Archive for November 24, 2009

Brings Back the Good Old Days…

November 24, 2009 · Filed under Uncategorized · Tagged ,

Hi all! I hope your day is going well.  Mine has been great!

Ryan and I headed over to Barnes and Noble to do a little work because the internet at my parents’ house has been kind of spotty.  After two hours of grading (guhhhh), I was ready for a break– just in time for my 11:00 mani/pedi with my sister!

I know it seems like I’ve been pampered a lot in the past few days, but trust me, this is not a regular thing!  This was actually the first pedicure I’ve gotten since our wedding reception back at the very beginning of June!  And trust me, with all the running I’ve been doing, my feet really needed it.  I felt kind of bad for the guy, actually.  He asked me if I was a soccer player!  No, I said, it’s from running.  He said, Ohhhh…I can tell!

It was great having some sister time.  As I said in an earlier post, my sister and her husband recently moved home to Shreveport, so this is actually the first “vacation” trip home we’ve taken where we aren’t ALL staying in my parents’ house together.  I know that they’re just five minutes away, but still– it’s weird not having them around!  We decided that she might just have to move back in for a few weeks when we come back for Christmas!

After our mani/pedis, we headed over to my favorite Shreveport lunch spot: Earthereal!  Earthereal is a vegetarian restaurant/bakery that’s owned by Katie and John Koellen… they’ve been in business for over 25 years.  They serve a variety of sandwiches, salads, and smoothies, as well as a daily vegetarian special. 

Katie worked in a plant nursery for years, so she’s got quite the green thumb.  The entrance to the restaurant is surrounded by potted plants, herbs, and even a little garden pond:

I might be a teeeeensy bit biased about Earthereal, because I worked there for 4 summers as a teenager :-)

But really…their food is just the best. 

For lunch today, I ordered my favorite: tacos!

Their combination tacos are filled with: soy crumbles, cheese, carrots, avocado, and lettuce, and then topped off with their homemade vinagrette dressing:

Ryan got the Christopher sandwich, which consists of avocado, swiss cheese, pickles, soy crumbles, mushrooms, olives, and sprouts, all served on whole wheat bread:

It’s not a sandwich for weaklings…Ryan finished the whole thing, too!

And of course, no trip to Earthereal is complete without a trip to the bakery counter.  In addition to all their lunch food, they also sell breads, cookies, and muffins:

We picked up a bag of cowboy cookies, as well as some oatmeal raisins.  Totally necessary.

Here are Katie and John:

They’re so cute!  They were the best bosses I’ve ever had ;-)

John is almost 80, and he still gets up at 4:00 every morning to do the baking…and then he works in the restaurant until 3…what a rock star!  He was also a BIG runner for many, many years, so he was excited to hear about my half-marathon.  Earthereal provides post-race food to a lot of the road races in Shreveport, and they’ll be at the 5k Turkey Trot that we’re planning on running on Thursday.

It’s beautiful outside, so I think we’re planning on grilling again tonight.  I found a recipe from vegetariantimes.com  for black bean/walnut burgers that I’m going to try my hand at.  Hope it goes well…I’ve never made my own veggie burgers!

Have a great rest of the day!

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Get Smart, Part Deux

November 24, 2009 · Filed under Uncategorized · Tagged ,

As I ate my breakfast this morning, I had another Get Smart realization. 

You see, every morning at breakfast, I prepare my bowl of cereal or oatmeal and fruit.  My breakfast routine is pretty boring, which is why breakfasts will rarely be featured on the blog.  If you don’t see a picture of what I ate for breakfast, you can just assume that I had a banana and cereal.  Again.

Another part of this breakfast routine?  After I finish MY breakfast, I always look over at my husband’s plate, nod my head at his peanut butter toast, and raise my eyebrows.  He promptly gives me a bite.

This is not very “get smart.”  Sure, that bite of toast might not matter that much.  But bite after bite, morning after morning– that adds up.  So do all the bites I swipe from his lunch and dinner.  I admit it– I’m a bite stealer.  I am constantly picking off of my husband’s plate.  Even if we’re having the EXACT same meal, I steal some of his bites– in my mind, they just look better!  And of course, if the situation were reversed, I would stab his hand with a fork, but because he is a lot sweeter than me (truly, he is), he just lets me do it.

I seem to have convinced myself that bites taken from other plates don’t really count…and of course they do!

This morning, when I caught myself looking over at Ryan’s PB toast, I stopped and thought, “Listen…you’re eating your cereal.  It tastes very good.  Let the man eat his peanut butter toast in peace!”

And I did.

ps- Check out Tina’s post on Health.com about Thanksgiving Diet Fouls…the tips fit right in with my Get Smart plan!

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What Goes With Tofu?

November 24, 2009 · Filed under Uncategorized · Tagged ,

Red wine, or white?

I went with white. :-)

But before that…

This afternoon was pretty uneventful. I got my massage, which unfortunately wasn’t very good.  It wasn’t bad, necessarily, it was just kind of…meh. I told the masseuse that I ran in a half-marathon a few days ago, and that my legs might be tight. I had hoped that she would take that as, “PLEASE work on my LEGS!!! They’re tired and tight and they need kneading!” Instead, I think she thought I was trying to tell her that they were too sore to be touched, because she barely laid a hand on them! Oh well. I guess I just have bad luck with massages. Maybe I need to hire my own personal masseuse.  That would certainly solve the problem!

When I got home from the massage, we headed to the grocery store to pick out some items for dinner. We decided to take advantage of the somewhat warm weather, and grill some chicken and tofu. For sides, we bought brussel sprouts and butternut squash.

Once home, I got to work prepping the butternut squash. They’re a lot of trouble, but so worth it!

First, I peeled the squash. Once he was naked, I cut him in half, and then scooped out his seeds and guts, until he finally looked like this:

 Then, I chopped each piece into two pieces, and chopped those pieces into planks.  Finally, I chopped the planks into small pieces (about 1 inch thick and 1 inch tall), like this little guy:

I think, sadly, one of the things I like most about butternut squash is how much it looks like CHEESE!!!

And speaking of cheese…

As we cooked dinner, we snacked on this fresh mozzarella that my dad picked up at the farmers’ market on Saturday.  OH MY.  This was GOOD cheese:

I snapped a pic of the wrapper so that I’d have the information on it:

As I ate my weight in cheese, I also prepared the brussel sprouts.  I trimmed and halved them:

Then I tossed them with: 2 tbsp. olive oil, 2 tbsp. maple syrup, 1/4 cup golden raisins, and salt and pepper.  Baked at 400 degrees until they looked like this (about 30 minutes), and put them in a pretty bowl:

I topped the finished brussel sprouts with chopped pistachios.  Delicious!

As for the butternut squash, I tossed it with: 1 tbsp. olive oil, 1/8 tsp. cinnamon, salt, and pepper.  They baked in the oven, right alongside the brussel sprouts:

As for the tofu, I just rubbed it with a little olive oil, sprinkled with some Zatarain’s cajun seasoning, and sent it out to the grill. 

All together:

Mmmm…check out that caramelization on the butternut squash!

This meal was followed with a fewwww bites of cookie :-)

I think we’re going to play some cards…wish me luck!  My dad is always out to get me when we play hearts!

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