Pomegranate Smoothie + Sadie Looks Stressed

This Saturday morning has been go, go, go from the minute we woke up!

We spent the first hour of our day doing dishes and laundry and picking up around the apartment.

After snacking on a quesadilla (Colby jack string cheese warmed on a whole wheat quesadilla), Ryan and I headed to the gym for a fast and sweaty workout.

I did a random cardio hodgepodge that included:

• 10 min. stair master
• 30 min. elliptical
• 1 round At Home Cardio Blast (Same one I did last weekend)

Once Ryan and I were done at the gym, we headed home and leashed up Sadie for a 2.5 mile walk.

Sometimes I get the feeling that Sadie doesn’t particularly enjoy lots of loving cuddles on our walks…

I mean that face doesn’t exactly say “I love you, Mom! More cuddles, please!” 😉

Ryan and I couldn’t stop laughing when we saw her stressed out bug-eyed face in that picture.

In the words of Chandler Bing, she’s a hoot!

Once our walk was over, we ran a couple of errands and Ryan got a haircut. By the time we got back home it was after 11 a.m. and I was more than hungry!

Breakfast

I wanted a F-A-S-T breakfast and thought a cold, creamy smoothie sounded perfect.

I busted out the blender and got to work.

I made a pomegranate smoothie by combining the following:

• 1 c. POM Wonderful pomegranate cranberry juice
• 1 scoop vanilla protein powder
• 1 HUGE frozen banana
• 1/2 c. cottage cheese

The result was a thick, creamy smoothie with a little bit of tang from the pomegranate juice. It was tasty!

I served it in an adorable wine glass that I received from blog reader Alyssa who noticed that I am a huge lover of Etsy, an online marketplace where artists can sell handmade goods.

Alyssa has a super-crafty shop of her own through Etsy and sells hand painted wine glasses that she creates herself.

How cute is this Wine-O glass?

It’s definitely meant for a true wine-o, because it is huge!

 

It held my entire smoothie without a problem.

Plus, the glass matched my smoothie, and you guys know how much I love matchy matchy things. 😉

I gotta get runnin’ because I have a mani/pedi appointment today and then Ryan’s mom and her boyfriend are heading over to hang out for the rest of the day.

See ya in a bit!

Giant Oatmeal Cookies

When I made Jenna’s chocolate chip cookies a couple of weeks ago, I realized one very important thing.

I like my cookies BIG.

I don’t particularly enjoy the fact that most cookies are the size of a silver dollar. (Whatever happened to silver dollars?)  When it comes to normal cookies, I inevitably eat five… plus some dough.

With giant cookies I can typically limit myself to one (okay two). They’re typically thicker and more moist than smaller cookies which makes this girl quite happy.

This evening I felt like baking and got to work in the kitchen after Googling a recipe for GIANT oatmeal cookies.

How good is oatmeal cookie dough? 

Giant Oatmeal Drop Cookies (Recipe from Cooking Light)

Ingredients:

1 cup packed dark brown sugar
2 tablespoons butter or stick margarine, softened
1/2 cup applesauce
1 large egg
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 cups regular oats
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup raisins
1/2 cup chopped walnuts
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
Cooking spray

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Beat sugar and butter at medium speed of a mixer until well-blended (about 5 minutes). Add applesauce and egg; beat well. Lightly spoon flour into dry measuring cups; level with a knife. Combine flour, oats, soda, cinnamon, and salt. Add flour mixture to sugar mixture; beat at low speed until well-blended. Stir in raisins, walnuts, and vanilla. Using 3 level tablespoons per cookie, drop dough 2 inches apart onto baking sheets coated with cooking spray; flatten slightly. Bake for 10 to 15 minutes. Remove cookies from pans; cool on wire racks.
Yield: 15 cookies

Apparently I wasn’t the only one who couldn’t resist the dough. 

Dead duck sighting… 😉

The recipe I followed instructed me to make each cookie using three tablespoons of cookie dough.

The result?

Some VERY big cookies and a VERY happy girl.

 

Each cookie was bigger than my palm. This, my friends, is a very good thing.

In all the cookie madness I didn’t snap a picture of my dinner. Ryan and I had ravioli, in case you were curious.

The cookies were better. 😉

Meatball Madness

Things got a little meaty tonight after our evening walk with Sadie.

I tackled my first attempt at homemade meatballs!

To make the meatballs, I combined the following:

• 1 pound lean ground beef
• 1 tsp. thyme
• 1 tsp. rosemary
• 1 tsp. oregano
• 1 tsp. basil
• 1 tsp. salt
• 1 c. fresh whole wheat breadcrumbs

To make the fresh whole wheat bread crumbs, I pulsated 1.5 whole wheat Arnold sandwich thins in the food processor, which yielded one cup of bread crumbs.

I added the crumbs to the bowl with the meat and spices and combined everything using my hands. I then rolled the meaty mixture into little balls.

I dropped the meatballs on a cooking sheet sprayed with non-stick cooking spray and placed them in my 400-degree oven for 15 minutes until they were firm and cooked through.

I topped roasted asparagus with several meatballs and a helping of marinara sauce before digging in.

 

Pretty darn delicious!

Thank goodness I had a tasty dinner to enjoy this evening because my night also included something not-so-fun.

Let me just say that washing a big-ass comforter and then hanging it up to dry (wet comforters are heavy!) is a huge pain in the tookus. The front of my t-shirt was soaked by the time I got that big thing over that little bar to dry out.

I think I earned my dessert tonight.

I’m off to eat some chocolate!

Pumpkin Peanut Butter French Toast

You read right.

P + PB + FT

Pumpkin + Peanut Butter + French Toast = Winning Combination

Last night as I was drifting off to sleep, I thought of this odd combo and had high hopes for a recipe success!

I’ve had a jar of PB2 powdered peanut butter collecting dust in my pantry for a while now, mainly because I typically overlook it in favor of real peanut butter.

As I was trying to think of creative ways to use the jar, a light bulb went off!

What to Do with PB2?

Combine the powdered peanut butter with pumpkin!

To bring PB2 to life, you typically add water, but I figured that by adding pumpkin, the powdered peanut butter would be much thicker and also take on a pumpkin flavor.

PB2 + Pumpkin

I combined 2 tbsp. of PB2 with about a third of a cup of canned pumpkin and stirred up the mixture until it was nice and thick.

I then got to work on the French toast.

Arnold Honey Wheat Sandwich Thins

I dredged one Arnold honey wheat sandwich thin in a mixture of one egg white and 1/2 tsp. of pumpkin pie spice.

Dunk-a-Roo!

After cooking the French toast on the griddle, I spread one half with the pumpkin peanut butter and placed thin slices of a ripe peach on the other.

Open Faced P & PB French Toast

After smooshing the two halves together, I dowsed them in syrup and sprinkled the ’em with nutmeg.

Voila!

Chomp!

I couldn’t wait to dig into this bad boy!

A Bite o' Yum

Eat Up, Buttercup!

This breakfast combined many of my different loves: peanut butter, pumpkin, doughy bread, pumpkin pie spice and fresh fruit.

Win!

Workout

Today’s workout included a five mile run with this little one:

Running Buddy

She’s such a good running buddy.

Sadie’s reward for keeping me motivated through our five mile run was licking the container I used to combine the peanut butter and pumpkin.

She was quite a fan.

Pumpkin Peanut Butter French Toast

Ingredients:

• 1/3 c. canned pumpkin
• 2 tbsp. PB2 (I’m sure regular peanut butter would work as well)
• 1/2 ripe peach, thinly sliced
• 1 Arnold sandwich thin
• 1 egg white
• 1/2 tsp. pumpkin pie spice
• Nutmeg, to taste
• Syrup, to taste

Directions

• Combine PB2 and pumpkin in a bowl and set aside
• Whisk together egg white and pumpkin pie spice
• Dredge sandwich thin in egg white mixture
• Spray a pan or griddle with non-stick cooking spray
• Cook sandwich thin slices at a medium-high heat until egg mixture is set, flipping once
• Remove sandwich thins from griddle and spread one half with peanut butter mixture and layer peach slices on the other half
• Press two halves together and cover in syrup and sprinkle with nutmeg, if desired

Taco Pasta

I told you a pasta craving was sparked after lunch today! 😀

Tonight’s dinner included fettuccine noodles, but *shockingly* marinara sauce did not make an appearance.

Before I left for work, I prepared taco-seasoned chicken in the crock pot which made our apartment smell amazing when I walked through the door this afternoon.

I used the chicken to create taco pasta!

I made the pasta by combining the following:

• Cooked fettuccine pasta
• 1 c. broccoli slaw
• 1/2 tomato, chopped
• 1 wedge Laughing Cow light original Swiss cheese
• 3 oz. taco-seasoned ground chicken

I added the cheese to the noodles right when they were done cooking, so the cheese melted and coated all of the noodles perfectly.

The addition of the chicken made the dish take on a Mexican flava that was delicious!

This was a great twist on my normal noodle bowls which almost always feature marinara sauce and Parmesan cheese.

YUM!

Rollin’ In

Look what have started rollin’ in…

Wedding RSVP cards!

We got a bunch in the mail today… and so far every single one is a YES!

I’m off to sort the RSVP cards in a mini filing box that my mom gave to me before doing some dishes.

Why do dishes seem to accumulate so quickly?