Anxiously Excited

Okay, well now I am just getting excited for our trip. It seems like the weekend was pretty calm in Honduras, which makes me feel a bit better. I know that going into a place that’s already in a bit of unrest is risky and scary, but it’ll be worth it.

I’ve got so much stuff running through my head today…I have about 10 different lists going right now:

• things to pack
• things to still buy
• all the random things I need to get done today at work and at home
• a possible grocery list for the week we get back so I won’t have to think too hard to come up with meals
• etc…

Thanks to our unplanned lunch out yesterday, we both had leftover pizza for lunch!

I had 2 slices of my whole wheat veggie pizza

Some leftover broccoli

And sliced tomato – one of which is from our garden. So good.

We ended up running a few errands at lunch today, trying to get the last things done before heading out of town tomorrow. Just a few more this afternoon and I think we’re ready! Or I hope so.

It’s back to work for me – I have a full afternoon of finishing things before going home.

Make sure to check out these giveaways!

There are some donuts up for grabs over at Soap & Chocolate, and an awesome blogiversary giveaway from Lauren at Say What You Need to Say!

Thank you all for listing where you’re at in my earlier post – if you’re a reader and you haven’t done so, let me know where you are here!

What’s your favorite thing about Mondays? Least favorite?

Favorite thing: lately, it’s been watching HIMYM on Monday nights  🙂 Plus, starting a fresh, new week.

Least favorite: The early alarm clock again and a long day at work after 2 days of NON-work.

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Indoor Date Night

This day has gone by way too quickly. I love Saturdays, but they always seem to just fly by.

I’ve got 2 loads of laundry done, all the groceries put away, and the food for the trip with our other supplies.

Inbetween moving stuff around and laundry, I had a little snack.

I sliced one banana into 4 little bites: 2 had some of my homemade almond butter and 2 had dark chocolate dreams. A little snack + dessert all in one! I also had a little unpictured dark chocolate with almonds + cherries.

I waited until Nick was done working outside to start on dinner since I wanted him to make the sauce  🙂

I made some whole wheat pizza crust – one for me and one for Nick so we could make our own pizzas and have leftovers for lunch tomorrow. I made a recipe that I think I originally got off the Weight Watcher member boards?

For one crust the recipe is (I doubled this tonight):

• 2 1/4 tsp yeast
• 1 cup warm water
• 2 cups whole wheat flour (I used half regular whole wheat and half whole wheat pastry, since that’s what I had)
• 1 Tbsp honey
• 1 tsp salt
• 1/4 cup wheat germ

1. Dissolve yeast in water and let stand about 10 minutes or until creamy.
2. Preheat oven to 450.
3. In big bowl, mix flour with wheat germ and salt.
4. Make a well in flour mixture and mix in yeast/water and honey.
5. Mix dough together and let rise about 30 minutes.
6. Roll out and place on baking sheet or pizza pan.
7. Bake the crust 10 minutes, then take out and add your toppings.
8. Put back in the oven and bake for 10-15 minutes more.
9. Let cool and enjoy!

The crust turned out really good. I like the little bit of sweetness from the honey.

Nick made the pizza sauce tonight and it was awesome! He used tomatoes from our garden and added onion and a bunch of spices. Yum. The fresh tomatoes make such a difference.

I topped my pizza with sundried tomatoes, a little mozzarella, feta, black olives and a mushroom mix that had baby portabellos, shitake, and oyster mushrooms.

I also found an easy dessert to make tonight. I had a pear in the fridge that needed to be used and a bunch of blueberries we need to get through before we leave.

Blueberry Pear Crisps

I mostly followed the recipe, but I did make a few changes in the crisp topping. I used:

• 2 Tbsp oat flour
• 1 Tbsp brown sugar
• 2 Tbsp oats
• cinnamon
• pinch of salt
• 1 Tbsp canola oil

And you can’t have crisp or cobbler without a little ice cream. We have some the slow churned vanilla, which went perfectly with the tart crisp.

I’d say this was a pretty successful Saturday! Let’s hope it doesn’t end too soon because tomorrow will be busy, too.

I’m getting in my pj’s and we’re starting a movie. See you tomorrow!

What fruit do you like in crisps or cobbler?

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Fueling Up

Happy start to the weekend!!! I am so excited for this weekend – we have a lot of fun stuff planned!

Nick and I ditched our original plans so we could come home and take a quick, easy run to stretch our legs – thank goodness we came home when we did! It had just stopped raining, so we were able to take an easy 2 mile run and stretch everything out. I ended the run by doing some yoga poses, which felt amazing – a couple runner’s lunges, crows, and down dogs – just what I needed!

After showering and changing clothes, we headed out for dinner at The Palisades. This wasn’t our original plan, but it still had what we wanted tonight : pizza! We were both starving by the time we got there, so I was ready to chow down.

We started out with the free crostini + hummus + tomato jam. This stuff is so, so good. Really garlicky.

I had this x 2!

We also ordered some of their wings, since our chiropractor told us they were really good. She was right! They were the perfect spiciness for me – hot, but not too hot.

Again….this x 2! Plus a few stalks of the celery that came with them to cool my mouth down.

I also ordered a side salad so I could get a few veggies in with dinner. I know I had a huge salad for lunch, but I didn’t want all of dinner to just be bread + wings + pizza.

For dinner, Nick and I ordered the supreme pizza to share. I like the honey wheat crust here – it’s not greasy at all and you can actually taste the dough! Plus, the slices are the perfect size and the pizzas aren’t humongous either.

and….picture this x 3  🙂  I am sufficiently carbed up!

Nick got dessert, but I just couldn’t handle any more than 1 bite. I didn’t want to eat too much and go to bed on a stuffed belly.

We have plans for some easy stretching in the morning, bowls of oatmeal and then hitting the road!

I can’t believe the race is tomorrow!!!

Hope you had a great Friday! Night  🙂

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Freezer Saves The Day

I guess it has been a little too long since the last time I did yoga – my arms and back are sore from so many down dogs and planks! But it’s a good sore.

Are you super excited that I’m not having the barley dish today? I loved it, but I was ready for something new today. I had to root around in the freezer last night, hoping I had marked the bags correctly and look what I found!

Thank goodness I actually thought to write down what it was. And thank goodness it was still good.

I also brought the most random sides to have with my pizza, but hey – they worked.

Seriously – who eats broccoli and tomato with pizza? I do. Everything was good, too.

One of my coworkers brought these in this morning, so I had to snag a few for me and Nick to have as our “lunch dessert”. The strawberries are from his garden and another coworker covered them in chocolate and then brought them to us! Very sweet, but I hope she kept some for herself – I probably would have covered them in chocolate but left them at my house for our enjoyment only.

I had 2, he had 3.

What can beat regular chocolate covered strawberries? Farm-fresh chocolate covered strawberries. These put all the ones I’ve bought this year so far to shame. They were perfectly ripe and juicy.

I think this afternoon is supposed to be pretty rainy and nasty, so I’m not sure if we’ll end up running or not. If not, I’m hoping to do some yoga after work in the comforts(?) of my own home. One reason I’m not a fan of doing yoga at home is our house it not very big, and the ceilings are pretty low in most of the rooms so I can’t fully extend my arms up – I guess people were a lot shorter in the 40s when this house was built. The one room that does have higher ceilings is right beside our bedroom so I couldn’t do yoga in the morning (which is my eventual goal) without waking Nick up – I’ll have to get creative.

Maybe I need to ask for a portable DVD player for my birthday this month….hm. Then I could yoga outside on the porch, in the dining room which has higher ceilings….the wheels are a-turnin’.

What are you having for dinner tonight? I have lots of random stuff to use and no idea what to make!

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Pumpin’

I am so glad it is Friday! This week just seemed to drag on and on and on…I have a lot of stuff to get done this weekend in the house to catch up from being gone the past two. The good thing? I think I should be able to get most/if not all of it done since our weather is supposed to be nasty this weekend. The bad thing? Our weather is supposed to be nasty  😦 

Thank goodness for today though – they were calling for rain all day today, but it was only raining for a little bit on our way home and it’s stopped now so maybe this weekend will just be cloudy but not rainy? I guess we’ll see.

Lunch today was good – I was happy I had all this stuff in the fridge to pack for today.

I had a veggie burger on an arnold sandwich thin with some spinach, ketchup, and mustard

Plus a huge salad in that 7-cup container again

• about 3 cups of spinach
• 1 cup romaine
• 1/2 avocado
• 1 roma tomato
• 1/4 cup of so of some random roasted potatoes I found in the fridge. It was like having fries on my salad!

Today was a strange day at work – all the normal stuff happened, but then we just had a bunch of random stuff come up. Not anything bad, just totally out of nowhere. At least it kept today interesting!

I did bring an afternoon snack today since I knew we were going to the gym after work.

1 cup yogurt + strawberries, blackberries, raspberries + TJ’s fruit and nut medley cereal = good workout fuel

Today was our last night of BodyPump and I am sad. The class was great – I loved the instructor we had and I got a great workout today, but our membership ends tomorrow and we haven’t really figured out if we can afford it right now. I’m hoping once we know more about the summer, we can make a decision and get back in there soon, but if not, we’re hoping to just make sure we have weights at home and videos or something similar we can do. I don’t want to lose the muscles I’ve gotten from BodyPump! I love ’em  🙂

tonight was pizza night at our house! I used the last TJ’s ww pizza crust I bought at Christmas and froze tonight. Between that and being out of my Tj’s nuts over raspberries mix AND their Kona coffee…I’m going to need a trip their soon!

My half had:

• leftover meat/mushroom sauce
• fresh mushrooms
• black olives
• red onions
• 2% mexican cheese blend
• crushed red pepper

I ate 2 of my slices tonight and I’ll probably have the rest tomorrow for lunch. I just realized how huge these slices look! I had mine on a salad plate – they really weren’t monster size  🙂

Plus a salad of romaine, black olives, tomato, red onion, salt, pepper, and olive oil.

What Not to Wear just came on! Gotta jet  🙂

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BSI Try #2

As soon as Beadie announced that the BSI this week was kale, my brain started working overtime. I have been lovin’ kale lately, so I knew I wanted to come up with something creative and something I hadn’t tried before.

 

Somehow, I came up with Greens, Eggs, and Ham Pizza 

 

Yum!  This turned out SO much better than I thought it would  🙂  I thought the idea was good, but I honestly had no clue if it would be good or not – and neither did Nick when I told him our dinner plans on the way home from work tonight. But – thank goodness – we were both pleasantly surprised.

 

Greens, Eggs, and Ham Pizza (Serves 2 – you could make a normal size pizza to serve more or have leftovers)

• 1/2 a TJ’s whole wheat pizza dough (the other half is in the fridge for tomorrow)
• 1 8 oz can tomato paste
• 1 cup water
• Italian seasoning, garlic powder, oregano, crushed red pepper – all to taste
• 3 leaves kale, torn into small pieces
• 2 low fat string cheese sticks, grated (this was all I had 🙂 )  It made about 1/4 – 1/2 cup cheese
• 2 slices lean ham, diced
• 2 eggs

 

1. Put tomato paste, water and seasonings in pot over low heat. Let simmer to combine flavors.
2. Wash kale, then add to tomato sauce. Let this cook 5-10 minutes.
3. Once sauce is ready/kale is cooked a bit, spread this over your pizza crust.
4. Add ham and cheese to pizza, then top with eggs. I only did 2 since this was just for us – you’ll want one egg per person, so place accordingly.
5. Bake at 450 for 10-15 minutes until cheese is melted and egg whites are cooked.
6. Eat!

 

 

I am seriously sad this is already gone. I just wanted to make sure we didn’t have leftovers since I don’t think the eggs would do too well reheating  🙂

 

Here’s my half:

 

 

Check out that layering!

 

Plus a salad with a little ranch dressing

 

 

 

Pizza + Friday night = Perfect!

 

See you tomorrow!

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My Food, His Food, Their Food

Even with all the heater stuff, today was a good day.

 

After running some errands, Nick and I went running outside. For a few minutes near the end of our run, we were running right beside a train going the opposite way! We’ve run this route a lot, but have never been running it when a train was going by  – it was pretty neat.

 

We got back home, took quick showers, then headed to one of my favorite places around here: The New River Grille

 

I got my usual: Buffalo Burger (so good and so lean!) with their onion rings. They are seriously the best onion rings I’ve ever had. I have never ordered anything else off the menu – this is what I always get, and they pretty much know my order now  🙂

 

 

Nick asked if I wanted to take a picture of his meal, so here it is:

 

 

He got the Buffalo Quesadilla with onion rings. Look at those layers! It’s like a burger, but grilled inbetween tortillas. Yum!

 

I’m back home now and just had this for a snack – I realized I didn’t have any milk today, except for a little in my coffee this morning!

 

+

 

 

I know this probably isn’t the most nutritious stuff, BUT it doesn’t have HFCS or trans fats, and sometimes I just need chocolate milk!  This is the best tasting, somewhat healthy chocolate milk mix in I’ve found.

 

So we’ve gone over my food and his food. Where is “their food”, you ask? 

When I got back tonight, I checked my email and had one from my dad – he sent me a picture of the pizza my mom made for them tonight and asked if it was “blog worthy”  🙂  Of course it is!

 

Here’s their pizza – on a wheat crust my mom made.  It looks great!

 

 

 

Your first blog picture, Mom and Dad!!!  🙂  The pizza looks like it turned out really good!

 

 

Don’t forget to check out all the BSI submissions so far on my announcement page! I’ve received some great recipes so far – it’s going to be so hard to choose a winner! Remember: Deadline is Sunday – as long as I have a comment/email before midnight that night, that will be fine. 

 

Winner will be announced Monday! 

 

 

Glad Friday is over – are you ready for the weekend? Any fun plans?

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Unexpected Dinner

I’m so glad to hear that people are excited about this week’s ingredient!  I can’t wait to see all the recipes 🙂

 

Today was pretty good, but busy and a little crazy – all is good, though!

 

 

Lunch today was some of the leftover chili mac – it was just as good today  🙂  I love good leftovers!

 

 

 

A mix of green and yellow wax beans and peas

 

 

 

AND a clementine  – you’re not surprised, are you?  🙂

 

 

 

I’m so glad work wasn’t like it was yesterday – it was much calmer and didn’t frustrate me!  I can’t handle days like that in a row, so today was much nicer.

 

After work, Nick and I went to the gym to go running and we walked right up to the treadmills!  No waiting around, which was so nice. I ran for about 27 minutes and it went by fast today! I  wish every day on the treadmill was like today. It seems to get a little less boring each time – it’s just hard to get used to it compared to running outside, I guess.

 

On the way home, Nick suggested going to The New River Grille, which is the place with my favorite onion rings. Of course, that automatically made me not want to cook tonight.

Quick change of plans, though!  Nick suggested a new restaurant that was supposed to have opened soon, so I looked it up online and it was! 

 

Dinner was then changed to The Palisades

 

 

 

 

 

 

To start, I got a side salad – it was a normal salad, but good to me because I was hungry and needed some more veggies! The little radish slices looked cool.

 

 

 

For our main meal, we decided to try one of their pizzas. We got the BBQ Chicken Pizza on their Honey Wheat crust – it was really good! 

 

 

 

It was a smaller pizza, probably a little less than the size of a “medium” at most places, but I really liked how small the slices were!  I felt like I could eat “more” without really eating too much, you know?  It’s kind of crazy how weird our minds are sometimes.

 

This is one of my slices right beside my fork so you can see the size comparison  🙂

 

 

 

I had about the equivalent of 1.5 “normal” slices of pizza.

 

And…..then we saw the dessert menu and could NOT turn down the homemade truffles!

 

 

 

These were so good and the perfect ending to the meal.

 

We split each one in half so we could each try all 4 flavors!  They were small, but so rich and decadent.

 

 

Keep those recipes coming!

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Home on the Ranch

I have been all about the ranch dressing lately – it’s like I can’t get enough!

 

Lunch today was a salad with romaine, tomato, the last few mushrooms and a tsp of ranch dressing, plus my 2 leftover pieces of pizza from last night

 

 

 

 

 

Just as good as last night!

 

For some dairy and a sweet little lunch dessert, I had some 0% greek yogurt topped with pomegranate and some turbinado sugar/sea salt chocolate covered almonds. This combination was AWESOME. The almonds are from Trader Joe’s.

 

 

 

I’ve got some laundry to do and a few more groceries to pick up. 

 

Have a good afternoon! It’s chilly here, but at least the sun is shining!  🙂

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