Embracing Autumn

If you’ve read some of my past posts, you know that I’m not a fan of summer ending. While I’m super excited to go back to school and see my friends again I’m not a fan of the cold weather or the endless supply of berries ending.

And creepy, creepy spiders. Yuck. Go away. Today I tried to embrace Autumn a bit.

Breakfast

I started off with a Washington Golden Delicious Apple

I microwaved a mix of 1/4 c. steel cut oats with water, flax, chia seeds, raisins and goji berries for 3 minutes. Then added cinnamon and half of the apple and microwaved for 2 minutes

I dumped the mixture into a nearly empty Peanut Butter jar for some good ‘ole Oats in a Jar

Yum. It kept me full for 4 hours while I ran errands.

Lunch

I’m not really a huge yam/squash/pumpkin-type girl so this lunch was a huge leap for me

I can embrace this new fall vegetables. I can do it!

Topped with Almond Butter. I saw this on Heather Eats Almond Butter. I never thought to top a yam with Almond Butter, Heather replied that I must, especially since its my namesake I did and it was delicious!

I also tried Spaghetti Squash for the first time! I stabbed a few holes in it with a fork and tossed it in the microwave for 5 minutes

Bubbles!

I managed to hack it open, scoop out the seeds then scrape some onto my plate. Added butter, salt and pepper. Not bad!

Okay Fall foods, you aren’t too shabby. Now if we could just do something about the weather and those dang spiders…

What is your favorite season for food?

Guilty

I am so guilty of so many guilty pleasures in the past 15 or so hours.

Dinner

My family and I enjoyed the last bits of the summer heat with a light, summer dinner outside

Insalata Caprese

Grilled Chicken Tender marinated in a soy-sauce mixture.

Fitnessista’s Chopped Greek Salad

Peas and Thank You’s Creamy Lemon Pasta, again

With beautiful Mount Rainier in the background and a deer that shared a bit of dinner with us.

I am so guilty of enjoying every minute of this.

Dessert

I’m not usually a huge dessert person, a piece of dark chocolate usually will do, but I just couldn’t resist the Fitnessista’s Easy Chocolate Mug Cake

It got a bit stuck on the bottom, so it’s a little rough, but it was absolutely divine.

Topped with some honey for extra moisture and sweetness. I have been craving this ever since!

Oh. so. guilty.

Breakfast

Guilty of topping overnight oats with a big blob of peanut butter, but leaving half of the peanut butter blob in the bowl cause I just wasn’t feeling it.

Also guilty of sneaking in some chocolate chips! 70% dark cocoa.

Chocolate for breakfast? Don’t mind if I do!

I’m nannying today, tomorrow then I’m done with getting up before the sun rises until school starts!!

How are you enjoying the guilty pleasures in life?

My New Friend

The window sill.

Just a heads up I’m super sorry about the blurry pictures. My camera battery was really low this morning, so I was charging it in between photographing different parts of my morning. It kept dying half way through the rushed shoots, so I tried taking pictures by the windowsill for the best light, but a lot of pictures still came out blurry.

Cake Decorating Class

Last night was weeks 2 & 3 of Course II of Wilton Cake Decorating Class. We had to double up classes because one of the girls is moving back to college at the end of August, so we are doing the course in 3 weeks instead of 4.

We made oodles of flowers last night.

Lots of lilies. Though my favorite one got deformed in transit.

Whoops.

Also made violets, apple blossoms, daffodils and primroses. I can not decide which one is my favorite! The lilies are absolutely stunning but the daffodils are also very cool.

The violet broke as soon as I moved it. Good thing it was only a practice one.

Breakfast

I chowed down on a peanut butter and banana stuffed pita while doing my juicer photo shoot

I absolutely love how easy this breakfast is to make. It takes about two seconds, and if need be, I can eat it on the road.

Juicer Review

Finally. My official review on the Koolatron Total Chef Juicin’ Power Juicer. Throughout the week I’ve been hinting at how much I love this new juicer. Well, finally I am going to proclaim my love:

I am in love with the Koolatron Total Chef Juicin’ Power Juicer. Best $85.99 I have ever spent.

It’s sexy and it knows it.

Cut up all the fruits and veggies. I even followed Jane’s advice and put 1/2 a lemon in it with the rind still intact. It added quite a bit of depth to the juice.

Just turn on the juicer, stick some fruits and veggies in, give them a gentle push and you’ve got juice!

The clean up is what makes this juicer absolutely amazing. It takes no longer than 3 minutes. Simply undo the 5 parts of the machine, dump waste into the garbage and spray with a bit of soap and water. It comes of so easily.

You can also put it in the dishwasher, but hand washing them has a faster turn around time

Pro’s

• Easy, 3 minute clean up
• Very smooth, nothing gets stuck
• Will pay for itself very soon since I’m not spending $6 for a juice anymore
• Look’s very sleek

Con’s

• My fruits and veggies bill just went up

Yay juice!

What are your thoughts on a juicer?

and

Which flower is your favorite?

Battle of the (Nut) Butters

Battle of the Butters sounds much better than Battle of the Nut Butters but what can you do? It’s not like I had butter fighting a tough battle for my heart this morning. Nope, that honor goes to the Nut Butters. Specifically sunflower seed, almond and peanut butter.

Which nut butter is the best on toast with honey?

Let’s meet the contenders:

On the right side of the toast we have almond butter

On the left side we have sunflower seed butter

and stuck in the middle (sorry peanut butter) we have peanut butter

The winner?

…

….

…

Almond Butter! The perfect mix of bitter and sweet.

Sunflower Seed was in second, with peanut butter (sorry again, PB!) in last. It was far too sweet for my liking!

Accompanied by a green tea frappachino with MATCHA! The real good green tea. It cost me $40 for a small packet (or relatively small) of it, but hopefully it will be worth it.

In the energizing frappachino of heaven:

Who knows how much amounts of,

• matcha (about a teaspoon)
• coconut milk
• coconut milk creamer
• spinach (about two handfuls)
• ice

I feel like I got so much done today

I was at my internship for 6 1/2 hours, picked up my new (altered!) jeans from Nordstrom (and emptied $60 of my wallet at Sephora…ahem, there might be an addiction starting), got my car washed, bought produce from the produce stand, picked up my paycheck, made a killer summer mix on iTunes starting off with Waka Waka from Shakira, recorded my internship hours and gave myself a mani and pedi. I’m hoping to walk the neighborhood with my mom, but she’s still on her conference call 2 hours later…

We will see what happens.

I promise I’ll eat something different tomorrow. I bought Marbled Rye bread from the produce stand, but I’m trying to resist it

Have you ever tried matcha?

Eater Repeater

Folks, I am an Eater Repeater…or would it be Repeater Eater? Any which way you say it, I’m it. I ate the same things for breakfast and lunch yesterday as I did today.

Breakfast

I’m tempted to call the banana-split oats Oats in a Boat. The bananas cradles the oats and carries over a river of Coconut Milk Creamer. I did change it up a bit and drizzle with aforementioned Coconut Milk Creamer and topped with raspberries instead of PB this time.

Lunch

After reading, running, and more reading I went with another Everything But the Kitchen Sink Salad

It had the same everythings mixed in

I also included a piece of toast with TJ’s Valencia Peanut Butter and Raspberry Fruit spread on the side.

Ahhhh so delicious!

Off to do some more reading!

Are you an eater repeater? What is your biggest offense?

VOO

Morning bloggies!

The weatherman did not keep his promise. He promised me sun. I wake up this morning at 6AM for no reason than there were screaching ducks outside my window. I look outside and there’s clouds that are threatening to rain. There goes my walk with the puppy and yoga on the porch. Sigh.

Breakfast

I didn’t have any internships or have to nanny so I had all of the time in the world for breakfast. I kind of used all of that time too to make Oh She Glow’s Vegan Overnight Oats.

I attempted a banana and peanut butter softserve by putting a frozen banana and 1 T banana in the food processor. The food processor decided to throw a fit so this is as far as I got with it:

So I scooped it out and put my arm on “whip” mode and came out with this:

Much better.

I layered with Overnight Oats that I put in the fridge last night and organic rice puffs with carob chips on top.

Oh yeah.

I loved this mix, but it took me a whole bunch of time. I usually only have about 15 minutes for breakfast in the morning to make it and eat it, so I would really have to hustle if I wanted to make this most morning.

Grant and I are off to the cabin for another weekend! Hopefully the clouds will clear up!

Have you ever made Oh She Glow’s VOO?

Umm Basset Hounds?

Hey bloggies! I had my internship with the project manager today (I have two of them, one with a project manager and another with an architect. I have a weird schedule as to which I go to for the particular day, but it will be fun).

Breakfast

For days with the project manager I have more time in the morning so I did a mix of PB and puffed cereal which didn’t turn out too well this time…

The peanut butter didn’t mix as well with the puffed cereal this time even though I stirred it for 5 minutes. I finally got frusterated, added some strawberries (and accidently grabbed a raspberry too) and threw it on top.

I served it with some fruit

raspberries, midnight grapes, 1/2 a naner and a plum

I knew this wasn’t going to satisfy me, so right before I left I made a homemade frappachino.

This also didn’t quite turn out cause:

1. I put too much ice, so I had to water it down with almond milk so that the blender would actually blend
2. My chocolate protein mix is actually green. Which REALLY freaks me out.

It was pretty tasteless and freaked me out, so I only drank 1/4 of it.

Lunch

I had a super late lunch, but I filled up with a veggie-loaded sandwich.

spinach, tomato, red bell pepper, cucumber, goat cheese, sweet onion mustard

This actually did turn out well, I’m just going to have to go eat something else to sustain myself.

Basset Hounds

So for those who are on wordpress, we have a chart to show us what people have searched for in order to get to my page. Ever since I posted Basset Hounds are like Curry, my feed has been looking like this:

Kind of creepy, eh? My favorite by far has to be “pitchers of basset hounds.” I’m hoping that an 8 year old kid searched for that one!

Any weird searches pop up on your feed every now and then?

Snack Attack

Thank you all for your comments on my cookie situation.

Thanks to your responses, and my inital thought, these are now sitting on the kitchen countertop and became the victims of my snack attack that happened later in the day.

More on the snack attack later though.

Breakfast

I started off this day wanting to be productive. Over the weekend I read Gracie’s post on 10 Ways: Be Productive and instantly got the craving to finish my unpacking and do a lot of the tasks I had been dreading.

I limited my morning blog reading to 20 minutes so that I wouldn’t get sucked into blog world and more efficient unpacking could commence. After reading Gracie’s post one more time for inspiration I got rid of all the boxes, clear plastic containers and bins that were sitting in my room waiting to be stored or unpacked.

Afterwards, I treated myself to a fabulous breakfast.

Sarena’s PB cereal

I used 1/2 millet cereal and 1/2 Kashi Honey Puffs cereal. Mixed with Justin’s Organic Peanut Butter, 1/3 of an apple and (I hate to say this) Mrs. Butterworth’s maple syrup. I thought that I had brought my real maple syrup with me from college, but apparently I threw it out. I bought some real stuff today at TJ’s though so I won’t be caught with out my real stuff again.

The cereal was delicious! It tasted like granola, but creamier! Definitely making this again.

Thanks for the great recipe Sarena!

Snack

We’re not to my snack attack yet. My mid-morning snack was supposed to be a wonderful green monster creation.

I threw in some frozen cranberries, Vega Infusion, matcha green tea and spinach. I took two sips of it and couldn’t bare the taste. It ended up being thrown out.

Sad day. Instead I munched on some unpictured grapes and crackers dipped into hummus.

Grocery Shopping

For my next task at my productive day, I got to go grocery shopping.

I was supposed to go to three different grocery store, but after going to Walgreen, Michael’s and Barnes ‘n Nobel first I was pretty tired by the end and ended up going to our local healthy grocery store and Trader Joes and just bought the produce at TJ’s.

Some of my more interesting grocery store finds were:

Quinoa Macaroon Cookies, Snapea Crisps, Coconut butter and three bars I’m excited to try

A Lemon Larabar, Chocolate Peppermint Luna Bar and a Go Free Carrot Cake Bar.

I have tried both luna and larabar’s before just not these flavors, and I’m excited to see what these Go Free bars are all about.

I also picked up a huge bag of Chia seeds

Chia seeds are always in such small containers. Definitely not meant for Michelle-buying purposes. I almost emptied the entire jar of chia seeds.

Lunch

Right after grocery shopping I was ravenous. Okay, so I was ravenous while grocery shopping. Obviously my snack didn’t quite hold me.

I made another Veggie Volcano

However this was a controlled veggie volcano. Last time I cut up wayy too many vegetables, made a heaping amount of quinoa and laid on the peanut sauce like it was nobody’s business.

This time I cut the veggies in half, I gave a nice, light base of quinoa and (more or less) portioned out only 2 T of the peanut sauce.

I had enough room in my tummy to try out one of my new grocery store finds, the quinoa macaroon cookie

If you ever have coconut cravings, this baby will fill them and then some. It was delicious and  a possible contender for an oatmeal topper in the future

The Big Snack Attack

This snack attack was so quick that the entire thing went without photos. I first scooped some organic chocolate cake into some Fage greek yogurt and a couple of strawberries. I was satisfied with the snack however the Mexican Wedding Cookies were looming on the kitchen counter. Somehow I ended up with two in my stomach. Don’t know how that happened. One second I was looking at them, the next second I had powdered sugar all over my mouth.

But such is life.

Dinner

The Snack Attack messed up my dinner schedule. I’m usually hungry at 5:30 or 6, however I was still full when my mom said that we should start serving ourselves left overs for dinner. We weren’t eating together tonight, so I passed until I finally gave in at 7:30 when I figured that I should probably eat sometime.

Leftover madness

Sundried tomato pasta (all the sundried tomatoes are hiding)

Baked Beans held in by mashed potatoes

My classic Summer salad–strawberries, blueberries and walnuts on herbed spring mix

I wasn’t very hungry, but it sure tasted good

Whew! It was quite a day. My room is almost completely clean, my bathroom is organized, the Best Guy Friend’s belated birthday present is wrapped and ready (all parts besides the cookies of course) and my my shelf of the pantry is stocked.

No really, it’s overflowing.

Maybe I should go organize that!

Erm, or maybe I’ll leave that for tomorrow…or the next day

Do you love or hate leftovers? I’m a lover <3

Quinoa, Parsnips and a Book Review

How is everyone’s weekend going?

Last night I finished Change Your Brain, Change Your Body by Daniel G. Amen. Overall it was a great read for someone just transferring into living a healthy lifestyle. The author emphasizes eating lots of fruits and veggies and exercising. I would absolutely love to give this book to my overweight dad to push him to adapt a healthier lifestyle.

However, one of the negatives of this book was that it felt like I should be a hypochondriac. A lot of the chapters went over lots of different disorders and I felt that I have about half of these I took the test at the end which told me that I might have bipolar disorder because I sometimes have mood swings (um, because I am a girl and have a period thank-you-very-much) as well as a few other disorders.

I personally found this book slightly repetitive since I already know that living a healthy lifestyle is great for you in the long run. It wasn’t my favorite book, but it was in interesting read with some great facts such as the reason women have softer skin is because of our high levels of estrogen.

I’m excited to start a new book:

In Defense of Food by Michael Pollan, a health food bloggers staple. I’m excited to start reading it tonight!

Lunch

Before heading to a track meet I pretty much screwed up my lunch.

I had a beautiful wrap planned since I need to use up the brown rice I have in the fridge, but instead I killed it by eating 1/4 of a loaf of banana bread. I actually feel ashamed with myself. I just cut off a piece, then another, then another, and then there was only a wee bit left. And thankfully I left it on the plate, but I still feel awful.

I also had a berry smoothie

In the smoothie

• 1/4 c. blueberry kefir
• 1/2 c. very cherry frozen berry blend
• 1/2 c. almond milk
• 2 handfuls of spinach
• 1 T flaxseed meal

It was a relatively good smoothie, but I hate the little seeds that are in the berry blends! They just really annoy me

I wasn’t feeling super hot about such an overall awful lunch. I’d much prefer to have a homemade pita pizza or a wrap instead a ton of banana bread and an ok smoothie.

Snack

I got pretty hungry after the track meet and going into studio for a bit and I ended up having two snacks. An unpictured cup of brown rice and then half of a banana with sunflower seed butter

The second snack finally filled me up enough for a good hour nap.

Dinner

I have been pretty adventurous since starting the blog and just couldn’t help but cook Krista’s Coconut Quinoa and Oh She Glow’s Nut Butter Parsnip Fries.

Both recipes were absolutely mind-blowing! I have never liked quinoa until this recipe!!! I absolutely can not wait for left overs tomorrow.

I hope everyone has a great Saturday night. I think I’m going to have a nice night in.

What is your favorite quinoa recipe?