Getting my leafy greens

Friday was a cooking extravaganza. After my pumpkin bread in the morning I had the rest of a chickpea cutlet and an apple with honey roasted peanut butter and almond butter.

For dinner I had more sweet and sour cabbage and I made Jenna's Mom's Spicy BBQ Beans. They were so good. Delicious kidney beans and kale! They taste so smoky and almost meaty like collard greens that I've had made with ham.

I also had a wonderful 4 oz. glass of Alamos Pinot Noir. I think i'm finally beginning to appreciate wine more. Finally I can read wine descriptions and be able to understand what they are describing and how the wine will taste. Dinner was so good I has seconds!

Someday I'll catch up

One of these days I am going to be one of those bloggers who posts every day on time but I haven't quite gotten there yet. Yesterday I drove my sister to the bus station to go home and returned to my non-vacation eating style. I had banana oatmeal for breakfast. I figured that all the posts of the same oatmeal may be getting a little old so today I am including a picture of some of the products that make my oatmeal great! Vanilla Hempmilk, Irish Oatmeal and Honey Roasted Peanut butter!


For lunch I wanted something light so I went with a bowl full of Trader Joe's European Style yogurt with grapes, banana, Honey Bunches of Oats and puffins! It really hit the spot. I also had a big pink lady apple along with it!


Dinner was Whole Foods Vegetarian Split Pea Soup with a slice of my favorite sandwich bread, Wegman's Honey Apple Oat, that I brought up from home. To jazz up the split pea soup I added a tiny spoonful of cottage cheese, some dijon mustard, a splash of hot sauce and some dried dill. On the side I had cut up radishes that I am trying to finish with Whole Foods hummus and some Trader Joe's pineapple salsa.


I totally forgot to take a picture but for dessert I had Stonyfield Farm Vanilla frozen yogurt with peanut butter granola on top. SO GOOD!

A Two for One kind of post!

I'm going to post both Tuesday and Wednesday meals because I have been so busy with work lately and I need to catch up.

Tuesday morning I had toast with honey roasted peanut butter and bananas! It was so filling and good, I could not resist taking a bite before I photographed it.



Lunch I had on the run because I had to get my haircut and then go to class. Dinner was cut up fruit: grapes, bananas, kiwi and a huge salad with a big scoop of cottage cheese in the middle and tons of other delicious veggies. I apologize for the blurr, photo, I must not have been paying attention.



Today's breakfast was Banana Oatmeal with trail mix and p.b.!

This photo came out much better!

Lunch today was cut up apples with goat gouda, salad of greens with balsamic dressing, blackberries and grapes, AND a piece of toasted pita bread with pb and j!




Dinner tonight was boring abig bowl of cut up fruit with cottage cheese on top and a big bowl of puffins with almond breeze. I am going home tomorrow so I may not be posting for a little while but I promise to take pictures of all the delicious food I eat and prepare

Easter! (Pictures Pending)

I woke up Easter morning in the mood to get things done and excited for the Easter dinner we had planned. I started the morning off right with a bowl of banana oatmeal made even more delicious by the addition of some Trader Joe's Nuts about Raspberries and Chocolate Trek Mix and little spoonful of the honey roasted peanut butter!

Next we went grocery shopping for all of our dinner ingredients. I was surprised by how little we needed to buy to make our fresh and fabulous dishes!

Then we set to cleaning the whole house from top to bottom. As college students this often goes neglected and the feng shui of the house just went through the roof once we were done.

In the afternoon Joel came over to help us start preparing the meal. I suppose I should reveal the menu now :) :

-The Barefoot Contessa's Perfect Roast Chicken
-Cooking Light's Marsala Mashed Sweet Potatoes
-Garlicky String Beans
-Strawberry Rhubarb Pie

I am still in awe of how well the meal turned out. When you're new to cooking like we are its to be expected that one the dishes won't quite meet expectations but this honestly was one of the best meals I ever cooked. The chicken was stuffed with lemon garlic and thyme and came out of the oven perfectly browned. It was wonderfully moist and flavorful. The string beans were fresh and garlicky. The sweet potatoes were the perfect blend of sweet and savory. I would have never thought to use marsala with potatoes. We enjoyed a glass of prosecco before dinner and had a bottle of cheap red wine during dinner, definitely not a master pairing but festive none the less. Our friend Abby joined us for dinner and brought an excellent Israeli salad which reminded me so much of Spring!

We all decided it would be cute to wear our Easter best and my roommate took lots of photos which I'll be posting as soon as I can steal them from her.

For dessert we had our much sought after pie and several of our other friends joined us who couldn't make it to the dinner. Everyone agreed the pie was delicious, though not quite as good as homemade :) all in all an awesome way to spend Easter!

Busy, Busy, Busy

Today ended up being a much busier day then I expected and so it was a little boring food wise, though their are some highlights I thought I'd share with everyone. My roommate and I are the only ones in our house not home for the Easter weekend. This morning we got up and made one of our favorite meals for brunch: Peanut Butter and Banana Sandwiches!!! These sandwiches were made a million times better by the addition of our freshly ground honey roasted peanut butter. OH so good!
After brunch our friend J stopped by to discuss the menu planning for our big Easter Dinner. That's right my friends and I decided that if we were going to be at school Easter weekend then we would just have to celebrate ourselves. I'll reveal our not so top secret menu in my next post, it's going to be delicious! While planning our dinner we decided it would be essential to have an Easter dessert so we decided upon a pie and The Great Easter Pie Search began!

First we went to a local bakery called Culpepper's but the only pies that they had left were weird un-Eastery flavors like Squash and Apple. Not to be discouraged we went to a second bakery, the Crown Bakery. This bakery is renowned for it's Swedish treats but it seemed they only had pumpkin and egg custard pies left and wouldn't be open on Sunday! Our third attempt was the Blue Hydrangea bakery where we were informed that almost all of their pies were pre-ordered and that any extras were long gone at that point. Finally we went to our local supermarket. I had already resigned myself at this point to forgoing the pie, as I assumed all we would find at the grocery store would be some trans fat laden, high fructose corn syrup, sorry excuse for a pie. BUT lo and behold, they had a delicious looking Strawberry Rhubarb Pie produced by the higher end supermarket brand which had NO HFCS and used Palm oil instead of Partially Hydrogenated anything! I nearly jumped for joy and I can't wait to dig in tomorrow!!!!

Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner!

Happy St. Patrick's Day! My first post with actual food woo hoo!

I could not get out of bed this morning. I spent some quality time hitting snooze and thinking about what I could make for breakfast as an incentive to get up.

Usually I like to have banana oatmeal for breakfast, I use McCann's Quick Cooking Irish Oatmeal cooked with 1/2 c. of unsweetened vanilla almond milk, 1/2 c. of water and a pinch of salt. THen when my oats are almost done I add half of a mashed banana. I eat my oatmeal with a 1/2 T. of natural peanut butter, a la Kath of KathEats, that I leave on the spoon so I get a little peanut butter with each bite. Sometimes I add a teaspoon of raw sugar on top for crunch and sweetness.

But today I was out of bananas so I decided to try something new. To my usual oatmeal I added:

-1/2 T. of cocoa powder
- a good dash of cinnamon
-a pinch of nutmeg
- a tiny pinch of chili powder

Voila, Spicy Mole Cocoatmeal!

The cocoa powder changed the mouth feel of the oats somewhat and they needed a splash more of milk, which you see in the picture. This recipe also needs to be sweetened. I used 1 1/2 t. of raw sugar but I think that this would be great made with my usual mashed banana! I still kept my usual spoonful of peanut butter because I need it to fuel my mornings but I'm sure you could enjoy these oats without it.




With Breakfast I also had my favorite coffee, Trader Joe's Peaberry. The peaberry is supposedly a very rare, prized bean and this coffee is amazing! The canister says Limited Edition and they don't always carry it so go buy some now! I take my coffee with 1 T. of half and half and no sugar. I used to take it with Fat Free half and half and Splenda but I stopped in an effort to cut down on chemicals in my diet.

For lunch today I decide to have a baked sweet potato in honor of St. Patrick's Day. I used one of those plastic wrapped potatoes made especially for the microwave. Not as good as oven baked but an awesome time saver! Using this recipe as inspiration I scooped out the inside of my potato and mashed them with a little lowfat plain yogurt, cinnamon, chili powder and cayenne. Then I drizzled a tiny bit of maple syrup on top. On the side I had a half a broiled grapefruit and some sliced kiwi with a delicious mug of chamomile tea! Right before work I snacked on a few Honey Sesame TLC Crackers.

Dinner tonight was avocado quesadillas made with mashed avocado seasoned with lemon juice, cumin, and garlic powder and reduced fat four cheese blend and splashed with hot sauce. On the side I had Trader Joe's Spicy Peach Salsa and some spiced yogurt. I also had a side salad made with field greens, tomatoes, scallions and the other half of my grapefruit dressed with honey mustard and vinegar.

Tonight I'll probably have a snack while studying and preparing a paper due Wednesday!