Veggie Bake

I decided to throw together a little veggie bake when I had a few different kinds of vegetables on hand and a jar of pasta sauce open.

Veggie Bake

Ingredients:
- Roasted eggplant
- Sliced tomato
- Sliced zucchini
- Spices like basil, oregano, crushed red pepper, smoked paprika
- Pasta sauce
- Nutritional yeast

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.  Lightly oil a casserole dish - I used a small one since I wasn't using that many vegetables.  First add the eggplant.

Then the tomatoes.

Then the zucchini.

Woops, blurry picture.

Then sprinkle on each of the spices.

And then pour pasta sauce over the top.

Followed by a very liberal topping of nutritional yeast.  You could definitely use cheese here instead, if you prefer.

Bake for about 30 minutes, until the sauce looks set around the edges and the vegetables are tender.

I enjoyed a portion with some delicious figs on the side.

I think it would also be great served with some noodles or rice, or with some crusty bread to soak up any extra sauce!

It reheats well, too.  This recipe is extremely adaptable - just use whatever vegetables you have on hand and as many or as few spices as you prefer.

I hope you're having a good weekend!  Here's some pictures from mine.

On Friday I had a rare day with no set obligations, so I decided to spend some time at the mall.  I had a coupon for free underwear (gotta love Victoria's Secret) and a coupon for a free tea from Teavana.  Other than that I just browsed and got in some mall cardio.  Oh and I treated myself to my favorite lunch - a chicken pesto crepe and some Perrier!  So good.

Last night I went out to dinner with some friends to a great place called Happy Dog.  It's pretty incredible - you choose whether you want a beef or vegan hot dog, and then you can choose AS MANY toppings as you want, and it all costs $5.  And you can also get French fries or tater tots with unlimited sauces for $3.  Um, yes please.  I got a beef hot dog with marinated cremini mushrooms, caramelized onions, sun dried tomato tapenade, and applewood smoked bacon.  I also got an order of delicious tots with homemade ketchup.  And an extremely delicious beer per my friend Laura's enthusiastic recommendation - Willoughby Brewing Co. peanut butter cup coffee porter.  Yes, you read that right - peanut butter cup coffee!!  Tasty.

In addition to delicious and affordable food, Happy Dog has live music, so it's basically my idea of a perfect hangout spot.

I got to hang out with some great friends, too - pretty good weekend in my book.

And here's a sunset picture because I can't resist.  Especially these days when anything other than a gray sky is a rarity!

Song of the day:

"Heartbeat" by Kopecky Family Band.  I'm going to see their concert next week and I'm so excited!

Homemade Turkey Soup

Happy New Year!

I really don't know where the time has gone, but way back in November, I cooked my first turkey for a Thanksgiving-themed potluck that I hosted for my friends.  I was very nervous but I think it turned out fairly well, and overall it was actually pretty simple.  Even though my friends made a good dent in the turkey, I still had quite a bit left over.  I enjoyed adding it to salads for lunch and heating it up for dinner, but I got to the point where I really didn't want any more turkey, so I decided to put the rest into a soup.

Woops, forgot to get a picture before the turkey was carved.  Sorry for this blurry one!

I just added ingredients as I went and hoped for the best.  It kind of reminded me of the "button soup" story - did anyone else read that when they were younger?  Anyways, I was actually really surprised by how well
it turned out!

Turkey "Button" Soup

Ingredients:
- 15 cups of water
- 5 vegetable bouillon cubes
- about 10 green onions, sliced
- about 4 carrots, sliced
- leftover turkey, torn into pieces
- about half a bag of frozen spinach
- 1 can of cannellini beans, rinsed and drained
- a pinch of dried rosemary
- a hefty shake of dried basil
- 2 bay leaves
- about half a bag of whole wheat egg noodles

Simmer all of the ingredients, except for the egg noodles, in a big pot for about an hour or so, and then add the egg noodles and let it simmer for about another 30 minutes.  Remove the bay leaves before eating.

I'm not very good at photographing soup/ steamy things.

This recipe is extremely easy to customize based on the ingredients you have on hand - you could substitute another type of leftover meat (i.e. chicken, ham, beef roast, etc.) or leave out the meat altogether, use another kind of onion, different kinds of frozen or fresh leafy greens, use different kinds of beans, change up the spices, etc.  The possibilities are endless!

This is a much better picture of the soup, which I had as part of my dinner one night.  I also had a salad with romaine lettuce, a crumbled carrot, beet & bean burger, sliced almonds, and homemade croutons, with half a grapefruit on the side.  

The soup kept well in the fridge for quite awhile and was great to heat up for lunch or dinner.  Even then I couldn't finish it all, so I froze the rest of it and will pull it out sometime during the next semester when I need a quick already-made meal.  I love that I know exactly what's in it, as opposed to store bought cans of soup.

Normally when I make up recipes as I go (which is a very rare occurrence), the results don't turn out very well, but this was definitely an exception.  I'm glad I learned that homemade soup is actually very simple and doesn't take much effort at all!

I hope the new year is off to a great start for everyone!  I got a new phone for Christmas and I've been having fun playing around with the camera on it.  I'm really excited that it can easily take panoramic pictures! I took this picture on a little family trip to Michigan.

Song of the day:

"Coyote" by The Lonely Forest.  My friend Caitlin turned me on to this band and I'm kind of obsessed with this whole album, which is called Arrows.

Gettin' Sloppy

Friday night I took a break from studying and made a real dinner - it had been awhile!  I was excited to try out a new recipe:  Snobby Joe's.

In keeping with my effort to be thrifty, this recipe calls for fairly inexpensive ingredients, many of which I already had on hand.

You'll need dry lentils, water, olive, oil, an onion (the recipe calls for a medium yellow onion, but I used 1/2 a white onion because I already had one), a green bell pepper, garlic cloves, chili powder, oregano, salt, tomato sauce, tomato paste, maple syrup, and prepared yellow mustard (which I omitted).

First, you cook the lentils.

While the lentils were cooking, I prepped some of the other ingredients by dicing the onion and green pepper, and mincing the garlic.

Then it was time to saute the onion, pepper, and garlic in some olive oil.

Once those have softened, you just add the rest of the ingredients.

Let that cook for a few minutes, and you're done!  Pretty simple, and it looks a lot like real Sloppy Joe's.

I was definitely a big fan of this recipe.  While it doesn't taste exactly like traditional Sloppy Joe's, the texture is spot-on.  The lentils are a perfect substitute for ground meat - it was a hearty and comforting meal.

And the best part (in my opinion):

Lots o' leftovers!!  This should get me through finals.

It was nice to take some time away from studying and relax in the kitchen.  I listened to a podcast of This American Life while I made my dinner.  I am really loving podcasts these days.  I've had the NPR app on my phone for awhile, and I absolutely love listening to Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me (this actually makes me laugh out loud to myself), Car Talk (also elicits a few chuckles), and Weekends on All Things Considered.  I usually bribe myself to wash dishes or do other chores with the promise of being able to listen to a podcast <-- nerd alert :)

I enjoyed my Snobby Joe's with a bowl of amazing fruit - strawberries and a perfect peach.

Yesterday morning I went to the gym and did my circuit workout, followed by some speed and incline intervals on the treadmill.  And then it was time for a protein smooooothie.

Into the blender went:  1 cup almond milk, 1 T ground flax seeds, 1 T natural peanut butter, 1 scoop vanilla Sun Warrior protein powder, lots of spinach, 1 frozen banana, and 1/2 cup frozen blueberries.

I might have been thinking about this smoothie while pushing myself through my workout.  I'm all about the self-incentives, can ya tell?

I've got my first final tomorrow - it'll be my first completely closed book, handwritten exam in law school.  Wish me luck!

Song of the day:

"Janglin" by Edward Sharpe & the Magnetic Zeros.  I got to see them perform at a music festival a couple of years ago, and they were really fun to see.  I imagine this is what the 1970s were like, free love and all.

It's That Time of Year Again

Exam time :(

Good news:  3 weeks from today, I'll be on my way to Florida.  Bad news:  I have a final paper and 3 final exams to complete before then.

I turned in one final paper today, so at least that's one down.

Unfortunately, exam time means less time for fun things like trying new recipes.  But I did discover a new healthy dessert recently - a very quick and easy "frozen yogurt" of sorts.  All you have to do is put yogurt (I used Greek) in a bowl, add some honey (or your sweetener of choice), and some fresh fruit.

Then just mix everything up, and pop it in the freezer.  (That's the frozen part - tricky, right?  Haha.)  I like to put it in the freezer while I'm making my dinner, so that way when I'm ready for dessert, it's semi-frozen but still soft enough to eat with a spoon.

If it freezes solid, just let it sit out on the counter for a few minutes and it will soften up.  It would obviously be yummy without freezing it, too, but sometimes I like to trick myself into thinking I'm eating ice cream :)

I recently tried out one of the teas I got in NYC, called "read my lips" - it's mint chocolate!

Aaaaand there are actually tiny chocolate chips in the tea - can you see them?  How cute!

It's so purrrrty.

I used my handy dandy loose leaf tea holder that my parents got me for Christmas.

And put it in my favorite mug!

Perfection.  And an extremely healthy sweet "treat."

Don't be fooled, though, I've had plenty of Easter candy, too :)

I finally got around to putting together my own circuit workout, which I plan to try out tomorrow.  Hopefully it's a good one - if so, I'll post it here.  I also got around to cleaning my kitchen yesterday (it was in dire need - actually my whole apartment is, but I only had time to do the kitchen) and I took a bunch of pictures because I'm thinking of doing an apartment tour/ decorating-on-a-budget post (or multiple posts) if anyone is interested in that.  Let me know!

Despite having tons of work to do, I will still make time for 2 Broke Girls and Hart of Dixie tonight.  I just can't resist - they're too good to miss!  I'll try to multi-task, though.  We'll see how that goes :)

Hope everyone's having a great start to the week!

Song of the day:

"Long Legs" by The Magic Numbers.  I saw them in concert once and at first they seemed intimidating because they were all dressed in black and had tons of hair, but their music is so pretty and it was a really fun show - not scary at all, haha.

Taming My Sweet Tooth

Happy hump day!

I haven't done a whole lot of cooking recently, but here are a few recent eats:

My lunch today was a sandwich made with whole wheat sandwich thins topped with hummus, shredded carrots, black beans, and a hard-boiled egg (random but tasty!), a green pepper and more hummus, and a pear.

Followed by a medjool date for dessert.  I love having something sweet after a meal - my mom used to pack me a dessert with every lunch when I was in school, and I would have dessert after dinner... and probably a dessert for an afternoon snack, too... oh adolescent metabolism!  Now I try to limit my desserts to once a day, ideally, so instead of grabbing a piece of candy or something after lunch, I find that having a medjool date is just as sweet and satisfying.  If you haven't eaten them before, try one out - they're deeeeee-licious!!

My afternoon snack was a piece of toasted whole wheat bread topped with almond butter (yummm), cinnamon. strawberries, grapes, and raisins.  Bread + nut butter is always a winner in my book.  I find that taking a little extra time to make a snack, rather than just grabbing a bag/ box of something, helps me to stick to a good portion rather than mindlessly snacking and eating past the point of being full.

My herbs are still growing (yay!), but some are doing better than others.  I hope they all hang in there!

I just watched this preview for a 4-part series on PBS about urban farming:



I'm so fascinated by urban farming and would love to be a part of something like that (despite barely being able to grow herbs, haha).  Baby steps, right?  I'm going to see if I can find PBS on my TV - I only have basic TV, no cable or anything, and it tends to be very finnicky - because I'd love to see the whole series.  Even that short clip was so inspiring - seeing a vibrant, lush garden in the middle of a decrepit cityscape is amazing.  And the message is really important:  in a nutshell, local over global, organic over chemical, and grassroots over industrial.

After the snow last night, I was afraid that I would have to scrape my car off on my way to the gym this morning (cardio day - elliptical and stationary bike).  Luckily the snow had already melted, but I am SO ready for some warmer weather.  Hopefully soon!  I really want to check out the farmer's market this weekend, but I'd rather not go in the snow, ya know?

Hope you're having a good week so far!

Song of the day:

"Brokenhearted" by Karmin.  This song is SO addicting - I keep listening to it over and over again.  It's on my workout playlist, too - lots of energy!

Bring Your Own Veggies

Hey guys!  How's your week going so far?  I can't believe it's almost mid-April - time is flying by for me.

My other contribution to our family Easter dinner was broccolini.  I was excited to do a vegetable because a lot of times my mom makes a vegetable casserole for big family dinners, and I'm not usually a fan (they tend to contain cheese and cream sauces, which I don't like).  She did in fact make a carrot casserole on Sunday, so I was glad to have an alternative veggie to eat with my meal.

I followed this Martha Stewart recipe but used broccolini instead of broccoli rabe, and also increased the amount of ingredients to make sure we had plenty for everyone.  I made this once before when I had my parents and grandparents over to my apartment for my mom's birthday in February, and it went over really well, so I was excited to serve it again.  I think it was actually more flavorful the first time I made it, probably because I made a smaller batch that time.  But it was still good and I would make it again!  I especially love the almonds added in.

Since I was at my parents' house over the weekend, I didn't really have time to prep food for this week.  Last night I had an evening class, and I was really hungry when I got home and wanted something quick and easy to throw together.  I just thought about what sounded good and mixed everything together.  I had some cooked couscous in the fridge, so I used that as my base and mixed in broccoli (frozen, which I had steamed in the microwave), frozen spinach, frozen shelled edamame, and some canned black beans (which I had rinsed).  I stirred everything up (except for the broccoli), and heated it in the microwave for a few minutes.  Then I stirred in the broccoli and sprinkled on some nutritional yeast (adding extra protein and B vitamins, plus great flavor).  It came together very quickly and was filled with nutritious ingredients.  This is completely customizable depending on what you have on hand - any kind of grain, veggies, and beans could be mixed together.

Sorry for the blurry picture - Hart of Dixie was starting and I was in a rush!

I overdid it on the Easter candy after my lunch yesterday, so I wanted to have a lighter treat last night.  While I was putting my dinner together, I popped a bunch of grapes into the freezer.  When I was ready for dessert, I took the grapes out, and I dipped them into a mixture of Greek yogurt, honey, and granola - it satisfied my sweet tooth while being pretty healthy!

My workout today was another repeat of my most recent strength and treadmill routines, with 7 minutes of warm-up on the elliptical and stretching after.  I'm definitely a fan of routines and not at all a fan of change, in most aspects of my life.  I know it's very important to switch things up while working out (and in other areas, too!), but sometimes I just want to stick with what I know and like.  That's one of the reasons I like group exercise classes so much - even if you go to the same classes, the instructors vary the workouts and you do different things all the time.  Unfortunately the rec center where I belong does not have unlimited group exercise classes (they're pay-as-you-go), so I do my own thing.  It's a little harder for me to change things on my own accord, but I think it's amazing that there are so many great resources online for finding ready-made workout plans.  Hopefully by the end of this week I'll have picked out a new workout to try!

Post-gym protein smoothie:  1 cup almond milk, 1/2 T chia seeds, 1 T natural peanut butter, 1 scoop vanilla Sun Warrior protein powder, 1 frozen banana, 6 frozen strawberries, 2 ice cubes.

Slurp!

Well, it's snowing outside :(  I knew 80* weather in March meant snow in April.  At least these tulips that my mom gave me brought some spring into my apartment.

Hope you're having a great day!  Let me know if you have any tips for switching up your workout routine.

Song of the day:

"Little Lovin'" by Lissie.