I don’t want to slam the cookbook I used (fortunately borrowed from the library rather than purchased) because 1.) it’s a really well known franchise and 2.) it could very well be that I just happened to pick a few that weren’t total winners.  There are hundreds of recipes in the book, so I’m willing to bet some are really great.

I pulled out three and didn’t care for a single one.  A Chile Rubbed Tequila Seafood dish (too fishy and way too much tequila), a Southwest Cabbage Salad (very acidic and too salty) and a Chilled Cucumber Soup (again too salty).

I put the fish and the cabbage into a corn tortilla and made it into a Fish Taco. That made it a little better.  At least it LOOKED appetizing!

Two words:  Epic.  Fail.

The bright side? Reaffirming that I don’t necessarily need recipes to make something yummy.  Here are are few of this past week’s NON-RECIPE last minute creations:

Scrambled Organic Eggs with Goat Cheese Slivers, Tomato Slices and Grilled Sweet Pepper

Black Bean Burger on a half-bun (topped with sprouts and a ‘Veggie Slice’ uncheese), Sweet Potato Fries and Roasted Mixed Veggies

Pumpkin Brown Rice Breakfast with Cinnamon and Almond Milk

The “Bat Snack”:  Egg Salad (made with Nayonaisse and mustard) flanked by ‘avocado wings’ and garnished with some leftover lemon-infused salmon:

First attempt at homemade sushi rolls using leftovers of brown rice and mahi, adding in some cucumber, carrots, and avocado.  (And of course served on my “Shari’s Sushi” plate from Beth!)

I like simple, easy-to-build meals.  If you know what you like and you throw in a pinch of creativity, the options for healthy eating are endless!

So I say… Recipe Schmecipe!

Do you have a favorite “thrown together” meal or original creation?  How about recipes gone awry? Drop me a comment!

– Shari B. =)

Related FitFeat Posts to Check Out:

• Too Many Avocados, Too Little Time
• Last Year: Hallowmas. This Year: Hallowsgiving
• Get Your Green Drink On

Happy St. Patrick’s Day!  Mother Nature is giving us plenty of green to look at this week for the holiday!  We’re having a little burst of spring!  It was over 60 degrees out and we get two more days of this!  Wahoo!

So you know what that meant for yesterday’s exercise right?  OUTDOOR RUN!  4.88 miles. It was glorious.  Then in the evening before dinner we took the dogs out for a walk which came to about 2.7 miles.  If Riley didn’t need to stop THREE times for No. 2 every time we walk her we’d be able to get more mileage in!  (I’m promise I’m not exaggerating about that!) Between Rascal’s one stop and Riley’s three stops, not only do we use a lot of pick-up bags (biodegradable, of course!) but it takes forever to complete a loop of less than 3 miles.  This is why I stopped running with them!

The best part of walking them is this:

Love it when they are tuckered out in the house and CALM!

So in honor of the GREEN holiday, I challenge you to drink a GREEN SMOOTHIE today in addition to wearing green (or I might have to pinch you!) 

If you need a recipe, check out the Build-A-Meal tab to pick one and get started!

I am adding Sweet Clover sprouts to my smoothies (and wraps) this week, since they had them at the store, which is a fun change from my usual alfalfa sprouts and quite fitting for St. Patty’s Day!

What is your favorite GREEN food to add to smoothies or sandwiches? I think mine is probably avocado.  I get pretty excited when I slice open an avocado and it is perfectly green with no brown spots.  I love it smeared on things (in place of mayo or butter), I love it chopped and added into a salad, and I especially LOVE the creamy texture that avocado adds to my green smoothies!

Off to get the crazy day of the week started!  Wednesdays are bananas!

Have a FUN & SAFE St. Patty’s Day everyone!  Let me know if you had a green smoothie today!

– Shari B. =)

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An early morning post — surprise!!    Right after I get off of work today I am meeting up with my brother for our belated xmas gift exchange and then I have dinner plans directly following.  So I’m here bright and early this morning, knowing that I won’t be back in front of the PC again until LATE tonight.  Guess where I’m going for the dinner plans??  I’ll give you a hint:  my plate will most likely have GIGANDE beans on it!!

I made the BIGGEST GREEN smoothie yesterday morning after I finished my Physique 57 workout.  I almost couldn’t fit the lid on the BlendTec.  (Do you think that’s bad for a blender??)  And as I poured this 34 ouncer into a massive cup, it occurred to me that I haven’t been posting the “parts and pieces” that I throw into my smoothies these days.  I guess I figured they might be old hat to some of you who have been reading for a while.  But for the sake of new readers (and in an effort to convince the rest of you to make a green smoothie) I should consider doing that more often.  I’ll start right now!

The Über-Green Smoothie

• 9 oz water
• 1 apple (cut into chunks)
• 2 cuties/clemetines (peel removed)
• 1/2 very large cucumber (peeled)
• 1 stalk celery
• 1/2 avocado
• large fistful of spinach
• medium fistful of clover sprouts

Blend away!

Mmm avocado in a green smoothie makes it so thick and creamy!  This smoothie rocked.  It kept me full for almost 3 hours.

While we are on the subject of green smoothies, do you ever make your smoothies ahead of time to drink later? I never used to do that, but have made a few “to go smoothies” to take to work and drink later in the day while I’m there.  The idea of it used to gross me out until one of my training clients told me that she makes hers the night before, then gives it a good shake the next day when she’s ready to drink it and it still tastes great.  So I figured if she can do hers overnight, mine could sit in the fridge for a few hours.

The smoothie still TASTES fine, but I’ve learned that they don’t agree with me after they’ve been blended and held for later consumption.  Folks, I’m gonna get a little “TMI” on ya here:  I end up looking about 5 months pregnant – I’m NOT kidding!  My lower abdomen gets really distended and … uh.. ummm… well, a little gassy if you don’t mind my saying!

DOES THIS HAPPEN TO ANYONE ELSE?? I have to know if this is just me and my ridiculously sensitive ‘system’ or if others experience this.

It makes me wonder if it has to do with the enzymes, natural sugars or fiber breaking down (or something along those lines.)  There are no protein powders in my to-go shakes (I nixed those early on out of the ones I take to work, in case the protein powder was the culprit).  I can make two identical smoothies, drink one immediately with no tummy trouble, but drink the other one 2 hours later and have it cause a very unhappy belly.   Hmmm, mysterious.

So do tell if you have had this happen (if you don’t want to post that kind of info in the comments section for all to see, feel free to email me directly shari@fitfeat.com)

Related FitFeat Posts to Check Out:

• Get Your Green Drink On
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And so here I am with the 90th FitFeat blog post!  This feels important to me because a few years back, I started a personal blog and just didn’t follow through.  Truly I think I made it to about the third blog post (if that) and fell off the wagon. 

When I first started the FitFeat blog, I did so on the free platform of WordPress.com.  I wanted to see how dedicated I’d be before moving to the self-hosted platform.  One, because self-hosting costs MONEY and two, because self-hosting requires a lot more administrative work.  You are in charge of your own backups, spam blocking, upgrades, etc.  The effort I put into blogging during my RV trip with mom and g-ma was what allowed me to realize that I would be blogging long-term.  Not only was I thoroughly enjoying it, but I was actually a bit obsessed.  (Who?  ME?  Obsessed?  … never!) 

Thank you to everyone who has been following along, and a special thanks to those who have been here from the beginning!  I appreciate you all so much!  It would be very discouraging to put “pen to paper” (so to speak) if it seemed like no one was reading.  

Today’s question:  Since this blog is FOR YOU, are there any topics you would you like to see covered in a future blog post?  I’d love your input!  Drop me a comment!

***

On to the Tuesday recap… Tuesday was a ‘feat-less’ day (meaning no exercise) unless you count the effort expended in keeping my eyelids open.  I’m not sure what’s going on with our dogs lately, but they have been really active at night which has been interrupting MSP’s and my sleep.   We were out cold Monday night by 9:30 and at 9:50 Rascal was standing in the upstairs hallway barking his head off like he was facing off with the BoogeyMan.  We went from dead sleep to being doused in adrenaline in about 5 milliseconds.

After finally getting back to sleep again, Riley was up around 2:00 trotting laps on the hardwood floor downstairs, clickety-click-click-clickety.  She’s put on a bit of weight recently, and as a result is now eating ’lean’ food.  So she scavenges in the middle of the night around and around and around the kitchen island hoping we forgot to put away our dinner, I guess.  (You’d think she’d figure out in one lap that there is NO food to be found.  Why she keeps going around is beyond me.  Unless maybe she’s trying to work off some of that flab so that she can get back to eating real food again!)

I think she covets my gigantic salads.

If you look closely you will see my homegrown sprouts in the salad!  They were interesting because they were all different seeds and some still had the seed attached, so they had a great crunch!  SO FUN! 

The other items in my salad were:

• HB egg
• spinach
• nutritional yeast
• sundried tomatoes
• spiralized zucchini
• sunflower seeds
• 1/4 avocado
• 1/2 tbsp Annie’s Goddess dressing
• dulse

And I ate it at 10:30 am.  That was lunch.  I was hungry!!   

We had a wonderful time at our friends’ house last night!  (Thank you Lynn and Jim!  Sorry we caused you to miss DWTS!)  I ate steamed veggies with garlic sauce and some perfect edamame.  With a little white wine tasting.  It was a GREAT time! 

Well friends, off get busy with the Wednesday list.  AND get in some exercise.  Have a WONDERFUL Wednesday!  And don’t forget to leave a comment about topics you’d like to see on FitFeat! 

– Shari B.  =)

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Today’s Feat:  Shari’s “13 for the 13th” Workout

Warmup on treadmill, 5 minutes

1. Smith-squats (tabata style, 4 min)
2. Seated Row (tabata style, 4 min)
3. Leg Extensions (tabata style, 4 min)
4. DB Upright Row (tabata style, 4 min)
5. Leg Curls on FitBall (tabata style, 4 min — I was crying by the 3rd minute on these)
6. DB Chest Flyes 1 set of 15 reps
7. High StepUps 15 left, 15 right
8. KB Side Lateral Swings 15 right, 15 left
9. Band SideSteps 25 right, 25 left
10. KB Biceps Curls 20 right, 20 left
11. KB Ab Twist (in boat position) 30 reps
12. Triceps Dips 15 reps
13. Explosive Lunges 20 reps

OK, I officially have squiggle arms and squiggle legs… 

Yesterday’s Feat

A beautiful (and tough) 3.6 mile hilly run with a training client 

Yesterday’s Eats

I had my standard pre-run meal Coconut Cream Pie Larabar with coffee about an hour beforehand.  I’m now officially out of this flavor in my Larabar stash and will have to wait until they go on sale again.  I refuse to pay more than $1 per bar if I can avoid it. 

After our run, my client was telling me about these wonderful breakfast burritos she picks up on occasion, and it inspired me to come home and make a Breakfast Wrap:  whole wheat tortilla, leftover roasted potato bites, one HB egg, a bit of avocado and a drizzle of salsa.  It was SO good!  And it hit the spot after a fast-paced hilly run.  Perfect!

It did such a good job of filling me up, that when lunchtime rolled around all I really wanted was a green smoothie!  And Brendan Brazier snuck into the picture too…

I don’t often like to have two Larabars in one day, but a Lemon Bar sounded too good to resist.

I spent some time late afternoon putting together dinner:  Heavenly Ginger Curry Squash Soup, for which I posted the recipe earlier today.  As mentioned in that post, I had to make myself eat a large salad to tame the hungry beast inside before I devoured my soup.  I KNEW I wouldn’t have leftovers if I started with it, it was that yummy.  My salad included spinach, dulse, sundried tomatoes, carrots, nutritional yeast and 1/2 tbsp of Goddess dressing. 

And then the main event.  I am already dreaming of lunchtime today when I can have some more of this delicious meal!  Behold the best soup ever:

And I didn’t figure the evening could get any better, but it DID!!!  MSP surprised me with dark chocolate covered cacao nibs!!!  WAHOOO!  (Thanks MSP!  You’re the best ever!)  Wow these are delightful.  Good thing these come in small bags… Not something I’d want to stay stocked up on because I had a hard time putting them down last night.

I’m looking forward to tonight when I get to catch up with some girlfriends over wine & apps tonight!  In the meantime, there is a LOT to accomplish so I better get crackin’!  Have a FANTASTIC Friday! 

See you next time!

– Shari B. =)

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Hope you are all having a lovely weekend.  I’m checking in with a quick Feats & Eats recap from Friday.

I did a Tabata-style workout for legs.  It was short, burned like FIRE and has me crazy sore today:

Tabata Legs:

• TM Warmup 5 minutes
• Smith Machine Squats 4 minutes
• Leg Extensions 4 minutes
• Lying Leg Curls 4 minutes

Afterward I had intended on doing an Iron Yoga session, but the DVR was acting up and after fighting with it for 15 minutes,  it definitely put me in an anti-zen mood so I threw in the towel.

A dog wogging session would have to suffice.  Just a quick 25 minute outing in the unseasonably warm weather.

One of my snacks during the day was this bite-sized Tropical Fruit Tart Larabar that my friend Beth gave to me  (thanks Beth!)  Mmmm so good:

Lunch was with a great friend at a local asian cafe, so I had steamed veggies with a bowl of miso soup (and the greasy egg roll that came with it).

On the way home I picked up a Gingerade BUBBLY!  Which I am slowly savoring.  I had half and saved the rest for later.  Those darn bubbly drinks make me happy!

MSP and I skipped a ‘regular’ dinner and had cereal instead, mine being Kashi Go Lean.  We had friends coming over at 7:00 for some WII NIGHT fun.  I was in the mood to try some new food to put out for snacks yet still stay on the healthy side.

First off I made some marinated mushrooms.

I started with the inspiration from a recipe at Allrecipes.com but made a few modifications. Here’s how I made them:

• 1/3 cup filled with half rice wine vinegar and half balsamic vinegar
• 1/3 cup olive oil
• 1/3 small onion, thinly sliced
• 3/4 teaspoon sea salt
• 2 tablespoons dried parsley
• 1/2 teaspoon prepared spicy mustard
• 3/4 tablespoon agave nectar
• 2 cloves minced garlic (from jar)
• 1 pound small fresh button mushrooms

All ingredients except the mushrooms went into a saucepan and brought to a boil.  Add mushrooms, simmer for 12 minutes, stirring often.  Transfer to glass dish for chilling before serving.  Use slotted spoon to drain mushrooms for serving presentation. Don’t forget to set out some toothpicks!

They turned out really tasty and more elegant than my other usual appetizers (which I still served) and included:

Carrots with homemade hummus:

Brown-bag popcorn sprinkled with sea salt and chili powder:

And some unpictured Baked Tostito Scoops with salsa.

Last but not least, I FINALLY tried making Gena’s Chocomole for the evening’s dessert.  I’ve been wanting to try this recipe since the first time I saw it.  And I needed to do it sneakily so that MSP wouldn’t know that it was made of avocados before he actually ate it.

I used 2 avocados, 1/2 smashed banana, 10 pitted dates, 1 tsp vanilla extract, 2 tbsp carob powder, water to drizzle as needed.

This recipe ROCKED!  I loved it.  And I especially loved knowing that it wasn’t chock full of hydrogenated oils, high fructose corn syrup or chemicals. It was SUPER rich and creamy.  Next time I will be sure to soak my dates, as they didn’t come out quite as smoothly in the food processor as I would have liked, (and Gena does mention that dates may need to be soaked prior) but it was still FAB.  Next time I think I will get a tart or pie crust of some sort and use it as a filling.  When I served it to our guests, I topped it with a little all-natural egg nog ice cream.  My serving was sans ice cream but I did add a few sprinkles of coconut.

Heavenly is what that dessert was.  And MSP ate AVOCADO!!! (muah-ha-ha! <insert evil grin>) He liked it, and wasn’t totally horrified when I told him what was in it.  But he did say he’d really have been fine with just NOT knowing that it was avocado.

We love Wii Night with friends!  Thanks J & G for hanging with us!!  It was fun!

Well blog buds, it’s a gorgeous Saturday and none of us should be sitting indoors on a computer, so I’m gonna skeedaddle and get outside!

Make it a SPECTACULAR Saturday!

– Shari B. =)

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Happy Tuesday…!  I hope your week is getting off to a lovely start.

In case you didn’t see it, there was a comment made to yesterday’s post by reader Tray about a FLEX IT FRIDAY this week – saying that if I post a flex shot (biceps) she’ll post one to her blog too.  This totally put a smile on my face (mostly because I have pretty tiny ‘guns’) and I thought it might be a fun way for you all to join in too!  Send me an email with your best BICEP flex shot shari@fitfeat.com by midnight Thursday and I’ll add it to Friday’s post with mine.  Don’t leave me hanging, now!

Monday was a great day for feeling on track again.  After the morning joe, it started with some Tabata-style weight training, which really becomes more a game of muscular endurance than strength.  Originally designed for sprint intervals to increase VO2 max, you see it used for many other types of training now.  You alternate 20 seconds of high intensity with 10 seconds of low intensity and repeat for 4 minutes.   When you do this for sprints, the goal is that your high intensity segments are so tough that truly by the end of the 4 minutes you are wiped.  Full-body exercises are a great use of this training style as well.

Well you know I love any exercise that alternates intensity with rest so when I first read about Tabata last year I was excited to try it out.  I later downloaded a Tabata timer on my iPhone and use it to turn pretty much any exercise into an interval session.  And of course, I like to make up my own rules, so instead of things like pushups and pullups, I like to do a full Tabata round for each muscle group.  Here’s how Monday’s workout went down.

Tabata Full Body

• TM Warmup 5 minutes
• Chest: DB Bench Press 4 minutes
• Back: Seated Rows 4 minutes
• Shoulders: Side Lateral Raises 4 minutes
• Biceps: Seated DB Curls 4 minutes (2 min palms up, 2 min palms in)
• Triceps: Tricep Pushdowns 4 minutes
• Core: Planks 4 minutes
• Legs: Static Ball Squats 4 minutes
• Legs: VS Rear Lunges 4 min (alt legs every interval)

This is a quick and efficient training method, less than 40 minutes.  My bis, tris, and shoulders are definitely ‘vocal’ today!

By then, my bod was ready for a post-workout shake:  chocolate Vega Whole Food Health Optimizer with 1/2 banana.

Then a mid-morning Lemon Larabar while working at the computer:

At lunchtime I wanted to use up a couple of veggies that were looking a little wilty, so I cut up an orange pepper, roma tomato, baby bellas, and zucchini, tossed them with a drizzle of olive oil and some sea salt and roasted them in my toaster oven for about 25 minutes.

During the last few minutes I sprinkled nutritional yeast on them to give them a ‘cheesy’ feel and made an avocado/sprout sandwich for the side:

Veggie-licious!

Midafternoon called for another Larabar, this time Cashew Cookie flavor.  And a cup of herbal tea.  Mmmm, tea and “cookies”.  I feel so PROPER! 

Dinner was a special treat because MSP’s brother happened to be passing through town and we hadn’t seen him since June.  So we went to one of our local favorites, Via Baci, where I would normally order a pizza (oh do they ever have great pizza!!) but since I have been making so many pita pizzas at home, I opted for the seared tuna salad with lemon vinaigrette on the side.  It was SCRUMPTIOUS and I even have a little leftover for today.  (Caution:  fuzzy iPhone pic ahead, view at your own risk!) 

A few pieces of candy corn for dessert at home while chatting with family – it was a great end to a fabulous day.

***

Today’s questions:  Do you prefer intervals or steady-state exercise?  Have you tried Tabata for your cardio or weights?  How did you like it? Drop a comment to let me know your thoughts.

And then drop me an email with your BICEP FLEX!!!  We’ll all have a reason to pump up our biceps with some exercise beforehand   and I know some of you are jokesters so it could be comical!

Have a TERRIFIC TUESDAY!

– Shari B. =)

Related FitFeat Posts to Check Out:

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I’m very excited to tell you about yesterday’s feats!  They had to do with getting MSP to consume some veggies!  I hereby dedicate this post to those of you who have written saying that you are having a hard time getting someone in your household to eat their veggies.    

To begin, I made MSP what I’ll call a “First Step Green Smoothie“.  Normally for every breakfast during the week he makes a chocolate protein shake.  I asked if I could make him a special shake this time to see if I could camouflage some veggies in it, starting small in hopes that he’ll like it, get used to the flavor and then progress in to further greens.  (I did tell him I’d be putting veggies in and he agreed to give it a shot.)

First Step Green Smoothie Ingredients:  

• Ice cubes
• 10 oz water
• 1 scoop vanilla protein powder
• stalk of celery
• 1/3 cucumber
• small fist o’ spinach
• 1 banana
• 1 clementine
• 12 green grapes

Wow, I thought this shake turned out GREAT!  If I still ate whey protein, I’d have guzzled this one myself!  It had such a delicate light green color and sweet flavor.  He did drink it (with only a few funny expressions so progress is being made), but he apparently HATES celery and that was the flavor he zeroed in on.  Note to self:  no celery in future MSP smoothies. 

For his dinner I’d planned on making him one of his favorites:  Turkey Tacos.  While getting ready to start cooking, I had a thought: I had a can of organic sweet potato puree in the pantry.  Surely sweet potato could be hidden amongst taco seasoning!  I consulted Jessica Seinfeld’s Deceptively Delicious (which I had conveniently checked out of the library on Sunday) to see if maybe she had a taco recipe in there and sure enough she hides purees in tacos in the book (meant for KIDS, I might add!)  I didn’t follow her recipe, but it confirmed that it could be done — without my ruining a pound of pricey ground turkey to find out!

Sneaky Taco Meat Ingredients:

• 1 lb extra lean ground turkey 
• 1/4 cup dry taco seasoning 
• 1/2 cup tomato puree
• 1/2 cup sweet potato puree
• water if needed

Brown the turkey, then add the purees and the seasonings to the pan, mix really well.  If it seems too dry add a little water at a time to desired consistency (I only added about 3 TBSP water) and simmer for 15 minutes or until the family is ready to sit down to dinner.  I served MSP’s on small corn tortillas and he only tops his with cheese. 

Voila!

In keeping with the southwest dinner theme, I made a myself a small veggie quesadilla (smeared avo, zucchini ribbons, tomato slices and a very light sprinkle of shredded raw goat cheddar.)  The avocado and warmed zucchini ribbons definitely gave it the texture of a creamy, melty quesadilla without much cheese to speak of.  ¡Bueno!

Topped with some Tabasco sauce:

And served with a side of Amy’s Organic Black Bean Soup (with nutritional yeast):

***

Veggie day was a SUCCESS!  MSP ate cucumbers, spinach, celery, a clementine, a banana, tomatoes and sweet potatoes ALL IN ONE DAY!  I can almost see the nutrients making him glow already!   

My Tuesday exercise was 45 minutes of incline intervals on the treadmill, while suffering through yet another episode of the new Melrose Place. (I keep thinking, “Next week it will get better…”  It doesn’t.)

As for my own ‘hidden veggies’  I hid some sweet potato in my oatmeal (oh and I hid a few raisins in there too…):

I also hid some veggies inside of two toasted Ezekial slices:

Now go hide some veggies in the food at YOUR house (I double dog dare you)… but not until you enter the FitFeat Free Giveaway Contest if you haven’t done so yet.  You can enter until Thursday night at 8:00 PM MST! 

Have a WONDERFUL WEDNESDAY!

– Shari B. =)

Related FitFeat Posts to Check Out:

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If you are reading this post then some of the propagation changes have occurred or your subscription is working.  (woohooo! and thanks for finding me!) At our house, the blog change hasn’t hit our ISP provider server yet so I’m having to use a workaround to put out this post.

Who’d have thought moving a simple little blog/website from one WordPress platform to another would be such an involved process?  I won’t go into details because then a full-on venting session may ensue…  I guess I take a while to ‘embrace’ change.

I spent a good part of yesterday working on setting up a new theme so that FitFeat would have a neat new look for you when you got here today.  Being that I’m not someone versed in CSS or PHP coding, it was a slow process.  I did learn a lot and had the whole thing pretty much set up but there was one thing that I just could NOT customize and it drove me nuts.  So I ultimately decided to revert to the ‘theme’ that you are used to seeing.  Maybe in the near future when banging my head against a wall for a few hours won’t hurt so bad, I’ll give it another shot.  I’m going to set up a test environment first and play with it.

So all that said, this is of those days where yesterday morning feels like FOREVER ago!  Lots to catch you up on.

My Friday started out with my beloved energy elixir (aka java).  I think the selection of my “drama queen” mug may have set the karma for the day.  I certainly became one by the time 7:30 PM rolled around when I was hungry and ready to STOP being in front of the computer.  I may or may not have thrown a temper tantrum in poor MSP’s direction.  

After my jolt of coffee, it was time to head downstairs to the gym for some upper body weight training.  Immediately following I had this pretty little pluot to put a smile on my face.  VIBRANT is all I can say about this little cutie:

Changed and ready to start the ‘workday’, it was time for my real breakfast, an EXTRA-green smoothie. Holy-tastes-like-grass-clippings Batman!  It was cucumber, avocado, sprouts, spinach, celery and only 1/4 of an apple (because I seriously sliced the rest and FORGOT to add it to the blender… didn’t notice till I went to put everything away and then took a sip of my smoothie!)  It tasted green, that’s for sure!  I did love the texture the avocado gave it, though.

I realized when I posted about having all those avos, I didn’t explain that normally I buy one or two at a time.  I happened to be at Costco last weekend and they had bags of 5 for a bargain.  So I bought a bag, and they all ripened together.  I didn’t want to waste any of them so I was frantically trying to find a way to use them all and not get sick of the flavor!

Thank you for all of your comments and suggestions about things to do with avocados!  Did any of you happen to read about the dryer lint smoothie in Cindy’s comment?  I’m linking you to her site so that you can see it… it DOES look like dryer lint!  Too fun!

One of the things I decided to make since I happened to have all the ingredients was a Mango-Avocado Salsa from allrecipes.com.  I made a few adjustments:  used agave in lieu of white sugar, and rice vinegar in lieu of white (because I didn’t have any white!). I don’t think it made any difference which vinegar was used in it.  Got all my prep stuff lined up:

All made and ready to rest in the fridge so the flavors can “mingle”:

I also still had some leftover kale that I wanted to use.  I was going to try the great recipe Alexandra wrote about in the comments section recently… only I realized too late that I didn’t have any cashews!  So I improvised and mixed up about 1/4 cup of roasted red pepper hummus, some olive oil, little squeeze of lemon juice and nutritional yeast, put it all in a gallon ziploc bag, then added the kale and shook it all around.  Then baked.  Here’s the end result:

Wow, it was GOOD!  I ate the entire batch for lunch. SO good!  Thank you Alexandra for being the inspiration.  When I get some cashews, I’ll be trying yours next! I also want to try the sauteed kale that Joan mentioned in her comment too.

From there it was all PC work the rest of the day.  A Gingersnap Larabar mid afternoon…

That was it until I was done with the blog move.  At that point, it was out of my hands.  I’d done everything on my end.  As I’d mentioned, I was SO ready for a glass of wine.  I chose a little organic table red called “Our Daily Red” which MSP so kindly picked up for me on the way home.  (When he offered to help me earlier in the day, my response was BUY ME SOME ALCOHOL ON YOUR WAY HOME FROM WORK! That’s the kind of help I need right now!)  No I do not turn to alcohol to relieve my stress.    Just this time, I swear!

I munched on a couple of pieces of raw goat cheddar with my glass of vino.  Then this:

I just felt the need for some ‘naughty’ food.  And believe it when I say I did read the ingredients and selected this because it did NOT have any partially hydrogenated gunk in it.  It had other gunk, but at least it was semi-real gunk.     It was time to park it in front of the TV for a bit in order to let my brain stop clicking… so I turned on the episode of “The Office” that I’d missed most of Thursday night and what happens?  I FELL ASLEEP AGAIN!!  Twice I’d missed this episode!  Guess if I ever have a bout of insomnia again, the trick is to watch a little Michael Scott and Dwight! 

Well my friends, it is a BEAUTIFUL Saturday here.  Not a cloud in the blue sky, and WARM!  You know what that means!  Shari needs her vitamin D fix!!  Have a SUPERB Saturday and thanks so much for sticking it out with me during the blog move!

Stay tuned this week for the first FitFeat Contest Giveaway!!

–Shari B.  =)

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As promised I’m back with the continuation of Wednesday’s recap since I had to jet out so fast earlier this morning to make it to my running appointment!

After hiking yesterday with my good friend (thanks Keri!!) I snacked on a Chocolate Coconut Chew Larabar in the car.  Mmm it’s so like a coconut brownie, love this one!

By the time I got back to my house it was close to 1:00 – I had a late lunch that ended up being lunch and afternoon snack.  The beauties were staring at me from the counter:

So I figured now that they’re ripe I better get busy eating them!  I decided on lettuce wraps filled with avocado slices, yellow pepper, tomato and slivers of raw goat cheddar.  Sprinkle on some coarse-ground pepper and lunch was ready!  (Quite tasty AND filling…)

I spent a little time catching up on some of my favorite blogs and it seemed chickpeas were a strong theme around the blogosphere!  I thought for sure I’d make some thing relating to hummus or falafal after seeing all the gorgeous photos of various chickpea dishes.  But when dinnertime actually rolled around, all I wanted was some miso soup and sushi.  I chose the Bungee roll which is a cucumber/avocado roll with baked spicy salmon on top.   I miss having sushi on a regular basis!  I was a little worried about eating all the rice with the salmon (from an upset stomach standpoint) but all was well! 

After dinner we got decided to be spontaneous and use up some movie passes so we ran out to the theater.  Often I will bring my own snack in my purse with me, and maybe a bottle of water.  On this particular night, I was feeling the movie candy, so I decided to get some Welch’s Fruit Snacks.  Hey, if anything, I got a HINT of juice in my candy, since I didn’t have a green smoothie during the day!   

So now that I still have 4 avocados to use up, I’d love to hear of your favorite avocado recipes!  I’m considering using one to make a “Choco-mole” from Gena at Choosing Raw.  But still have  A LOT of avocado to use up.  Outside of GUACAMOLE, what is your favorite way to eat an avocado? 

Alright my friends, off to continue working on my huge To-Do List!  (Which means I haven’t made it far enough into my Tony Robbins “The Time of Your Life” audio series yet, because apparently I will soon be taught how NOT to live and die by the dastardly To-Do list.)

I hope you are all enjoying your Thursday!  Looking forward to hearing your avocado uses!

See you tomorrow!

– Shari B. =)

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