Who Needs a Garden Anyway

…when you can find this kind of loot at the farmer’s market?  (Shhh… don’t tell my garden that I was cheating on it today!)  Check out this size of this zucchini:

It’s been a fun day so far!   We got up this morning and did a Tabata workout.  Cory did his regular Tabata leg workout (smith squats, leg extensions, deadlifts, machine curls, lunges and abs).  I of course had to tweak my workout (just like I do with recipes, because I get bored so easily I guess!) so I did my Tabata routine with these:

• standing kickbacks with banding
• smith squats with a narrow stance
• kettlebell windmills (alternating sides each set)
• single straight leg deadlifts – balanced on a yoga mat**
• hamstring curls on fitball
• plank mashup (some straight, some with hip twist, side planks)

** I don’t have a cool balancing disk or a Bosu so when I want to ramp up the intensity of an exercise a bit, I add a bit of balance to it by folding up a yoga mat.  Looks simple, but it really does throw your body just a bit off kilter when you are doing single leg exercises.  Like this:

After our workout, I had a big green juice with kale, a green apple, a little lemon, some ginger, celery, cucumber, and broccoli stalks.

Then we took the crazy beasts out for a walk.  They got their greens with breakfast too (my dogs go nuts for kale stalks) – look closely and you’ll see him licking his lips!  His little tongue is poking out:

When it was time for some real breakfast food, I made buckwheat pancakes (with some extra protein powder and greek yogurt mixed into the batter) topped with some blueberry goat cheese and a little organic maple syrup:

I can’t tell you the last time I made pancakes – it’s been a long time!  Granted when you are using buckwheat they aren’t the same “cake-y” delightful ones you might get at IHOP, but these sure are better for you!

For lunch I made a spinach and pesto quesadilla.  Don’t mind the bite out of the tortilla.  I was trying a new sprouted grain tortilla and wanted to make sure I liked it first before I actually made my lunch.

A good trick when you are using cheese is to grate it with a super fine microplane.  You get the “visual effect” of a good amount of cheese, but by weight you hardly have any because it’s so light.  Here I’m using my favorite Mt. Sterling raw goat cheese.

Pile on a bunch of baby spinach, fold in half and cook on your Foreman grill for a few minutes until the cheese is melted and sizzling.

I was planning to have these baby carrots on the side:

But unfortunately they were frozen solid.  On to plan B:

Who doesn’t love the Pampered Chef crinkle cutter? 

My afternoon snack was a SUPERGREEN smoothie (and this one even tasted a little greener than usual).  Frozen mango, kale, spinach, greens powder and egg protein.

I’ve definitely had my fair share of greens today!

How about you?  Did you get a lot of greens in?  Or do you need to include a leafy green salad with your dinner? 

Before I go I have two more pics to share.  One I took on the way to meet my client for our run yesterday.  Look at how dark it is now in the morning!  This was at 6:15 AM.

I don’t mind cooler days, but I already miss the extra daylight!

And this other pic I took when Rascal saw a squirrel from our window – this was too cute NOT to get a snapshot…

My two *men* 

Hope you are having a GREAT weekend so far!

– Shari B. =)