Veggggiiiieeees

Lots of veggies in my life this week! Salads, sandwiches, roasted, baked…you name it!

A salad for lunch: mixed greens, bell pepper, cucumber, red onion, corn (frozen…thawed by lunch!), carrots, and goat cheese!
These greenies were transformed into Kale Chips!

and a super hummus veggie sandwich!

• lemon hummus
• avocado
• tomato
• mixed greens
• orange bell pepper
• carrots
• pickles
• sriracha!
  

SOO GOOD! I had many versions of this sandwich for lunches this week :)

Look at this MINI bell peppers I found at TJ’s!! They look like hot peppers but they are just miniature sweet bell peppers…about as long as a finger. SO CUTE!

I roasted them up tonight… so sweet and a delicious roasted flavor.

I’ve been varying my coffee this week. Some days I’ll brew with the coffee maker, another with the French Press

and of course a foamy cappuccino!

Obviously I’ve eaten more than veggies this week but those are the ones I wanted to share :)

I also made a batch of Ellie Krieger’s Cherry Walnut Bars! My old roommate used to make these once in a while and I haven’t had them since then :( I was CRAVING these babies!

Dry ingredients:

chopped cherries:

Batter! Mmm looks like oatmeal.

Baked:

Apricot preserves heated to glaze:

All glazed up!

delish!

Work It Out

Ok, so today is the first day my foot has noticeably felt better…so annoying.

Monday: Body Combat: I took it easy with the foot work, luckily there isn’t much, so I still got a great workout.

Tuesday: I would of gone to dance class but I decided to take it easy because dance is very “foot” intensive and I basically wear bare feet so there’s no support.

Wednesday: Normal day off because of a class for work

Thursday (tonight!): Still trying to not push the foot so I did 15min on the bike, and then BODY PUMP!! Whoa man! My arms and thighs are SO worn out. Such a great all over strength workout…I’ll be feeling this tomorrow.

Weekend: I want to get in Hot Yoga, and an easy run/walk. I’ve read a lot about Plantar Fasciitis this week and I think with lots of stretching, adding heel/arch inserts, and icing…I should be able to keep this under control.

I think it was partly because my run last weekend was a big increase in mileage for me, and I am not great with stretching before runs…lesson learned.

Girl Weekend + Great Run+Foot Pain

First lets re-wind to Friday:  I packed myself the components for ‘the bomb"’ veggie sandwich to take to work:

Great Harvest 9-grain bread, spinach, red onion, cucumber:

 

 

 

 

Hot Sauce!  Tomato and Avocado:

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sooooo good :)

Saturday:

I had to take a picture of Brian’s breakfast because it was totally blog-erific, and what I like to call “a tale of two Almond Butters” haha

2 slices of toast, 1 with Raw AB and the other Roasted AB!

I went for some ‘yogurt and berries’ ;)

plus: peach slices, granola, and 1 Kashi Heart 2 Heart waffle

Delicious.

I opted for some French Press that morning:

      

Later that day Brian headed up to NH for the night and so my best friend came over for a fun girl weekend/sleepover party :).  Her, her friend from work, and I planned a run. 

We started at my house, ran down to this pond in my town, ran around it, and ran home…all in all about 4.7 miles!  This was probably the longest I’ve EVER run continuously (there were only 2 short breaks when my friend got a cramp and even then I tried to just run real slow while she walked) and was feeling great the whole time!! 

Well I must of ran a tad too much…more than my body was used to because I’ve been having pretty bad pain in my left foot since :(.  I’ve had similar, although not nearly as bad, pain in the past and I am almost SURE it’s the Plantar fasciitis.  Didn’t hurt at all while running, but started as soon as I took my sneakers off.  Hurts the most in bare feet and feels way better when I was wearing my heeled boots most of the weekend.   Weird, and annoying.  Hopefully it fades off and next time I’ll ice, and am going to look into adding some arch supports to my sneakers. 

Girl weekend continued with:

• Manicure/pedicures
• dinner, shopping, and movies with my mom (we saw “It’s Complicated….SOOOO FUNNY!!!)
• got the CUTEST running skirt at Lululemon…now I just need some warmer weather.
• this morning we enjoyed cappuccinos and mini bagels
  
  and a juicy orange
  
  

 

• a little more shopping this morning
• then a visit down to our friends apartment where I made this salad again.

Unfortunately I do NOT have MLK day off :(  booo!  So back to work I go.  Body Combat tomorrow after work!  Really hope my foot is OK for it!

IMPORTANT:  Bake Sale for Haiti

Mediterranean Ravioli a la TJ’s

When I got home from Hot Yoga last night, it was 7:45, I was super sweaty (which was making me colder by the minute), and STARVING!!! 

Luckily my buddy Joe…Trader Joe, that is, was able to come through like a champ!

I give you:  Mediterranean Ravioli

I grabbed these from the freezer:

And these from the fridge:

Honeymoon Capers!!  Santorini Capers are AMAZING!

 

Good thing I still have 2 more unopened jars :)

Got my water boiling for the ravioli, and cooked as directed.

I sautéed:

• about 1 T olive oil
• 3 small cloves garlic (chopped)
• 3 artichoke hearts (chopped)
• 1-2 T sundried tomatoes (chopped)

After a few minutes of cooking I added:

• some white wine (maybe 1/4 – 1/2 cup)
• juice from 1/4 lemon
• 1/4 can of diced tomatoes (had them leftover from another night)

After simmering for about 5min, I added a few handfuls of baby spinach, and about 2 tsp capers with juice.

Serve over Ravioli and top with some parmesan cheese!

so so so so so good!!!  And only took about 15 min from start to finish!

LOVE Trader Joes :)

Back to Basics

When I began this blog, I was so excited and so gung-ho about it that I was trying to post multiple times a day and sneaking my camera into the kitchen at work so I could get a snap shot of my latest yogurt or oatmeal masterpiece to share with you.  Unfortunately, life and work caught up with me and now over a year later I’m still trying to get on a “normal schedule” of blogging…HA!  Trying is the key word there. 

That said, I really do miss sharing a lovely yogurt-waffle bowl, or the plethora of “components” I pack to create my lunches at work sometimes! 

mmm waffle bowl

So I would like to try and get some “before” shots of my food all packed up in the morning, because I think mostly it will go back to helping me be more accountable in the new year.  I don’t, however, foresee the sneaking of the camera into the kitchen again…I felt like such a sketch ball at work haha!  I also want to post my workouts so that it will help me make sure I am getting all my planned workouts each week and maybe motivate me to bump them up a little, or add some things here and there. 

Unfortunately I don’t have many morning pics for ya, aside from my frothy cappuccino to-go from today Mmmmm foam!  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What I can share is the delicious batch of homemade granola for the past 1 ½ weeks though!  I made a big batch 2 Sunday’s ago (after going to see the movie “Nine”…don’t waste your $$ or time…the musical numbers were great, but those made up only like ¼ of the boooooring movie)…but I digress.  Granola!

This batch was inspired by this recipe and it’s use of applesauce.  Although I did not completely eliminate the oil.  

New Years Granola – 01/03/10

Pre-heat oven to 275

• 3 cups thick cut rolled oats
• ½ cup sliced almonds
• ½ cup sunflower seeds
• ½ cup coconut
• 1/3 cup pecans, chopped 
  
  

Heated in a small pan:

• 1 T canola oil
• 1 T honey
  heating these will thin them out a little making it easier to distribute over all the dry ingredients

Pour heated oil & honey over dry mix, as well as adding:

• 1 single serve container applesauce (no sugar added)
• 2 T  TJ’s Maple Syrup/Agave blend (or just maple syrup, or agave, or honey)
  

Mix everything together in a large bowl until things seem evenly distributed.

Spread over sheet pan and bake for 75-90 minutes, stopping twice to toss/mix it in the pan.  When finished, try not to move around the granola until it cools.  Store in an air tight container, and enjoy on yogurt, oatmeal, fruit…you name it!   

Some other “items” this week:

• Kale Chips (with some ketchup for dipping)
  
  These were simply: Kale, Olive oil, S&P, for 12-15min at 375

 

Cereal Medley after dance class Tuesday.  I think it’s official…I am incapable of eating only 1 type of cereal.

I also just finished a DELICIOUS dinner that was whipped up very quick.  Post coming soon!

Workouts this week:

• Monday: Body Combat (kicks my butt every time!)
• Tuesday: 1.5 hour Dance class (Jazz!)
• Wednesday: off – class for work this night
• Thursday: 90 min Heated Prana Power Yoga
• Friday: – off
• Saturday:  planning a run with my bff (probably 3-4 miles)