Newlywed, Newly Veg!

Holy moly! This is the view from our breakfast room:

The snow has been falling steadily all morning, and shows no sign of stopping.  We had hoped to go snowshoeing at some point, but the wind gusts are insane—it’s a blizzard out there!  Some of the gusts are apparently upwards of 40 mph!  It’s actually hard to tell how much of the snow is new, and how much is just old snow being blown around by the crazy winds!  So, yeah, we’re staying INSIDE!

But, on the plus side, we’re both getting a lot of work done! This morning, after a leisure blog reading breakfast, I wrote for about an hour and a half.  Then, inspired by the new O magazine, which centers around getting organized, I cleaned out my closet and got together a big bag of things to take to goodwill—I am so bad about keeping things I never wear!  I have clothes from HIGH SCHOOL in my closet still—I think it’s time to let them go! 

After my closet cleaning bonanza, I got a workout in—four miles on the treadmill, plus two of the 10 minute segments from my 10 Minute Solutions Abs DVD.  It was a good workout!

Around 1:00, Ryan and I headed downstairs to make some lunch.  I’ve had this box of Fantastic World Foods vegetarian “Nature burger (lol)” veggie burger mix forever, so we decided to finally give it a go:

The ingredients list is non-scary:

Brown rice, dehydrated vegetables (yellow peas, green peas, onions, potatoes, garlic, tomatoes, celery, carrots, red bell peppers), barley, organic bulgar wheat, whole oats, sesame seeds, textured soy flour, wheat gluten, wheat flakes, soy sauce powder (wheat, soybeans, salt), yeast, expeller pressed canola oil, yeast extract, sea salt, spices.

And the directions couldn’t be easier: mix 3/4 cup of the mix with 3/4 cup of boiling water.  To spice things up, I also added some dried spices (rosemary, dill, oregano), some fresh basil, and some minced carrot and red bell pepper:

You just mix it all together, and let it sit!  We let it stand for 15 minutes, at which point it was supposed to thicken up…ours was still a little liquidy after 15 minutes, so I added about a tablespoon more of the mix, which thickened it right up:

Although the mix was still a little wet, I scooped out 1/4 cup of it, plopped it on a plate in a “patty” shape, and put it in the microwave for a minute and a half.  When I pulled it out of the microwave, it had solidified quite nicely! 

Veggie Patty Nature Burger:

Veggie Burger:

Veggie Burger with apple:

I like the taste of this burger! It kind of reminds me of the sunshine burgers, actually, with a little more chew and crunch—a little more texture, I guess.  Half of the package made three big burgers, so it’s a pretty good deal too—you could easily get 6-8 burgers out of the box, if you made the burgers a little smaller. 

Yum! I also snacked on some Somersaults while I waited for the mix to thicken up.

I was going to put ketchup on my burger, but…I’m trying for a grand total of ZERO added sugar grams today, so I abstained! I’m still at zero so far…do you think I can do it?!?

Well, I guess there’s nothing to do but…more work! I have some online grading that I need to do, so I suppose I should get started.  Bleh!

I can’t believe we didn’t stock up on wine before the storm—what were we thinking?!?  Maybe we can send Ella out to get some…she’s always been a big fan of the snow:

See you for dinner!

No, not that kind of dirty!  Geez.

This kind of dirty:

Tonight, we took a stab at creating some vegetarian dirty rice…the result was less “dirty rice” and more “hamburger helper,” but all in all, it was actually a delicious dish.  I would have added some canned tomatoes if we’d had some, but alas, we were out (how is that possible?!? I feel like our pantry gives BIRTH to cans of tomatoes when we aren’t looking!). 

Dirty-esque Rice

Ingredients

1 tbsp. olive oil

1/2 onion, chopped

2-3 garlic cloves, minced

1 cup soy “sausage”…we used the Light Life brand that comes in a tube (just like Jimmy Dean!), and used about half the package

salt and pepper, to taste

1/2 cup brown rice

2 cups vegetable broth, divided

Directions

In a saucepan, heat olive oil.  Add onions and garlic and cook for about 10 minutes, until they have started to brown.  Add the sausage and cook for another 5 minutes.  Season with salt and pepper.  Add 1/2 cup of vegetable broth and deglaze the pan, scraping up any bits that might have gotten stuck to the bottom.  Add the rest of the broth (at this point, you could also add a can of diced tomatoes).  Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer for 35-45 minutes, until the rice is cooked through and most of the liquid has been absorbed.

Yummy!  Again, it had more liquid than typical dirty rice, and it didn’t have any of the heat…it was almost a cross between dirty rice and risotto. 

We served ours with a nice side salad, and used bright napkins and dinnerware to make up for our not so bright weather:

Yum!

This afternoon, I snacked on a 2% Fage (love it!) as I graded, and I also had one of my last Somersault mini packs that I won wayyyyy back at Christmas on Fitness and Spice.  I’ll be sad to see the end of these Somersaults—they’re really tasty!

While I was down in Shreveport, Ryan was working on a little blog project of his own! He took pictures of some of his eats from when I was away…some people will do ANYTHING to get on the blog!

Actually, I’m always really interested in seeing what he eats when we don’t eat together.  A part of me always wonders if he eats healthy just because I do, and I often wonder what he might eat for dinner if he didn’t have me slaving away in the kitchen every night (kidding…kind of). 

Well, it turns out that all this healthy eating has really rubbed off on him!  Here are some of the highlights from the meals he enjoyed while I was away:

Salmon, salad, and brown rice pilaf:

Veggie tacos with black beans:

Grilled pork with veggies:

Of course, there were A LOT of cookies that went unphotographed!

But still, I was proud of him! He took good care of himself while I was away.  I think he’s happy to have me back though.

Ryan also took some pictures of the CRAZY snow we got while I was away.  Check out our house:

Cool snow swoop:

And crazy icicles:

Wild!

The snow is supposed to continue through tomorrow, so I think we’re going to give our new snowshoes a whirl!! I’m really excited to try them out—I’ve only snowshoed one other time in my life, but I really liked it!

Night, kids! Stay warm, wherever you are!