It’s All About the Smell

The smell of food is one of my favorite things about making a meal.

Smelling something baking in the oven or grilling in the backyard gives me a sense of comfort and happiness. I love how a simple whiff of a neighbor’s burgers on the grill can make you instantly want to pop over and have a BBQ!

The smell of my lunch today was delicious and prompted several people to ask me what I was making as it cooked in the break room.

What caused the heavenly sent, you may be wondering?

MorningStar Farms Pizza Burgers

Pizza burgers!

These babies smell so good. Luckily they taste pretty good, too!

I incorporated a MorningStar Farms tomato and basil pizza burger into my lunch by placing it on top of a steamed veggie salad with marinara sauce and ricotta cheese.

Veggies + Marinara + Ricotta

Pizza Burger = Yum

These pizza burgers used to be my go-to snack at work. I ate them so much that I eventually got sick of them! I always seem to do that with new foods I love!

What is your favorite food smell?

To me, there’s nothing that smells better than chocolate chip cookies baking in the oven… Though cinnamon rolls do come close!

Wine or Bread

Work, work, work!

Today has been quite the busy day at the office! I usually have a lot of work to do, but it typically involves a lot of writing, which I love, so it doesn’t feel so daunting. Today, however, I am doing a lot of number crunching because I am putting together a quarterly review for my department. Phew!

Needless to say my mind and belly were ready for a break around lunchtime.

I was pretty pumped for my lunch today.

Last night as we were making dinner, I cooked spaghetti squash to use in my mid-day meal.

Spaghetti Squash Bowl

To the big bowl ‘o’ squash, I added zucchini, portobello mushrooms, cauliflower, marinara sauce and ricotta cheese (Yes, I am obsessed).

Hump Day Lunch

I stirred everything up and wolfed this down like it was cool.

Wine Vs. Bread

Yesterday I read a little excerpt on FitSugar.com that included diet dos and don’ts from the Countess LuAnn de Lesseps from the Real Housewives of New York (which I’ve never actually seen).

She offers this advice to party goers:

“If you eat the bread, skip the wine. If you drink the wine, skip the bread. It’s one or the other. I personally choose the wine.”

I choose to take the stance that you can enjoy both, but if I had to choose one – fresh, crusty bread or a glass of wine, I’d definitely pick the bread. I ❤ food (and carbs!).

However, if the bread was stale and nothin’ special, I’d go for a glass of Relax Riesling. Yum.

Now I ask you…

If you had to choose between wine or bread, which would you pick?

Wedding Cake & Finding Nemo

Last night our friend Dru came over to our new apartment and told us a story about a wedding he attended this past weekend. Apparently the cake fell over. Yikes!

I think this story made me fall asleep with wedding cake on the brain because I had one straaaange dream.

I dreamt that I left all the wedding cake details up to Ryan. Then, on our big day, I walked into the reception room to look at the cake and he ordered a Finding Nemo cake! Ah!

Hi Nemo!

What’s the craziest thing you’ve seen happen at a wedding?

Oddly enough, I wasn’t the least bit upset about the Nemo cake in my dream.

When I told Ryan about my dream this morning, his response was, “Well, did it taste good?”

Run, Run, Run

After dreaming eventful dreams, I woke up ready to run with the pups!

I took Sadie on a 50 minute run. The weather outside was a little chilly at first, but ended up being the perfect running temperature.

Sadie, yet again, made me feel extremely unathletic this morning. When we returned from our 50 minute run, I let her out back and this is what occurred:

Running Machine

She never stops. It’s insane.

Breakfast

I was cravin’ a cinnamony breakfast this morning, so I prepared an apple cinnamon ricotta wrap featuring a huge Pink Lady apple.

Apple + Cinnamon + Ricotta

Wrap Filling

Not even half of the apple was featured in the above pictures (it was in my belly by then). Yay for apples the size of my face!

Open-Faced Wrap

Wrap it Up

This breakfast hit the spot!

Rewards of Running

Before going to sleep last night, in the back of my mind I thought I’d wake up and go for a morning run with Sadie.

Going to bed with a plan for my Saturday morning workout is a tactic that really works well for me because I tend to want to lounge around on weekend mornings and put off my workout. I know I should workout right away because I always feel better when I get some exercise in first thing in the morning. 

I had a little extra motivation this morning because I was anxious to try out a new sports bra I was sent to review by Breeze Comfort. (I will post a full review soon!)  

Pink/Black Mountain View Breeze Comfort Sports Bra

Me and My Running Buddy

I promise I am in the pictures above. It might be hard to see me because of my iridescent skin.

After Ryan took these picture he said, “Wow! Am I as pale as you!?”

Grrr. I sent Sadie to attack him instantly and then turned the camera on him to show him that his skin is white as well (though not quite as white as mine, I’ll admit).

My He-Man Pale Boy

Please excuse our sleepy looking faces. It’s not natural to take pictures 10 minutes after you roll out of bed at  7 a.m. 🙂

The Run

My run with Sadie was great! It was a complete 180 from our short run together on Thursday when my legs felt like rocks.

This whole run felt like a breeze and the weather was gorgeous. We ran about 6.25 miles at a nice, easy pace.

Sadie succeeded in making me feel instantly unathletic when she grabbed a stick to run and jump around with for the first half of our fifth mile. Where does this dog get her energy!?

Once we arrived home, my tummy wanted food!

Rewards of Running

When I work out, I often think about what I want to eat when I get home.

After a nice, long run, I knew I wanted a special breakfast for a post-run reward.

A little over a month ago, I made ricotta-stuffed French toast and Ryan and I fell in love with the creation! This morning I thought I’d try another variation: Raspberry ricotta stuffed French toast!

I began by soaking an Arnold sandwich thin in a mixture of egg whites and cinnamon before letting the French toast cook on the griddle.

Cinnamon French Toast

While the French toast was cooking, I made the raspberry-ricotta filling by combining ricotta cheese, cinnamon and thawed frozen raspberries.

Raspberries

Raspberry Ricotta Filling

Soon my French toast was ready to be stuffed!

Open-Faced French Toast

Stuffed

Of course I added a lil’ syrup and several dashes of nutmeg (love this spice) before digging in.

Eat Me!

Drooooooling...

Dig In!

This running reward was the perfect way to start the day after a sweaty run! I even liked this version better than the original ricotta stuffed French toast.

Moving Continues

This weekend is the final weekend of our big move!

Though all the furniture is in our new place, we still have a few car-loads worth of stuff in the old place as well as the “final clean” (ahhhhhhh!) to accomplish within the next two days.

Boxes

Better get to it!

Hope you’re enjoying your weekend so far! 😀

Pete’s Pasta

Last Saturday night we enjoyed some of the best pasta at our friends’ Pete and Merri’s apartment when we were carboloading for Sunday’s 5k race.

I’ve had red sauce many times, but I never thought to add a big dollop of ricotta cheese on top until Pete suggested it. I have a feeling this little creation will be a staple in my future pasta dishes.

The ricotta cheese makes the red sauce creamier and thicker… All good things!

Ricotta + Parmesan

Cheesy Pasta Bowl

I added ricotta and Parmesan cheese on top of a noodle bowl with tomato basil marinara sauce and freshly steamed broccoli.

Noodle Bowl

After dinner and a trip to the dog park with Sadie, Ryan and I headed off to Target to pick up some essentials for our new place. We also nabbed a couple of sweet treats to enjoy when we got home.

Peanut Butter M&Ms

Why are peanut butter M&Ms so delicious?

Why can’t vegetables taste like candy? The world would be a much happier place. 🙂

Candy is Good

We’re both feeling super tired tonight and will probably be huge dorks and hit the hay abnormally early after watching a movie. I also may do a lil’ baking… Sounds like a great night to me!