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!!

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!

Tring to be Thankful

My job has been taking quite a bit out of me. It is not what I was expecting and I don't particularly like it very much. But I am going to stick with it. I have very long hours which make it hard for me to keep up with my posts. My first long day I came home and cried. I felt like I had been hit by a truck all my muscles hurt and it was just a stressful  day. Some of the kids are so sweet but some are just delibaratly naughty even when they know what their doing in wrong. Many are oppositionally defiant. You ask them to clean up and they run and hide and even when you bring them back to clean up their mess they just stand there and refuse to. And the consequences of a 'time out' don't even seem to phase some children, like they could care less. To be honest this behavior is a bit shocking to me, and I haven't witnessed it very much, but I have seen it in a lot of the children at my job. I pray that I will have patience because I know with this job I will need it.

I am enjoying the weekend, even though it seems to go by to quickly. During the week I am still able to snap a quick picture or two of my breakfast before I eat it! So here are some pictures from this week and weekend.

Thursday morning breakfast overnight oats, I made it with vanilla Chobani and vanilla soy milk. Toppings: walnuts, coconuts, chia seeds mixed in, and PB.

This breakfast did not taste that great, the vanilla yogurt overpowered everything and it was pretty bland, I am going to try some recipes with out the yogurt.

Friday breakfast Chocolate overnight oats that I heated up in the microwave! This was a great recipe. No yogurt. for overnight I combined 1/2 cup oats, 1 cup chocolate unsweetened almond milk, 2 tbsp chia seeds, and the sweet secret a packet of diet Swiss miss cocoa mixed in! Amazing results. oh and half a banana! It makes a huge amount of oats. I couldn't eat it all though I wish I could have. I will have to make less next time.

On top raspberries, coconut, cinnamon swirl PB, and Yogi green tea

Today's breakfast, we didn't realize we only had 2 eggs so our omelets were more veggies than eggs. with 2 links of morning star sausage. Like our mugs! They were a wedding gift!

For tea we are having Good Earth Original, which is now Justin's new favorite tea! I always introduce him to the good stuff. This tea is sweet without sugar and spicy, sooo good!

Justin bought me flowers on Friday, since I had such a rough week. It was such a nice surprise, he is wonderful! I put them on our new Lenox crystal vase, so pretty.

I love roses! These mini ones are too cute!

First Day of Work

Today was my first day at my new job. I was pretty good. Things are just done a whole lot differently than they were at my last job. The children are so sweet and they seemed to really like me a lot and remembered my name very quickly. Today I was with the PreK class that was mostly 4/5 year olds. The teachers in the classroom are super nice and gave me the low down on what daily things I would be doing, since I am a floater teacher. I am so tired and I don't think I really did that much today but I guess I was nervous too which can cause a bit of stress. There is so much more to tell about my day, but I don't have the energy to type it all out, even though I would really like to, it would probably just bore everyone that reads this blog! haha

I am so glad I had a filling breakfast because, I didn't get to eat my lunch until 2:00 pm! AHH that was crazy, the teachers eat with the children but they serve lunch and they have stuff like canned green beans, and chef boyardee ravioli, which I don't particularly want to eat....and they serve milk which I really don't drink. It was very different from anything I have experienced before, they also say grace before lunch, which I have never seen happen before in a non-christian establishment. I hope I can find a way to eat at least some of my lunch and not have to wait til 2:00 pm. You are just with the kids all the time and you aren't supposed to eat different food in front of them, but none of the children bring their own lunch...which I also thought was interesting.

But here is my hearty breakfast that I whipped up the night before! A bowl of overnight oats! Seriously, amazing because I just heat for 1 min and it warms it up and it tastes like oatmeal except a bit more yogurty... This breakfast was so good.

Tropical Overnight Oats! 1/3 cup (equal parts) of oats, silk light vanilla soy milk, pineapple chobani yogurt, I just used a whole 6 oz container of yogurt.

Mix in the night before: 1/2 banana, 1 tbsp chia seeds, 1 tbsp coconut flakes (I love these bowls!)

Toppings after heating for 1 min: more chia and coconut, and spoonful of peanut butter!

I made more overnight oats for tomorrow breakfast since I have to get up at 5:30 am! ugh...So no pictures of lunch or dinner today. For dinner I just had leftovers from Team Trivia night at the Mountain State Brewing Company. I had a flat-bread pizza with artichoke and prosciutto and lots of garlic and some cheese! I was so good, and the beer wasn't bad their either. I have to remember to bring my camera when we go out to restaurants. I always forget. Time to get ready for bed already, I am tired.

Productivity Hooray!...and good eats!

Today has been a fairly productive day so far. I got up with Justin today at 7 am, then slowly made myself some breakfast checked email and watched some news so it was a fairly relaxing morning. And I made another wonderful bowl of oatmeal. Except this time I was lazy and I just used the instant microwave packets, this oatmeal was flavor maple strudel, but I added my own fixin's of course!

Mixed in the oatmeal was some Silk light vanilla soy milk, and chia seeds. I was already flavored oatmeal so that was all it needed. Toppings: Cinnamon, toasted walnuts, coconut, cinnamon, and a dollop of PB&Co Cinn. Raisin Swirl! I really like the walnuts in the oatmeal this time! yum!

Coffee with So Delicious coconut milk creamer! a new fave!

After breakfast I puttered around the apartment organizing and making the bed, which I actually enjoy doing now because it looks so darn pretty when I do! I love our quilt!! Then I got my butt in gear and got dressed and headed out for a jog. I jog/walked about 2 miles and I climbed the stairs up to the Law school building. I have done this 2 days in a row now and I like it. I got around the stadium twice and up and down the stairs twice. I think I actually do more walking than jogging but I just need to start slow and then build from there. It felt really good! I needed exercise back in my life! After that I came home and took a shower, folded the laundry that was in the dryer and then did some reading. After all that it was about time to make lunch.

So for lunch we had a bunch of left over kale from when I made Kale Chips for the first time. Which I love and will be buying tons of kale just to make them all the time! So I made a plate full and then I had a Honeycrisp apple from Brown's! I love that place they have the best fruit ever! I had my apple with cinnamon and cinnamon raisin swirl peanut butter from P.B. & Co. and it took some time for the kale to bake so I arranged my apple into a pretty edible flower...really what else do I need to be doing?!

I think I should go into apple arranging...no?

Honeycrisp apples are the best ever, especially when they are fresh from a local orchard!

Now here is my kale before and after! These are so easy and so delish! Just tear into pieces spread out on a cookie sheet drizzle with a little olive oil, or I just sprayed the pan with Pam olive oil spray. Sprinkle with a little salt and pop in the over for 15 mins at 375 degrees! And you have your own veggie chips!!

Before: Fresh kale with a sprinkle of salt!

After: Crispy yummy kale chip goodness!

Thats Lunch! A bit of my sun tea I made yesterday, it turned out OK but I don't think there was quite enough sun so it was pretty weak.

Oh! I got a job offer at a nearby childcare center, so I am going to be working there started next Wednesday! It isn't my dream job, but I love working with kids and I think I will like it there! I should get the schedule emailed to me today. I will let you know more later. And I didn't get to make the enchiladas because yesterday evening Justin called and asked if I wanted to grab a drink with his co-worker/friend at Damon's. So I got to meet somebody new and then we ended up going to his house and I met his wife too! So it was a great evening, but I didn't get to make my enchiladas so that is on the menu for tonight and if I have enough time (and Justin doesn't hog the computer (: ) I will post the recipe and photos, and give ya my opinion! Have a great rest of the day!