When I got my first CSA haul a few weeks ago, it included some beets. I've actually never cooked with beets before, so I was unsure of what to do with them.
Luckily, I had already bookmarked a few recipes that call for beets, including the Fitnessista's carrot beet and bean burgers. And as luck would have it, the CSA share also came with carrots, and I had some cannellini beans in the cupboard. It's pretty much magical when I already have all of the ingredients for a recipe on hand. Is this what it feels like to be Martha Stewart?!
I followed the recipe pretty closely, but I used ground oats instead of chickpea flour, and I omitted the mustard powder because I didn't have any. Okay, so I guess I didn't have all of the ingredients on hand. There go my illusions of being like Martha Stewart.
But that's okay, they turned out really, really well. I was actually surprised by how much I liked them. I wasn't sure if I'd be a huge fan of the beet flavor, but they were delicious. However, I cannot recommend trying to dehydrate beets. I thought I could make some veggie "chips" with some of the leftover beets - BAD idea. Ick, I still shudder to think of that raw beet taste. Blech.
I actually ate one of the beet burgers on top of a bed of acorn squash.
Pretty darn tasty. And colorful! Just think of all the antioxidants.
I also put one of the beet burgers on top of my salad and took it to school one day. When I got my lunch out, one of my friends asked if I had a cookie on my salad, haha. Not quite... :)
Are you guys getting ready for Halloween? I didn't dress up the past two years (tragic, I know) but this year I've got two costumes planned out - a southern belle and "bad" Sandy from Grease. I've actually worn both of these costumes before, but I think it was 8th grade when I was the southern belle, so that barely counts, right?
Have a great weekend, everyone!
Song of the day:
"If I Didn't Know Better" by Sam Palladio & Clare Bowen. This song if from the new show Nashville - has anyone been watching it? I'm a big fan of Connie Britton (from Friday Night Lights - pretty much the best show ever), and so far I'm liking Nashville a lot. I pretty much can't resist a show that incorporates a lot of great music! This song is so pretty, and how about that crazy chemistry between the actors?? Sigh.
Awhile back, some of my family came in from out of town and brought me a super thoughtful gift - tons of homegrown rainbow chard!
Isn't it pretty?!
I washed it all and then cut out the thickest parts of the stems before putting the leaves into Ziploc bags with damp paper towels and storing it in the fridge. In my experience, this helps greens to stay fresh and crisp longer. I'm also much more likely to eat greens if they're already washed and ready to go.
Check out the size of that leaf! Bigger than my head - crazy.
I had so much chard, so I had to come up with different ways to use it. I used some in a smoothie, and I made an (unpictured) wrap with a chard leaf, turkey lunch meat, and tomato slices to take with me on a car trip. And an obvious use is to put it in a salad. I mixed chard with spinach, beets, tomatoes, lentils, green bell pepper, artichoke hearts, salsa, and homemade guacamole for a Mexican-ish salad.
A lot of my salad fixin's were from Trader Joe's - the prepared lentils, marinated artichoke hearts, salsa, and a new-to-me item: pre-steamed baby beets. I just love the convenience, and they're actually reasonably priced.
I also tried sauteing some chard for dinner and added it to a grain bowl. I put a little bit of olive oil in a pan and heated it up, then threw in a couple of chopped garlic cloves and sliced raw almonds. Once the garlic and almonds had browned a bit, I added some torn up chard to the pan.
Meanwhile, I put some prepared quinoa and lentils in a bowl for the base of my dish.
I stirred the chard around in the pan periodically until it wilted. I love the smell of garlic and almonds browning in the olive oil!
I added all of the chard mixture on top of the quinoa and lentil mixture.
I also roasted a sweet potato and some zucchini (tossed in olive oil and dried rosemary, baked at 375* for 30 minutes, turned after 15 minutes).
I added some of the roasted veggies to my dish and voila, dinner was ready! The leftover roasted veggies were a welcome addition to the salad I made for lunch the next day.
I tried another new-to-me kombucha recently - Reed's lemon ginger raspberry. I liked the flavor, but I still prefer Synergy kombucha.
I also finally tried one of the new Larabar ubers- I really liked the roasted nut roll flavor. I also had the cherry cobbler flavor, but I didn't like it quite as much. Overall I still prefer the original Larabars due to their extremely short ingredients list.
Aaaaand I finally tried Magnum ice cream bars. Super delicious. I'm a sucker for good marketing, and those commercials with Rachel Bilson walking over cars in a traffic jam to get to a Magnum ice cream truck definitely made me want to try these. I just got the original vanilla bean flavor, but I want to try more/ all of them :) Oh and they were on sale, so it was pretty much meant to be, right? I thought so.
I mentioned how many of my salad ingredients I get from Trader Joe's, but I love shopping for lots of things there - this big bouquet of flowers was only $10! I got them for my great aunt for her 90th birthday. And I found a new use for my cup holder.
I spotted a baby fawn and its mom! So cute.
I've been a bad blogger lately, but I've got lots more to share so I should be posting again soon. Hope you're all enjoying your summer - I seriously cannot believe it's August. I'm not ready to go back to school yet!
Song of the day:
Please allow me to indulge my inner teeny bopper with this song selection - "Some Days" by The Maine. I was slightly obsessed with this band in a fan-girl way for a little while, but they kind of fell off my radar until recently. I just got their latest album, Pioneer, and listened to it about 10 times while I was driving to and from DC this past weekend. It made me nostalgic for the music I used to listen to during the summer when I was in high school.
I was never into boy bands like 'NSYNC or Backstreet Boys, but I did love Hanson and some other kind of cheesy bands. I just read that Taylor Hanson (my favorite brother, now 29 years old) is expecting his FIFTH child with his wife. Um, whoa.
Hey guys, how's it going? Once again, it's been awhile since I've blogged, so I've got a few things to catch up on here. First a delicious new discovery:
My mom picked up this huge container of cocoa-roasted almonds at Sam's Club this past week, and they're SO delicious. Except...
...we realized there's sucralose in them, which is basically Splenda. Boo. I've really tried to eliminate fake sweeteners from my diet. But that doesn't mean I haven't still enjoyed a small handful of these here and there.
When I've got the time, I really enjoy putting some extra effort into brunch for myself on the weekend. This past weekend was no exception.
Scrambled eggs with spinach and topped with Trader Joe's salsa, an amazing bowl of berries, and a frothy cup of coffee. Perfection. Do you like my Peter Rabbit bowl? Haha.
I've been able to start working out again since my feet have pretty much healed (thank goodness), so after a workout this past week I brought back the long-lost protein smoothie.
It had 1 cup skim milk, 1 T ground flax seed, 1 T natural peanut butter, 1 scoop vanilla Sun Warrior protein powder, organic spinach from the farmers' market, and 1 frozen banana. Yum!
Along with my summer-y drink, I've been able to enjoy some summer-y activities lately, too. I love having a break from school!
I went to a wine festival at a local winery with some friends last week, and it was so fun to spend time and catch up with them, and to taste some local wines.
And I got to go to a concert at my favorite concert venue!
Even though it wasn't a very sunny day, we spent some time boating this past weekend, too.
This is the crib, which is the main intake for the Cleveland water supply.
Other than that, I've started on a little project. Well, a not-so-little project, actually. I'm going to paint my kitchen table and chairs black, but it's quite a long process! I'm documenting it and will share the steps after I'm finished, assuming it all turns out okay. Here's the before shot!
So that's what I've been up to. What about you guys?
Oh, and I refuse to accept that I don't live in a tropical area - I'm trying to grow some avocado trees. I actually grew an avocado tree for a few years but it recently withered away, so I'm determined to try again.
Song of the day:
"Free Energy" by Free Energy. This is the band I saw last week - so much fun live!
I've been a very bad blogger. I don't feel like I really have a lot going on, but all of my days have been absolutely packed. I've been taking a few pictures here and there, though, so I'll use them to share what I've been up to.
First things first - I've successfully woken up in time to do 6AM workouts 3 times since I last posted. Luckily I just stumble blearily down to the basement, so I don't have to worry about my bangs sticking up everywhere. Although I don't love waking up that early, I am always so happy to get my workout in first thing in the morning; if I wait to exercise after work, something else almost always comes up and I don't get around to it.
I'll write more about the Physique 57 DVDs once I've done them a few more times, but so far I'm a fan! I've done the classic 57-minute DVD twice and the 30-minute ab and arm booster DVD once. The workouts are definitely tough and I struggled to get through a few of the exercises - mainly the ab routine! After I did the classic DVD for the first time, I could really feel it the next day in my booty and my lower abs <-- good signs! I particularly like incorporating the ball into the workouts - I could really feel the burn in my inner thighs, which is great since that area is typically difficult to target. And the ball also greatly increases the effectiveness of the ab exercises, from what I can tell (as evidenced by my extreme shaking, haha). So far so good!
Check out these beautiful flowers which greet me when I go to work:
I still need to work on improving my lunches - this is basically what I've been eating every day (apple, carrots, bell pepper, sugar snap peas, Larabar). Tasty, but I could use some more variety and creativity.
Someone wants to share my lunch.
I've been mooching off my parents so far, but today I finally stopped at TJ's to get some food of my own. Hopefully that'll help me to mix things up a bit.
My haul:
Brown rice cakes, seaweed snacks (excited to try these for the first time), beer for a Memorial Day party, spinach, steamed lentils, Greek yogurt (it's been too long! Can't wait to dig into this container), sunflower seed butter, raw unsalted almond butter, natural peanut butter, kalamata olives, artichoke hearts, salsa, cherry and cashew cookie Larabars, B vitamins, white bean basil hummus (sounds interesting - can't wait to try it), dry roasted unsalted pistachios (I haven't had pistachios in SO long, very excited for these), sweet potatoes, and a baguette to go with bruschetta that I'm planning to make for the Memorial Day party. Oh and there are some medjool dates hiding somewhere in there, too. There have been so many desserts and treats around lately and I've been over-indulging, so my plan is to snack on a medjool date to satisfy some of my cravings for sweets.
I think Barbie was out shopping while I was at TJ's. See that bubblegum pink Mercedes convertible?
A new favorite snack of mine:
Whole wheat bread with peanut butter, a sprinkle of cinnamon, and some granola that my sister made.
I had a coffee date at my favorite local coffee shop (Angel Falls) with my BFF who was in town from DC. I got a cortado, which is 6 oz. of milk with 2 shots of espresso. Bzzzz.
I brought some work with me to do after my friend left.
More coffee today. It wasn't actually 95* out, but that's what my car was reading when I first got in. Great day for iced coffee!
Plus a chocolate cookie with walnuts (both from Panera). About those medjool dates to satisfy my sweet tooth...
Other happenings include a day at the racetrack.
The muscle cars were my favorite.
But the semi with a jet engine was pretty cool, too :)
I got a little overzealous with my library holds. Lots to read/ watch/ listen to!
Last but not least, did you know that wiper blades don't come in pairs? You have to buy two separate packages. Mmhmm, I didn't know that. Also, I decided which brand to get based on the packaging. (Bosch won, clearly.) That's logical, right? I'm such a sucker for marketing/ good design.
And I think I'm all caught up now. Hope you enjoyed that hodgepodge of random stuff. Oh, one more thing - I've already worn my new maxi dress twice and have gotten compliments each time. Success! So if you've been hesitant to try one on, I say go for it! It's super comfy, and looks very chic, in my opinion. I mean, come on, doesn't a floor-length dress make you feel fancy? I've already got plans to wear mine again this weekend, haha.
Off to tackle a million and one things on my to-do list. See ya later!
Song of the day:
"Beekeeper's Daughter" by the All-American Rejects. I know, I know, but I had to. I have a soft spot for AAR (I get nostalgic every time I hear any song from their debut album - it instantly takes me back to summertime in high school, driving around with my best friends, singing along with the windows down). I got to meet the band one time at Warped Tour (yup, I definitely thought Warped Tour was the coolest thing ever when I was in my wannabe-punk stage) - the guys had a signing tent - and I can assure you that Tyson Ritter is just as beautiful in person.
I even got a picture with Tyson <-- prized possession, haha.
