CSA Bounty June 14, 2009

When we moved here last year one of the exciting things was that there was a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) farm nearby. Unfortunately last year they had already sold all there shares when we moved in March. This year I was determined to get a share. I signed up really early for my summer produce. The farm while not certified organic has signed a pledge to adhere to organic practices.

This weeks haul:

1 head of lettuce
2 pac choi
broccoli rabe
2 stalks green garlic
2 quarts of strawberries

The snap peas and shelling peas weren’t doing as well, so they were just for tasting. I picked a few and brought them home to share with hubby.

I don’t think I’ve tasted strawberries this good in a long time. I got to pick them myself and they are yummy. Strawberries are my all time favorite fruit. I look forward to them every year. I like them plain, though. I don’t like to make fancy desserts with them, I just want to eat them au natural.

I’ve been really excited to be a part of the CSA this year. Not only am I getting great “organic” produce, but I’m supporting a local farm as well.

You can find a local CSA here.

Coconut Lime Cranberry Granola Bars June 12, 2009

Have you seen Rachael’s contest over at Coconut & Lime. You can win a Vita-Mix Blender. I saw that and remembered my struggle this morning to blend my green monster. To enter you need to create a recipe with none other than coconut and lime. What could I make with coconut and lime?

Well one of my favorite larabars is Key Lime. And I really enjoyed the granola bars that I made earlier this week from Oh She Glows. Could I make a coconut and lime version?

Turns out I can.

C(oconut) L(ime) C(ranberry) Granola Bars

1.5 cups oats
¼ cup ground flax seed
¼ cup sesame seeds
¾ cup unsweetened coconut
¼ cup chopped raw almonds
¼ cup craisins
Zest of 1 lime
Juice of 1 lime
¾ cup brown rice syrup
½ tsp. vanilla extract
½ tsp. almond extract
2 T. natural cane sugar
¼ cup almond butter

Mix first six ingredients in a large bowl. Combine the remaining ingredients in a saucepan on the stove over medium heat consistently stiring. Heat to boiling, lower heat to low and continue stirring for 3-4 minutes, until mixture thickens slightly. Remove from heat and add to dry ingredients. Stir to combine. Press mixture into a baking dish (I used an 8×8 pan. Allow to cool. Cut into 16 bars.

The CLC granola bars are wicked good! You have to try them yourself. You might want to try pressing a few tablespoons of sweetened coconut on top for some extra coconut flavor.

Baingan Bharta June 9, 2009

Baingan Bharta is one of my favorite dishes at Indian restaurants. Unfortunately the Indian restaurant that we frequent doesn’t have it on the menu, they have an eggplant dish, but its not the same.

I found the recipe on Priyanka’s website, but I didn’t have all of the ingredients on hand. One of the ingredients that I often use in Indian cooking is curry paste.

It quickly gives me the flavor I’m looking for in one jar.

Baingan Bharta

2 eggplants
2 cloves of garlic, sliced into 4 slices each
1T. olive oil
2 cloves of garlic minced
1 onion, chopped
2T Curry Paste
1 cup baby bella mushrooms, sliced
1/2 cup frozen peas
1 cup tomato sauce

Preheat oven to 350.

Make four cuts in each eggplant. Insert a slice of garlic into each cut. Place on a broiling pan in the oven. Bake for 15 minutes. Turn on Broiler and rotate eggplants every 7 to 8 minutes until eggplant skin is paper thin (I have an electric oven and the skin didn’t really char, but the eggplants started to “deflate”).

Remove eggplant from oven and set aside to cool for 10 minutes.

Once cool enough to touch, peel skin from eggplant, and place eggplant in a bowl and mash with a spoon.

Heat olive oil in a large skillet on medium heat. Add onion and minced garlic. Cook approximately 5 minutes until onion is softened. Add curry paste and stir to coat onions and garlic. Cook additional 30 seconds. Add eggplant and mushrooms. Cook until mushrooms are almost soft. Add peas and tomato sauce. Cook until peas are warm. Serve over brown basmati rice.

Check out the following giveaways in the blog world:

Eating Bird Food is giving away Crofter’s Superfruit Spread.

Gluten Free Gidget is giving away a ton of stuff for her 100th post.

MONSTER!!! June 8, 2009

I tried my first green monster today. It looks sort of like a brown monster, I think due to the chocolate and the strawberries, but there is definitely a lot of spinach in this baby.

1c. Unsweetened Almond Breeze
4 frozen strawberries
3 frozen peach slices
1T. chia seeds
1T. chocolate brown rice protein powder
2 handfulls spinach
2 drops stevia

Lunch today was a more spinach. I bought a lot a BJ’s last week and its getting to the point where it needs to be used up. I added cucumber, red pepper goat cheese, and a Quorn cutlet. Topped it with some balsamic Vinegar…YUM!

Have you tried the Quorn cutlets? They are so good. I wouldn’t say that they really taste like chicken, but they can be substituted for chicken. The consistency really isn’t the same as chicken, which is fine by me, since I often don’t like the consistency of meat. Before today I was preparing them in the toaster oven, but summer is quickly approaching (not that you can really tell here in New England, I don’t even have my windows open, I like it hot!), so today I tried the microwave method, and while not quite as good as the toaster oven this is a good alternative for those hot days, or if you are in a hurry.

Despite not feeling good all weekend I finally got some energy yesturday, and I made granola bars. Ange over at OSG has done it again. The last time I made her recipe for raw chocolate chip cookies I was a little nearvous, but this time I jumped right in. I did tweak the recipe a little just to include some of my favorite flavors, but it was delish! Hubby looked at me with a very serious face and said “These are good!”.

Instead of using the hemp seeds, I substituted 1/4 cup of chopped uncrystallized candied ginger and 1/4 cup crasins. Next time I think I will cut back on the ginger and increase the crasins.

The bars are small, but they are so filling. Nice and chewy, just the way I like them.
For the original recipe click here.

I’m off to go to the gym for a cardio workout. I didn’t feel good all weekend, so I’m going to take it easy.

I think dinner tonight is salmon burgers, another spinach salad and a quinoa salad. I’m working on the recipe for the quinoa salad and as soon as I get it right I’ll share it with you.

What is your favorite granola bar ingredient?

Do you Kombucha? June 7, 2009

I finally tried Kombucha this weekend after seeing so much of it in the blog world. I picked the grape flavor to try. It was yummy!

Appearance: It took me a while to get past the floating glob. I eventually ended up pouring it into a separate glass to avoid drinking the glob.
Taste: Yum, it tasted like really good fizzy grape juice.
Cons: Price $$$ at $3.49 per bottle it is pricey; however each bottle contains two servings. I did manage to only drink about half the bottle the first day, saving the other half for the next day and it was still fizzy and good the second day.

So if your wallet can handle it I recommend trying Kombucha!

A Surprise in my mailbox May 11, 2009

A few weeks ago I submitted a recipe to Fat Fighter TV and I won a new cookbook The Most Decadent Diet Ever! by Devin Alexander. It arrived in the mail today.

Mailbox surprises are always so much fun. There are several recipes in here that I’m looking forward to trying!

For dinner tonight I had my leftover salad with 2 tablespoons of TJ’s goddess dressing. The salad had blue cheese, roasted chicken and avocado. The dressing was good, though I’m not sure it was the right choice to go with the blue cheese. I’m sure to try it again soon.

Instead of going to the gym to fit in my Summer Shape Up Challenge workout, I used the elliptical in the basement. It was a good workout, with alot of resistance. I stepped on the scale and my bodyfat percentage was down 2% from last week! I’m loving this program.

Weekend Blurr…. May 11, 2009

I don’t know about you but this weekend went by in a blurr. I’m not sure that I really did anything…other than some laundry.

I think the most exciting thing this weekend was on Friday when I made awesome Raw Chocolate Chip Cookies from Angela’s blog Oh she glows…. They were FANTASTIC! I was a little nervous as I’d never made a raw version of anything before, so I only made a half a batch. These were the perfect treat and perfect for a summertime dessert, when you don’t want to run the oven.

This week the husband is working second shift, so its a week of lonely nights for me. Luckily I have a couple of nights out planned this week, which should keep me going. I really hate second shift work, I think its actually the worst shift. I’m glad I’m not the one that has to adjust my sleep schedule for it. I’m absolutely a bear if I’m not in bed by midnight.

Today I got up and made a bowl of oatmeal, added a tablespoon each of raw almond butter and strawberry all fruit. It was good, but I don’t think I’ll make that combo again.

Lunch today was pizza. Everytime I ask my husband what he wants for dinner, he says pizza, so instead of ordering out I made pizza at home. I used pizza dough from Trader Joes and added pizza sauce, portabello mushrooms and 2 turkey sweet italian sausage links. I topped it with Krafts Italian cheese blend. It was very good, but I don’t think my stomach appreciated it. I’m not sure why.

I’m off do start week 2 of the Fitnessista’s Summer Shape Up challenge. So far I’ve really been enjoying it.

I think dinner tonight will be the rest of my salad from dinner last night, I had a HUGE Cobb salad and I could only finish half of it. So there’s dinner tonight. I’m looking forward to it.

Have a good night!

TGIF!! May 8, 2009

Yay….It’s Friday. I think Friday is my favorite day of the week. First I don’t have to work! And its the one day of the week that I get to do whatever I want. Saturday and Sunday I have to balance what the husband wants with what I want to do.

Yesterday I started off with a breakfast cookie, which I don’t have a picture of, and frankly it wasn’t too good. I forgot to add the banana, and I added too much stevia. Oh well, next time it will be better and I’ll remember to take a picture.

It was another dreary day here and the house didn’t really warm up though it was in the low 70s. So midway through the morning I made some decaf Hazelnut coffee with skim milk and stevia.

Lunch was so good! It seriously madeup for the lackluster breakfast. I think I had kind of gotten into a rut with my salads at lunchtime. I was consistently having spinach, red pepper, cucumber and avocado with the Light Lime Vinegrette, and loving it. But yesturday I remembered about the herbed goat cheese that I had in the fridge, so I had spinach, red pepper, cucumber and goat cheese. It hit the spot!

This afternoon I had a banana to tide me over until dinner time.

Thursday is my weigh in day at Weight Watchers and I lost 4.6 pounds this week! Wow that’s a lot. I know its not good to lose a lot of weight every week, but as this is just one week I’m not too worried.

I think the weight loss can be partly attributed to the great workouts I’ve been getting with the Fitnessista’s Summer Shape Up Challenge. Last nights workout was Legs and Cardio, and my legs are sore this morning. Hopefully in a little while the soreness will work itself out as I move around.

I’m not sure what’s in store for the rest of the day. I know hubby wants to go to the gym tonight, so I’ll call him this afternoon to make sure he still wants to go. I like going with him, but he doesn’t usually get home from work until about 7pm and that’s late for me to be going to the gym. Todays workout is 30 minutes of cardio.

In other news the following blogs have some great giveaways:

Life, love, violin is giving away some PB Loco and assorted bars.

and Healthy on the Run is giving away some great peanut butters, a chocolate bar and a few other bars.

Have a great Weekend!

Do you have any fun plans this weekend?

Black Bean Burger Recipe May 6, 2009

I woke up a little sore from my work-out yesturday, after I got moving I felt fine though.

I had my spinach and mushroom omelette with one egg and one egg white and a half ounce of 2% Mexican cheese. Yesturday when I was at the store I picked up some Strawberry All Fruit, so I had a tablespoon on my Ezekiel toast.

Later I had a cup of coffee with skim milk and stevia to warm me up. Though it did warm up outside to day, it takes awhile for the inside of the house to warm up.

For Lunch I had leftover beans from last night, and leftover rice from Monday and a big salad.

About an hour before I went to the gym I snacked on 5 strawberries. At the gym I did day 3 of the Fitnessistas Summer Shape Up. Today was intervals on the elliptical, I did pretty well though by the end I was getting tired and my sprints weren’t quite as fast.

I came home and made black bean burgers for dinner.

Black Bean Burgers

1/4 cup diced red onion
4 pickled jalepeno slices
1/4 cup frozen corn
1 sliced clove of garlic
1/3 cup cilantro
1 can black beans drained and rinsed
1 slice of bread
1 egg
1/2 tsp. cumin
1/2 tsp. chili powder

Saute the onion, jalapeno, red onion, garlic and corn until the onions are soft. Meanwhile process bread slice in the food processor to make fresh bread crumbs and transfer to a large bowl.

Put sauted vegetables in food processor and pulse a few times. Add cilantro and pulse a few more times. Add beans and pulse a few times, you want to have pieces of bean, don’t process so much that its a paste.

Place contents of food processor in the bowl with the bread crumbs and add the remaining ingredients and mix. Score the mixture to make 4 burgers, shape and place in a non stick pan preheated to medium heat. Cook 6 min each side.

I served mine on a tortilla with the taco sauce from last night (plain yogurt, lime juice and cumin) and avocado. I also had another salad with Light Lime Vinegrette.

Hubby also enjoyed the dinner.

Ok, maybe that picture is a little scary.

What did you have for dinner tonight?

Keeping up my Heart rate May 5, 2009

Hello All!

Today started with my usual spinach and mushroom omelette. However today I just had one egg and one egg white and I added a slice of dry ezekiel toast. It kept me full most of the morning.

Around 11 I was hungry but I desperately needed to go to the grocery store. I had just enough spinach left to make a salad.

At the grocery store I picked up a brown rice salmon and avocado roll. I finished it off with a Lemon Larabar.

This afternoon was chilly here with the dreary rainy weather, so I put a pot of coffee on and had that with skim milk and a few drops of stevia.

Then it was gym time. Todays work out comes from The Fitnessista and her Summer Shape Up Challenge which you can check out here. Today was day 2. What a great workout! The intervals between cardio and strength training really kept my heart rate up. I was only able to do three push-ups though. Hopefully by the end of this challenge I’ll be able to do a lot more.

For Cinco de Mayo dinner tonight I made soft chicken tacos. I made a spread of plain yogurt with lime juice and cumin. Plain yogurt is so versatile for making creamy sauces, its a great substitue for sour cream. Added some chicken, cilantro and spinach. Yum! I also made Garlicky Pinto beans the recipe can be found here.

How did you celebrate Cinco de Mayo?

Check out Danica’s Daily for a great Annies Mac and Cheese giveaway.