Lovin’ on the Squash

Yep, I’m still lovin’ on spaghetti squash. Don’t get me wrong, I adore noodles, but this tasty squash is a phenomenal substitute for spaghetti and when I want to eat A LOT it’s a better option for me than buckets full o’ pasta.

I prepared the squash just like I did last time, and forked out the “spaghetti” strands to serve as my “pasta” base.

I placed the squash in a bowl and topped it with steamed broccoli and cauliflower florets, MorningStar Farms veggie crumbles and fresh mushrooms.

Veggie Topped Squash

I then topped my veggified bowl with tomato basil marinara sauce and swirled it around until it looked totally unappetizing to most, but awesomely delicious to me!

Nasty? I Think Not.

Of course no decent pasta dish is complete without ridiculous amounts of Parmesan cheese.

Parm Cheese For Me Please

This dinner was tasty!

After dinner I was craving something sweet and decided to fix myself a sweet cup of hot chocolate to enjoy while I blog.

Hot Cocoa

(Note: J. Crew catalogs make fantastic coasters.)

I hope everyone is enjoying their Tuesday night! Hump Day’s almost here. 🙂

Free Kefir Probiotic Wellness Bar

Yesterday I informed all of you of my intense love for bargains and coupons, but here’s something even better: FREEBIES!

Kefir is offering a FREE probiotic wellness bar to the first 5,000 visitors to their site after they launched this promotion. Click here to get your free bar.

Kefir Pomegranate Bars

You have your choice of three different flavors: sweet n’ salty peanut (You know this peanut butter lover picked that one!), pomegranate and chocolate crisp.

Here is the company’s description of the bar: Lifeway’s latest Kefir invention is the Kefir Probiotic Wellness bar. In other words: low-maintenance, pocket-sized and portable. It contains the same live and active probiotic cultures as liquid Kefir and the same stellar health benefits. Perfect for lunches, tucking in a gym bag, and taking on a plane.

I checked out the nutritional information and the bars have 190 – 240 calories and 5 – 11g protein.

Enjoy!

Roasted Eggplant and Goat Cheese Sandwich

Last night as I was roasting my yummy root veggies, I also roasted a few slices of eggplant for today’s lunch.

This planning ahead allowed my lunch to come together in a flash this afternoon! When hunger hits me, it hits me hard, so I like quick and convenient food.

To begin constructing my sandwich, I placed a whole wheat Arnold’s sandwich thin topped with four roasted eggplant slices and goat cheese in the toaster oven.

Eggplant and Goat Cheese

While the bread was toasting and the goat cheese melting, I sliced up a plum tomato to place on the sandwich. After adding a handful of fresh spinach on top of the tomato slices, my lunch was complete!

Veggie Delight

Close Up

Once again, the goat cheese was the star of my lunch.

Question: What’s your favorite eggplant dish?

Outstanding Overnight Oats

This morning I enjoyed my first-ever bowl of overnight oats that I’ve been meaning to try ever since I’ve read such wonderful things about them on many different foodie blogs, including Kath’s beautiful post on the yummy creation.

Pretty Excited to Try My FIRST Overnight Oats

To make my oats, I combined old fashioned oats, a cup of Greek yogurt, canned pumpkin, sweetener and pumpkin pie spice and let the mixture sit overnight.

Pumpkin Overnight Oats

After spending the night in the fridge, the mix became extra thick and very creamy. Yum.

Close Up!

This is a creation I will definitely be trying again soon. Very, very tasty!

I love thick, creamy and super-filling breakfasts after a good ol’ workout. Since today is a cardio-only day for me, I completed a hodge-podge of cardio activities to keep my heart rate up. Here’s my morning cardio workout from today:

• 5 min. warm up (incline walking, 4.2 pace, 4.0 incline)
• 20 min. intervals on the treadmill (alternating sprinting one minute, walking two minutes)
• 10 min. incline walking (4.2 pace, 7.0 incline)
• 15 min. elliptical

Happy Tuesday everyone! 🙂