Beefed Up

Good afternoon, peeps! We just woke up a little while ago, I was much too tired to do Sunday’s update before going to sleep. Soooo… here it is!

I mentioned yesterday that we were about to watch The Jacksons: An American Dream on TVLand and we did! All 5 hours of it. It was a lazy Sunday, so we hung out on the couch watching TV for most of the afternoon, but we started to get hungry. So, during commercials I whipped up a typical Italian-American Sunday LINNER. When I was growing up, my family would make some kind of pasta or baked Italian dish almost every Sunday that we’d eat as a late lunch/early dinner. Today I decided to make cavatelli that’s been in the freezer for awhile.

Cavatelli (plural) are a type of pasta, typically about 3 cm (1¼ inch) long, with a rolled edge. It is similar in shape to casarecci, but shorter in length. While they are often available frozen in Italian specialty grocers, they are typically homemade in Italian and Italian-American households. In Italy, cavatelli are especially popular in the Avellino province.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cavatelli

The texture and flavor reminds me a lot of gnocchi, but slightly different. They are chewy and delicious! I don’t think my parents and grandmother made these very often. The only times I had them was at my great aunt’s house but I was always fond of them.

1 serving (151g) cavatelli (240 cal) with 1/2 cup Bove’s organic no sugar added tomato sauce (40 cal) = 280 calories

I wanted a piece of garlic bread but we didn’t have the right bread for it, so I had 1 slice Ezekiel 4:9 low sodium sprouted grain bread (80 cal) with 3g butter (25 cal).

With the slice of B+B, this was a YUMMY Sunday linner for just 385 calories. I sprinkled ~TBSP grated pecorino romano cheese on it before I ate it which makes it around 405 calories.

After the miniseries, we headed out to Shop Rite to pick up a few things. When we came home, I started on our official dinner with the grass-fed beef tenderloin that I defrosted earlier in the day. Shop Rite had it on sale for just $2.99/lb the week before! I finally got the blue cheese crumbles that I have been wanting all week, so I decided to make a BEAUTIFUL salad with a bed of mixed baby greens that I tossed in 1 teaspoon EVOO (40 cal), a splash of balsamic vinegar and red wine vinegar and topped with: sliced beef tenderloin that I grilled on the indoor grill, white onion, grape tomatoes, 14g blue cheese crumbles (50 cal), cucmber slices and 1 TBSP Bolthouse Farms blue cheese yogurt dressing (35 cal)

On the side: a slice of grilled 9 grain and seed bread that I picked up from Shop Rite. It’s 160 cals for a 57g piece. I weighed my slice just out of curiosity and it was 42g. Sure would be easy to eat 300 or 400 calories worth of this bread in a sandwich if you didn’t realize how calorie dense it is and assumed it was about the same calories as most other breads. REALLY good though! Soft and has lots of fun seeds and grains to chew on.

WOW!! This was the salad of the year!! It was AWESOME! I estimate using about 3.5 oz of the filet mignon after it was grilled. When you slice it thinly, it goes a lot farther. Mmmm! SO so SO good!

Gorgeous! *toots her own horn*

If I had to give my best guesstimate, I’d say this salad runs around 500 calories, but don’t hold me to that because I didn’t measure everything.

Other than ice cream for dessert, a piece of bread with sauce and nibbling on cucumber slices while preparing the salad, I opted for just 2 large meals and a few snacks for the day. I took the day off from exercising yesterday, so I’m well-rested and ready to take the day on now! But first, Dustin and I are going to watch Glenn Beck. Then I’m going for a driveway walk. YAY! It looks like it’s getting cloudy though. I hope it rains while we’re watching TV so I can walk in some fresh air! *crosses fingers*