Ring in the New Year!

Happy New Year’s Eve!! So, what kind of plans do you have to ring in the New Year this evening?

We’re having some family and friends over for munchies, drinks, and fireworks. The city does a great firework display at midnight that we can see perfectly from our rooftop deck.

I’ve spent today doing some final touches, cleaning (o.c.d. here) and prepping food. We have quite a spread planned…

Pulled pork BBQ
Harry & David’s pepper relish cheese dip with crackers
Hot pepper cheese ball with sliced almonds
Dill Havarti cheese
Deviled eggs
Tortilla chips with salsa
Fresh veggies with hummus
Pumpkin roll
Cookie tray with chocolate covered cashews

Let me check the frig to see if I missed anything…. Oh yeah, three bean salad.

As you probably guessed I will not be eating much of this so I’ve planned on making a BBQ tempah sandwich to fill my belly. What better way to get rid of food you don’t eat, feed it to guest. (Oh that sounds terrible). I’ll post pictures of all these goodies sometime soon.

While I was cleaning today I used these stainless steel wipes for all our appliances. They work great so I thought I’d share.


Method Stainless Steel Wipes



We pick these up at Big Lots super cheap. Look how shiny the refrigerator is!

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Have you thought about your 2010 resolutions? Mine seem to be about the same every year and I haven’t put too much thought into them this year but here’s a general idea of what I would like to accomplish.

Save money (always on the list)
Live a simple and healthy life
Start a family (TTC this spring!)

I try not to set goals like loose 10 pounds, although I’d like to, I rather be realistic and stick to a healthy lifestyle. I just want to feel great and be happy! Of course I have other goals besides just these three (i.e. attend church frequently, spend more time with family and friends, further my education).

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In case you’re wondering about my eats (probably not but I’ll share anyway)…

Today started off with my regular black coffee and pb/ab oats. Like always I wanted to lick the bowl clean.

After cleaning a while I ate an apple, sliced with sprinkled cinnamon. This taste so good I’m not sure why I hadn’t tried it sooner. I also polished off the last two vegan cookies I baked. They were in the freezer just yelling my name :)

For lunch I am baking some carrot fries that I can’t wait to try. I always see these on Mama Pea’s blog and wanted to try them. There’s no better time than after buying 5 lbs of carrots from Sam’s.

Note to self: don’t toss in olive oil. The first batch burnt in less than 25 minutes.



Much better with canola oil.



For someone who loves sweet potatoes fries, carrot fries are right up there! I could have done without the salad and had more fries. These maybe a new staple in our house.




Fiesta themed salad: spring mix, broccoli, carrots, salsa, Kashi Fiery Fiesta rice

Time to finish house work and get myself cleaned up. If I have time I’d like to workout before guest arrive, we’ll see.

Wishing you a very happy 2010!!

Shrimp Scampi

Good Morning! As I mentioned yesterday, after watching Julie & Julia I was inspired to cook something different. After raiding our cabinets for ingredients I found this recipe to try. It’s nothing too fancy or out of the ordinary but something different for us. Shrimp Scampi.

I used the base of this recipe since those were all the ingredients we had and it turned out lovely.

Shrimp Scampi
(modified from the GoodLife eats recipe here)

1 lb shelled and deveined shrimp
2 Tbs Smart Balance Light buttery spread
1 Tbs olive oil
2 cloves garlic, minced
1/3 cup white wine
2 Tbs lemon juice
1 Tbs parsley
cooked pasta for 2

Sauté shrimp in Smart Balance until cooked through. Add garlic, sauté one minute more. Add white wine and lemon juice. Simmer sauce until thickened, about 2 minutes. Add olive oil and some parsley. Combine cooked pasta and shrimp with sauce in large bowl. Toss with additional parsley and add freshly grated parmesan (optional).




This didn’t photograph well but tasted great. I especially liked this scampi since it wasn’t rich tasting like most made with real butter. It went great with steamed broccoli on the side. I also made salad but we were so eager to try the scampi that I forgot to get them out of the refrigerator. So I have my lunch ready for today.


This morning started off like any other day with my black coffee and oats.



At the moment PB and apple butter oats are my favorite!

½ cup oats
spoon of peanut butter
spoon of apple butter
cinnamon
½ packet of stevia
cooked with about 1 cup hot water

Perfection!

There’s a lot to do today so I need to step away from the computer. Here is what’s on the agenda:

• Give Elli a bath
• Get oil changed
• Workout
• Finish Cleaning

Doesn’t seem like much but the last on the list may take awhile. Off I go…. Have a great hump day everyone!

Cabin Fever

Happy Monday everyone! We got over 12 inches of snow this weekend so I’ve been stuck in the house. Needless to say it was a pretty uneventful weekend. I stayed home today as well since the city still hasn’t plowed our side street where we park. Can you say Cabin Fever!

Still sore this morning from Jillian’s No More Trouble Zones that I did yesterday, and not able to run because of the conditions outside, I opted for yoga today. Every time I do yoga I describe it as “much needed” yoga. It feels that way since it gives my whole body the tender stretching it needs and leaves me feeling calm. The rest of my day seems so peaceful.

Back to yesterday, Jillian kicked my butt! I’ve been doing her 30-Day Shred on weekdays, when not running, since it’s only 20 minutes. I had extra time on Sunday for this other DVD that is 50 minutes total. What an amazing workout! I felt like I was in boot camp and sweated my ass off. I highly recommend this one but will have to get myself pumped up to do it again.

Not too much went on this weekend. While stuck inside I took the opportunity to wrap all our Christmas gifts, clean the house, do laundry, and play with Elli in the snow. Oh yeah and I had fun trying a few new recipes! I shared the pumpkin spice pancakes but we also made Mama Pea’s whole wheat pizza dough for dinner on Saturday. Jeff added some spices (garlic, oregano, parley, and what ever else) to make it an herb crust. This was so easy to make and it rolled out nicely. We may have found a replacement for the Trader Joe’s pizza dough- sorry TJ’s!

We we not able to get very creative with the toppings. Lack of groceries. But we doubled the recipe and got two of these.


I also have to fess up about my consumption of sweets over the weekend. We can’t wait to take all the baked goods to our family this week and get it out of the house. I’ve had absolutely no willpower and it’s driving me crazy. I wish I could just suck it up and move on but it bothers me when I eat healthy all day than blow it will cookies and crap. My goal this week is to stay away from sugar, period!!

That’s about all for today. Pretty boring, huh? I’ll leave you with the cutest pup ever :)


And this new book I found. If it wasn’t too late I’d add it to my Christmas list.

Namaste.

Pumpkin Spice Pancakes

Good Morning everyone! Elli woke me early this morning, I think she wanted to play outside in this



yep this is what I woke up to. At least 6 inches of snow and its still going strong. These are the best days! I love being stuck inside a warm house watching movies, baking whatever comes to mind, and relaxing with my family.

Feeling very thirsty and just a bit hungry this morning I made my very first Green Monster.



• kale
• banana
• soymilk
• flax
• wheat germ
• peanut butter
• ice

This was very tasty but I wish I had some berries to add. They're now on the grocery list just for my next GM!

Later this morning once Jeff woke I made Pumpkin Spice Pancakes. After my impulse buy of PS Silk I had to make something with it. I veganized the recipe on the carton and thought they were blog worthing since the husband gave them 2 thumbs up.

Pumpkin Spice Pancakes

¾ cup flour
¼ cup whole wheat flour
½ tsp salt
1 cup Silk Pumpkin Spice
1 tsp vanilla
2 tbs oil (I used canola)
¼ cup unsweetened applesauce

Whisk dry ingredients together. In another bowl mix wet ingredients together. Combine wet and dry ingredients, mixing gently. Cook on a preheated skillet.
Note: Batter maybe a little lumpy. Makes about 10 pancakes.
*recipe modified from Silk's Pumpkin Spice carton.



Top cooked pancakes with your favorite toppings. Here's mine with earth balance and agave.



Now it's time to finish wrapping Christmas gifts and watch movies.

Have a great day!

Christmas Baking

Hello everyone! I hope that everyone is having a wonderful hump day. The weekend is near and Christmas isn’t very far away either.

Jeff and I had fun baking cookies last night while listening to holiday music. We both love chocolate (who doesn’t?) and peanut butter so we made peanut butter blossoms. I ran to the grocery store for the ingredients, list in hand and no impulse buys. Yay me! Can you believe there was no regular Hershey kisses at the store? Everyone must have had the same idea. Of course there were a million other fancy kinds of kisses that really didn’t sound good to me. So I chose a variety of candy to use instead of regular kisses: mini Reese’s cups, Rolos, and special dark kisses.

We stuck with the traditional Hershey’s recipe. I liked this recipe in particular because it was to yield 4 dozen cookies, which sounded perfect to share with friends and family.

Jeff helped unwrap all the candies and also served as quality control. I had a few too :)



In the cookie dough I substituted with soymilk and natural peanut butter.



Then rolled dough balls in sugar and baked.



Once baked press in your favorite treats. Reese’s cups, Rolos, and dark kisses!


(Santa, I need a cooling rack)

I had to sample just one cookie while they were warm and gooey. The Reese’s cup was my pick and it was delicious.

Somehow we only ended up with 2 ½ dozen cookies. My cookie scoop must be big because we didn’t come close to the 4 dozen.

With the leftover candies we made pretzel treats. I have no clue if these treats have a name but I’ve had them on several different occasions. I was reminded of them by Janetha over at meals & moves and so glad I was since they’re super easy and tasty.

You can make so many different varieties of these pretzel treats. We went with these:

• dark kisses with almonds
• dark kisses with almonds and dried cranberries
• dark kisses with M&Ms
• Rolos with almonds
• Rolos with M&Ms
• Reese’s cup with M&Ms

I sorted through the M&Ms for all the red and green ones. The candy was so picked through at the store they were out of the holiday themed bags.



These treats are very addicting but I limited myself to 4 of them. I had to eat the ones that I messed up!



After cleaning up the mess from baking I snuggled up on the couch with my Mother Earth Pillow (heated in the microwave) on my hip. Elli and a blanket also kept me toasty while watching the National Christmas tree lighting and the Sing Off.

Then it was nighty-night :)

Hip, I'm begging you!

Hello blog world! I kind of left you hanging yesterday with my eats. So I have to fill you in on my awesome dinner from last night: baked tofu with quinoa medley. This was the first time I ever made baked tofu and was pleasantly surprised by the result.

I pressed a carton of light extra firm Nasoya tofu on Sunday since this meal was planned. I was the only one eating it and still have 2/3 of the carton left. After searching a few baked tofu recipes I came up with this marinate, no measurements.

• soy sauce
• agave nectar
• apple cider vinegar
• dash of hot sauce
• garlic powder
• ketchup

Brush this mix over sliced tofu while the oven preheats to 375 degrees. Place tofu on non-stick baking sheet and bake until golden brown. Rotating one time through it takes approximately 20 minutes total. Serve with whatever sides you’d like!



I choose Nature’s Promise bulgur quinoa and vegetable mix I found at Giant. The two paired great together and made a very satisfying dinner. Can you believe this left me so satisfied that I didn’t even want dessert? Now that’s just weird and unheard of!

This morning I ran my scheduled 2 miles from yesterday. Have I mentioned how much more fun running is with my sista? I absolutely love my Garmin! My hip however is a different story, as soon as I hit the pavement the pain started. Really?! Maybe I need to rest for real or go get an x-ray. In pain I still managed decent time:

Mile 1- 9:34
Mile 2- 9:50

During my run it dawned on me that I need to use my heart rate monitor. It syncs with the Garmin to track my heart rates, which should help during training although I’ve never tracked it in the past.

I really want to try out Jillian’s 30-Day Shred so hopefully my hip pain will go away for tomorrow. Although I know I probably shouldn’t do anything.


For breakfast I packed a breakfast cookie in my Wrap-N-Mat. And enjoyed it with some chia tea with soymilk once I got to work.



See I snuck a bite of the cookie this morning after my run :) This one was made with oats, almond butter, soymilk, stevia, and raisins.

Around 12:00 I wanted lunch, not particularly hungry but just wanted to eat something. I had a coupon for Health Valley Organic soups and today I gave it a try. The grocery store I went to (not today, I’ve been good) only had two types to choose from. I went with the vegetable since the other was chicken noodle or something like that.



Now if anyone reads my blog then you know I’m a huge fan of Amy’s soups and I don’t like cheating on her. Blame it on the coupon.

The verdict is in and I don’t think I’ll be cheating on Amy ever again. Coupon or no coupon! The soup was very bland which is to be expected with only 140 mg of sodium. Of course I realize how evil sodium is but I also enjoy eating foods with some flavor.



Thank goodness for Mary’s crackers! Now these babies are tasty :)

My hips felt stiff all morning so after lunch I walked laps in our office building. It’s a good thing I was the only one there today because surely I looked like a fool. A good pace for 15 minutes helped loosen my body. Then back to the desk I went.

Here is my afternoon snack of peach soy yogurt, blueberries, and a little bit of Kashi 7 grain puffs cereal.



Total winner!

Well on the menu for tonight is shrimp pad Thai with sugar snap peas. I’ve been looking forward to this dinner and it will taste even better since Jeff is making it.

Heading out to take Elli for a walk… bye for now!

Oh wait... I waited a while to post this and now have a picture from dinner.



While eating Jeff asked what my favorite ingredient is in pad Thai...hummm? I'd have to say peanuts! The peanuts just add another element to the dish and bring all the flavors together. Dinner was so good I had seconds!

Check back tomorrow for our Christmas cookies :) Ok Good Night for real this time.

Kale, Yams, and Onions... oh my!

hello again, second post for today and then I'm done!

Decorating our Christmas tree today totally got me in the holiday spirit. We listened to festive music and ate sugar cookies :) Elli was so well behaved too.






I still can't get over the fact that she isn't interested in the tree. Maybe I should stop saying that so I don't jinx it.








We also did a lot of cooking today. Jeff made some huge turkey meatballs that he'll probably be eating all week long. I must admit they did look pretty good.



He cooked them then added peppers, onions, and seasoning.



Topped them with sauce and then put them in the oven for about 40 minutes.



Once they baked he covered them with a ton of cheese.


We each made our own dinners for tonight. I bought kale at the grocery store yesterday but have never cooked with it or ever eaten it for that matter. So I looked up some recipes on Veg Cooking and found this one. It sounded good and we had most of the ingredients. I had to modify it just a bit.

I chopped and cleaned the veggies.





Cooked the yams then added onions and garlic.



Tossed in the kale.


Once the kale was cooked down it was ready. Look at the vibrate colors!



This was a great way to eat kale for the first time. The meal was very flavorful, clean, and light. I believe I could eat the entire pot and not feel the least bit guilty. And I just might do that if I get hungry later :)



That's all for tonight. Time to put laundry away and plan my workouts for the week.

Have a good evening!

Training and Holiday Cookie

Monday, Monday, Monday….

I officially started training today for the Shamrock Half-Marathon! Waking up bright and early to run in 30-degree weather isn’t what I call fun but it felt great. I have to tough it out through the winter training outside and have a feeling it’s going to be a rough winter. You may have guessed that after some convincing from the hubby, I will not be joining a gym like I’d hoped. So there is no back up plan for running in a warm gym on a treadmill. Instead I’ll bundle up and hit the pavement. Maybe Santa will bring a treadmill :) along with the Garmin Forerunner. (Shhhh… I’m not supposed to know).



I mapped out my run after I stretched this morning and it ended up being 2.13 miles. Just a little over the scheduled 2 miles.

• Ran 2 miles (21:00/9:86)
• Stretched
• Abs (plank-side plank-reverse crunch- twisted leg crunch)

My hip felt a little better today while running. I definitely felt improvement other than my bruised butt that still hurts. Yes, it’s big and bounces while running! The worst pain I felt was during my ab workout. While holding plank, especially side plank, my hip really hurt. I tried not to over do it on my right side hoping not to put too much strain on it.

I also reserved our hotel room for the race today. My bestest girlfriend and running buddy is joining me. We are driving down on Saturday to check-in and p/u our race packets and the race is on Sunday, 3/21. Did I mention it’s on my birthday? Probably! I’m getting super excited!!

On my way into work today I stopped at Giant for dog food. Oh, and I got an awesome deal too! Regularly $14.99/14 lb bag, on sale for $12.99 plus each bag had a $1.50 coupon!! Anyway, what I was going to say is that I also picked up some vanilla Nasoya Silken Style Creations to make sugar cookies tonight. Hopefully this will get us in the holiday mood since we haven’t put up our tree yet. After seeing these cookies on Tina’s blog I have to try them.

For breakfast this morning I had oats, go figure. I decided not to photograph them since that picture is getting rather boring. I did switch it up by adding almond butter rather than pb.

• ½ c oats
• Dash of cinnamon
• ½ tsp agave nectar
• 1 spoon full of almond butter
• ¾ of banana

This was good but I still love my peanut butter. The almond butter doesn’t have the smooth and creamy texture that I like about natural pb.


Packed for lunch today is a variety of Amy’s organic soups (I have four cans in my desk), 2 clementines, and an apple.



I decided to have the alphabet soup since it sounded fun and a bit childish.



It tasted a bit like spaghetti-o’s but that didn’t stop me from cleaning my bowl. I wasn’t completely satisfied so I had a PB&J Larabar (also stashed in my desk) and saved the other goodies for tomorrow.

On the menu for dinner tonight is stir fry- one of my favorites! I marinated chicken for Jeff and tempeh for me in ginger sesame dressing. The vegetables are a mix including asparagus, carrots, mushrooms, squash and zucchini that we’ll have over brown rice.



Turns out the veggie mix had cauliflower which we found kind of strange in a stir fry mix. But it tasted pretty sweet.



Dinner is cleaned up and it's time to bake sugar cookie! Yay! I'll post them tomorrow... good night

Pumpkin muffins and holiday tea

‘Tis the season for everything pumpkin! I have been waiting for a chance to try this recipe for pumpkin muffins. I made them today to serve to our family Thanksgiving morning, something to hold them over until dinner. They smelled so good while baking and I had to sample one. I chose the biggest just incase it wasn’t baked through the center. It was still gooey so I put the rest back in the warm oven for a couple minutes. It had a nice flavor, not to sweet, but tasty for being under baked. The cinnamon and brown sugar topping was quite tasty :)

Pumpkin muffin batter



Ready for the oven



The finished product, check out the brown sugar and cinnamon topping!






Guess what I found?! The Celestial Seasoning holiday tea!!! I was at Safeway picking up last minute groceries and practically ran right into the display…. I’m so excited to try these flavors. The sugar cookie will be my after dinner treat and I plan on serving them along side coffee during the holiday.




Can't wait to try this...





Tonight is pizza night! Have I told you how much I love Trader Joe’s? They have fresh pizza dough for 99 cents and delish pizza sauce. This week we’re all about convenience meals and had fun making this pizza. I grated some fresh mozzarella for Jeff’s and chopped some veggies for mine. We may have created a new flag… The “stars” are made up of onion, green pepper, and broccoli :) Yummy…



We chose the garlic & herb crust but they also have whole wheat and plain. This one is probably not the healthiest but has the most flavor.






Only needed 1/2 the jar of sauce.




And finally the pizza is ready for the oven. Nice shape!



Dinner time




Time to relax with my tea and catch up on our recorded shows. Good night!