Taste The Rainbow

It’s only Tuesday? Seriously? My week is so off already.

Breakfast was good and filling and held me over until lunch when I had a rainbow in a bowl.

• romaine
• spinach
• yellow garden tomato
• orange garden tomato
• red garden tomato
• corn
• pinto beans
• avocado

Good, colorful, and filling. I also think that guacamole is getting spicier – it had a kick today! Nick and I ran a few errands at lunch and got some local bagels to have this week. I got some whole wheat everything (yum) and Nick found some chocolate chip ones one sale. I can’t wait!

Work was work – we did take a fun break today to talk football and I brought in some of the leftover cookie-topped-brownies to share. I had one while gabbing with coworkers  🙂

Finished work on a good note and headed home, which included reading the entire way in the car. I’m hooked on reading again! I seem to get in these phases where I read tons of books and can’t get enough…and then I burn out and don’t read anything for a few months again. I’m happy to say that I’m in the hooked stage. I have a list of books I want from the library and am hoping to go this week.

Dinner was super easy tonight. Leftovers really are my best friend some days.

I roasted some broccoli in the oven, then heated up the leftover pork from last night and a few more lentil/rice cakes.

Yup, still good  🙂

I’ve got a big night ahead of reading – yay!

did you eat your rainbow today?

make sure to enter a vitamuffin giveaway over at Team Giles!

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Picked Clean

Why, oh why, do the weekend pass by so quickly?

I have no pictures from lunch since I was just enjoying the company at our potluck, but my food turned out great!

My vegetarian enchilada-pasta dish was completely gone! Nothing left in the crockpot except for a black bean or two. I’m so glad it turned out well, because I kind of made it up as I went along last night  🙂  I made some extras for us to have this week, so I’ll post my recipe along with that in a day or two.

I also made a 9×13 dish of those cookie-topped brownies, and most of those were eaten, as well. I had some of my pasta dish, a piece of grilled chicken, a little bit of another veggie-full casserole, some fresh peaches + nectarines, and a lot of watermelon. It was good!

It was nice to sit and talk with everyone and catch up! A few couples hadn’t been there the weeks we had been, and since we were gone a few weeks ago, I feel like it had been a long time since we’d seen them.

Nick and I came home with full bellies and took a little Sunday afternoon nap on the couch with Roxy, which is tradition and one that I love. After getting up from the nap, I started working on laundry and cleaning the house while listening to a little Jennifer Knapp and Old Crowe Medicine Show. Nick mowed the lawn while I was working inside, and we both finished up about the same time so I started on dinner.

I had seen this lentil and brown rice cake recipe in one of the latest Clean Eating magazines and had marked it to make this week.

The flavors were so good in these cakes, but they started out by not holding together well at all. I ended up adding 1 more tablespoon of flour to the mix to get them to stay together better.

Also, instead of shaping the patties by hand, I used a 1/3 cup measuring scoop and just scooped the mixture into that, pressed it down, then turned it out into the hot pan. I pressed them out a bit, and they actually flipped well and mostly stayed together that way.

I also added some fresh cilantro to the lentil cakes – I don’t think you can have too much cilantro. BUT – they would be great without it, too.

Instead of making the salad and dressing in the recipe, I just used up a bunch of stuff in our fridge.

My lentil/rice cake tower salad had:

• romaine
• garden tomatoes
• corn
• 2 lentil/rice cakes
• guacamole
• fresh salsa

Overall, I really liked this recipe. The flavors in the cakes were great, and I love the mixture of lentils + nutty brown rice.

I was going to say that I needed to pack my lunch for work tomorrow, but I’m working from home so I guess I don’t have to! I keep forgetting  🙂

I’m off to watch a new Iron Chef America! Allez Cuisine!

Do you like lentils? What’s your favorite way to have them?

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Grillaxin

I love these long summer nights.

The weather is perfect – it’s the type of weather where it doesn’t feel like anything.

Not hot, not cold. Just perfect.

Any summer weather is good for grilling, but tonight was prime.

I picked up some steaks today for Nick to grill – I’m not sure what he put on them, but they were awesome! Great flavor and cooked perfectly.

While he grilled, I cooked the corn and cut up some of our tomatoes for the salad. Nick cut the lettuce for me since I was also working on the potluck dishes for tomorrow.

It was a great dinner! This local corn has just been so sweet this summer – I’ve got to get more next week.

While the food for tomorrow was cooking (one on the stove and one in the oven), I sat outside on the deck and read ONE of the books I’m in right now. Have you read Animal, Vegetable, Miracle? That’s the one I’m working on now. I started it a while ago, but never finished. I love the book and it gives me some great ideas, but it also just reminds me of how much I’m not doing – does that make sense? I really like it, though. And I like that their farm isn’t too far from here! I’m hoping we can go to the store there sometime – that would be a fun little day trip.

I’ve got the main dish done for tomorrow – kind of a vegetarian enchilada pasta dish I made up. I made some extra for us to have for lunches or leftovers this week, so I’ll post the recipe soon. It looked and smelled good, though! I can’t wait to try it tomorrow.

I also made a bigger batch of the cookie-topped brownies to take  🙂  It definitely smells good in the house now.

Speaking of those brownies…

I’ve got 2 small ones with my name on them.

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Fun Fiesta

The weekend is here!!!

Ah, I’m so excited that it’s Friday night. I’ve got my feet up on the ottoman, Nick and Roxy next to me, and no work tomorrow!

I got pretty hungry this afternoon, so I pulled out this snack from my purse.

This was my first time trying the peanut butter cookie Larabar, and it sure did taste like peanut butter. I really liked it – with the only ingredients being dates, peanuts, and salt, I thought it would be sweeter than it was but it really tasted like peanut butter!

I still think I like the coconut cream pie one better, but there’s still a lot of flavors I haven’t tried yet so I can’t pick a favorite.

This afternoon was spent finishing up some stuff at work, having a few meetings and trying to make sure everything is set up for next week – why?

My supervisor and I were approved to start doing telework!!! So (as long as it keeps working out), I’ll be working from home every Monday and Thursday. I am SO excited! I honestly didn’t think that we would be approved so quickly and that things would be squared away for us to start our new telework schedules next week, but it happened! Too bad I don’t have a pool….I could lay out and work on my laptop  🙂

Dinner was easy to put together. Since we were still stocked with fresh tomatoes, peppers, and our Miami avocados, it had to be a Fiesta night.

I used a Weight Watcher recipe for Chicken Mole taco filling that we like a lot and made a big salad with all my toppings.

• romaine
• corn
• chicken/bean/mole sauce mixture
• garden fresh red + orange tomatoes
• scallions
• toasted corn tortilla pieces

Mmm…..I love mole sauces! I love the combination of cocoa + cinnamon + chile powder – it has such a great balance!

While I was working on the mole + cutting up the lettuce and tomato, Nick mixed up some fresh salsa + guac for dipping.

The fresh salsa and guacamole were so perfect. It makes such a difference to have super fresh tomatoes and peppers, perfectly ripe avocados, and lots of cilantro  🙂

I also had a Modelo because you HAVE to with Mexican meals. And it’s Friday!!!

You know I’ve got big plans for tonight:

• reading
• making a grocery list for tomorrow
• watching What Not to Wear

Crazy night, huh?  I love it.

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2 Layers Are Better Than 1

Happy Thursday! I can’t believe tomorrow is Friday – because of that telework on Monday, my week has been so off! I kept thinking that today was Wednesday at work, but tonight feels more like a Friday night. I’m so confused. At least I know tomorrow is jean day! Is it sad that I get that excited about being able to wear jeans to work? I don’t think so.

I’m so glad you’re enjoying the Honduras recap posts. I’m having tons of fun going through all the pictures again, but I have so many! It’s so hard to pick the ones to post when you have almost 600 pictures to choose from.

This morning, we had a conflict resolution/harassment workshop to attend, which was actually pretty good. It was only about 2 hours long and the case studies we talked about were interesting – I just didn’t think some of the things could be (or would be) considered harrassment, but it’s nice to know what options are in place for the employees here.

Lunch was a HUGE salad!

• romaine
• spinach
• bean/pepper/onion/corn salad
• beer butt chicken
• peach salsa
• avocado dressing (mix of avocado, lemon juice, salt, garlic just blended up until creamy)

and some of these new snacks!

I got these free samples of Somersaults Snacks last week and tried the S.S.Sea Salt flavor today (love that name).

I liked these – they reminded me of those sesame breadsticks you could always get at salads bars. Remember those?

I have one other flavor to try and I’m excited to open them up. I loved the salty flavor and crunch of these snacks – they went really well with my salad.

If you want to try Somersaults, you can request a sample here! And you should – they’re good  🙂

We ate lunch pretty quickly so we could go walk around Books a Million at lunch. I love just walking around bookstores and looking through all the books and magazines I want. I don’t buy books very often  – our bookshelves are pretty full already – but I like seeing what’s new and looking through tons of cookbooks, obviously.

I think Nick and are both on the mend in regards to strange stomach stuff – it’s still been rumbly a bit in the morning and in the afternoon (I guess when the meds are kind of wearing off), but nothing like it was a few days ago. I’m hoping tomorrow is the last weird day and that we’ll be totally back to normal by the weekend! We should have some fun plans, so I just want to feel good.

While working this afternoon, I had one of my favorite snacks:

It’s been a very long time since I’ve had Fage. Since Oikos has been on sale some lately and I’ve had coupons, I just haven’t bought Fage because it’s more expensive and NEVER on sale. Until this past weekend. And since it was, I got Nick a few of the ones with the fruit and honey and got me one plain one.

I topped it with a Kashi Blackberry Graham cereal bar – so good. This was the perfect way to use this bar. It was already kind of broken up in the package since it was one that traveled with us to Honduras, so I just broke it up into smaller pieces and didn’t have to worry about making a mess trying to eat it like normal. Great combo!

I actually have a bunch of random stuff to work on tonight so I’m glad dinner was quick + easy. Since we went out last night, I just cooked more pasta, heated up the leftover turkey/portobello sauce, and roasted some broccoli for us.

I love making pasta bowls! I can get in there and make a mess and have all the flavors at once.

In this bowl, I layered:

• roasted broccoli
• whole wheat pasta
• turkey/portobello/garden fresh tomato sauce
• 2 slices of garlic  bread

I loved the bites with sauce + pasta + broccoli. Roasted veggies have such great flavor.

And can I just spend a minute on these beauties?

My baking project last night was making Nicole’s recipe for Chocoloate Chip Cookie Topped Brownies, and I’m ridiculously happy I made them.

Um, these are amazing! And healthy! And vegan to boot! Of course, I guess mine aren’t since I used regular chocolate chips, but both layers of this dessert are awesome.

cookie on top –

brownie on the bottom.

All good.

I’m about to eat this, pack lunch and get to reading some books  🙂

Are  there stores you like going in just to look around?

I love “window” shopping! And real shopping ,when I have $ to spend.

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Full, But Not

This Honduran  craziness makes my tummy so strange. I’ve felt hungry all day, but not much actually sounds good. I’ve eaten, but still just feel empty? It’s very strange.

I got all my work done today! Mondays are my busiest day at work, and I was wondering how today would go with the teleworking. The set-up we used worked great! It was a bit slow, but other than that, I think it will work fine if they really do start supporting this more often.

To quiet the tummy rumbling this afternoon, I had a snack.

Oikos and Fage were both on sale this weekend! Wahoo! I crumbled up one of my blueberry chia muffins into a plain oikos and ate that while working. I love having baked goods crumbled in yogurt – the different textures and the sweet/tart combination always makes me happy.

I really wanted to have an even bigger snack that this, but I didn’t want to ruin my appetite since Nick came home at lunch. Because we were both already at home, I knew dinner would be earlier than normal, and I was right!

Nick asked for a big salad tonight and since that actually sounded good to him, I pushed tonight’s dinner plans to tomorrow and put together a big salad spread.

Mine had:

• romaine
• hard boiled egg
• yellow tomato
• black olives
• a tiny bit of crumbled bacon
• homemade avocado dressing, which was thick but really good

Nick added beer butt chicken to his, but I just wasn’t feelin’ that since I had some at lunch.

The avocado dressing just had

• about 1/2 of that huge avocado I opened up today
• the juice from 1/2 a lemon
• salt
• pepper
• garlic powder
• 1-2 tsp canola oil

Whir it all up in the food processor or blender until creamy. You could add more liquid or something like mayo/yogurt to make it thinner. I liked the overall texture and once I mixed my salad together, it coated everything nicely.

I also made me some more “garlic bread” on a hot dog bun. Nick went and got himself a little loaf of french bread, but I know he’ll want more the next 2 nights with dinner so I let him have that and just made one of these for me. I just split the hot dog bun, spread on a little olive oil spread, sprinkled on some garlic salt + parsley and toasted in the toaster oven. Perfect!

I just finished packing up my lunch for tomorrow and doing some other things I needed to do (cut celery, freeze a package of chicken, make bean dish for lunches, etc) and now all that’s left is to make the bed, prep breakfast, and have a snack!

My stomach already feels empty again. I know it may be because I had 2 salads today, but this hunger is just ridiculous. I’m hoping we both get back to normal in the next day or two.

I have a feeling a bowl of my microwave popcorn is going to appear tonight  🙂

Is there a food that always makes you full/satisfied when you have it? I feel like nothing is working today, but it may just be this weirdness.

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Hooked on Home

Okay, this could potentially be a bad thing, but I think I’m officially in love with telecommuting! Good because I think it’s great that we had to chance to try it out, but bad because I’m really not sure how much my office will support it and changing schedules/days in and out of the office. I guess we’ll see after they see how today went!

The only bad thing is that my internet has been a bit slow today, but I’ve been very productive! I’m getting all my work done, and while waiting for something to load, I threw the sheets in the washer. I like being able to do those things if I’m just waiting for something to load or save on my computer instead of just sitting there waiting.

I’m crossing my fingers that my office will really consider letting us telework if we can all work out a schedule so someone is actually in the office at all times – I think it would be great to be able to work from home 1-2 days a week if possible.

The other thing I love?

Being able to decide NOW what I want for lunch instead of packing it up and hoping that I still want that when lunchtime rolls around  🙂

I’ve been feeling these babies up since we got back…just waiting for one to be ripe.

Yes, those are 4 huge avocados. Gabby, who went on the trip with us, had her mom bring us some of their avocados from their grove in Miami when we stopped there for a layover! They have 10 acres of JUST avocados – drool.

I was so, so excited to get these and one of them was finally ripe today.

Seriously, almost the size of my face. I love it.

Since we have tons of beer butt chicken left, I decided to make a big salad for lunch.

• 1 head of romaine
• scallions
• cilantro
• yellow tomato from the garden
• beer butt chicken
• miami fresh avocado  🙂
• peach salsa for the dressing

This avocado was so different than the ones I get here – it tasted very fruity, almost floral like? I’m not sure how to describe it, but it was perfection. I can’t wait to use up all of these in the next 2 weeks.

The sweet & spicy peach salsa was the best combination with the avocado, scallions, and cilantro.

I just got this bowl of rainier cherries out to round out my lunch.

Nick actually came home early since he’s mostly just working on his dissertation today, so he’s taking a lunchtime nap and hoping that he starts feeling better. I think I’ll lay down with him for the last 10 minutes of my lunch break.

Honestly….I think I have a problem  🙂 I already don’t want to go into the office tomorrow!

What are you tried and true lunches that you never get sick of?

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Napping in 3….2….

Alright, there’s a lot of cuddling and napping going on without me right now, so I’ve got to be quick 🙂

We didn’t have time to make coffee this morning since Nick was doing the sound at church today, so I went and got a mocha before church started.

Unfortunately, we’re both having some small tummy issues. The same thing happened the last time we went to Honduras, so I hope the Honduran mystery illness doesn’t last long. Neither one of us feel bad, but our stomachs are just acting up and being strange.

I had no clue what I wanted for lunch today, so I just had a little of everything. Nick decided to make a BLT and I just couldn’t think of having bacon again, which was weird because a BLT was the only thing that sounded good to him!

I had a salad with the last of the sale greens I got yesterday, one of our garden tomatoes and a little bit of ranch dressing. These tomatoes are so good – I wish we could have them all year round.

I made a tiny grilled cheese sandwich on my new bread and a few pickles on the side. Then, since I was still a little hungry, I had a serving of these new Salt and Vinegar Baked Kettle Chips I got yesterday.

I love these baked kettle chips! I’ve tried the regular salted ones before, but this was my first bag of an actual flavor. I can’t wait to try the salt and pepper, cheddar and bbq.

Now, if you’ll excuse me….I need to put another load of laundry in and join these two before I miss out on the naps  🙂

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Shiny and New

How it today already half over? I feel like it’s gone by way too fast today.

We got a new vacuum! We have the Kenmore CleanScape, which is one of the best rated in Consumer Reports and not too heavy, which is good since we have 2 floors. Nick’s already been vacuuming today and he “called” getting to vacuum this weekend – no problem there  🙂  I’ll let him use it on the whole house first to test it out!

I also got my new pair of glasses! They’re OP frames and so cute. Brown on the outside, blue on the inside.

Love them! And I’m so happy to have glasses that have the right prescription lenses in them.

Grocery shopping was good, too. I totally refilled the fridge today:

• romaine hearts
• sale package of mixed baby romaine (got it for only .69 with a coupon!)
• sale package of portobello caps
• scallions
• cilantro
• bananas
• zucchini
• yellow squash
• small red onions
• broccoli
• celery
• stoplight peppers (1 red, yellow and green)
• serrano pepper
• peaches and nectarines from the market!!! yay 🙂
• cut sweet potato wedges for only .69 with coupon
• 1 oikos plain small yogurt (coupon for $1 off)
• 2 Fage: one with cherry for Nick, plain for me. on sale 2/$3
• eggs
• egg whites
• almond milk
• ricotta
• coconut water to try
• chicken breast (sale)
• turkey sausages
• buns
• corn from market
• brownie for Nick, ww brownie for me from market
• face wash
• new face lotion
• new razor for me
• tortilla chips
• beer for chicken dish
• 8 roll package of paper towels (sale)
• 8 roll package of tp (sale)
• 2 boxes kleenex (sale)

All for less than $100! I’m surprised it wasn’t more with all the paper towels, toilet paper, face wash/lotion, and razor – especially since those are things I don’t buy every week.

Nick had asked for some hot dogs or sausages to grill up for lunch today, so I bought some lean sweet italian turkey sausage that will also go into a meal this weekend.

Nick grilled all the sausages along with 1/2 a green, yellow, and red pepper. He had his ON a bun – I made mine into a big salad.

I took about 2-3 cups of the baby romaine and topped it with a cut up turkey sausage, 1 yellow tomato from our garden, and some of the grilled peppers.

Instead of eating my sausage on a bun, I spread a little olive oil spread on the split bun and topped it with garlic salt and parsley and had Nick grill it to make an easy “garlic bread”. Yum! It was good! I need to remember to do that again.

We just got the rugs in the wash, and I still have a few loads left that I’ll be working on all weekend. Nick is messing around with the vacuum still and I need to decide on dinner….too many choices now!

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Home Sweet Home

Welcome Home, says Roxy  🙂

It seems my guest posts didn’t go up when I scheduled them to, so I’m trying to figure that out. And we had a power outage at the hotel sometime on Sunday, and they just never got the internet hooked up again, so I had a nice 4 days with no computers at all.

The trip was amazing. I know I’ll be doing some posts on it with tons of pictures, so be ready for those as soon as I can get through the 600+ pictures I took! It was a great, crazy, unforgettable trip.

We got in to Nick’s parents’ house this morning around 3 am, slept until about 9, ran some errands, ate lunch with Nick’s mom and then headed home. We’ve got a few groceries to tide us over until the weekend, the bags are unpacked, and I am in my pajamas on the couch, getting ready for a long night of sleep.

I did take pictures of food for the first time in over a week tonight! I had so many other pictures to take while we were gone, that I just didn’t worry about it. Plus, our breakfast was at the hotel everyday and was basically the same: eggs, beans, fruit, coffee.  Lunches were either tuna or a pb & j tortilla plus fruit or a granola/Lara/Clif bar or nuts. Dinners were out and ranged from grilled meat/beans/tortillas/salsas, soup, fruit plate/smoothie, plain salad, etc. All good and no one got horribly sick, either.

Dinner tonight was super easy, and I’m really glad I thought to buy these before we left.

I cooked these ravioli and put together a quick sauce with:

• tomato sauce
• onion
• garlic
• italian seasoning
• crushed red pepper
• oregano
• salt
• pepper

I thought these were really good – I do think I liked their mushroom agnolotti a bit better, but these were very good and so quick to make.

We also threw together a quick salad with some romaine and tomatoes from our garden.

Can I just say how excited I was to have something whole wheat and a big serving of veggies tonight? We had some produce, but mostly in the form of beans, plantains, pineapple, watermelon, or a bit of salad on 2 occasions over the entire week.

I’ll be posting the last of the guest posts over the next couple of days while I catch up on everything and get back into the swing of things around here. I’m also extremely terrified to look at my google reader  🙂

See you for breakfast! This girl needs some sleep.

How long does it take you to get back to “normal” after a longer trip? I feel so out of it still after being gone for over a week.

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