Diet Changes During Pregnancy

My appetite currently in pregnancy is great! I’m nearly 28 weeks now. I wake up hungry or famished most mornings, eat breakfast, sometimes eat a snack mid-morning, always eat lunch, a snack in the afternoon usually, dinner, and a snack before bed.

Baby and I get pretty lethargic if we don’t get food when we are hungry, so I try and remember to always pack snacks when I am out and about.

I learned quickly that the snack before bed is a must otherwise I wake up insanely hungry in the middle of the night. My go-to bedtime snack is Greek yogurt with honey. Protein and carbs to tide me over for a while.

My diet has changed a few ways in pregnancy. I am eating more whole grains and not all of them are gluten-free. My body is tolerating the gluten and although I’m not going overboard with it, I am still eating regular bread, cereal, and snacks sometimes.

Also, I never know what I’m going to want to eat which makes planning meals ahead of time nearly a thing of the past. Dinners are usually pretty spontaneous these days. I’m still trying to clean out the freezer too! It’s going well!

Another thing I’m starting to notice, is that I feel much better when I eat smaller meals frequently opposed to large ones less often. This isn’t always completely doable with work, but I do my best.  My stomach is getting smooshed and appreciates smaller quantities at a time.

What I’ve Been Eating…

I think this baby gets some pretty tasty eats. Time to check out what I’ve been eating lately. I’m linking up with Jenn today!

One day I was suffering with terrible allergies and had no inclination to make food but I knew I needed food. I had pulled up pizza delivery on the computer and was all ready to order. Then the light bulb went off and I decided I would make my own mini healthier pizza instead, and that it wouldn’t be that much work either.

I topped a gluten-free brown rice tortilla with leftover meaty spaghetti sauce, mozzarella, onions, and green olives. I baked it for 5-10 minutes or so and then broiled it. As simple as it was, it tasted so good. Sometimes simple is best.

tortilla pizza

I’m STILL drinking this smoothie every.single.morning. Not sick of it yet! This is a record for sure.

 

chocolate peanut butter smoothie

We had a perfect green bell pepper from our garden waiting to be used so I bought some farmer’s market tomatoes (we didn’t have enough ripe tomatoes in our garden yet) so that I could make a batch of fresh salsa.

homemade salsa

And it was delicious.

I can’t get enough of the frozen spinach cooked to steaming hot with a little butter and salt. Popeye would be so proud.

salsa shrimp spinach

I’m really enjoying my egg sandwiches still slathered with yellow mustard some time type of cheese.

egg sandwich

The southwest salad made an appearance this week! It’s as good as I remembered.

southwest salad

Yesterday I made myself a heaping veggie wrap. I packed it with cucumbers, red onion, banana peppers, pickles, Muenster cheese, spinach and arugula, tomatoes, mustard and mayo. This thing was massive, messy, and SO good!

veggie cheese wrap

 

There’s been a fair share of sweets being consumed lately. My go-to has been ice cream and frozen yogurt. Summertime just screams, “eat ice cream!”

 

frozen yogurt

 

There’s been no lack of good food consumed over here per usual. I haven’t been super creative in the kitchen, but find ways to make do. We’ve been going out to eat more often than before pregnancy too. I’m okay with this though since it’s at most once a week.

What are some of your favorite quick summer meals?

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Bread Machine Pizza Dough

Tonight we made homemade pizza dough in the bread maker for the first time and holy cow it was delicious! I made a whole wheat dough recipe that I adapted from Cooking Light. Instead of going through the processes of covering, rising, kneading, punching which is what this recipe called for, we put the dough in our bread maker and set it to the dough setting. Easy peasy! Once it’s done in the bread machine, I baked it in the oven with all of the toppings I had on hand and waited, waited, waited impatiently.

The crust came out pretty thick which was delicious, but I read the recipe once we were done stuffing our faces and read that it was actually supposed to make two 12 inch pizzas. This would make for a thinner crust which is usually what I prefer! But I am not complaining, because this was one delectable pizza. I enjoyed and savored every single bite. MMMMMMmmmmmmmmmmmmm!

Bread Machine Pizza Dough

Adapted Recipe (Cooking Light) http://search.cookinglight.com/ck-results.html?Ntt=pizza+dough&x=0&y=0:

Ingredients

  • 1 tablespoon olive oil
  • 1 1/2 cups warm water
  • 2 1/4 teaspoons dry yeast
  • 1/4 teaspoon sugar
  • 2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
  • 1 cup whole-wheat flour
  • 1 1/2 teaspoons salt
  • 1/2 teaspoon dried oregano
  • 1 teaspoon garlic powder
  • small handful of corn meal

Directions

  1. In bread machine add water and oil.
  2. Next add dry ingredients except corn meal
  3. Set bread machine on dough and let it do its thing
  4. Once dough is done, set onto pizza stone lightly coated with corn meal*
  5. Preheat oven to 450 degrees Fahrenheit
  6. Knead from the center out to the edges
  7. Top with whatever toppings you have on hand (I used pasta sauce, onion, zucchini, mushroom, green olives and spinach)
  8. Bake for 20-22 minutes

* Recipe called for cooking spray but I omitted because honestly I didn’t think you needed to coat a pizza stone. I was wrong. Dough was sticking a little bit once I took it out of the oven but I used a spatula to loosen it right out. Next time I will use cooking spray, then corn meal.

I will definitely be making pizza crusts homemade from now on in the bread maker. Winner winner! The rest of the night will consist of hanging out with my boys and watching a little bit of the Golden Globes. Have a great night everyone!

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