Newlywed, Newly Veg!

Hey guys! How’s your Monday going?  Do you have a case of the Mondays? 

Mine has been good.  Ryan and I slept LATE this morning—8:30.  I swigged some cough syrup before bed last night (I really do have a cough; I don’t just drink cough syrup as a night cap.  Usually.), and I guess it really knocked me out!  But, I woke up feeling like a million bucks, so I guess it helped!

Ryan left to go to his physical therapist (he’s been having a lot of back trouble), and I got to work on my syllabi for my Freshman English class.  I’m actually excited to get back into the classroom—I shook things up a little with our reading material for this semester, so it should be interesting (as interesting as a Freshman English class can be, that is.).  After I did my syllabus work, I messed around online for a while, reading blogs, etc. 

Finally, around noon, I hopped on our home treadmill for a little workout.  I’m actually SUPER sore in my arms from our gym trip yesterday…which is a good thing, right? Today, I stuck to just cardio: 40 minutes of jogging on the t-mill (with a few walking breaks in between). 

Right as my workout was wrapping up, Ryan came home and we headed downstairs for some lunch.  During my time on the treadmill, I was cooking up lunch ideas in my head!  I ended up going with…a curried sweet potato sammie!

Mmmm…this was a brilliant sandwich idea, if I do say so myself.

I nuked the other half of my sweet potato from Sunday’s lunch in the microwave with a few tablespoons of water.  After about 3 minutes I stirred them up and popped ‘em back in for another two.

Once they were soft, I drained them, put them back in the bowl, and tossed them with a table spoon of Nasoya dijon Nayonaise, a hearty shake of yellow curry, and about a tbsp. of golden raisins.

Cooking Pics:

I plopped all of it onto a toasted Ezekial bun with some baby spinach.  Apple slices on the side.

My one complaint?  This puppy was messy!  It could not, would not be contained to the bun.  But, as with most messy foods, it was GOOD!

Plated (you can’t really see the plate, but it’s another really cute one that my sis gave me…I’ll get a picture of it in a future post!):

And enjoyed by the beautiful lilies that my sweet hub brought home for m as a surprise:

Delightful lunch!  And filling, too!

I think this afternoon holds excitement for us…we’re discussing venturing over to the mall to get…new phones!!! We HATE the phones we have now, and I had a little too much fun playing with my sister’s i-phone over Christmas.  Could there be an i-phone in my future?  We shall see…

Hope you’re having a great day! See you for dinner and…

THE BACHELOR!!!!! YESSSSSSSS!

Evening, friends!  Hope your Sunday has been a relaxing one!

We ran some errands this afternoon, as planned.  Hit up Bed, Bath & Beyond and found a throw pillow for our bed…our bedroom is one of the last rooms in the house to come together, decor-wise, but it’s getting there…slowly but surely!

We also went to Home Depot to look at chandeliers.  I HATE the chandelier in our dining room—it hangs really low, and it’s crooked! It hangs at a weird angle.  Plus, it gives off NO light, so our dining room is super dark by 5:00 in the afternoon. 

I liked a few of the ones at Home Depot…but I feel like a lot of them are either too ornate for our house (lots of crystal and swirling wrought-iron), or too modern and bare (lots of chrome and exposed bulbs).  I just want a simple, happy medium.  Any thoughts on other places to look for good chandeliers? 

Anyway…after we got home, we just kind of piddled the afternoon away.  I mopped (again) with some new Mr. Clean Febreeze cleaner that I picked up at Home Depot.  I feel like our house is always a lot cleaner in winter, because A. I have more time to clean because I spend much less time outside, and B. Because we’re indoors so much, it drives me CRAZY if the house is a mess.  So I guess that’s one good thing that winter has going for it.

Winter also makes me want to cook big, warm, comforting suppers…so that’s exactly what we did!

Garlicky White Bean Ragout Over Portabellas for Two

Ingredients:

2 portabella mushrooms, stem removed and wiped clean with a damp cloth

1 tbsp. olive oil

2 cloves garlic, minced

1/3 onion, chopped

1/3 red bell pepper, chopped

1 15. oz. can white beans (Great Northern beans), drained and rinsed

1 tbsp. fresh sage, chopped

1-2 cups of vegetable broth

1 cup fresh spinach

salt and pepper to taste

3-4 tbsp. pesto (we used store bought, so it was already prepared, but feel free to go all Martha Stewart and make your own)

Directions:

Lightly spray mushrooms with cooking spray and season with salt and pepper.  On a hot grill pan (or in a skillet), grill mushrooms until they are cooked through, about 15 minutes.

While mushrooms are cooking, in a saucepan, heat olive oil.  Add garlic and onions and cook for about 5 minutes, until they’ve begun to soften.  Add bell pepper and cook for another 5 minutes or so.  Add white beans, fresh sage, and about a 1/2 cup of vegetable broth to deglaze the pan.  Continue stirring until the broth has cooked down and beans have begun to break apart slightly, turning into a sauce.  Add another 1/2 cup of broth and continue to cook down for another 5 minutes.  Again, wait until the broth has cooked all the way down.  Add spinach and stir.  Add another 1/2 cup to cup of broth, reduce heat, and cover, cooking for another 10 minutes until the spinach has wilted and the broth has cooked down.

Season the ragout generously with salt and pepper.  Serve the ragout atop the portabellas, along with a tablespoon or so of pesto.  Enjoy!

Cooking pics (sorry, these pics are sort of blurry—the pan was giving off a lot of steam/smoke tonight!):

Our pesto (don’t worry, I checked—it was vegan!):

Plated up nicely in our breakfast room…but enjoyed in front of the TV!

You can see the steam rising off the plate!

Saucy:

Check out the embroidered linen napkin—they were a Christmas present from my mom!  Love the “W”…I love anything monogrammed!  I think it adds such a nice touch to things like linens and towels!

Hope you had a great Sunday night.  I think we’re about to listen to a podcast (we love to listen to Fresh Air and This American Life…and now The Compassionate Cook!).  Ryan has also been forced into generously agreed to give me a back rub.

Tomorrow is Monday, which should mean that we’re going back to work (school starts at the university tomorrow).  BUT…Ryan and I both have Tuesday/Thursday teaching schedules for this semester!!!  Woot, woot!!  I hope we don’t get sick of each other—last semester, our schedules were alternating—I taught on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and he taught on Mondays, Wednesday, and Fridays.  We might have to designate some “alone time” every now and then, or we might end up like the couple from The Shining.    

Even though I don’t have to teach until Tuesday, I have a lot of work that I need to do before my classes start, so tomorrow should be work-filled and busy. 

Hope you had a great weekend!