Hot, Hot, Hot

Yes the weather is HOT. At least for me, I start to sweat when the thermometer hits about 80. While I enjoy summer and the laziness it entails, sometimes I don't want to walk outside in the heat, unless there is a pool or some body of water close by :)

With that being said, today was a typical lazy summer day. For breakfast I had oats. Somehow I can still eat a hot breakfast even with it being ridiculously warm. They contained 3/4c. oats, pinch of vanilla extract, squirt of honey, almond slices, dried cranberries, and some vanilla soymilk. Notice how accurate my measurements are, with oats, you just learn to know how you like 'em.

While eating breakfast I caught up on the Bachelorette. I am addicted to that show, especially since Ali is the new bachelorette because I loved her on the Bachelor. Gotta love reality TV. After my dose of TV I spent the rest of the morning reading Handle With Care, a Jodi Picoult book. I definitely recommend reading her books. They are always intriguing and make you want to keep reading. I'm about half way through the book after 2 days of reading. For lunch I had the leftovers form dinner last night. A salmon salad with spinach, dried cranberries, sunflower seeds, dried snap peas, and walnuts. I love texture in my salad. I topped it with some balsamic vinaigrette.

I also had leftover nut butter parsnip fries. I made them for the second time last night and this batch definitely turned out much better than my first. Maybe it was because this time I used both almond butter and chunky peanut butter. I combined 1 tbsp of both nut butters with 1 tbsp olive oil and coated the fries with the mixture. Then I baked them at 400 for about 30min, flipping them at the half-way point. I also created a little honey mustard dressing for dipping. Perfect combo. I made the dressing my mixing some honey into my dijon mustard. Yum.

After lunch I did some cleaning and tiding up. I seriously wonder how I make the house so dirty sometimes. I mean I am only one person. Oh well, I don't mind cleaning anyway. It's good for clearing the mind. For snack I had a bowl of strawberries and a fiber one bar before hitting the gym for some elliptical and aerobics. I really enjoyed the walk there today since the weather was so nice. Nothing like working up a sweat on a casual walk. When I got back I started working on dinner. I decided to use my Light life "ground beef" crumbles to make meatballs. They consisted of 3/4 a package of "meat", 1/3 c bread crumbs, 1/4 c water, 1 egg (eggbeaters), 1 tsp each of dried minced onion, garlic powder, and italian seasoning. Then I smushed them into little meatballs and cooked them at 400 for 25min.

During this time I also heated up some pasta to accompany my meatballs and some sauce. Then I combined them all and topped it with a little mozz and parm cheese. And by little I mean a lot of cheese, because that is my favorite part of a pasta dish.

Now that dinner is over and dishes are cleaned and put away its time to get back to my book, because like I said it's hard to put down!

Being Adventurous in the Kitchen

Today was a cold and dreary day. I used this as the perfect opportunity to cook up some recipes I have been wanting to try. First though I started the day out with my breakfast staple, oatmeal of course. It consisted of 3/4c. oats, 1c. vanilla almond milk, 1/4c. raisins, 1 tbsp. peanut butter, and pinch of vanilla. Oats are such a good start to the day! Then it was time for a few errands and to pick up some ingredients for my recipes. By the time I got home it was time for lunch. Today I really wanted to try nutbutter parsnip fries. (The original recipe can be found here.) Never in my life have I had a parsnip, probably because my mom hates them which I found out after talking to her today. Anyway to make the fries I cut the parsnip into strips. In another bowl I mixed 1 tbsp of creamy and 1 tbsp of chunky peanut butter with 1 tbsp of evoo. I then put the fries in the bowl and coated them with the mixture. Next I place them on a baking sheet sprayed with some pam and place them in the oven at 400F for about 35min. They smelled really good while baking. When they were done I was excited to try them.

However, while they were good, I think I need to do a little adjust. Maybe next time I will try them with almond butter. I also want to try nutbutter on sweet potato fries. Oh I love new concoctions! With my fries I had a spinach salad with salmon leftover from dinner, dried cranberries, walnuts, sunflower seeds, and light balsamic vinaigrette.

After lunch I spent the day cleaning and re-organizing. Then it was off to the gym. At the gym I did the elliptical for 20 min, bike for 15min, and went to aerobics class. Definitely got in a good workout today :)

When I got home I was hungry so I started dinner. This dinner is inspired by my friend Jess since she always raves about pesto. I have had pesto before, but never on pasta. So tonight I cooked up some pasta with baby artichokes and spinach then topped it with pesto and mozzarella/parm cheese combo.

Wow this was delicious! (which is why I had another serving haha) She is right I definitely did not know what I was missing with out pesto in my diet. haha I can't wait to try it on other things, like sandwiches. I also had a side of carrots and hummus with my pasta.

Now its time to relax and unwind for the night. The next couple of days are going to be pretty busy and filled with babysitting, hopefully I can keep my sanity ;)

Tip of the day: Try to make your own fries if you never have. Not only are they healthier, but in my opinion they also taste better and fresher. My all-time favorite fries to make are sweet potato fries sliced into circles topped with evoo, salt, cumin, chili powder, and cinnamon. Yum! However, now I really want to try the nutbutter on my sweet potato fries. I'll let you know how they turn out when I do. Any other favorite fry recipes out there?