Happy New Year’s Eve everyone! Ours in Colorado is a chilly and snowy one. We finally got our first measurable snow of the year. News reports are saying the ‘burb where I live got 7.5″ but it must have all blown away because looking out my window I only see about 3″. Just enough to make it pretty but not so much that you can’t get out and have fun if you want to.
It’s the last day to post movement for the December Do Something Daily Challenge. Mine has been pretty weak closing out the year, I must admit. Nothing more than walking and light yoga! I’ll do the drawing sometime tomorrow and post the winner. I’m placing your names in alphabetical order and assigning a number to them so that I can do the random number generator.
Is there anyone else that has been playing along but not posting? If so let me know!
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I’m starting some prep in the kitchen this morning for tonight’s dinner – it will be a very lightened up version of a fettucine alfredo (chicken style for the meat eaters that will be here, primavera for the veggie eaters). Plus a dairy-free caprese salad. We’ll see how it goes!
There will be plenty of VINO for sure! I have my usual go-to organic red plus my favorite dessert wine, Moscato d’Asti which is a lightly bubbly. Can’t wait! Since I’m not driving anywhere tonight I will be having a few for sure. So there will be plenty of TIPSY Wii playing going on!
First, I was MIA yesterday thanks to this book: The Lincoln Lawyer by Michael Connelly. When MSP and I went to see The Fighter last week, this was one of the preview trailers:
Wow, so many great actors in this film. I have never read a Michael Connelly book, but I was dying to know this story after seeing the trailer. I started this book Tuesday and was hooked. It was GREAT! I used to love John Grisham back in the days of The Firm and The Pelican Brief. Then his books started losing my interest. This Michael Connelly will be on my list of authors to read more of. It even kept me up well after 11:00 last night because I just HAD to finish it – and that says a LOT when you know I’m a freak about getting to bed at 9:00 each night! Highly recommended if you like legal thrillers.
Of course, I still woke up this morning at 4:30 even after getting to bed late. My internal alarm clock just never lets me sleep in!
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We were blessed with yet another beautiful day yesterday before the cold and snow will hit us tonight – so we took the opportunity to use a L-O-N-G walk for our DDSD yesterday. It was another 55 degree day with mostly sunshine. Tonight they are saying we’ll get maybe 5 to 10 inches of snow. I’m all for it, since I don’t have to drive anywhere till Monday. Mother Nature can get it out of her system while I’m on break!
Thank you to everyone who continues to tough it out in the DDSD! I know this is a rough time of year to keep up with even a little exercise, which is why I started the challenge. And you ladies impress me every day! We’re almost there! I’ll do the drawing on Saturday to let you know who wins the book and the coaching session!
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On the food front, I made MSP the cutest little mini turkey loaves in a muffin pan for dinner the other night.
So fun! I found the recipe on Delicious Living (click HERE for the recipe I used), knew it would be something he would like to eat, so I printed it off to make. Then I see at the top of the printout that the recipe author was Lisa Turner. Which is funny because Lisa Turner is one of my instructors at Bauman! LOL! I served it with a side of the hominy polenta we loved so much a few weeks ago.
Two thumbs up from MSP for the mini turkey loaves! (And I’m not just saying that because my teacher authored it!)
While he had that, I had Braised Daikon from Alicia Silverstone’s The Kind Diet. I’ve seen this recipe around the blogosphere as “Vegan Sea Scallops” as well. People give it rave reviews and while I like daikon, personally I didn’t really care for this particular dish, at least not as this recipe was written. I love sea veggies too, but the kombu flavor overpowered this dish. So I think I’ll play with the braising liquid and see what else I come up with.
They sure do look like scallops though, don’t they?
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Last but not least, since you almost always only see the GOOD stuff I eat, I think it’s fun to share the times when I go completely cuckoo and eat something I rarely do. In this case, deep fried food. I don’t know why, but yesterday I was craving chicken wings. There is a restaurant nearby that does great boneless wings and you can choose from 30 different sauces.
Obviously I wasn’t going to eat CHICKEN wings since I don’t eat chicken, BUT I saw that they had mushrooms on their menu. So MSP ordered up his boneless wings and I had mushrooms, dipped in wing sauce. It was a fun little dinner, since we rarely ever have anything that’s been deep fried. The meaty texture of the mushrooms completely hit the spot for my craving.
Hopefully I offset some of the heart damage by enjoying them with a glass of organic red wine… LOL!
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OK blog buds, that’s it for today! Thanks for following along on this “all over the map” post! Have a great New Year’s Eve EVE! See you next time!
Well Cindy was the workout queen of the day yesterday! She was logging minutes in the comments section like crazy! Go Cindy (yes, you more than made up your time)!
I had personal training appointments this morning and although I’ve been getting up at my usual time (4:45/5:00 AM) all during vacation, this morning I still don’t feel awake yet almost 5 hours after waking up. Must be that lazy bones day I had YESTERDAY! I confess I didn’t get in any “official” exercise activity yesterday. I grabbed my coffee in the morning, hopped back into bed with my book and read until it was finished. I can’t remember the last time I did that and it was EXQUISITE to stay in my jammies for a few extra hours!!
Hmmm… now I kinda want to go put my pj’s back on and do that again today! But there are thank you notes to be written, recipes for schoolwork to be tested, library books to be returned, yada yada yada. Tomorrow we’ll be taking down the Christmas tree (boo hiss!) and the exterior lights before the bitter cold hits us for New Year’s Eve (they are saying negative 9 degrees that night, brrrr)!
I wanted to put a quick post out as a quick heads up about alfalfa sprouts, for those of you that eat them (I do), just in case you haven’t seen the news yet. Primarily in the Midwest states there have been reports of alfalfa sprouts and “spicy sprouts” being linked to salmonella. Just want you to be aware if you eat sprouts from an Illinois farm called Tiny Greens Organic. Here are a couple of the articles for further info:
Can you tell I’m in vacation mode this week? Just can’t bring myself to sit TOO long in front of my laptop! Hope you are having a marvelous start to the last week of 2010!
Hope you all had a fantastic weekend! Did Santa bring you something that you really wanted?
I am always a little sad when Christmas is over… but I have to admit that today it feels GREAT to start a fresh week with FRESH food after the carbfest of the holiday.
Hello green smoothie!
This one was extra delicious – maybe because I’ve been lacking in the veg department as of late!
8 oz water
3 ice cubes
1/3 small banana
big handful of red grapes
about an ounce of raw spinach
1/2 of a leftover orange
hemp oil
3/4 scoop of brown rice protein powder
Perfectly sweet. I feel better already!
On the DDSD front, Christmas Day MSP and I did a 40 minute Tabata workout with a lot of static moves and it kicked our butts! We are still a little sore today. Lots of planks, side planks, hamstring bridges, calf raises, temple squats, dumbbell rows, lat pulldowns, lunges. I love to get in a really solid workout on a day I know I’ll be eating richer-than-usual food. Truly though, I’ve eaten more sweets between October and now than I think I have in the last 2 years combined. It’s kind of ridiculous.
Then yesterday, it was a beautiful 55 degrees here in Denver (boy we seem to be the lucky spot in the country right now!) so we took a good long walk with the dogs and soaked up some sunshine. We’re not sure what’s on tap yet for today. Possibly a little Wii Zumba?
I’ve been seeing your DDSD activity coming through my email! Keep it up! Julie, Cindy, Joan and Jen seem to be going really strong! Keep it up ladies! I’m so proud of you!
Is it back to work this week or do you have more time off for the holidays? I am still on my break from school, but I do have some training clients this week. And while I have most of my homework done, I do still have some prep work to do for my first demo that I give when we return. Plus I’m trying to catch up on some of the school reading that I’ve been behind on as well. So it’s kind of half-and-half for me this week.
Yesterday I mentioned that I would explain why MSP and I celebrated our Christmas last night (the 23rd). Here’s the quick version: we used to always have our Christmas on the night of Christmas Eve and then over time we moved it to the first night of our long holiday weekend, no matter what that day falls on. We don’t have kids in the household and we (I) love love love Christmas. Might be an odd tradition to some, but it totally works for us. We love celebrating Christmas when it’s dark out instead of first thing in the morning. The ambiance just seems more festive, with the lights on the tree and sitting next to the fireplace. We happened to learn last night that in the Netherlands (and a few other locations), Christmas presents are actually opened on December 5 (Sinterklaas) so actually we’re a few weeks LATE!
First we start with some happy hour snacks!
Hot Tamari Almonds (heat raw almonds on low stovetop, toss with tamari and a squeeze or two of sriracha… stir occasionally until tamari cooks down)
Kalamata Olives
Herbed Chevre (goat cheese)
Apple Slices
Manchego (sheep’s milk cheese)
Grapes
White Cheddar Green Pea Pesto
Spelt Crackers
Rolled Turkey slices
My eyes were way bigger than my stomach when I set out our snacks. We were stuffed in a hurry and most of it went back into the fridge.
Then we let the pups open their wrapped “Fruitables” – Riley absolutely knows how to unwrap gifts. Rascal just waits until Riley does all the work, then he steals the treats.
Then we search out some of the best holiday light displays in the area, while sipping hot chocolate and listening to Christmas music in the car. There were some REALLY good ones last night.
And finally we make our way home to open our gifts from friends and family. It was a perfectly festive evening!
On the topic of gifts, I wanted to show you what sweet Allison sent to me for Christmas. She is a fellow blogger, over at One Day at a Time and she is an AMAZING baker. You might remember the cookies she sent me in June. Well this week I received a wonderful gift package in the mail from her – it was a complete surprise! I was truly touched by her thoughtful (and very generous) gift. In addition to her delicious Fleur de sel caramels (homemade!) she also included an adorable “S” ornament AND a Starbucks ornament to add to my collection!! Allison, thank you so much!
If you want to see some of her work, click on these links to check out these cookies she did for a BABY SHOWER, HALLOWEEN COOKIES/CUPCAKES, and CAKE POPS! She does beautiful work and I can attest to the TASTINESS of her creations. So if you think you might be hosting a special occasion where you’d like to WOW some people, give her a call or an email! I think it’s great to see people start a business based on their passion!
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On the DDSD front, it was a lazy day around here so a dog walk in the sunshine was the extent of our movement. We saw a “cheapseat” 9:25 AM showing of “The Fighter” though, so I FELT like I was doing a boxing workout! (Excellent movie if you are looking for one to see this weekend!)
I may be offline a bit over the holiday weekend – we’ll see how the days play out. Feel free to log any DDSD exercise in the comments sections of any December post as they all come to my email. Or you can hold them till the next post. Totally up to you!
Hope you have a WONDERFUL holiday weekend! See you next time!
We tried another recipe from Epicurious that turned out really well and will be a keeper. In case you are wondering why I’m using other people’s recipes right now instead of my own, it’s because much of the stuff I create for school homework is veggie-based which means MSP most likely won’t care for it. It’s also because I used to be intimidated by longer recipes – and now thanks to school I’m not anymore so it’s a lot of fun to try some new ones.
For the sauce alone, this one is definitely going to stay in my recipe binder. Here is the link: Panko-Crusted Chicken with Mustard Maple Sauce (I used chicken for MSP and tilapia for me.) MSP loved it and his feedback is to serve the sauce in a little ramekin on the side rather than pouring it over the chicken or fish, because it diminishes the “crisp” of the panko that you just spent all the time making golden brown. Then you can dip each bite as you go.
The sauce is like honey-mustard that’s grown up and become more sophisticated. It’s delicious!
My apologies for the boring photo – I wanted to eat my food while it was hot, so I pretty much threw it on my plate and snapped a photo.
I served it with a side of Lemon Basil Quinoa. I’d soaked it so long it sprouted:
And also a side spinach arugula salad dressed with hemp oil and drizzled with warmed balsamic vinegar and chopped walnuts:
Heating your vinegar in a small pan over low heat along with the nuts takes a simple salad and makes it amazing.
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In exercise news, I have a date with Bethenny this morning for the DDSD challenge…
I’ve been on the waitlist at my local library for almost THREE MONTHS waiting for this DVD. (Sometimes I really miss that regular paycheck from the corporate world…!) I will definitely let you know if the workout was worth the wait or not.
What’s on your agenda for the day? Mine is jam packed, since we are doing our Christmas TONIGHT!! Wahooo!! (More on that later… )
I’ll have a full write-up on it soon, but as a little “teaser” I want to give a big shout out to Allison at One Day at a Time. I was a VERY lucky recipient of her holiday Fleur de Sel Caramels (among some other goodies that I’ll show you when I write that post). If you need a last minute gift idea that you want to make yourself, check out her post where she links to the recipe. What a delicious gift!
Busy day yesterday – hence the missing post! So busy in fact that I didn’t even do my workout until 8:00 PM. Yes, that’s right… PM. That is UNHEARD of in my life (I’m a morning exerciser all the way!). This was definitely a case of the DDSD coming into play and keeping me on track! I spent so much time yesterday on homework, business planning for post-graduation, logo-designing, and cooking that the day got away from me. After dinner I had the choice between writing a post or getting some movement in. So I figured I better get busy and MOVE! We played KINECT Sports for about 40 minutes. Wow, what a crazy workout that is. In one of the games you have to avoid objects coming at you and it has you jumping up, crouching down, hopping from side to side. They start out one at a time and then next thing you know you are avoiding three or more things at once. Another one has soccer balls coming at you that you have to hit and they too start coming fast and furious. We had a blast. And we enjoyed it so much that this morning we decided to do the same thing for our morning workout, only this time I wore my heart rate monitor. 163 bpm! We “played” for 54 minutes.
Look out! Incoming debris being launched…
Hop to the left, avoid avoid!
Now fly to the right!!
Two things about these pics: my über SEXY leggings (yikes, ha ha!) and Rascal’s evil glowing eyes!
Only 9 more days of December for the DDSD challenge. Are you keeping up?
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As promised I have some food photos to share with you!
First some afternoon snackage – Chipotle Rice & Adzuki Bean chips and some baked pita chips with hummus. It seems like it’s been forever since I last had hummus. I’ve missed it!
For dinner, we decided to roll with a SLIDER BAR. Something about cute little burger-ish sandwiches just makes me grin. Rather than buy small dinner rolls like I would have in the past, I said to myself, “Shari, you are a culinary student. You should make your rolls from SCRATCH!”
I made mine Salmon Cake style (but on the George Foreman grill rather than fried) and MSP used Colorado grass-fed Lasater beef and of course we had sweet potato fries on the side.
On one of my salmon sliders, I used coarse grain Dijon mustard and homemade red cabbage ‘kraut. On the other I smeared homemade tartar sauce (Nayonnaise with diced sweet pickles that my mom made) with tomato and cucumber. Delicious!
MSP’s had cheese on both, ketchup/mustard on one and BBQ sauce on the other.
It was a very fun, very tasty dinner. If you have kids at home, you need to make a build-your-own slider bar. They will LOVE it. I know the “kid in me” does!
Happy Monday! How many of you have the week off from work or school? If so, I hope you are enjoying it! Although I must admit that I have always loved working the holiday weeks (at least in the office settings where I’ve worked) because everyone always seemed to be in a great festive mood. So if you ARE at work today, spread some cheer!
It’s ANOTHER beautiful day in Denver with warmer-than-usual temps. I got up this morning and did an Upper Body Tabata workout and then when I saw that it was 48 degrees outside I had to add on a 45 minute power walk. I absolutely love to walk and feel sunshine on my face.
I am off to the grocery store in a few minutes to pick up some food for the week (I wanted to avoid the SUNDAY rush at the store) so that I can have some cooked food to actually SHARE with you!
The main addition I made was I added TWO chipotle peppers (the kind that are canned in adobo sauce) to the blender when I made the sauce, and it added some serious heat. If you like less heat you might only want to add one (or even a half) chipotle pepper.
Using yellow hominy to make a “creamy polenta” was genius AND tasty. And the sauce just got better the next day.
And if you have vegetarians in the house, you can make it with tempeh in lieu of the chicken. The stars of this show are really the hominy and the sauce so you could sub any protein source you like.
If you try it, let me know what you think!
Here’s how my tempeh version turned out:
(And of course I shot the photo BEFORE I put the beautiful red sauce on… I must have been hungry!)
Do you eat HOMINY? Do you buy it canned or do you buy it dried and soak it back to life? When I was growing up my mom used to make me fried hominy for lunch sometimes and I just LOVED it. To this day I still love it and every time I open a can of hominy, I think back to those lunches with her.
How has your weekend been? Mine has been fabulous. (I especially love weekends when you know you don’t have to go to school or work on Monday!) My ear and throat are barely noticeable today, which makes me happy. I’ve made a HUGE dent in my homework so makes me feel a little like the pressure is off. And the weather was absolutely gorgeous today. DDSD Part One for the day was taking the dogs out for 60 minute hilly walk around 1:30 – when it was 57 degrees and sunny.
We decided on “Christmas Vacation” last night for our holiday movie night – sadly I fell asleep around 7:30 and missed the last 20 minutes or so. Luckily I know how it ends, since I’ve only seen it like 20 times!
Since I owe an extra DDSD (Part Two) workout today, we have a Wii night planned ahead of us. Looking forward to a heart-pumping “Just Dance” session!
Hopefully with the extra time this week, I’ll get a chance to actually do some cooking at home and share some yummy food pics with you! Sometimes I feel like I spend so much time on homework WRITING for culinary school that I don’t have any time left to actually COOK!
Happy Saturday! It’s especially happy because I am officially on a 2 week break from school. So last night I did the Vacation Happy Dance when I got home.
It looks a little like this:
Then I had a glass of wine and ate a Kraut Wrap with my homemade sauerkraut.
Spelt tortilla, red cabbage sauerkraut, sprouts, romaine and a drizzle of ginger vinaigrette. Quick, easy, GONE!
This morning I got an early start on homework. Then did a Tabata workout for my DDSD.
Static Ball Wall Squats with Side Lateral Holds – 4 minutes
My right ear is still feeling achey but not as severely as yesterday. It seems to come and go. While I didn’t go as high intensity as I typically would, I feel good that I got in a workout. I have an extra one to add in this weekend to make up for yesterday (unless 8 blocks of walking counts!) so I’ll keep ya posted.
In an effort to keep my immune system happy and strong while I’m fighting this weird bug, I’ve been eating lots of probiotic and healthful foods:
I’ve also been grating fresh ginger and steeping it in hot water with a squeeze of lemon juice and a squeeze of raw honey (this REALLY helps!). And Thursday night I even resorted to eating 3 cloves of raw garlic smeared on some Ezekial toast. While healthful and helpful, don’t do that if you live with other people. I slept in the guest room with my stinky breath – that no amount of tooth brushing and Listerine gargling could seem to conquer. And I could STILL taste it the next morning. And when MSP opened the door to the guest room he said he could smell garlic. Yikes.
After my workout I had a great chat with my mom, then ate a Christmas present from one of my classmates. A “Satsuma” tangerine. It was almost too pretty to eat.
Today I’ll be continuing on with my homework assignment (I’m making progress!) and when it gets dark, I might have to break down and watch one of my favorite holiday movies. My two favorites are comedies.
I adore “Elf” – here’s a fun clip reel someone put together on YouTube:
“Christmas Vacation” with Chevy Chase – it’s not Christmas for me until I watch this movie (every year!). I can’t believe it came out 21 years ago!
I also love “Bad Santa”, “A Christmas Story” and “Four Christmases”. Yet I’ve never seen “Miracle on 34th Street”. And I’ve never watched “It’s a Wonderful Life” all the way through. Do you love holiday movies? Funny ones or sentimental ones? What are your favorites?
