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!

Oh My Chard

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.

Snappy

I got to spend Memorial Day weekend at my favorite place in the world:

In my opinion, it really doesn't get any better than this beautiful lake.  

Time passed too quickly.  I really hope I get to go back again soon.  

Remember those seaweed snacks I picked up from Trader Joe's last week?  Yeah, probably not.  Anyways, I was excited to try some roasted seaweed snacks.

Well, they became the running joke of the weekend.  I had one on the way up to the lake and was not a fan - it tasted really fishy to me.  And I couldn't pawn them off on anyone else!  Many ideas were thrown around (seaweed pancakes anyone?) but none of them went over very well :)  That white bean and basil hummus, on the other band, is absolutely incredible!  You win some, you lose some.

On the way home, my dad and I stopped to load up on tons of fresh, local asparagus.

We've had it two nights in a row now (grilled, with a little bit of olive oil - my personal favorite, and steamed - still very tasty!).  Yum!!

The idea was to eat some of the asparagus fresh and freeze some so that we could enjoy it after the season is over, but at this rate, I'm not sure any will make it to the freezer!

Nothing else very exciting going on around here, except a little visitor this morning:

I saw something in the straw from my bedroom window this morning and wasn't sure what it was, so I went to get a closer look.

But not too close.  Hello, snapping turtle.  The reason I know this is a snapping turtle is not because I'm an expert at identifying wildlife.  (Surprising, right?)  It's because when I was younger, around 10 years old, we saw a turtle like this in our driveway and my mom made my sister and me get really close to the turtle so she could take a picture of us with it.  This was pre-digital camera for us, so it wasn't until we got the film developed (which, for our family, could take many, many months... or a year) that my dad saw the picture and asked why we were so close to a snapping turtle.  Um yeah.  It definitely could have taken my arm off.  Scary!

And true to form, my mom still cut off the top of my head in the photo.  Worth it?  Not so sure.

Hope you all enjoyed your weekend!

Song of the day:

"Tallulah" by Company of Thieves.  I like this song more and more every time I listen to it.

Eat Them Beans

Any Cool Hand Luke fans out there?  It's a family favorite, and "eat them beans" is often quoted at our family meals :)

Do you like green beans?  I LOVE them, thanks to a cooking technique I learned from my family.  When I've had green beans from restaurants, usually they're pretty crunchy and can be rather bitter.  I prefer them to be soft and falling apart, and today I'll share my "secret" for making them that way.

You just have to remember 2 important things:  use very little water, and cook them for a long time.

First, rinse your fresh green beans and cut off the ends (I think it's easiest to use scissors to snip off the ends).

Next, put them into a pot with just a little water, about 1/2 inch to 1 inch.

Turn heat on high and cover.

Let the water come to a boil (this won't take long since there's not a lot of water in there).

Once the water comes to a boil, turn the heat down and simmer.  Leave the lid cracked open slightly to allow steam to escape.

Now you just let the beans simmer for about 40 minutes, stirring every once in awhile and checking on their progress.  This is VERY important:  make sure to add water if necessary to ensure that the pan doesn't go dry - this will burn your beans.  And no one wants burned beans.  Simmer until they're very tender and starting to all apart.

When they look like the beans in the picture above, they're done!  Remove from heat and season.  (Seasoning after the food is cooked means you don't have to use as much!)  I used some smoked sea salt on these and they tasted wonderful.  I actually could have eaten the entire pot.  But I resisted so that I would have some leftovers!

I ate mine with roasted sweet potato wedges.

Really, really delicious.

If you think you don't like green beans, you should really give this cooking method a try.  And if you already like green beans, here's a way to switch it up!

My family always makes them with bacon (cut the bacon in small pieces, fry them in the bottom of the pan, then add the beans and water), which is also delicious, but I wanted to make this recipe a little healthier and vegetarian-friendly.

I can't wait to dig into my leftovers tonight.  Let's eat them beans!

I meant to go to the gym this morning since I didn't have class, but then I decided to sleep in instead :)  So I went after my classes, per usual.  I did the same strength training routine I've been doing lately (really time to switch it up) and then did a 15-minute treadmill workout after that.  It's funny, some days I feel like I'm rocking it out on the treadmill (at least for me), and other days it just kicks my butt.  Today was one of those days when it kicked my butt, even though it was only 15 minutes long.  I was a sweaty Betty (I just made that phrase up, but it kinda works, right?).

Post-workout protein smoothie:

1 cup almond milk, 1 T ground flax seeds, 1 scoop vanilla Sun Warrior protein powder, 1 T natural peanut butter, 1 frozen banana, a heaping 3/4 cup of frozen mixed berries (strawberries, raspberries, blackberries, blueberries), and 2 ice cubes.  Verrrrrrrry tasty.  It's all in the peanut butter, I tell ya!

Time to shower and scrounge up something for dinner.  Later!

If the weather insists on being chilly again, at least I still get some fantastic sunsets.

Song of the day:

"The Lonely" by Christina Perri.  Heartbreakingly pretty.  You've probably heard her song "A Thousand Years" a lot on the radio recently (it was in the most recent Twilight movie).  I like that song, too, and her entire album, Lovestrong.