Welcome Weekend

Saturdays are such productive days! I have been in organize/ throw-out mode for the last couple of days and it's carrying over into scary venues. the shelves and cupboards at the library, the fabric store, the medicine cabinet etc, etc. I definitely have OCD tendencies and they have been highly active lately. :-)

It's a good mode for me because it means I get things done, accomplish goals and set new ones with a healthy amount of motivation to follow through.

I put together a salad for lunch.

Red leaf lettuce and almost the last of my baby spinach. Fresh and surprisingly mild radishes, some leftover baked chicken, red bell pepper and half a peach sliced on top.

The crumbled cheese on top is one of the best I've ever tried. Trader Joe's Unexpected Cheddar! Apparently it was wildly popular and there was an uproar when they discontinued it so they subsequently put it back on the shelf. Lucky for me because I fell in love with it. 

I had some iced tea with my salad and a good book to read too. I'm really enjoying French Kids Eat Everything.  It's written by an American woman living in France with her French husband and two kids. It's seems to me that the French really have nutrition education and the art of eating mastered. We could learn a thing or two.

I have some exciting news to share but I'm going to wait until Monday just to be safe. :) Can't wait to share!

Balasana

Hello yoga mat! Long time no see!

I finally made it back to a yoga class this morning. It's been way too long and my muscles completely forgot how to be flexible. I could definitely tell it had been a while since I found myself in downward facing dog. :) 

Today's task is to do a deep cleaning of the fridge. Everything out and only the good back in. Before getting started I bounced back and forth between salad and sandwich. It was definitely a sandwich kind of afternoon. Guess what kind....

TURKEY!

on rye with avocado, red onion, a perfect tomato, hummus, spinach and provolone. 

My last kiwi sliced and ripened to perfection and some carrot sticks with hummus. I don't know what it is but lately, there has been nothing better than the taste of hummus. It seems to taste better than ever in the past week.

Before writing today, I spent some time trying to figure out how to embed the comment box so that it always shows underneath each post. There's a way to do it, I just know it. Right now I think that the box only shows up where it says how many comments there are. What do you guys see? If any of you have an idea how to do it, I would love the secret!

Now that lunch is over, it's time to tackle the fridge.

For Oat's Sake

A breakfast adventure. Last night I put together this recipe, stuck it in the fridge and it was ready to go this morning. I was skeptical about the oats just because I'm not a big fan of oats in a smoothie but, what's an adventure without a risk right?

As I sat down to eat I could see why KERF called it "Doughboy". Something about the mix of ingredients makes the smoothie underneath nearly dough-like. Although you could taste the oats, the vitamix does an amazing job of removing what may have otherwise been clumpy.

I used some of my granola from yesterday to top it off and fresh mango of course!

We are nearly one full week into July and we're still experiencing June gloom here. I know it's nice because it keeps the heat off for later in the day but... I enjoy waking up to cheerful sunlight. It seems to make my mornings smoother. I had a pretty rough case of the grumpies this morning. Anyone who knows me, knows that mornings are NOT my thing. I think the gloom makes mornings even harder for me (if that's even possible). After this my doughboy smoothie and a little bit of wake up time, I felt more like a person instead of a grumpy zombie.

Am I just making excuses or do other people get the June Gloom Grumpies?

Maybe I'm looking for sympathy, but do you get them too?

The last boom!

Dinner is done, and the fireworks are finishing up. Or so I thought. We can't see them but we can certainly hear and feel them. Just when I think the grand finale is here and it's the last boom, they start again! 

The city has made fireworks illegal unless it's a licensed show and you can certainly tell where those shows are.

I thought my soup lunch would make me feel better but it wasn't doing a good job. Finally I just pushed through and got myself to get in the car and go. 

I picked up this adorable serving bowl at one of my stops. 

Since I started blogging I've realized how often I use variations of the word yum. So when I saw this bowl, I just couldn't pass it up!

Another plus... I love black and white! 

I didn't think I was going to eat dinner but my eyes and nose convinced my stomach that it needed food.

My mom is a great cook and it's always hard to pass up her cooking.

Tri-tip, raw spinach, watermelon, sweet corn on the cob and a fresh out of the oven sourdough roll.

Strangely enough, it wasn't until after this meal that I felt normal again. Maybe I just needed a square meal or something. :)

I may or may not have had a second and or third roll. I love bread, it's my weakness so how can I say no to fresh baked bread? I just can't.

I never got around to making the watermelon salsa I planned on but there's still watermelon left even after having it for dinner so I'll try for tomorrow maybe.

It seems like the fireworks are dying out a bit now. Tomorrow it's back to the ol' grind. I think that I might actually try out that "new" breakfast recipe tomorrow. It's an overnight thing so I'll be fixing it tonight. We'll see if I have the energy. :)

Happy Fourth! Have a great night!

Happy 236 B-day!

Happy Independence day everyone!

I hope everyone has plans that they're anxious for. I'm spending my fourth as a very welcome day off in the middle of the week. I was going to do some cooking and I still might but for now... I'm not feeling my best. You'll have to forgive me if my post(s) are less than exciting or fun to read today. 

I forced myself to eat something for breakfast even though I had a big fat zero on the appetite scale.

Breakfast: a banana. Exciting huh?

Lunch: Chicken with rice soup; because there's nothing better when you're feeling yucky.

Nothing special here, I really just opened up a can and dumped it in the pan. I know it's high in sodium but I really didn't feel like even making a sandwich. I added the leftover navy beans from my pasta salad yesterday in an attempt to clean out the fridge a little bit.

Cilantro on top because it smells so good!

I'm in the process of making some kale chips to have on hand for quick snacks next week. I went to Sprouts this morning and picked up a few things for soooo little money. I was shocked when the cashier gave me my total. I usually add up my total in my head as I walk through the store and I had a much bigger number in my head. It was a nice surprise.

I am always put in a good or better mood when I bring home new ingredients.

 Pumpkin Seed granola

 Maple-pecan granola

 Chia Seeds

and.... Leeks!

oh! and a jalapeno pepper that I'm going to use to make watermelon salsa with that leftover watermelon.

I absolutely adore granola and I'm happy to have some big ol' clusters of it in the house again.

I've never cooked leeks before so I'm anxious to try it out. Chia seeds seem to be all the rage lately and you can't really find many oatmeal or smoothie recipes without them anymore. 

If I can get myself around to it, I'm going to run some errands and do some leftover organizing. Fun way to spend the day eh?

I hope everyone celebrates safely tonight and for those of you having a quiet, no plan day like myself, enjoy!

Tuesday Torment

Tuesday Torment sounds awfully close to "Troublesome Tuesdays" from last week. Not without reason. I was tempted to break out my camera and take a picture of today's madness but to be honest... I didn't have the time. I sat down for the first time today when I got home for my dinner break 20 minutes late. =/ I guess people are stocking up for the holiday or something because it has been nonstop since we opened the doors this morning. Anyway... I'm on my break so enough about work.

I mentioned trying something "new" for breakfast this morning. As it turns out, it wasn't exactly what I had in mind and not technically new. I tried a recipe for whipped banana oatmeal this morning from another blog I occasionally follow. You can find the recipe here!

  It's pretty simple and considering I'm not a huge oatmeal fan, it was pretty good.

I didn't have any walnuts to follow the recipe so I toasted some sliced almonds instead and stuck some sunbutter on my spoon for added yummy-ness. I would really like to make it again but add more banana and  some different toppings.

While I enjoyed my warm breakfast I started on another experiment for lunch. I read about strawberry pesto and went looking for a recipe because it sounded so fascinating and tasty.

I found a simple one here!

In my opinion, fresh basil is the right way to start out ANY recipe! It's probably my favorite smell in the entire world. No joke! You can see a more detailed pictorial  representation of the process at the recipe link but for now, I'll spare you the details. It was as simple as throwing it in a food processor, plugging it in and calling your sister to figure out why it's not working, then chop chop chop!

This little jar was a leftover from favors we made for my sister's wedding 6 years ago! It worked perfectly for my little portion of strawberry pesto. 

The leftovers in the bowl I used for my lunch recipe which I also hijacked from the same blog as the oatmeal. 

I took these sad pictures at work so the lighting isn't great but the pasta salad was delish! The strawberry pesto is quite yummy mixed in. 

Pasta, strawberry pesto, chiffonaded basil leaves, sliced strawberries, sliced raw zucchini and some navy beans rinsed and straight from the can. 

I ate my lunch under the shade of a lovely tree in the park behind the library. Perfect weather for just such a lunch!

Too bad there were cars all around, some empty some not. Otherwise, it was a pleasantly quiet and shady lunch break. 

Dinner was excellent! baked chicken with panko, steamed zucchini from the garden, a butternut squash with a bit of garlic butter and fresh cherries.

I would share more of this lovely meal except I can't get the rest of the pictures to rotate to the right orientation and it's time to get back to work.

 Update: fixed pictures!

No tennis tonight so I'm not sure what I'm going to do with my evening after work. I'll definitely try to update this post with corrected dinner pictures! Until then! 

Hi-Ho It's back to work I go...

Free Samples

Well, we were slightly more successful for this taste testing than for our last but it still wasn't a great turnout. I don't know why we just don't have great luck at this particular grocery store. All our other sites have great turnouts and we usually run out of food. No such luck tonight. I can't blame the store because it's a beautiful grocery store that is well stocked and staffed with overly friendly people. I guess their clientele just don't care for free food. :)

My co-worker Kat and I prepped and served two watermelon recipes. Recipes are here!

The first was Watermelon Agua Fresca. So easy!

• 100 % Cranberry Juice
• Lime juice
• Cubed and chilled watermelon.

Tossed into a blender and served cold.

One of the great things about both of these recipes is that the ratios do not have to be exact. You can make it exactly how your taste buds like it best!

Add more cranberry or less lime, more watermelon but less blended, etc. The options are limitless!

The second was a watermelon salsa. Another super easy recipe!

• 6 cups of seedless watermelon cubed
• 1 medium onion chopped
• 1 red bell pepper
• 1 chopped jalapeno pepper
• fresh cilantro, chopped (about 4 Tbsp)
• 4 Tbsp of lime

Chop it all up and toss it in a bowl.

As a last ingredient we added a sprinkling of salt which really brought out the flavors I thought. Ever had salt on watermelon? It's pretty much the same theory: yummy goodness

I forgot to take pictures of our samples until it was nearly too late and we were in a hurry to clean up and get back to the office. So the pictures are pretty yucky colored. Sorry!

It was a very strange feeling shopping the produce section with a bowl and then slicing into everything right then and there in the middle of the store. :) Kind of fun though! Usually they kick you out for that kind of thing.

We set up our little table at the entrance to the produce section since our main goal is to promote fresh produce purchase and consumption. And yet, people still turned down free samples! Crazy! I LOVE samples in stores. Am I just weird? Are most people leery of free food handouts? Enlighten me!

I brought home the leftover watermelon and I plan on using in my own agua fresca mañana!

I decided to plan out 2 of my 3 meals for tomorrow to cut out the time I spend standing in front of the pantry/fridge trying to put something together in my head. We'll see if I can stick to the plan. 

I'm trying out a new thing for breakfast... kind of excited. =D

Nite!

Starting over

Here I am! It looks a little different but it's the same. I'm getting the hang of blogger... I think!

I got home from my appointment in time to make a lunch with leftover Chipotle burrito bowl. I was lazy, what can I say. So I heated it up and threw it on top of some baby spinach. Not too bad for a 2 minute lunch fix.

I added  a juicy nectarine as an after thought. I'm munching on it now as I try out my first post on a new site. Woohoo!

I can see that some of you visited earlier today and I apologize that there was nothing to read. Bummer of a link clink right? At least you got a quick intro to the new blog and what it's probably going to look like for a while. :)

I don't know if it's possible but I'm going to try to bring over all my old posts and put them on here. I don't know if there's a way to change the date stamp so it might look like I posted a bunch of stuff on the same day. 

I really like days like today that I have the time to post several times but that's not going to happen very frequently. (much to my dismay)

I need to be at work by three today to do some prep work for my taste test and then it's off to the grocery store to hand out free food to happy people. Last time I did a taste test at this store nobody was there and it was quite disappointing. Hopefully the fact that it's later in the evening and it's the week of July 4th will make a difference tonight. Fingers crossed. 

Now I'm off to try that "re-post old stuff" thing! In case it doesn't work and there happens to be new readers, you can read my older blog posts here!

Top o' the mornin'

Morning All!

It's Monday again. Where does the time go? This was my last post on wordpress and I just copied and pasted here since I like having everything in one spot. You should be able to leave comments here so I'm excited to hear from you!

I have an important appointment this morning (more on that to come) so I made sure to have a hearty breakfast.

An omelet with spinach, zucchini, spinach and cheese. Salsa on top.

An some fruit on the side.

Working late-ish tonight but it should be fun. I'm doing a grocery store taste test. Now I'm off! Have a good day!

Busy Days

I'm back. Yesterday was such a busy day and when I finally got home, I crawled into bed and simply zonked out! We attended the funeral of an old friend of ours in the morning. It was a very large but personal and sweet service. She will be missed by many. Leftovers for lunch. Pizza, a lovely crisp ambrosia apple and some spinach with an Asian salad dressing. (I desperately need to get some dressings in the fridge) Vinaigrette please!

Then later in the afternoon we went to my brother's house to celebrate my niece's 4th birthday. There were so many kids there I couldn't count even if I had remembered to. My sister-in-law put in a lot of work and time to pull together a very cute party and everyone had a good time. Notice the theme?

Strawberry shortcake!

Dinner was cooked on the grill and accompanied by fresh summery sides. I had half of a burger with the works as well as some strawberries and cream, and pasta salad.

My niece was spoiled with gifts and attention the whole evening as is usual for a birthday girl and then it was time to head home. This is the point in which I fall into a long deep sleep and disregard many things that should have been accomplished before bedtime on Saturday night. Shameful!

I had a quick breakfast of granola, greek yogurt and peach slices this morning before church. The peach was excellent! The summer time is so wonderful for having fresh fruits around and readily available.

This afternoon my dad, mom, and younger brother went to Chipotle for lunch and saved ourselves the trouble of dishes and involved clean-up.

I had a burrito bowl with chicken, Chipotle's excellent brown rice with black beans and as many veggies as they have available. To top it off... guacamole right on top!

Now, here's something that I was considering last night as I was talking to a few friends/readers and a fellow blogger at the birthday party. I realized that this blogging platform has recently changed it's policy for leaving comments. While anyone can view and read a public blog, you must create an account on Wordpress to leave any comments. Since I would love to hear from my readers I will probably move my blog to a new platform. This makes me a little sad since I've just started learning the ins and outs of the format on this platform. However, if I indeed follow through with this plan I will leave a link in a new post so you know where to go. I've been so surprised by the number of views on my blog in the past week and I think it would be so neat to add discussions with any readers as an element of my posts. So... look for new links so you know where to find me if you so wish.

It's a beautiful day outside and I think it's time for a quick Sunday nap.