Newlywed, Newly Veg!

Hey guys!  Thanks for all your sweet comments on my Vegan challenge wrap-up/February challenge.  I know that this challenge is going to be…well, challenging.  Ryan will probably bear the brunt of it for these first few days…poor bastard.

This morning, I did some house maintenance.  The book situation was out of control in my office, and there was a book shelf down in our basement that wasn’t being used for anything, so I dragged it upstairs for use by moi.  The office/guest room looks much better now!  Plus, half of my books were just stacked on top of each other, which is really bad for their spine.  Now they’re all nice and neat (and vertical). Much better. 

After my rearranging party, I had a nice little workout using my i-phone “i fitness” app.  It’s very cool!  You can narrow down the moves you want by body part, equipment, etc., and then a HUGE list of potential exercises comes  up, along with written instructions and video examples of someone doing the exercise.  I have basically a set of exercises that I always do during my home workouts (bicep curls, squats…just the basics), and this app was really good for getting me out of my comfort zone.  I was doing moves I’d never even heard of!  Plus, being able to see a live person actually perform each move was incredibly helpful.  I’ll be using this again!

I alternated 10 minutes of strength moves with ten minutes of running for about an hour.  By the time I was done, I was pooped and ready for lunch!

Lunch included a new product that I picked up at the store yesterday:

Have you seen these?  It looked interesting, and the nutritional stats were pretty good, so I decided to give it a whirl.  I was pleased to see NO sugar on the nutritional info!

You just pop this puppy in the microwave for 2 minutes, and voila!  Multi-grain rice!

Ummmm…really, REALLY sticky multi-grain rice.  It was like one big gelatinous sticky rice patty.  At first I was grossed out, but as I began to eat it, I started liking it more and more, and I ended up being pleased with it after all! 

I topped the rice with grape tomatoes, carrots, and edamame, plus a drizzle of white miso ginger dressing (also no sugar! woo hoo!):

There’s rice under there, I promise!

After lunch, the sugar monster struck.  Grrrrr!  I figured I could go one of two ways: I could either A). give into my craving with a little (low sugar) treat, or B). ignore said craving and attempt to forgo the sugar all the way, cold turkey.

Guess which way I went?

If you guessed A, you’ve probably been reading the blog for a while. 

Yep.  I satisfied my sweet tooth with a few pieces of Miss May’s cashew crunch.  Only 1.5 grams of sugar though—not too bad if it puts that craving at bay, right?

Well, it’s bright and sunny out, so we’re about to take the dogs on a W-A-L-K.  Hopefully that sun means that it’s warmed up a little bit since yesterday’s 15 degrees bs.  But, I’ve come to learn that in Central PA, sun doesn’t necessarily equal warm and pleasant. 

Have a great Sunday, guys!

Well, I can’t believe January’s challenge is already coming to an end!  For those of you who might not know, for the month of January, I’ve been eating vegan—in other words, in addition to the meat products I usually abstain from as a vegetarian, I also cut dairy products and eggs out of my life this month.  With  the exception of a few slip-ups here and there (how did this bite of non-vegan cookie find its way into my mouth?!?), I’m proud to say that the challenge was a success! 

In fact, I would say that all in all, the challenge was a lot easier than I’d anticipated.  I thought that being vegan would mean constant vigilance, reading labels, and feelings of deprivation, but in actuality, after a few days of adjustment, it became almost like second nature, and by the third or fourth day, I wasn’t aware that I was eating “vegan,” I was just going about my normal, day-to-day routine. 

As for the label reading, during my first few shopping trips as a vegan, I was careful to look at the labels of processed products that I sometimes buy (crackers, energy bars, baked goods, etc.).  I would say that the products that I normally go for were vegan about 50% of the time, and that the ones that weren’t vegan (Kashi TLC crackers, certain Clif bars) were obviously easy to find a replacement for. 

Our meals remained healthy and balanced, and in fact, I would say that the vegan challenge pushed me to step outside my normal realm of comfort and encouraged me to try new recipes (cashew sour cream, anyone?) and vegan-friendly products (vegan cheese, etc.).  I would also say that the staple meals we usually turn to during the week were either already vegan (stir fry, etc.) or easy to “veganize,” (ie, pasta, but without parmesan cheese). 

There were certain foods I missed, like frozen yogurt.  And sure, I missed having cheese on my sandwiches and in my pasta.  But, through this challenge, I became more aware of the fact that, though I missed cheese, I got over it pretty quickly.  Once it wasn’t in our refrigerator, I didn’t go around thinking about it.  My wraps and sandwiches tasted fine without it, and honestly, my body was probably better off without it.  Although I’ll certainly go back to eating cheese now that the challenge is over, I can see it being the kind of thing I won’t keep in the house anymore.  I’d like to try to limit my cheese consumption to “fancy” cheeses at parties or restaurants, rather than the string cheese and Sargento swiss I’d gotten used to throwing on my sandwiches and burgers without even thinking about it.

Doing this vegan challenge has also presented me with the opportunity to expand my thinking on animal rights and what my reasons are for being a vegetarian in the first place.  Unlike people who do it for health reasons, my reasoning is fairly rooted in animal rights; because of this, I recognize the hypocrisy of not eating meat, but continuing to eat the products of animals who most likely were treated very inhumanely over the course of their (let’s face it) pretty terrible lives.  Earlier in the week, I posted my dissatisfaction with Vegan-extraordinnaire Bob Torres, who argued that going vegetarian for animal rights reasons is not even going “half way” because if you still eat dairy and eggs, you’re supporting a system that is based in animal cruelty.  While I disagree with this statement, an interesting point Torres made during the podcast was that eating dairy and eggs actually causes and promotes more cruelty than the slaughterhouse system, in that the cruelty involved in the dairy and egg industry is much more prolonged, whereas the cruelty in the slaughterhouse system is swift.  This is an interesting point, and one that I don’t take lightly.

That being said, I do believe that every little bit counts, and right now, while I can’t commit to a 100% vegan lifestyle, I’m going to make the effort that I can to move in that direction, and I have to believe that there is some merit in that.  Because I know there will be times when I eat dairy or eggs, even if only once or twice a month, I don’t think I could ever call myself a vegan, and it would be hypocritical to do so.  However, I fully support the values of the vegan lifestyle, and hope that I can continue to incorporate elements of it into my own life.

In terms of health…well, I felt healthy on this challenge!  But, I generally feel healthy most of the time.  I felt healthy before I started the challenge, and I feel healthy now!  I’ve heard people talk about the “magic” of going vegan—clear skin, renewed energy, weight loss, etc.  While I noticed that my energy levels were higher and I no longer felt an “afternoon slump,” my weight didn’t change, and my skin looks pretty much the same.  I also discovered that it is entirely possible to eat a diet of complete junk while still eating vegan.  What I will say is that the mindfulness that the vegan diet encourages and even requires in order to stay in good health could definitely make a follower of the vegan diet more inclined towards healthy decisions.  During the challenge, I felt myself concentrating more on creating meals that incorporated a variety of produce and whole foods in order to ensure that I was still meeting my nutritional needs.  That said, I still ended every meal with dessert, and didn’t feel necessarily “cleansed” or “renewed” as I was hoping I might.

Several times throughout the challenge, I noted to Ryan that if we were simply going to eat every meal at home for the rest of our lives, I could see myself going full-on vegan with little challenge.  However, the inconvenience that it might cause in social settings is more than I feel comfortable taking on.  The challenge showed me that, while going vegan is completely doable, it does require a large amount of devotion, vigilance, and, at times (especially in social or restaurant settings) sacrifice. 

In the end, the food part of this challenge was the least difficult aspect.  What was truly challenging was the way that it forced me question the rationale behind my vegetarian eating and wonder if going vegetarian was enough.  It’s a question that I’ll continue to explore even though the challenge has drawn to an end, which, I suppose, means that the challenge was a success.

*          *          *

So, looking ahead to February, what am I going to tackle for my next challenge?

My dreaded white powder addiction:

No, not that one.

This one:

They look so sweet and innocent, right?  But they make me feel like this:

Time to go to sugar rehab!!!!

For the month of February, I’ll be recording my sugar intake in the hopes to eliminate as much added sugar from my diet as possible. 

On average, Americans consume 20 teaspoons of added sugar a day, twice the maximum daily intake  recommendation of the USDA (10 teaspoons, or roughly 40 grams). 

I don’t drink soda, which is a big reason why American’s consumption of sugar is so high.  In fact, looking at this blog, it might appear that I don’t eat that much added sugar at all.

But I do.  Oh, I do.  Much of my sugary indulgences go unphotographed on this blog—a handful of chocolate chips here, a bite of cookie there.  And another bite.  And another bite.  This all happens around 8:00 pm, when I start jonesin’ for a sugar fix.  I’m hoping that this challenge will really force me to buckle down on my sugar intake and come to terms with how much sugar I’ve been sneaking into my diet for the past couple of years.

You see, I wasn’t always a sugar-head.  When I was growing up, it was a lucky week in our house when my mom would bring home Fig Newtons or graham crackers from the grocery store.  But, my sister and I have both contemplated that perhaps that’s why we’re so in love with the white stuff—because our intake was so limited when we were growing up.  Now that we’re adults and can buy our own food, the temptation to buy all the things we weren’t allowed to have as kids is too great.  I fill my cart with cookies and chocolate, and I eat dessert after every meal, because I can.  No one is here to stop me, or tell me no…even though I wish they would!  Ah, irony!

The other part of this challenge that I’m very interested in is seeing the sugars that sneak their way into products that aren’t “sweet” at all—things like oats, veggie burgers, bread, crackers…basically EVERYTHING!!!  My prediction for this challenge is that I’ll be shocked by the amount of sugar in pre-packaged foods, and how quickly it all adds up.

For this challenge, I’m not going to limit myself to a “set amount” of sugar each day.  Obviously staying below the 40 grams mark would be ideal (and I don’t think that will be too hard?!?), but again, my goal here is to simply become aware of the sugar in my diet, and then to work on cutting it out. I’ll be recording the added sugar in all of my meals and snacks, and then tallying the total at the end of every day.  I won’t be limiting fruit, nor will I record the non-added sugars in whole foods like fruits and vegetables. My hope is that once I start recording the amount of sugar I’m consuming, I’ll be able to make smarter choices and get my sugar intake down to a bare minimum, maybe even nothing?

I think this challenge will actually be harder for me than the vegan one, but that if I can master it, I’ll be able to really tell a difference in the way I feel and look.  That’s what I’ve heard from other bloggers who have been able to cut out the white stuff, anyway. I’ve also heard that the first few days are rough, but that after about a week, the cravings stop altogether, and soon, things like cookies and cake seem too sweet, too rich.  I’ve already mentioned my proclivity for all things rich and sweet, so I’ll be interested to see if this is true.

I made several trips to the bookstore in an attempt to find some sort of sugar-free living guide, but most of the sugar-free “diet” books that I saw relied heavily on artificial sweeteners like Splenda, and that is not at all the direction that I want to go.  I have some Stevia that I’ll use from time to time, but on the whole, I’d like to get away form artificial sweeteners and learn to enjoy my food and drinks without the high level of sweetness that I think most of us have become accustomed to.

Feel free to offer thoughts, ideas, and insights about this challenge!  Also, feel free to join me if you’d like!

Hello, hello!

Did you have a good Saturday?

I did indeed make my way to TJ Maxx…and, of course, I found some items that I just *had to have,* including a few t-shirts for 6 dollars (score!) and some 2 dollar agave nectar (strange, but score!).  I also got this Marmot jacket, which Ryan says makes me look like a black bear:

Fact: black bear is best.  Fact: bears eat beets.

But I didn’t just shop for myself.  I picked up a little something for the kids as well:

A nice, plush winter bed!  I think Baxter gave it two paws up.  He’s a dog of exquisite taste, what can I say?

For dinner tonight, we tried something new: gnocchi!

When I was studying abroad in France my sophomore year in college (a lonnnnng time ago!), the little hotel we lived at served us gnocchi ALL the time, and I got really sick of it.  Because of that, I’ve barely eaten it in the past 7 years!  But, for whatever reason, it sounded really good tonight, so gnocchi it was.  It was fun to experiment with something new!

But before the gnocchi, we had to figure out what to put on top of it!  We (well, okay, I) finally decided on: caramelized onions, dried plums (sounds so much better than prunes, right?), and brussel sprouts.  A little odd, but delicious!

For the onions, I chopped a large, sweet onion and covered a heavy-bottomed skillet with olive oil.  Dumped in the onions and cooked for 10 minutes, at which point they began to brown.  I added a bit of salt, gave them a stir, and continued to cook for another 10 minutes over low heat.  I’ve found that the key to good caramelized onions is not touching them very much—hands off!  Overall, the onions cooked for about 35 minutes, which got them really brown and soft…ours were almost a little too dark when all was said and done, but I like them that way! 

About halfway through:

As the onions were cooking, I trimmed and halved the brussels sprouts, tossed them with olive oil, salt, and pepper, and roasted them in the oven at 400 degrees for about 25 minutes until they looked like this:

Once the brussels sprouts were done roasting, I pulled them out of the oven, deglazed the onion pan with a little white wine, and added the brussels sprouts and dried plums (about 8, chopped in half).  I also added 1/4 cup of fig balsamic vinegar, which cooked down for about 10 minutes until it was all thick and syrupy, coating the veggies nicely.

As veggies finished cooking, we brought a pot of water to a boil for the whole wheat gnocchi:

I wasn’t sure how this store-bought gnocchi would be, but I thought it was good!  Soft and pillowy, but also dense and chewy.

This was great, but I gotta say…if we weren’t doing the vegan challenge, some goat cheese would have gone perfectly with this dish!

But it was delicious, either way:

Well, I topped this meal off with a BIG mug of chocolate peanut butter swirl “ice cream,” and now I am stuffed to the BRIM.  For realsies.

As we ate, we watched the What Not to Wear episode with Mayim Bialik, aka Blossom!  What a blast from the past!  I used to love that show and all her kooky hats.  I also had a big crush on Joey Lawrence…I melted with every “Whoa!”

Tomorrow, I’ll post my Vegan Challenge wrap-up and introduce my new challenge for February!  I’m really excited for this one!

Hope your Saturday night is lovely!

Night, all!

Hi friends! Happy Saturday!

Our Saturday has been good so far—good, but COLD!!! It was only 10 degrees here when we got up this morning! 

I rolled out of bed, toasted up some millet bread with almond butter and bananas, and crawled back under the covers to enjoy my breakfast! 

As has become my routine for the last few weeks, I wrote for about an hour and a half, caught up on blogs, and then, around 10:15, we headed out for some indoor exercise! 

I’m super excited because our gym is introducing a boot camp class, starting February 15th! I’ve never taken boot camp before, but it sounds intense! I can’t wait!

My gym workout was the usual mix of weights and cardio…yada, yada, yada. 

When we got back, I made some more green juice.  Luckily, it was a more pleasant experience than last week’s juice from hell.  That juice kept me away from the juicer all week, but finally today I was ready to give it another go!  This time, I kept it simple (as Michael Scott says, Keep it simple, stupid): cucumber, dandelion greens, and ginger.

This week, I was on my own with the juice—Ryan turned his nose up at my offer to share it with him!  Fine—more enzymes for me!  This combo was actually pretty good.  It went down smooth, and the ginger flavor came through nicely.  It didn’t taste like dirty socks, so…success!  Maybe keeping the ingredients to a minimum is key to a good juice. 

I graded for about an hour, and then we headed down for some lunch.

Lunch started out as nachos with Food Should Taste Good “the works” chips, pinto beans, and Follow Your Heart cheddar, but it kind of turned into a taco salad.

Nacho (vegan) cheese:

Not Yo Cheese!!!!

You can’t see it, but there really is a mountain of chips and cheese under there.  It was delicious!

Anywho.

This afternoon is pretty much wide open.  I might head to TJ Maxx…peruse the dishware aisle…see what I can find.

If I’m feeling virtuous, I might do some more writing.

Or I might watch a Lifetime movie.  You just never know.

One thing I DO have on my “to do” list is to write my Vegan challenge recap, along with the unveiling of February’s challenge!  Very exciting stuff!

Hope you’re having a great Saturday.  Later, gators!

Good evening, friends!  I hope your day has gone well!

I did some grading this afternoon for my online class.  As I graded, I listened to an interview with raw chef Kristen Suzanne.  It was really interesting to hear how moving to a high raw diet changed her health (for the better, obviously).  The raw food movement is one that I find really interesting…maybe a future challenge is in order?  I think I’d have to wait until the summer months—the whole raw food thing is NOT appealing to me in this winter weather. 

And on that note…dinner was warm, comforting, and delicious! 

Rustic Tomato Basil Soup

Ingredients

1 tbsp. olive oil

1 large onion, chopped

3-4 garlic cloves, chopped

1 carrot, chopped

1 tbsp. dry sweet basil

salt and pepper, to taste

2 cans (1 pound, 12 oz.) whole tomatoes (with basil, optional), undrained

1/3 cup non-dairy cream

fresh basil to garnish

Directions

In a heavy-bottomed pot, heat olive oil.  Add onion and garlic and cook for 5-10 minutes.  Add carrot and cook for another 10-15 minutes.  Add basil and salt and pepper.  Cook for another 2-3 minutes, then add tomatoes plus all their juices.

With a wooden spoon, begin to break the tomatoes up a bit (no need to break them up completely, as you’ll be blending the soup smooth).  Bring the soup to a boil, then reduce heat and cook for 30-40 minutes. 

Once soup is cooked, blend smooth.  You can do this in a blender in a few separate batches, or with a submerging blender.  In addition, you can blend the soup completely smooth, or leave it a little chunky. 

Once you’ve reached the desired consistency, remove the soup from heat and stir in the cream.

Garnish with fresh basil.

Pics:

Broken up and bubbling away:

Blended:

Cream going in:

Yum, yum!

As we waited for the soup to cook, I snacked on some Food Should Taste Good “everything” chips and a wasa cracker:

Some wine was also enjoyed:

The non-dairy (non-soy) creamer we used it the Mimic brand, and is made from almonds and cashews:

It was really thick—just that third of a cup made the soup super (souper?) creamy.  I’m going to use it in my coffee tomorrow—I’ll let you know how it goes!

Finally, dinner was served:

Dinner was followed with pure goodness:

Ummm…this flavor is AWESOME!!! I thought it couldn’t get better than the cookie dough flavor, but this pb swirl topped it.  Seriously—getcha some.

Our plans for tonight include Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (a favorite!) and early bed.  Yep…we’re officially old!

Night, kids!

What’s coming out of your speedo?!? 

Any Spartan cheerleader fans out there?  Definitely one of my fave SNL skits, back in the day. 

Anywho…how goes your Friday? Mine is off to an excellent start!

This morning, I caught up on blogs (my google reader list just keeps growing and growing…) while drinking my coffee, and then I buckled down and wrote for about an hour and a half.  Around 11, Ryan and I put on MULTIPLE layers and took the dogs out for a quick walk—it is COLD here!  I think warmer weather might be on the way though…and it’s sunny, so at least there’s that, right? 

Before we left on our walk, my stomach was growling, so I snacked on this little bar (by Gluten Free Cafe?) that was leftover from our Seattle trip:

This was good! It was just a chewy, cinnamony bar with lots of seeds.  It was really chewy and sweet—just what I like!  Only 150 calories, too!  I’d buy it again.

When we got back, my muscles were all warmed up, so I hopped on the treadmill for a nice run.  I did 5 miles in 46 minutes, which felt awesome!  I was varying the speed back and forth between 6.2 mph and 7.2 mph the whole time, which kept me from getting bored. 

And then, it was time for lunch:  burrito time, that is!

I picked up this bad boy at our natural foods store a while back, but kind of forgot about it for a while.  There are all sorts of things to discover in our freezer, apparently!

I hadn’t tried this brand before– Gluten Freeda’s– but I appreciate a good play on words as much as the next English teacher, so into our basket it went:

Usually when I get a hankering for a frozen burrito (which isn’t really that often), I stick with Amy’s.  But, this burrito was pretty good, I have to say.  Lots of beans and rice action going on.

The top got kind of prehistoric landscapey in the microwave for some reason:

But it still tasted great!  I smothered the burrito as well as my carrots with some all-natural mango habanera salsa.  Usually I feel like salsas that are labeled “medium heat” aren’t spicy enough for me, but this salsa is hot, baby!

My mouth was burning by the end of this meal…so I cooled it down with a crisp, sweet apple:

Some of you asked about our Scrabble game last night.  It was going well, but got cut short when Ella decided to help Ryan with a triple word score:

Baxter had to get in on the action too, of course:

Game over!  Perhaps a rematch is in order for tonight?

Hey guys! How’s it hanging?

Man, it is NASTY outside!  Around 4, it started snowing again, but the snow isn’t bad—it’s the wind!!!  It is howling and howling…I felt like I was being hit by a MAC truck on my way to my last class.  I seriously felt like if I just stood there, it might knock me over.  Crazy!

In between classes, I got hungry (as predicted) and snacked on a delicious Odwalla chocolate peanut bar.  Yum!

Obviously after all that cold weather and wind, we wanted something really warm for dinner.  Of course, we also needed something fast and easy, because neither of us ever feels like cooking on Thursday nights when we get home from teaching. 

Enter frozen goods.

Remember our Indian food dinner party, way back at the beginning of December?  Well, tonight we reached wayyyyyy back into the freezer and pulled out some leftovers from that fun night!

Mmmmm…this curried chickpea dish was just as good the second time around!  Gotta love freezers on nights like tonight. You can see the original recipe here.

As a side dish with the chickpeas, we had sauteed kale with golden raisins.  There’s something about the combination of the slightly bitter greens with the sweet, chewy raisins that works so well. For our kale, I heated a tablespoon of olive oil in a saute pan, added the kale plus a shake of garlic salt, a handful of golden raisins, and a drizzle of agave.  After about five minutes of cooking the kale, I added some vegetable stock (maybe 1/4 cup?) and cooked it down for another five.

As I cooked, I sipped on this wheat beer:

And before too long, we were sitting down to this:

The bird wanted some too:

For dessert, I made…well, I’m not sure what to really call this.  But it was really good!!!

Working with (what else?) Averie’s basic method, I got to work creating a single-serving chocolate cookie dough ball.

Well, a single serving…for someone who loves dessert!

Here’s the recipe:

No Bake Chocolate Oatmeal Cookie Dough for One

Ingredients

1/3 cup dry oats

1 tbsp. raw hazelnuts (about 7 nuts)

1 tbsp. vegan chocolate chips

1/2 tsp. unsweetened cocoa powder

2-3 tsp. water

1/2 tsp. agave nectar

1/4 tsp. stevia (optional)

Directions:

In the Vitamix, combine oats and nuts; pulse until a fine powder has formed.  In a small microwave-safe dish, heat the chocolate chips in the microwave until they are melting, about 45 seconds (be careful not to burn the chocolate chips!).  Combine chocolate chips, cocoa powder, water, agave nectar and stevia (if using) in the blender and pulse until smooth. 

Because it’s such a small amount, you’ll need to frequently scrape down the sides of the blender with a spatula until it is all blended smooth.  You can also add more or less water, depending on how “wet” you want the dough to be. 

At the end, I was left with this lump of deliciousness:

I probably should have refrigerated it for half an hour or so to give it more time to solidify.  But…would you have been able to wait?

Me neither.    I ate every ooey, gooey bite!

This kind of reminded me of a healthier version of those “no bake” chocolate cookies that show up at most holidays and potlucks.

Healthier, but, it should be noted, not low-cal. Here are the stats from spark recipes:

Nutrition Facts

  Calories
242.0

  Total Fat
10.0 g

  Saturated Fat
2.5 g

  Polyunsaturated Fat
2.1 g

  Monounsaturated Fat
5.7 g

  Cholesterol
0.0 mg

  Sodium
2.0 mg

  Potassium
387.8 mg

  Total Carbohydrate
52.6 g

  Dietary Fiber
8.5 g

  Sugars
12.0 g

  Protein
6.0 g

So yeah—not low-cal at all! But, it has lots of fiber, healthy fats, and protein!  Plus, that one serving was BIG! It could easily serve two people.  Or one person with a preternatural ability to eat chocolate.

Well, tomorrow is Friday, and officially…the beginning of the end of my Vegan challenge!  This weekend is the last weekend of my challenge—I can’t believe it’s over already!  I’ll be working on my recap post for Sunday…plus, stay tuned to hear about my February challenge!! It’s going to be a doozey!

Alright, kids.  We’re about to play a mad game of Scrabble and call it a night.  Things just get wackier and wackier over here. 

Hope you had a great Thursday! G’night!

Hey guys! As usual, I’m rushing today, but this time I have an excuse: the weather has gone completely crazy on me!

It was snowing when we woke up this morning, but then it calmed down for a while.  Around 10:30, I hopped on the treadmill for a workout.  I did 5 miles—two miles longer than I usually do on the treadmill, so that was good (especially after last night’s “healthy” post-dinner treat).  Then, when I finished up with my workout, I looked outside and the weather was CRAZY! It looked like a blizzard outside!  Plus, they kept flashing “weather advisory warning” across the television!.  This, combined with the fact that I am a total cold weather wuss (being from Louisiana and all), combined with the fact that my students are just peer editing for their first papers today, all added up to the fact that I was leaning towards cancelling class. 

BUT, every time I started to send out an e-mail cancelling class, the weather seemed to calm down a bit!  I was going back, and forth, and back and forth.  Finally, I  decided to hop in the shower just in case.  When I got back out, the sky was blue, the wind was gone—it looked like a lovely day!

So, long story short, I did not cancel class, but now I’m running extra late due to my internal debate!

Thus, lunch was lame:

Ezekial pita with hummus and bell peppers, Mary’s Gone Crackers,  carrots, and an apple (can you tell we’re running low on groceries?):

I’ll be packing a snack today for sure!

Hope you’re having a great Thursday—is it really almost the weekend again already?  This week flew by for me!

See you tonight!

Sorry, Kermit.  But tonight, being green was easy and delicious!

Around 4:30, we hopped in the car and headed up to State College for our hot yoga class.  I know that you’re not supposed to eat before a hot yoga class, but I couldn’t help snacking on this bad boy on the ride over:

What’s a car ride without a fun snack?

Actually, truth be told, I’ve had better.  This bar was kind of dry, and had a fake icing across the top that I didn’t dig.  I love Nature’s Path cereal (I would marry their pumpkin flax granola…for real.), but this bar wasn’t doing it for me.

Our hot yoga class, on the other hand, was delicious!  Our instructor was really pushing us to the limits tonight.  He even had us attempt headstands, to which I said…ummmmmm, no. Sorry—not there yet (nor do I foresee myself being there at any point in the near (or distant) future).  But it was fun to watch from my “table pose,” haha.

After my orange lunch this afternoon, I was ready for a little green, so we headed over to Green Bowl after class—I was starving, despite having eaten that bar just a few hours earlier.  Something in hot yoga has been really bringing out the hungry beast in me, which is funny, because I feel like in Seattle, the classes that we took kind of killed my appetite for a few hours afterwards. 

Green Bowl was delicious as always:

My bowl contained (deeeeeep breath): broccoli, tofu, green beans, sugar snap peas, spinach, carrots, bok choy mushrooms, edamame, scallions, peanuts, pineapple, garlic, and ginger curry sauce, plus brown rice.

I think I more than made up for my lack of veggies at lunch!

I enjoyed my bowl with some nice orange tea:

And then, it was fortune cookie time.  At the end of yoga, our teacher asked us to set a goal or affirmation in our minds that we could work on for the week, and I thought about how I’d like to be more kind-hearted and less judgmental towards others (a bad habit that I have).  I can also be kind of *ahem* a gossip…I know, shocking, right?  And that’s something that I’d like to work on.  So all of this was going on in my mind, along with our teacher telling us to imagine a green burning light behind our heart that opened into an infinite field of nature (huh?).

Check out my fortune:

Touché, fortune cookie.  Touché.

After dinner, because eating my weight in stir fry was not enough, we stopped at our beloved Webster’s to pick up a small dessert treat. 

You know how there are people who only take a few bites of certain desserts and then push them away, saying that the dessert is too rich?

Yeah, I’m not one of those people.  The desserts that most people find “too rich” are the ones that I find myself wishing I could bathe in a vat of.

This “small dessert treat” was kind of like that.  It was SUPER gooey, rich, and delicious…almost to the point of making me sick.  And yet, I kept eating until it was gone.

Behold the Vegan Almond Chocolate Chip bar:

This is a serious example of how not all “Vegan” food is healthy…I’m sure this bar had the sugar equivalent of a pint of Ben & Jerry’s.  Oh well…it sure was delicious!

Well, that’s gonna do it over here, kids.  Um, Ella just jumped on our bed and left a delightful skid mark across our white sheets (AWESOME), so we’ll be dealing with that.  Fun times, fun times.

Hope your night is as thrilling as ours is turning out to be…but with less dog poop involved. 

Night, dear reader!

Hey y’all!  Happy Wednesday!

My morning was productive—I perused the blog world, wrote for a little over an hour, and then around 11, Ryan and I suited up in multiple layers to take the dogs out for a walk.  Our “warm” weather (and by warm, I mean 40 degrees) has disappeared and been replaced with typical January weather—twenties and windy.  Oh well—it was fun while it lasted!  It was bright and sunny this morning though, so we wanted to get out while we could.

We walked the dogs around all the hills in our neighborhood (and there are some STEEP ones!) for about 3.5 miles, and then headed home for some lunch.

All that blustery weather got me craving something warm and comforting, which meant…oats for lunch!

I had waffles for breakfast, so don’t worry—my meals aren’t that repetitive!

I contemplated making another bowl of savory oats, but was craving something warm and sweet, so I followed my cravings, making a big bowl of…

Sweet Potato Oats!

I peeled and chopped one sweet potato, placed it in a microwave-safe bowl with about an inch of water, and microwaved it for 4-5 minutes, stopping to stir every minute or so.  Once the potatoes were nice and soft…

…I got to work on the oatmeal, combining 1/2 a cup of oats with 1 cup of vanilla hemp milk for the ultimate in creaminess.  I microwaved my oats for about 2-3 minutes, until they were delicious and creamy:

I stirred in a teaspoon of Chia seeds (go Omega 3’s!), and topped the oats with the sweet potato, plus a drizzle of agave nectar and a big shake of cinnamon. 

Lunch never tasted so much like dessert!

Obviously this meal is lacking in greens, but we’re going to hot yoga/dinner in State College tonight, and I think we’ll probably hit up Green Bowl, so I’ll be able to make up for it then!

I should also probably note that I snacked on *a few* chips and hummus while I was cooking.  And I finished the meal with a ball—he looked so lonely in the refrigerator all by himself. 

And yes, if you’re thinking, “Wait, does that mean that Anna and Ryan single-handedly ate all those balls in just THREE days?!?”

Yes, friends.  Yes it does.

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: those are some DAMN good balls.

I had a few requests for the actual guacamole recipe from last night, so here you go!  Obviously you could alter it if you like a little more heat, less cilantro, etc.  I’m a cilantro freak, so mine is always full of the stuff!

Chunky Guacamole

1 avocado, pitted

1/3 cup red onion, minced

1/2 cup cilantro, chopped

1/2 tsp. garlic salt

juice of 1 lime

In a bowl, scrape the avocado from the skin with a large spoon and mash with a fork until desired consistency is reached.  Add remaining ingredients and stir until everything is incorporated.

Enjoy with chips and a margarita!

optional additions: minced garlic, chopped fresh tomato, salsa, minced jalapeno pepper, cayenne pepper, or black beans.

Yum!

Hope your Wednesday is going great! See you tonight!