Protein Party!

I mentioned yesterday that I was trying to use some of the eating principles from Jamie Eason's Livefit Trainer, such as eating more lean protein and veggies and eating more small meals throughout the day.

For breakfast, I decided to amp up my protein in my oats, but without using protein powder. Her breakfast suggests lots of egg whites for protein, so I made some egg white oats!

Eggy Pumpkin Oats

Ingredients

4 liquid egg whites

1/2 cup oatmeal

1/2 cup almond milk

1/2 cup water

1/4 cup pumpkin

Cinnamon

Truvia

Directions

Put water, almond milk, oats and egg whites into a pot on the stove. Whisk together every once and a while so that the egg whites get mixed in well with the oats and milk. When it's near done, add in the pumpkin, cinnamon and truvia. Mix well and let the pumpkin heat up. Then serve!

I was actually surprised on how much came out! I guess part of that is because I used 1/2 cup oats instead of 1/3 like I normally do. I decided to add more oats since I wasn't using PB or nuts or anything else, so I wanted to make sure it was filling!

They definitely had an eggy taste. I think the egg whites would be better with banana over pumpkin, but I still enjoyed them! Feel free to top with anything, or add in some flax or chia seeds. I meant to add flax, but forgot until I started eating!

To help prep meals for the week, I decided to try out another recipe in my slow cooker. I found this recipe on Healthful Pursuit for Crockpot Chicken and Rutabaga Greens Stew. The only difference between mine and Leanne's dish is that I did not include all the spices (I didn't have everything) and I just put the chicken breasts in whole and then broke them up like pulled chicken at the end. Why? Because I didn't notice the part about cubing the chicken. Plus cutting raw chicken weirds me out.

I divided it up into four containers for my lunches for the week! So excited! The smell coming from my apartment was amazing when this was cooking!

Another recipe I tried out was from Jamie Eason's Livefit Trainer. I had also seen Claire make these, so I wanted to give them a try! You can find the recipe here.

They were really easy to make, and tasted great! Mine were a bit dry though, probably because 1. I left them in the oven a few minutes too long and 2. I realized I only bought 1.25 lbs of ground turkey, rather than the 2lbs it called for oops.

Once they'd finished baking, I knew I had to try a couple, so I came up with an easy recipe to put them in!

Spaghetti and Turkey Balls

Ingredients

2 Turkey Muffins from Jamie Eason's Livefit Trainer

1 small zucchini

1 handful kale

1/4-1/2 cup marinara sauce

nutritional yeast

Directions

Spiralize zucchini into a bowl (if you don't have a spiralizer, use a vegetable peeler to get a more linguini type noodle ). Then, steam kale for about 3 minutes, place on top of zucchini. Add marinara sauce and microwave entire bowl for about 40 seconds. Add turkey muffins and nutritional yeast on top!

I really enjoyed this one! The marinara sauce and the turkey meatballs made it taste like spaghetti and meatballs, but with way more veggie servings, lean protein and less calories! It was a great lunch!

What's one of your favorite high-protein meal ideas?

Have you ever put eggs in your oatmeal? What did you think?

I actually have a couple oatmeal with eggs recipes on my recipe page:

Pumpkin Pie Oats

Carrot Cake Oats

Apple Cinnamon Raisin Oats

Also, be sure to check out Laura's giveaway on her blog Keeping Healthy Getting Stylish! http://www.keepinghealthygettingstylish.com/2012/01/happy-birthday-keeping-healthy-getting.html It's her two year blogging anniversary! Congrats Laura!