Archive for November 25, 2009

Razzle Dazzle

November 25, 2009 · Filed under Uncategorized · Tagged

Afternoon, blog world!  It’s been a busy, productive day here.  Ryan and I went to Barnes and Noble to get work done again this morning– it’s much less distracting over there than it is at home, plus the internet is a million times faster.  I worked hard grading for two and a half hours straight…and I’m STILL not done :-(

After all that work, we headed home, but promptly turned BACK around and went to the grocery store to pick up supplies for tomorrow’s feast.  We’re also meeting up with some friends for dinner tonight, so we picked up ingredients to put together a salad for that get-together.  For tomorrow, I decided on plain old stuffing (dressing?).  I looked at a lot of different recipes, but in the end I just picked out a classic dressing recipe, which I’ll make with vegetable broth instead of chicken broth.  I figured, why mess with a classic on Thanksgiving? 

After hitting up the grocery store (which actually wasn’t a madhouse yet, surprisingly), Ryan, my sister and I went to pick up lunch at a new local restaurant, Razzleberries.  It was cute!  They had a wide selection of sandwiches and salads.  They also had…frozen yogurt!!! Yum– the tart, plain kind.  I think I could live off of that kind of yogurt– it’s just so, so good. 

For lunch, Ryan and I ordered the Hippie Wrap (avocado, lettuce tomato, sprouts, black olives, purple onions, fresh lemon juice, and sun-flower seeds topped with an onion vinaigrette) and the Southern Shroom (Portobello Mushroom covered with feta cheese, tomato, garlic, rosemary and a balsamic vinegar/olive oil drizzle on sourdough bread), and split half and half. 

Here’s my plate, back at the casa:

And I topped my yogurt with pomegranate:

It was delicious– so tart and tangy, but sweet too.  Yum.

As I mentioned, my parents’ computer connection has been really off lately, so their computer guy, Dave, came over to attempt to figure out what the problem was.  We were chatting with him as he worked, and he told me that he’s been a vegan for the last few years.  He said that the transition wasn’t that tough for him…there were things he loved that he had to give up, but that all in all, the benefits for his health definitely outweighed the food he missed at the beginning. 

Then he pulled out his lunch.

This CRACKED me up:

For lunch, he ate: 2 bananas, 1 orange, 1 apple, 1 pear, and 1 kiwi. 

Talk about fruit overload!!! I know that you can still eat a balanced diet as a vegan, but he wasn’t a great example of that today!  Funny stuff.

Hope that your day is going well.  I’ll be back tonight with a recap of our dinner (I think we’re also playing the Super Mario Brother’s Wii game!!!). 

Hope your T-giving prepping is going well, with minimum trips to the G-store.

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Take Your Vitamins

November 25, 2009 · Filed under Uncategorized · Tagged

Good morning!

As I’ve mentioned before, my morning routine usually consists of cereal and fruit.  Ho hum. 

BUT, a big part of my morning routine is also vitamins, so I thought I’d share my daily intake with you here. 

Here they are, lined up nice and pretty:

Looking good, ladies! :-)

Every morning, I take a scoop of Amazing Grass Superfood (berry blend).  This is a powdered blend of wheatgrass, spiulina, antioxidants (acai, goji, etc.), flax seed, active cultures and probiotic, and ALLLLLL sorts of other good stuff.  To that, I add half a tsp. of Pure Hawaiian Spirulina, about 8 oz. of orange juice, and just a splash of cranberry juice. 

I know this sounds like a lot, and to be honest, it doesn’t taste great.  BUT, it really seems to be the ultimate energy cocktail.  It seriously makes me feel like a million bucks, and I can tell a BIG difference when I don’t take it.

As for pills/vitamins, for my multi-vitamin, I take two supplements from a vitamin company called Usana.  One is an antioxidant / vitamin D blend; the other is a chelated mineral blend. I was turned on to this vitamin company a few years ago.  My mom, sister and I went to a metabolism workshop in Austin, Texas, and the woman giving the workshop (an R.D.) spent a lot of time talking about vitamins.  She basically said that your everyday brands, like Centrum and One-A-Day (which we were all taking, at the time) were kind of pointless.  She said that they wouldn’t do any harm to your body at all, but that in terms of delivering vitamins, minerals, and nutrients to your body, they wouldn’t do much.  She recommended the Usana brand, so that’s what I’ve been taking for the past few years.  You can check out their website here.

I also take CoQ10, which is supposed to help with basic cell functioning.  You can read more about it here.

In addition to that, I take a calcium supplement, a fishoil capsule for Omega-3′s, and an herbal blend that is supposed to promote hair and nail strength (and probably does nothing :-) ).  Finally, especially in the winter, I usually add an Emergen-C packet to my water at some point in the day.

Whew!  Suddenly this seems like a LOT! 

What do you take in terms of vitamins/supplements?

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Whatta(blackbean)burger

November 25, 2009 · Filed under Uncategorized · Tagged , ,

Well, the burgers were a success! 

I found the recipe on vegetariantimes.com.  I won’t post the entire recipe here, but you can view it here on the website.  The burgers included: black beans, corn, brown rice, red onion, walnuts, and lots o’ spices.  After mixing all of it together and forming patties, the burgers were dusted with cornmeal to prevent sticking to the grill.  They looked like this heading out to the grill:

 

 

And this coming back in:

Don’t they look like ginger snaps?  They weren’t going to win any beauty contests– they were cracking me up.  But hey, they tasted good!  My one gripe?  They fell apart a little bit on the grill, so if I made them again, I think I’d just bake them in the oven, or cook them in a little olive oil in a skillet. 

As I worked on the “burgers,” my sister prepped sweet potato fries, cutting them into wedges and then tossing them with Tony’s cajun seasoning.  If you look hard enough, you can see her baby bump!  Hi, Sophie!

 

Here’s the whole spread:

Close-up shots:

My plate:

It was a delicious dinner, and the burgers were a hit!  Even the meat eaters tried them, and agreed that they were very good.  I think I’ll probably try a few more recipes for veggie/black bean burgers, but these were a good place to start.  They weren’t difficult to make, and they sure were tasty.

Now we’re moving the party to the living room to play a rousing game of this:

My life in the 80′s revolved around Troop Beverly Hills,  Sweet Valley High, and cabbage patch dolls, so…we’ll just have to see how it goes.

Hope you had a good day!  Night!

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