanks so much for the encouraging and helpful responses on Monday's budget post! I'm feeling super motivated to be creative with our budget right now, but we'll see how long that lasts.

Yesterday slipped away from me a bit once the evening rolled around. I spent the afternoon tidying up and washing the previous day's dishes (oops), and then I did a little prenatal yoga while Terry jogged around the nearby park. When he got back, we took a lovely, long walk through our neighborhood (and passed right by Matthew Broderick! There was eye contact. It was cool)--but didn't get home until almost 8 pm! That time change totally threw me off, I guess, because I thought it was much earlier when we left for our walk. Sunshine at 6:30 pm is so deceiving.

Anyway, thank goodness we had some delicious and easy leftovers for dinner, so it was on the table in about 12 minutes (and devoured about three minutes after that). Here's what we made on Monday:

- Ground beef (~20 ounces, because the package was from Costco) mixed with 1 sweet Italian sausage (casing removed), 1 teaspoon oregano, 1 teaspoon dried basil, 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder, and some salt and pepper
- I mixed up the meat and spices, created 6 (!) patties, and grilled them on our indoor grill pan (we didn't think the smoky flavor of the BBQ would work with these flavors)
- To assemble: I topped the burgers with mozzarella cheese (on Monday we had leftover Burrata...yummmm), heated up some store-bought marinara sauce to slather all over, and used whole wheat toast as buns

I have a few thoughts about these "Italian burgers" that I think I should share with you: 1) They are incredibly tender, and the flavors are like a meatball sub; 2) I'm SO glad we used a little extra meat to make 6 patties instead of 4, because now we scored three meals instead of just two; and 3) While I recognize and appreciate the need for variety in our diets, I wish I could eat one of these every day for the next month.

To sum up: I was a fan.

So after those spectacular burgers, cleaning up, and our pregnancy exercises, I was beat! We staggered off to bed for another 5 am wake up call today.

And that's where we'll pick up this WIAW. The major "event" going on around our house this week is our new emphasis on a mindful budget, but we still stocked up with some awesome foods for the week. Here's what we had today:

Breakfast: 

1 fried egg (oh, yeah, I dropped a carton of eggs on yesterday and broke several, so we already only had two left this morning) + one piece of whole wheat toast with smashed avocado and cottage cheese and a sprinkling of pepper

My parents actually introduced me to this toast-avocado-cottage cheese combo, and I LOVE it. It's high in protein and hits three food groups, which is unusual for me for breakfast!

Snacks eaten throughout the morning:

Banana with sunflower seeds and two Mandarin oranges and more sunflower seeds

Lunch:

Terry found this recipe for tuna salad with white beans (we used Great Northern instead of cannellini), and I added it to a giant handful of mixed greens. Unfortunately, I forgot the lemon wedge AND the dressing that are supposed to go with the salad, but it still worked, and I added cucumbers (not pictured above). (By the way, this salad took me about 5 minutes to make yesterday morning! SO easy!)

Dinner:

Leftover burgers (described above). I used one piece of toast and made an open-faced sandwich, and we had some greens on the side mixed with oil, balsamic, salt, and pepper (the eggplant pictured was devoured Monday night with no leftovers). I'm just so sad those burgers are gone now.

Dessert:

Food Babe's almond butter brownies (I added 1 1/2 tablespoons of cocoa powder to the batter this time to give them more of a brownie color, and I actually love the flavor even more, so I recommend it!) with a glass of milk


And here's a new triceps and chest workout for your Wednesday enjoyment. I made it for Terry and completed a very toned-down pregnancy version (below) myself. As always, be sure to warm up properly before you get started! This one would be perfect to add on to a Tabata workout or other short, intense cardio.

Notes:

• The idea here is to complete each superset twice (the cable triceps pulldowns, cable chest press, and plank knee-to-elbows are the first superset, so do that twice through), then complete an exercise (dips or push ups, respectively) to fatigue (and only once). Then you're done!
• It's short, so aim for moderately heavy weights to challenge yourself. The last few reps should feel difficult, but save your energy and good form for those fatigue sets.

My pregnancy version:

• Completed three sets of each superset
• No skullcrushers for me (since I can't lay flat on my back), so I did overhead tricep press instead
• Omitted the core exercises
• Skipped the fatigue sets

Be sure to check out the other WIAWs!

I'm hoping to get some extra sleep tonight since this time change has been killer. So with that, I'm off to bed!