I woke up craving some pumpkin and banana oatmeal! Too bad I had used the rest of my pumpkin in my oatmeal yesterday!I had already started thinking about what else I could eat, and then….

then I remembered that I had frozen some amazing pumpkin/chocolate chip bread a few months ago  :)  I took a slice out of the freezer and popped it in the toaster oven for a few minutes while I made my oats.

The combination ended up being:

• 1/2 cup old fashioned oats
• 1 cup water
• pinch salt
• 1/2 sliced banana
• cinnamon
• 2 Tbsp (total) of walnuts and almonds
• 1 slice pumpkin chocolate chip bread, crumbled on top

The outcome?

One bowl of amazing oats. I forgot how much I love this bread!  Good thing I still have a few pieces in the freezer  :)

I also had about a cup of skim milk to complete my breakfast.

Monday at work is…..Monday at work. What can I say?  I hate when the alarm goes off on Monday mornings. For some reason, it’s worse on Mondays than on ANY other day, right?

Lunch today may seem a bit familiar to one last week. I used the last of the refried beans to make a wrap with ff cheese and hot sauce!

I also had a salad with romaine, tomato, avocado  and a little lime juice…

And some fruit!  Grapes and strawberries to finish off my meal.

Exciting thing about today – I’m going to a yoga class tonight! I’m SO excited. It has been a long time since I’ve been to an actual class, and this one is 1:30 long – it should be great. I’ve taken classes with this lady before and love her, so I am looking forward to this WAY too much  :)

Around 4:30 or so, I’m going to have this snack to hold me over until and through yoga –

Greek yogurt + Pom arils + semi-sweet mini chips = love  ♥

Dinner, and the dinner post, will probably be a little later than normal. The class is from 6:15 – 7:45, and I won’t be eating dinner until after class.

Enjoy the rest of your Monday!

Don’t forget to check out ANOTHER great contest over at Oh, She Glows!

A BIG Thanks to my friend, Mara, for my new header!!!  Do you like it?  I love it!

 

Just be prepared – this post is going to be long   :)

 

I didn’t have time to blog breakfast before leaving for church, and then the afternoon flew by, so you’ll get all 3 meals in one post!  Although it stinks having to do a huge post at the end of the day, this may be the best choice for me on Sundays. We usually eat breakfast pretty close to when we leave in the morning, but I could try combining bfast/lunch together. We’ll see how the next couple of weeks go, I guess!

 

 

FIRST – Sharon was right  :)  The mystery treats last night were cookies!  They were these macaroons from last month’s SELF magazine (recipe here)

 

These were pretty easy to make and SO good! AND low in calories, which is a plus. I got 50 out of the recipe. I loved how light they were, and the coconut flavor is just amazing. The chocolate drizzle stuff never really hardened on ours, but it may have been the kind of chocolate I used?  They are still tasty, though. You may see them in some oatmeal this week…

 

 

 

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Back to today!

 

The color of today is apparently ORANGE! 

 

Breakfast was pumpkinand banana oatmeal with TJ’s Nuts about Chocolate trail mix – chocolate chips saved for the top   :)

 

 

 

I mean….how could you not want to eat this?

 

 

 

All that melty goodness held me all morning long.

 

 

For lunch, more orange!  I baked a butternut squash (cut in half, seeds taken out) at 425 for 45 minutes. When that was almost done, I cooked some lean ground turkey in a pan, added some oregano, garlic, and tomato sauce, and used that mixture to stuff the cooked squash.  Topped with some soy parmesan and peas on the side.

 

 

 

 

While the squash was baking, I ran an errand and found some razors 75% off at Rite Aid!  That is just about unheard of!  They had packs of 8 razor blades for the Venus razors on sale for $5, so I bought 2 packs of those – they were normally $22, which is also ridiculous. I hate buying razors – they’re always so expensive. As soon as I saw those on super sale, I knew I needed to get them to save some angry shopping trip later  :)

 

After lunch, we watched a movie and laid around while doing laundry. Around 4 pm, we got up to wash and put our other set of dishes away, and then we went for a 30 minute run outside. It was a little chilly today, but I felt great while running. Having a headband and gloves make such a difference in keeping me warm! I wish we would have gone longer, but we were already back home. I need to just make myself go longer on the days I’m feeling good. Do you make yourself go longer (when running, walking, working out in any other way) than you planned if you’re feeling good?

 

 

 

My dinner tonight was SO good, but took so long to cook.  

Apparently, I decided to try to be a domestic goddess – at least it turned out well! I don’t think I can do this every week, though.

 

Roasters were on sale this week, so I knew I needed to roast this chicken tonight to have leftovers for dinner tomorrow.

 

This was roasted with a cut up lemon and onion inside the chicken, and it had olive oil and rosemary, garlic, and salt on the outside. I roasted for 30 minutes at 400, then basted with lemon juice and baked for about 1 – 1:30 more hours at 350, basting every half hour.

 

 

 

In between basting, I dusted, cleaned the bathroom, and Nick and I vacuumed the house.  I also worked on packing my lunch for tomorrow, too, so it’s all done!  While the chicken was cooking, I prepped veggies and de-seeded a pomegranate for this week. It feels good to have all of this stuff done now  :)

 

I also decided this afternoon to make these:

 

 

Crazy? Maybe a little. I just really wanted some good bread or rolls with dinner, and this recipe sounded easy enough.

 

This was my first time making homemade crescent rolls, and they turned out great and super doughy. I used a Honey Wheat Crescent Roll recipe from this cookbook. I will definitely make these again – they had such great flavor and were so much thicker and doughy-er than those Pillsbury ones out of the can. Sorry dough-boy…these win, hands down!

 

We also had a side salad (with carrots, mushrooms, tomato, and romaine) and a brown rice/barley pilaf (topped with a little olive oil) with the chicken.

 

 

 

 

 

 

I’m so happy this meal turned out well  –  I’m always a little scared when I’m baking breads that involve yeast because I don’t do it very often. 

 

I’m pretty tuckered out from running around, but I got everything done on my list for today!  There’s usually always a few things that I put off until Monday, but I’m happy I got all my stuff done, house cleaned, and lunch packed. Whew!

 

I think I’m about to have a big, cold glass of milk and wait until Iron Chef is on   :)

 

I hope you had a great weekend!

Today was fun!  We met Nick’s parents at Abuelo’s Mexican Embassy for lunch. We had never been before, so this was a treat.

 

It was a really neat place, but the best part was the dessert.   :)

 

 

We shared some chips and a dip sampler, which included: guacamole, queso, and a chili queso dip. We also had medium and hot salsa.

 

 

 

For my meal, I got the Tilapia Veracruz: Tilapia topped with scallops, shrimp, poblano peppers, tomatoes, and olives. Yum!

 

 

 

It came with steamed broccoli and some *meh* rice. Not bad, but not great. I only eat Mexican rice if it’s great – I hate when it’s just there to complete the plate.

 

But the fish and broccoli were great!

 

 

Now, for dessert. They had really, really good sopapillas dusted with cinnamon sugar and served with honey – my favorite!  I can’t always find these, so I was so excited that they had them!

 

The best ones are little pillows of dough – you rip the corner off, fill it with honey and enjoy  :)

 

 

 

Check out that honey in the middle    :)

 

We tried to get an action shot of the honey…but I was too excited to get a great shot, I guess!

 

 

 

 

We shopped around for a bit and then they headed back home.  It was a short visit, but fun!

 

 

After running by Kroger for the last stuff on my grocery list and the health food store, we headed home for dinner.

 

For dinner, I used the last 2 teriyaki chicken thighs. I cut them up into bite sized pieces and heated them through with a bag of frozen stir fry veggies, soy sauce, teriyaki sauce, chili paste, garlic, and ginger. Then I added in about a cup of cooked bulgur – this was the perfect amount for the two of us!

 

 

 

 

I love those baby corn  :)

 

I also cooked one of those steamer bags of edamame on the side.

 

 

 

 

I just finished making a treat for us – here’ s a preview!  You’ll see them tomorrow  :)

 

 

 

Can you guess what they are? 

 

 

also – a big shout out and thanks for my friend, Mara, for making my new header!  I love it   :)

Have a good night!

After debating what we wanted for breakfast, we decided on this:

 

Eggs in Purgatory, which are basically eggs poached in pasta sauce. Except we normally don’t have pasta sauce laying around, so we poach them in salsa. Yum!

 

 

 On top of grits with some ff cheese mixed in.  Yummmm….

 

Plus a mix of fruit and some lean turkey sausage

 

 

 

and, of course….a cup of awesome coffee, courtesy of Nick. He is quite the coffee master now! 

 

 

 

I’m working on a second cup of coffee right now before heading out.

 

We’re off to Roanoke for the day to meet up with Nick’s parents and do a dish swap, some shopping, and just have a good time visiting  :)

 

 

Congrats to Meghann, Caitlin, Melissa, and Gina!!! They all ran in the Seasons 52 5.2K today!  Check out their blogs for more pics/info about the race!  I love how they think 40 degrees is cold  :)  You girls did awesome!