Another One for the Box!

This week I did not exercise any more, but I DID find an awesome recipe that everyone loves! You win some, you lose some...

So, I found this recipe on Ready, Set, Eat! It's called Spinach Walnut Penne, and it was a hit! First, let me tell you a little about Ready, Set, Eat. This is a meal planning website which will allow you to search recipes based on a main ingredient (or meatless), how much time you have, and even what's on sale in your local grocery store. I signed up for a weekly email that I kind of forgot all about.

Monday morning, as I was weeding through the enormous amounts of email that seem to come to my inbox in the middle of the night, I was going "WHAT AM I GOING TO COOK TONIGHT?!?!" (I totally just typed that while holding down the shift key...who needs caps lock?) There it was, email number 6,752....Ready, Set, Eat "4 Delicious Vegetarian dinners" I heard "Hallelujah Chorus". I read the email and decided that Spinach Walnut Penne sounded super tasty. I was really excited about it actually.

I had everything in the house except for spinach and walnuts....off to the store it is. This meal took all of maybe 30 minutes to prepare. That made me happy. It tasted great. That made me AND everyone else happy. The only critique we had was that my husband didn't care for the crunchiness of the walnuts mixed in with everything else. Maybe if I had followed instructions and chopped the walnuts it wouldn't have been so noticeable. Oops. Maybe next time, because there will be a next time for this dish. Soon.

My (Almost) Vegetarian Day

Monday, I tried to come up with something meat free for me to eat for every meal. I'm borrowing my mom's juicer so I can try it out and decide if it's something I will buy for myself. So far, I love it. Monday morning I made myself fresh carrot/apple juice. It was so good and I didn't add anything to it! The glass of juice itself was enough to fill me up so I didn't have anything else for breakfast. The children do not like carrot/apple juice. We don't usually buy juice so it's always a treat for them to have, but they would not take more than one sip of this juice. I'm eager to try just plain apple juice and see if they like it any better.

For lunch I made myself one of my new favorite things: a Greek yogurt smoothie. I love these! It's very simple. I put a banana, a six oz. container of flavored Greek yogurt, a few berries (if I have them) and enough vanilla almond milk to reach the 16 oz. mark on the blender pitcher (I know, my precise measurement thrills you). I blend it all up and yum!

For dinner (Meatless Monday mind you) I decided to do a baked potato bar. My husband said he would love to have the potato bar again on a day he's carb loading before a long run. He loves baked potatoes, and so does my oldest. They were very happy to see potatoes. I baked giant russet baking potatoes, and giant sweet potatoes. It's actually very simple to do. Move the oven racks to the top and bottom thirds of the oven. Put aluminum foil on the bottom rack. Preheat the oven to 375° Scrub the potatoes, poke about 8 - 12 deep holes with a fork, coat them lightly with oil, sprinkle with salt. Bake the potatoes on the top rack for at least an hour. Mine took an hour and half because I was cooking so many. Check for doneness by poking them with a fork. We had butter, sour cream, green onions, cheese and.....bacon. There's the 'almost' in my vegetarian day. I put crumbled bacon on my baked potato.

This day was one of my better food days in a long time. I had tons of fruits and veggies and natural sources of all sorts of vitamins and minerals. I felt so good too. Not bloated and "ugh I ate too much, but it's meal time so I'm going to eat again..." When it got close to meal time, my stomach growled, and so I ate enough to be satisfied. The only time my stomach ever growls is halfway through church on Sunday because I never eat anything Sunday morning then I over eat at lunch to make up for the not eating. If I could have more days like Monday I'd be a happy camper. Oh, and I walked on the treadmill for a mile. I had to stop after a mile because my left knee was not happy...it hasn't been happy for a while now...but I actually exercised. Tuesday and Wednesday haven't been nearly as healthy, but not bad either. Am I starting to turn it around? Maybe. As much as I hate to think of it, I should probably step on a scale sometime soon....

Momma hides spinach....and they don't care!

This week we had a pretty good Meatless Monday. I made a recipe that I pulled out of a magazine ages ago. Spinach Mac and Cheese. I was a little nervous since the spinach is very visible. Will my kids eat it? And the answer is....YES! And they didn't even ask me, "what's this green stuff?" They just heard the words "mac and cheese". They were committed. Dad and I thought the recipe lacked something. Maybe it would be better with my usual cheese sauce. So I modified the recipe I posted in Spinach Mac and Cheese to reflect changes I would make next time. I'd love to hear your opinions about this recipe!

I haven't made very good choices this week. I don't feel well, and it shows in my eating. I just want to curl up and eat ice cream because my throat hurts and my ears hurt...Actually, I had ice cream for breakfast this morning. Sigh. Will I ever break loose of these bad habits?  Well I can try one day at a time, one meal at a time. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have laundry to do...