meatloaf in july

We had a pretty low key weekend, not nearly as exciting as the weekend before. We had dinner with friends on Friday for Natasha's birthday, then called it an early night so that we could tackle our huge to do list on Saturday.

Saturday morning, we were up and out of bed by 6:45, partly because of annoying dogs, and partly because we wanted to get an early run in before the humidity got too bad. We were out the door by 7:00 and did 5 miles around our neighborhood. I was absolutely drenched by the time we got home, so I guess the humidity was already bad. It was a slow run, but it was pretty good. I am glad we got it over with early, so we had the rest of the day to work on other things.

Starting this upcoming weekend, we have a very busy schedule. Each weekend, we are out of town until we leave for a week and a half of weddings/vacation in Mexico and Providence, RI. We used this past weekend to prepare ourselves and get some things done that will need to be done by the end of the summer. 

One of the items on my to do list was to go bridesmaid dress shopping with Lindsay. We definitely found "the one(s)" and had a blast trying on bunches of dresses. After shopping, I introduced Lindsay to the fabulous world of ring cleaning, and we grabbed lunch while our rings were soaking at the jewelers. During lunch, Lindsay mentioned she was making a turkey meatloaf for dinner. I thought that was a little weird considering it is July and 100+ degrees outside, but for some reason, I began to instantly crave some.

Lindsay assured me it was a lighter version of the winter time favorite and forwarded me the recipe from Real Simple.  The spinach, egg white, and ground turkey combination definitely had me interested so I decided to give it a try. It turned out fantastic.

I made a few adjustments to the recipe by subbing whole grain oats for the breadcrumbs, cutting the parsley measurements in half, and per Lindsay's suggestion, cutting the onion and spinach measurements in half as well. I decided to make mashed red skinned potatoes and corn on the cob to summerfy this meatloaf even more.

Mike and I both really enjoyed this meal and I am really glad Lindsay suggested it. Thanks so much!



While everything was cooking, I decided to use up some kale in the refrigerator the only way that I know how... kale chips. :)

They were a great snack to have while we were waiting for dinner to be ready.

We had some great fruit this week in our weekly produce box, including cherries (love), strawberries, and more blueberries. I feel like I hit the produce jackpot with this delivery. The only problem, how are we going to get rid of all these blueberries before we leave on Thursday? I know we will get through the strawberries and cherries, but I really only take a small amount of blueberries in my oats everyday, and we have 2 full pints to get through.

Since the lemon blueberry muffins that I made last week were such a huge hit, I decided to make more yesterday.  This time, I threw in some chopped strawberries to make them a little more exciting.

They turned out so delicious. The strawberries give them a gooey, sweet flavor that goes so wonderful with lemon.

I had one this morning with a little butter on top and it was absolute perfection. This recipe is so easy and I plan on continuing to make these for as long as we have blueberries. I am considering making an extra batch to throw in the freezer for when we don't have any... That might have to happen before we leave on Thursday.

I also made some super creamy overnight oats with greek yogurt, strawberries, and blueberries for breakfast this morning.

Don't want those berries to go bad!

--

This morning I did 3 miles around Mike's office and it was pretty sluggish. I just didn't have it in me today and I ran super slow... maybe that meatloaf had something to do with it? I felt heavy and tired, and HOT. It was only 8:15 in the morning, but the heat was so miserable. A friend told me over the weekend that runners only get a few "great" runs per week. 3/5 runs are just bad but you have to get through them. That is a pretty true statement and I guess today was one of my bad ones. I can look forward to my next run and hope it is a good, or great one.

Have a good Monday, everyone! I've got leftover meatloaf and mashed red potatoes for lunch with cherries for dessert. It is going to be a good day. :)

what to do...

...when you extremely over cook dry northern white beans... OR ... if you want to make a really yummy soup?

Either way, I have a solution for you.

Sorry for the delay in posting. Friday was crazy busy, and I just couldn't find the time to post. I worked all night Friday night, so Saturday was a total doozie... We stayed on the couch until 4 pm, ate some dinner, and then played a board game with friends and called it a night. Mike was hungover on Saturday, so he was no help getting the motivation train going. :)

Let's go back a few days, shall we? Thursday, Mike had put some white beans in the crock pot to cook all day, so that we could make some rosemary braised white beans. When we got home, the beans were very soft. A little mushy even, and had quite a bit of water still over them.

I scooped out a few cups of the beans and tried to start making the recipe that I had in mind. I added in some rosemary, salt and pepper, and started stirring. Before long, they went from whole beans, like this:

to mushed beans like this:

I knew they were not going to work for the recipe that I wanted to make. After a swift evaluation of our fridge and pantry, we decided to attempt to make a white bean soup. Mike was the brains behind this, I just threw in a few ingredients that I thought would make it tasty. We didn't have any broth (chicken or vegetable) so we got creative by using the bean "broth" that was left in the crock pot. It worked perfectly!

Rosemary White Bean and Vegetable Soup

1 lb dry white beans, overcooked in the crock pot (we put the beans that were soaked overnight into a crock pot with water and allowed to cook on low for about 8-9 hours.
2 medium carrots, sliced
1/2 white onion, chopped
3 cloves of garlic, chopped
2 stalks of celery, chopped
1 cup frozen corn
1 cup water
Sea salt and pepper - about 1/8 tsp each
Thyme - 1/4 tsp
Parsley - 1/4 tsp
Rosemary - 1/4 tsp
2 roma tomatoes, chopped
1 tbsp olive oil

We started by chopping all the vegetables and putting the carrots, onion, celery and garlic into a skillet with the olive oil and water. Allow to cook until soft (next time, I will put the carrots and celery into the bean pot, so they can cook longer in the fluid and get softer). In a large soup pot, combine soup, soup broth, and corn, bring to a boil. Once the vegetables are soft, add them to the soup pot, along with the S&P, thyme, parsley, and rosemary. Allow to cook for about 5-10 minutes, until everything is hot and cooked through. Add the roma tomatoes just before turning the burner off, so they have a chance to get warm, but not get soggy.

This soup is a perfect warm and cozy meal for the winter. It had elements of a chowder, but we used absolutely no dairy. You can adjust the seasonings as you wish, I found it to be perfect, but Mike would have liked a little more salt. I wanted a hunk of crusty bread to go with mine, and to my surprise, we had a half of a loaf of Italian bread in the freezer. I cut it up, threw it in the oven and used it for dipping.

Don't you love my attempt at food photography with the iPhone? Mike laughs at me every time I put a nice cloth under my food, but I tell him that you all probably appreciate it! :)

Next up... Sauteed purple cabbage!
I had an entire other half of a head of purple cabbage and didn't want to let it go to waste. I decided to give sauteing it a try, since green cabbage is so good that way. While we were cooking our soup for dinner, I threw some shredded purple cabbage in a skillet with EVOO, S&P. It was sooo good! And, so pretty and easy.

I told Mike we could share this bowl while we were waiting on the soup to finish, but I ended up eating it all.

No formal recipe needed, but now you know what to do with any leftover purple cabbage!

Gym Time
I 100% blame Michael P. for me not going to the gym on both Friday and Saturday... yup, I said it. :) He pretty much begged me not to go on Friday, so he could sleep in. Then, on Saturday, as I was getting in my weekly dose of complete trash TV (it is pretty much mandatory for me to watch trash when I first wake up after working all night), I started to get antsy, and mentioned going to the gym. Mike let out the biggest, whiney, wimper every time. Poor little, hungover, Mike... lucky for him, I was not really in the mood to go either, so we remained on the couch a few more hours.

Sunday, we went to church, Sunday school, and then straight to the gym. We got in about an hour and 20 minutes of chest, abs, and cardio, so we are both quite sore today.

I got in a great hour long work out this morning, doing arms and cardio. The juice must be helping, because I am getting in some serious sweat sessions on the treadmill these past few days. :)

I hope everyone is having a great Monday so far!

Thursday's Stats:
Calories (+) 171
Sodium (-) 179
Protein (-) 6

BTW - That soup has some AMAZING stats... Just in case you are interested, using the Spark Calorie Counter, I found the following:
Calories: 220
Fat: <1
Sodium: 262
Total Carb: 41
Protein: 14.4
and -

Nutritional Analysis

Good points

• Very low in saturated fat
• No cholesterol
• High in dietary fiber
• High in iron
• High in manganese
• High in magnesium
• High in potassium
• Very high in vitamin A

Cardio Change Up

I feel like I am running on fumes, y'all. I am so tired, and soooo unmotivated. I hope tomorrow is a better day.  I probably have the beverages I consumed yesterday during the Pats game to blame... but oh well.

This weekend was busy, to say the least. My cousin was in town, so we went out to dinner after work on Friday and then out for a few drinks with friends. Saturday morning, we woke up and headed to Fayetteville for my other cousin's soccer game. It was so nice catching up with my cousins, Aunt, and my mom (who randomly was also in Fayetteville).

We had planned to go out with some friends on Saturday night, but by the time we got back home, we were cold and tired, and didn't feel like going out. We did decide to meet a few of them out for dinner at Chuck's, a burger restaurant we have been really wanting to try.

Chuck's was great. It had very simple designs, furniture and menu. It was very reasonably priced for a "boutique burger restaurant" and I will definitely be going back. We really loved it.

Our table split their Belgian Fries with several of the dipping sauces, my favorite was the Sweet Chili and Malt Vinegar Aioli. The fries were thick and crispy, and the sauces had amazing flavor.

For my burger, I had the Spirit Animal and it was so good. I love cream cheese on anything, so I was totally down with trying it on a burger. It wasn't too spicy, but had enough kick to satisfy my palette. This is the 5oz chuck, which is their "smaller" burger. It was plenty for me.

One of my friends, Jessica, also got a milkshake. It was peanut butter and banana, and it was so incredible. I had a taste and wished I would have gotten one myself. She had bourbon added to it, but no one could taste it.

Chuck's is definitely a place I will be going back to. Their menu is not extensive, but I want to try everything on it!

After eating, we headed to Fox's Liquor Bar, which is owned by the same person who owns Chuck's. So far, Mike and I have been a huge fan of all of her restaurants, so we figured Fox's would be no different.

Fox's was pretty impressive. It was a bar with nothing but small tables, couches and round-table areas, with a smaller bar. It was very intimate feeling and the drink menu was interesting, in a good way. It was also very expensive. Mike and I each had one drink, and then headed home. I rolled with a simple glass of wine, but Mike got an old fashioned.

Jessica got some type of complicated mixed drink, I can't remember what it was called, but it was very pretty, and she said it was tasty.

It definitely looked tasty! They had some pretty interesting things on the menu, one of them being absinthe. Apparently absinthe has a very different presentation, where you allow ice water to slowly drop over a sugar cube to sweeten it perfectly. It looked like crack rock to us, so we had a lot of fun making fun of it. Too bad I didn't snap a picture, but it would have been awkward, since it wasn't one of our drinks.

After church yesterday, we had some people over to watch the Patriots play the Ravens. Mike is a huge Patriots fan, so I have become one as well. Thankfully, the Pats barely beat the Ravens and will now be going to the Super Bowl. Mike was very happy about this...

Gym Happenings
I ate pretty unhealthy this past weekend, and never had a chance to get a work out in. Since I had gone every day last week, I didn't feel too bad about it, but I knew I needed to get to they gym this morning. I had zero motivation this morning and honestly thought about taking a snooze in my car in they gym parking lot.

Somehow, I forced myself to get inside, but I had no interest in running on the treadmill. Geez... when is the weather going to get warmer so I can go back outside to run??!! It sucks it is only January still... Instead of running, I decided to play basketball by myself.

I actually played basketball when I was younger and for my high school in Virginia before we moved to North Carolina. It is one of the only sports I really enjoyed and was actually good at. Mike and I played one on one recently and I remembered just how hard you have to run and just how good of a work out it is to play.

I made up a fun game to play by myself. My hand-eye coordination is not quite what it used to be, so I am pretty bad at lay ups these days. I challenged myself to run down the court, dribbling, go for a lay up, and if I scored, I made free throws until I missed. That was my break. Otherwise, I had to keep running from basket to basket, attempting lay ups. Let's just say I did a lot of running back and forth today...

Sometimes, you just have to switch it up to keep yourself going. I could have stayed in bed, or napped in my car, but I made up a fun cardio session, and got the work out done. Even if it wasn't pretty, it got done.

Food Stuff
This past weekend's GoLocal produce delivery did not disappoint. Mushrooms (in the brown bag), radishes, celery, carrots, pears, apples, bananas, garlic, red onion, roma tomatoes, and a poblano pepper. We still have a ton of oranges and apples left from last week's delivery, so we are going to have to do some juicing to get through it. Our veggie and fruit crisper drawers are full to the brim! I love it!

We also still have our pineapple from last week's delivery, so we are using that up tonight. I have Googled my butt off for a recipe using chicken and pineapple, but none sound like what I want, so I am going to attempt a recipe on my own. Sometimes these recipes are great, sometimes, they are awful. Let's hope for a great one!

OMGorgeous Saturday!

Hello friends, welcome back to the work week. Blah...

I have all sorts of things to discuss about this past weekend. It was an awesome weekend, with lots of good food, exercise, accomplishments, and gatherings with friends. I worked all night on Friday and ended up having a pretty smooth night. I am always thankful for those. :)

Saturday morning, I got home and went to sleep for a few hours. When I woke up, I had a very exciting delivery on my front door step.

Our very first GoLocal Produce delivery! It was full of wonderful goodies that I couldn't wait to start eating.

Below the romaine lettuce, there was even more!

I love that they always include staple items, like bananas, onions, and potatoes. We rarely buy red peppers because they are kinda pricey, so I was pumped there were a few in there. In addition to everything else, this pack included limes, tomatoes, avocados, apples, oranges, and even fresh cilantro. Plenty of produce to last us a week, if not longer. We are going to try to make our meals based on what we get each week, so I am pretty excited about this. Also, every week, they always include a little surprise item...

BEETS! I have no idea how to make anything out of them, and I have no idea if I like them, but that is all part of the fun. That is one of the main reasons I wanted to join a produce delivery service that you don't have a choice in what you get. I wanted it to open my eyes to new veggies and fruits that I have never tried before. I have been googling beet recipes for the last hour and only really found roasted and pickling recipes. I think I will try roasting them, but if you have any ideas, please share!

I went for a great run on Saturday, since the weather was absolutely gorgeous. I went in a pair of yoga pants and a t-shirt and had to roll up my pants mid-run. I was so hot! I spent about 10 minutes walking and talking to my mom before starting my 2.5 mile run around my neighborhood. It felt so great to be running outside again! When I got home, I wanted to get in an arm and ab workout so I busted out the dumbbells. I had planned to go to the gym, but this worked out really well and I was able to do everything I wanted to.

Once I was finished, I couldn't wait any longer to dig into something from that box.

I had some tomato slices with sea salt and pepper and a fried egg with an apple on the side. It was delicious. 

By the time I got in the shower, it was 4:30 (I guess that is what happens when you sleep until 12:30...). We had plans to go over to a friend's house to make pizzas and hang out. We haven't had a chance to get together with a lot of our friends since before the holidays, so I was really looking forward to catching up.

We brought a bunch of ingredients so everyone could make their own pizzas. We decided to go with full sized pizzas and everyone partnered up to share, since we didn't really have enough pans for everyone. It worked out great.

Lindsay and I made a monster pizza using pepper jack cheese, banana peppers, green peppers, onions, sweet apple chicken sausage, roma tomatoes, black olives, and mushrooms. Holy yum. Everyone made fun of it because they thought it wouldn't cook and we would have to eat it with a fork (like that is a problem), but it turned out perfect.

Before

After

I enjoyed my slices with some vino and a chocolate brownie after. Mmmmm.

We didn't stay out too late, since I was exhausted, and we wanted to make it to church in the morning. We had a great time with our friends and I loved catching up with these lovely ladies.

Sunday was a pretty great day as well. I was so pumped about Saturday's weather, so Mike planned a great little date day in the park after a run. Well, the weather wasn't quite as pretty and Mike was feeling a little run down. He is definitely getting whatever cold is making it's way around town. We decided to just go grocery shopping after church and take the pups for a walk. Thankfully I got in a great workout on Saturday, so I didn't feel bad about not getting one in on Sunday.

Franklin is totally losing all of his great leash training since we aren't going on so many runs lately. I had such a hard time keeping him on my side and not pulling me everywhere. :( We will have to work on that.

Mike and I spent the rest of yesterday getting our kitchen and living room back in order after finally taking down our sad tree.

Once everything was clean, we spent a few hours flipping between episodes of Chopped and football and then made dinner. Since Mike wasn't feeling too well, I wanted to make something warm and comforting. Chicken pot pie was on my mind so we decided to try to make a lightened up version.

We had some refrigerated biscuit dough in the fridge from when we had company last week, and I figured we could use that as the crust. We used 4 biscuits to create the crust, so it was pretty thin. Then I made my own creamy sauce so that I wouldn't have to use the sodium-rich cream of chicken soup. I just used some low sodium chicken and vegetable broth, skim milk, and whisked in some whole wheat flour to create about 1.5 cups of sauce. I added some sea salt and pepper and it tasted pretty good. We threw in some grilled chicken breast, boiled red potatoes, and boiled corn and then topped with the rest of the crust. We baked at 350 F for about 20 minutes, until the crust was brown and done.

Overall, it tasted pretty good. Definitely nothing like the frozen pot pies we had as children, but those are just not something I will buy or eat these days, so this will do. I put this into a nutrition calculator and the stats, while not great, were not horrible. I figured this was at least 6 servings, if not more, so that is what I plugged in.
Per Serving:
Calories - 445
Fat - 6.2
Cholesterol - 31
Sodium - 561
Carbohydrates - 11.1
Protein - 11.8

I enjoyed mine with a green salad with balsamic vinaigrette. I went with a half portion of the pot pie, since I wanted to be able to eat cookies while watching a movie last night. :)

We will probably be having the same for dinner tonight since Mike is still feeling crummy and we have lots of leftovers.

It is back to the grind around here. I'm always sad to see the weekends end. Have a great day!

Yesterday's Stats:
Calories (+) 195
Sodium (+) 1587 (this is based on me using canned cream of chicken, which I didn't)
Protein 0 - I am really getting my Protein lately!

29 going on 79

Some days, things just don't happen as planned. Like today... when I got into my frigid cold car this morning and this light popped up:

Don't judge my dusty dash...

I was already running late for the gym by 10 minutes due to the warmth of my bed and my eyes refusing to open. But that was ok, since I would still have 50 minutes by the time I got there. After looking in my owner's manual I found that this meant my tire pressure was low. It said to IMMEDIATELY check the tire pressure. So I went to the closest gas station and looked at my tires. They looked fine. I inserted 75 cents and added air to them, the light is still on.

My mom said that it is normal when the weather gets this cold for your tires to freak out since air deflates or expands or something. So I headed to the gym. Not 10 minutes after being on the highway, I was in a dead stop. I guess everyone in the world decided to actually go to work today. I hate this time of year.

I finally arrived at the gym with exactly 20 minutes left in my allotted work out time. I got on the treadmill and ran the entire time. It wasn't a pretty work out, but it was a work out. I could have easily said 'eff it' and gone back to bed, but I made it. Hopefully tomorrow I can get my full hour in as planned.