Butternut Squash Season!

Hey everyone! Well it has been a pretty same ole same ole sort of week. I am still waiting to hear back from the substitute office so I can get started with subbing. I called today twice...I talking to someone who said they were going to input me into the system...then I called back and left a voice mail, because I didn't hear back from them. Maybe it just takes awhile to get on the sub database...I have no idea.

Justin and I went hiking/walking every day of last weekend, since it was a long one and he had Monday off! Saturday was the Botanic Gardens, Sunday was The Core Aboredum, and Monday was Cooper's Rock State Forrest, we hiked several different trails. It was great.

I have been looking around for workout classes in the area and I found a great yoga studio called BlissBlissBliss. I think I am going to check it out and maybe sign up for some classes. I have also looked into some Zumba classes in the area, they are not too far away and I have a flyer for a complimentary class! So I will definitely go!

I have been enjoying some of the yummy foods that we bought at the farmer's market. I did however forget to photograph everything. Yesterday I made a really good sauteed kale recipe, and tonight I made Garlicky Baked Butternut Squash! It turned out amazing! and this was yet another vegtable that my husband "said" he has never had before. And he loved it too. I have always had butternut squash steamed and I really liked it that way when I was little but now I love baking it. It is a little bit more work because you have to peel the squash and the chop it in to small pieces, but this recipe is so worth it and you can find it here: All Recipes: Garlicky Butternut Squash.
The only thing I did not have is the parsley so I added a bit of dried rosemary instead, which was a great choice! I probably prefer it over the parsley.

I will definitely be making this again and soon!

That is Israeli Couscous blend from TJ's with..yes, it is a hot dog, sometimes you just get the craving for a hot dog. Not to mention it was the only dinner meat we had in the house...:)

Here is breakfast and lunch!

Hot Pumpkin Oatmeal

with chia, a few chocolate chips, coconut, and toasted walnuts, and of course pumpkin spice!

Farmer's Market Olive Rosemary Bread, which is addictive I think with Farmstead spreadable cheese. And a Pomegranate Kiwi Salad!

And that was not enough for lunch so later I had some vanilla yogurt with TJ's Fig Butter (YUM and new fave) and more Pomegranate seeds!

This weekend we are headed to PSU for the PSU vs. Perdue game! Excited to share good times, good food, and good drinks with friends! I will have lots of pictures to share! Better go charge my camera batteries.

Damages

So...someone hit my parked car in our parking lot. At least they came up to tell me. And their insurance is going to cover the damage. Which is good. My poor car can't handle anymore damage. :(
I have been so terrible about posting everyday, but I guess when I start working I won't have the time to post everyday anyway. I guess I will see.
So that is the new and not so exciting news. I am just glad that I was nobody was hurt or in the car at the time. I am pretty sure I would have been really mad if I was in the car and someone hit my car backing out of a parking spot....seriously that is pretty bad driving skills.

Anyway here is a bit more of what I have been doing/eating this week! :)

Monday night I got the craving for homemade mac n cheese so I said I am going to make some!!
I didn't really have all the ingredients for some of the recipes that I saw online but I figured I would just try my own. And truth be told it turned out pretty good, but not the greatest. I am still in search of the greatest homemade mac n cheese recipe...I guess next time I will actually follow a recipe...might help. Mine didn't make it to the hall of fame, but it was "OK" as Justin usually says about everything that he likes.

 I used:

One whole box of Shells pasta
Margarine
2 tbsp mustard (next time I am going to get powdered mustard)
2 tbsp flour (this is what I think might have killed the flavor a bit...I think it was just too much flour, but I don't know..)
1 8 oz bag of mixed cheddar cheeses (next time I am going to just do all sharp cheddar.)
S&P
Italian Bread crumbs and shredded parm on top

Truly though, that was what I used but I wouldn't recommend it as the best mac n cheese but who knows...you might think it is tha bomb!

Served with Italian breaded chicken and fresh green beans!

Breakfast one morning this week...

Tea and Water always in the morning!

My oatmeal recipe which I need to do a series of pictures on how i make it. I make a big batch and eat throughout the week.

my attempt making pumpkin yogurt it was a honey flavored chobani with canned pumpkin and spices but it was too much pumpkin ratio to yogurt and it needed a bit more sweetener or something! My homemade spiced nuts, and pumpkin spice marshmallows made it OK.

I love Pomegranates!! And this is the first time I have opened one myself I watched several different videos on YouTube on how to de-seed a pomegranate without making a mess. :) And guess what! I didn't make a mess!!

 I already started breaking this one apart but...first you cut off the top with the little nub thing...I don't know what that is called

Then cut off the bottom

then you score with your knife around the edges of the pomegranate where you can see the white membrane. Then you pull those apart underwater in a big bowl. The seeds float to the bottom and the membrane stuff floats to the top. It makes it fast and easy, but you don't even need the water if you take your time picking out the seeds.

Little ruby jewels of super food fruit! YUM!

More fun soon to come! :) And hopefully good eats! I have my eyes on an Autumn Root Vegetable Soup, but it is supposed to get warmer so I need for it to get chilly again so I can make it!!

Feeling better :)

Today I woke up feeling a bit better I think I will still need some NyQuil to help me sleep because of my stuffy nose but other than that I feel much better.

For Breakfast my toasted oatmeal with a dallop of Fage 0% with honey and chia seeds. I decided I will not eat it like this again because my oats were warm and it made the yogurt warm...bleh. Nice time I can try it with cold oats...might like that better. But it wasn't too bad.

I just love oats for breakfast!

I had Dutchess Grey Tea from Trader Joes! It is a lovely take on earl grey. :)

Today was the Trikathon (kids bring trikes to ride to raise money for St. Judes Hospital) at work, and I hurt finger catching a child from falling. I bent back my nail to the quick...ouch!!!! IT was bleeding and hurt pretty bad. But I got off work early after the trikathon and take down of all the racing flags. I got to leave at 12 pm. I went and met Justin for lunch at Panera we packed our lunches but I bought us both frozen mocha's for a surprise! :) I went to go get lettuce for tonight's dinner, and some Miracle Whip! Then I came home called some people about getting on the sub list and requirements. Then I took a nap, that is the best thing to do when you are sick. I felt much better.

For dinner I made BLTs I love them! It was fast easy and a nice and light dinner.

so yummy!! and hardly any dishes to clean up!

Justin had a Great Lakes Imperial Red Ale I tasted it and it was too bitter for me. I had a Sam Adams Octoberfest which is right up my alley! Lots of body and tastiness!

Season primer of CSI is on tonight! I am going to go watch! Then it is off to bed!

Glorious Morning Muffins!

Yesterday I felt like baking and I found this yummy recipe off of the back of the Gold Medal Flour package so I decided to make these Glorious Morning Muffins and I am sure glad that I did, because they are delicious!

The cool thing was I also looked up the recipe online and my muffins look exactly like the picture from the Gold Medal Flour website! :) score! So here is the recipe.

Glorious Morning Muffins

2

eggs

3/4

cup vegetable oil

1/4

cup milk

2

teaspoons vanilla

1

cup Gold Medal® all-purpose flour

1

cup Gold Medal® whole wheat flour

1

cup packed brown sugar

2

teaspoons baking soda

2

teaspoons ground cinnamon

1/2

teaspoon salt

1 1/2

cups shredded carrots (2 to 3 medium)

1

cup shredded peeled apple

1/2

cup coconut

1/2

cup raisins

3/4

cup sliced almonds

1. Heat oven to 350°F. Place paper baking cup in each of 18 regular-size muffin cups or grease with shortening. In large bowl, beat eggs, oil, milk and vanilla with wire whisk until well blended. Add flours, brown sugar, baking soda, cinnamon and salt; stir just until dry ingredients are moistened. With spoon, stir in carrots, apple, coconut, raisins and 1/2 cup of the almonds.
2. Divide batter evenly among muffin cups, filling each about 3/4 full. Sprinkle remaining 1/4 cup almonds over batter.
3. Bake 20 to 25 minutes or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool 5 minutes; remove from muffin cups.

Makes 18 muffins 

 

 

 

The only thing I added in the recipe was 2 tbsp of ground flax with blueberry from Trader Joe's. I thought it would be good, but to be honest these are packed with so many other flavors you can't taste the flax at all.

These muffin are super moist with all the apple, raisins, and carrots. They are so tasty and I love eating one with a hot cup of tea. This recipe is definitely a keeper! Shredding all the carrots and apple seemed like a lot of work but it is worth it!

Unfortunately today I am not feeling to hot I have an awful sore throat and stuffy nose, I think I am getting a cold. I couldn't talk very much yesterday because it hurt. My mom called me and I couldn't call her back to talk because it just hurt so bad. Sorry mom :( So I will be going to bed early tonight.

I decided to make a big batch of toasted oatmeal, it is made a different way than other oats, and it is soo good and chewy! I will have to post about how I make it another time, I was told this way to make it by one of my friends who is a nutritionist and she doesn't like mushy cereal. It is very tasty!

Toasted oatmeal with cinnamon and raisins, and a drizzle of honey. Good Earth Original tea, and a Glorious Morning Muffin!

Yum! I made a big batch so I get to eat it tomorrow again! Like these cute ramekins they were $1.30 at our grocery store. I got 2. I like to eat out of colorful dishes and they make nice pictures!

Work today was rough because I wasn't feeling to great, ugh and I have a feeling tomorrow isn't going to be that great. Tomorrow is Team Trivia with our friends here but I don't know if I am going to be able to go, not if I feel this sick ugh. For dinner tonight I just wanted soup because it was such a gloomy and rainy day. This soup was good but I kinda wished we he chiken noodle, but I would love to have this soup again!

It ending up being a lot of food, very filling. We made semi-homemade bruschetta!

The soup is one of Bertolli's Meal Soup meals for 2.

Tomato Florentine & Tortellini with Chicken

Justin made our semi-homemade roasted red pepper bruschetta, he baked the crostinis  brushed with olive oil, garlic and a sprinkle of parm. cheese. I mixed the semi-homemade mixture. Some feta that was in oil with olives, mixed with the roasted red pepper bottled bruschetta. It made it 10 times better!

Well I need to go take some medicine and then get to bed, and I hope for a good nights sleep because I didn't have one last night. Sniff sniff. Goodnight!

It's a Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood,

 Would you be mine?

This morning was absolutely gorgeous! Nice and cool and sunny! It is almost my favorite season!

A quick breakfast. I didn't feel like dirtying up a bowl so I just left it in the container.

Mixin's: Chia seeds, and coconut flakes.

Pretty tasty a quick breakfast with my coffee with coconut creamer, and then I went out to do my morning exercise. I am going to have to change my routine when I start working, because I am not going to have time to exercise in the mornings.
I did 3 laps around the stadium and 3 times up and down the law school steps. I am trying to push myself with running, I make it a goal to start running when I reach certain poles and then have to run until I reach another. It works well and helps me push myself. I wore my new Underarmor shirt today, it is pretty nice and keeps me cool.
I came back and took a shower, checked email, and cleaned up our apartment a bit.
The yogurt kept me full for quite a while and drinking lots of water. Go me! So when lunch time rolled around this is what I had.

La Tortilla Factory High Fiber wrap, turkey, some shredded cheese (microwave for 1 min to melt the cheese a little) then I added some cut cherry tomatoes and Sabre garlic lovers hummus, a bit of pepper ground and then wrap it all up! So filling.

Ice tea with a splash of cranberry juice and chia seeds. They turn into a slushy like gel when you soak them in liquid. It looks weird I know but it is pretty good, like a slushy gel drink, reminds me a bit of bubble tea with out the chewiness.

The maintenance people were coming by today to change the furnace filter so I left the house for awhile. I went to the strip mall with Kroger grocery store to look at some of the shops. I found a Vera Bradley store! (Justin knows that is trouble) I also went into a nice jewelry store called Joyce's the lady cleaned my rings while I looked around now my engagement ring and wedding band are all sparkly. They get dirty so quickly. They had some beautiful and quite expensive jewelry in there, but it was fun to look. I also went into Chico's and I bought a cute belt that I think will look nice with a dress or to belt a sweater. Can you tell I am excited for fall!!
Justin came home and then the Comcast guy came to hook up our cable for us. Now we have interesting shows to watch. Although I am not the biggest TV watcher. Then I made dinner! I didn't snack at all today so I was pretty hungry around 5:30 for dinner. I basically whipped up random stuff that we needed to eat up. It was a easy fast dinner, not the most healthy but nobody is perfect.

Pasta with light alfredo (by Classico), mixed veggies, light polish kielbasa with scallions and a perogie.

finished of the little bit of pasta that was in the box and the leftover kielbasa, and 3 perogies in the fridge, that needed to be cooked so they wouldn't get freezer burnt.

It was a nice day. I have tomorrow off and then Wednesday is my first day on the job. Hopefully I will still have enough energy to blog. Time to go spend some time with my sweetie!

Black Bean & Spinach Enchiladas

So colorful!

This recipe was given to me by Justin's Aunt Maureen! I made it yesterday for dinner and it was awesome!! I loved it and so did the hubs! :) Without any further ado here is the recipe and then I will tell you what I used for certain things.

Black Bean & Spinach Enchiladas

• 1 frozen package chopped spinach (cooked) 
• 1 can (15 oz) black beans, drained (and I also like to rinse them too)
• 1 cup salsa
• 1 pkg flour tortillas (6 inch)  (What I actually used was the 100 calorie tortillas by the La Tortilla Factory, they are much better for you than regular tortillas)
• 1/2 cup sour cream
• 1 tbsp lime juice (I used a fresh squeezed lime but the juice from the bottle would work too.)
• chopped tomatos ( grape or cherry, then cut in half)
• approx. 1 cup shredded Monterrey Jack cheese (you can substitute whatever cheese you like, I think I used a Mexican blend)
• 2 scallions finely sliced

Preheat over to 375°. Combine spinach, black beans, and salsa. Fill tortillas with filling and roll. Place in a (lightly oiled, spray with cooking spray) 8x13 pan and bake for 15 min. Combine sour cream and lime juice and cut all veggies while the enchiladas are baking. Remove enchiladas from oven and spread sour cream and lime jucie mixture on top of enchiladas. Top with shredded cheese, tomatos, and scallions. Return pan to the oven for 5 min.

Serve and enjoy!! This recipe was so good and it is pretty healthful! For us it made 5 large enchiladas. A good option if you have a no meat dish once a week. In our home it happens more often than that!

So... for pictures, while I was making the mixture of spinach, beans, and salsa I completely forgot to take photos, fail on my part. But this recipe is pretty self explanatory.

I only remembered to start taking pictures after the enchiladas were in the oven...oops.

fresh squeezed lime juice

combining sour cream and lime juice

Justin made margaritas on the rocks while enchiladas were baking!

Like the new table cloth?!

only thing missing is a little extra salsa for dipping!

This recipe seems like there is more spinach than black beans but hey that's OK with me!

If you make this recipe tell me how it was or if you added anything different!! What is on your menu for tonight? And what do you have planned for the weekend?

We will be going back to Maryland to visit our parents and to get some more things that we forgot to pack during our move! Maybe I can make some yummy meals for my parents! Enjoy your weekend!

Burritos!

These Tortillas are amazing by La Tortilla Factory. They are only 80 cal., 48% of your daily fiber, and 8g of protein...amazing. I am going to have to get more of these!

Sour cream is not the greatest for you so this is a swap, I have heard about, i decided to mix one wedge of the cheese into the yogurt, and you know what...I can't tell the different between this and sour cream!

Cooking lean gound turkey with 3 pepper and onion blend, and green chiles with a sprinkle or two of fajita seasoning!

Nice and colorful! and healthy!! I just used a bit of PAM spray olive oil for the pan, so very little oil.

This meal would not be complete without some cervesa! This beer was nice and light, very good esp. with lime!

my faux-sour cream mixture, I loved it, Justin isn't the biggest fan of the sour cream in the first place but he liked it too! I cannot tell the different when it is mixed in with all the yummy flavors of my burrito.

So here is everything, turkey mixture, shredded lettuce, cheese (yes I gotta have my cheese, that is probably the only not so healthy thing on here!) some Spanish rice, and faux-cream! OH! Don't forget the salsa and a little guacamole on the side!

Loved, loved, loved the burritos! I will be making again, or possibly making enchiladas with the tortillas. I have been enjoying cooking so much. More eats up soon! Try this out and let me know what you think. I would love to here about it! We love burritos but making them at home is cheaper and healthier. Two things that I like very much!