Week in Review: Dinner Edition

Hey Guys! I told you I'd be back for a review of my great eats this week! This week I was forced to be a little creative in the kitchen because we didn't have as many options on hand, but no fear, my creativity shone through and I had some wonderful dinners :)

This was a stir fry of chopped brussel sprouts, carrots, and yellow bell pepper. I also had some toast with hummus on the side.

This was such an amazing salad--seriously, if you haven't tried strawberries in salad, it's a must! This salad was made with fresh-from-the-garden bib lettuce, topped with carrots, strawberries, veggie breakfast sausages, lots of salsa, and feta cheese.

I love breakfast. It's hands down my favorite meal of the day. I love going to bed at night thinking about the great breakfast I'm going to sit down to in the morning. Breakfast is so important to getting our bodies re-started for the day!

For my Sunday morning breakfast I oatmeal cooked in milk and some hemp powder, and topped with a slice of my banana blueberry bread, a banana, and drizzled with sunflower butter. I usually love this breakfast, but something about the hemp powder bothered me this time. I think it may have given me a headache...has anyone else experienced this before?

At this point you might be able to see that my veggies were pretty limited last week, but that's A-Okay because I made the best of it! I roasted up some brussel sprouts with a little worchestire and balsamic drizzle, and served an All American Flame Grilled veggie burger on top. Then topped with salsa and hummus. I LOVE these burgers! I had never had a veggie burger before this summer, but dare I say it, I may be a convert? They're so easy to make, so delicious, and have great nutritional stats! Winner in my book :)

Yeah, we were down to the very last items in the fridge here. Fresh lettuce from the garden topped with sauteed red beans and chickpeas.

Served with a piece of cinnamon raisin toast that was later drenched drizzled in my Dad's Kingsbury sauce.

We've had lots of fresh berries in the house though, so they've definitely made an appearance in my wonderful breakfasts! Feature: Greek yogurt, topped with the last slice of banana blueberry bread (sad!), sunflower butter, and sliced strawberries. This was so delicious and very refreshing on a hot morning (already at 5:30AM!)

I have been loving oranges this summer, and I meaning seriously loving them. I have one every single day with my lunch. They're so fresh and juicy and the perfect way to finish of my lunch.

Yesterday the dining hall at work didn't have any oranges (!) so I went to visit my great friend Chris in food prep to see if he had any extra oranges he was willing to part with. Low and behold, he had lots! He sliced up two juicy oranges for me! How great is he? The pre slicing was awesome for two reasons, first, I didn't have to get my hands all yucky from peeling the orange, and second, I could eat faster! Hmmmm maybe that's not such a good thing?

Try as I did though, I wasn't able to finish all of these slices and a few were left behind. Le sad.

I love getting creative in the kitchen. For me, it's relaxing yet fun. Using different spices, experimenting with different cooking techniques, trying different foods for the first time, all fun! We shall see what this week has in store in terms of creativity, but for now, I'm going to break for breakfast--I'm thinking waffles and peaches :)

Favorites Review!

Hello All!

I'm blogging from work today, so unfortunately I can't upload my eats from this week,but stay tuned later this weekend for an update on my weekly edible creations!

However, I did want to stop by and do a quick post reviewing some of my favorite foodie items! I was thinking about doing this once a week if it's popular, what do you think? I would love to hear your feedback!

First item of review: Larabars!

Have you all had them before? I first discovered them through the blog world earlier this year, and the first one I tried was the Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip:


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I went with something peanut buttery because, well, I love peanut butter! I was a little hesitant at first when I tried this because it looked a little funny, but I really loved it! Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip is definitely one of my favorites! The ingredient list is great, I mean, how can you go wrong with only 4 ingredients? Dates, peanuts, chocolate chips, and salt. Definitely a winner!

Next up, my ultimate favorite, Peanut Butter Cookie. Swooooon:


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This Larabar is my favorite for so many reasons, first being the ingredient list: peanuts, dates, salt. Again, awesome. Second, the flavor is spot on! The perfect sweet treat, or pre-workout fuel! I had this bar the other day as my mid-morning snack and it held me over quite well. I love these so much that I actually just asked my Dad to order me a box from online, and guess what? He did! Yeah, I do have the best father ever, but I think I've mentioned this before ;)

Aaaaand here we have Cashew Cookie:



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I don't think an ingredient list could get any shorter: cashews and dates. Prior to trying Larabars, I don't think I'd ever had a date, but now I love them! I haven't purchased any individual medjool dates yet, but I keep seeing them pop up in the blog world as a great pre-workout snack, especially paired with a nut butter (I'm thinking sunflower seed?) The flavor of this bar is on point--the cashew flavor is strong, but oh so good! I highly recommend you try this one!

I've tried several other flavors, but today I wanted to highlight some of my favorite! I keep trying to find the Blueberry Muffin and Banana Bread flavors, but I haven't found them yet! Anyone one where I can find these flavors in Manhattan?

So, if you're interested in trying a new healthy snack, go check out Larabars!

I'll check back in soon with an update on my eats this week. (There were some really greats ones, as usual!)

Attempt #1

Happy Friday Evening!

What a week it has been! It's been 100F+ over here the past two days! A little too hot for my liking, thank you very much!

The past couple of days I've been experimenting in the kitchen and having a lot of fun :) For about a month now, I've been wanting to try my hands at banana bread, but have not had any ripe enough bananas to do so until a couple of days ago. I referenced Courtney's recipe for banana blueberry bread but changed things up a bit because half-way through making the bread I realized I didn't have a couple of the ingredients :/

Overall, the end product turned out...well. It definitely wasn't Courtney level, but I'm going to give myself a tap on the back considering I didn't have the applesauce, didn't add any butter/oil, and didn't have vanilla extract.

Either it wasn't completely cooked all the way through or the bananas just made it really moist inside, but I actually liked it really dense and moist! I wasn't worried about it not being completely dry in the middle because I didn't use any eggs (I was also out of those).

I didn't wait long for it to cool because it smelled soooo good! I made myself a little bit of PB&Co. Cinnamon Raisin Swirl sauce to dip it in, mmmmm yummy :)

This actually made a really good breakfast cut up into bite sized pieces, heated up in the microwave, and topped with 1 tbs. sunflower butter and a diced pear.

Tonight for dinner I really wanted to use a fresh eggplant grown in our garden here! But, I didn't want to turn on the oven for fear of heating up the entire house, so I went with a simple stir fry with carrots, onions, and an Asian sauce served on top of some cooked quinoa.

After dinner I was craving banana soft serve like nobody's business, and luckily for me, I popped 1 super ripe banana in the freezer a couple hours earlier knowing the craving would kick in at some point during the evening.

I added some of my (new to me) hemp protein powder as well as a splash of milk and blended it up. Holy yum! This was delicious! I was a little apprehensive of the hemp powder I bought, but I've been looking to incorporate a little more protein into my diet, and I'm happy I chose this one because it's got a pretty good ingredient list and tastes great! Of course, I topped the banana soft serve with some dark chocolate chunks.

I've got another early day tomorrow but I'm looking forward to doing a little more experimenting in the kitchen tomorrow night.

Have a great evening!