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!

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.

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!