Food, Friends, & Football

Goood morning! Happy Super Bowl Monday ;)

CONGRATS to the Saints for the BIG win last night! Go Saints!! :D

Yesterday after my morning post, I accidentally lied about my work out! I had planned on doing a full body weights sesh, but forgot it was day 2 of my half marathon training plan! So instead, I did (as planned) a three mile run + back and biceps. Was in and out in an hour and it felt great! I’m feeling very confident in my running thus far into my training :D

After picking up a few last minute essentials for our Super Bowl party, I came home, cleaned, and finished preparing all the food. But first, a quick refuel:

 

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Brown Rice Flour toast + cottage cheese + best jam ever.IMG_5309 

Best jam ever = Fresh Market’s Organic Strawberry Jam. Love <3 Plus some random odds and ends while finishing up cooking.

And then, I cooked.

Quinoa Confetti Casserole from Eat, Drink and Be Vegan:

 

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Before

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After…oh, so gooood.

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Meat meat balls (in homemade BBQ sauce)

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MeatLESS balls

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Hot wings and Tequila lime wings

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Got a request for Averie’s raw chocolate vegan balls (and they did NOT last long, lemme tell ya ;) )

And the rest of the spread:

 

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Which included cookies, biscotti, two types of hummus, veggies, crackers, chips, guacamole, and store-bought salsa.

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Best salsa I’ve ever had.

After the food was taken care of, it was Super Bowl time!! But this Super Bowl didn’t involve any Colts or Saints, just puppies, half time kitties, and bunny cheerleaders!

 

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Flag for being too Rrrrruff!

Then we had a few couples over and ate tons of food, drank lots of beer, and cheered on the (real) Saints!

Luckily, Clarabelle took charge and took care of every one in the beer department.

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No kitteh, that’s my Bud Light!

Since I do have to work this morning, I kept the beer to a minimum, but still had an awesome time with awesome friends!

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A little before 10:00, everyone headed home, and it was time to wrap the party up!

 

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Haha, as I was cleaning up the kitchen, I heard a noise over in the corner, and couldn’t figure out what it was, until finally I saw…A kitty in a bag!

Hope you all enjoy your Monday. Start this week off with a great attitude, and hopefully the attitude will follow you into the week :D

 

Did you “do” Super Bowl last night? I paid attention to part of it, and mingled with friends for part of it, and LOVED the commercials. I think both the game and the commercials were great this year!

Fish Food Salad

Happy Super Bowl Sunday, everyone! Whoop whoop! Haha OK…so I’m not that pumped for the game, but MY team was out LONG ago *cough* Bears *cough*

Did ya’ll have a fab Saturday?

After breakfast yesterday, I headed straight to the gym to hop on one of the 3 working treadmills to get in a 5 mile run in. Luckily, my favorite one was open, so I hopped on, tuned in to America’s Next Top Model, and conquered those 5 miles in 48:56. It was a lot easier than I thought. Ever since my last race last year, my mileage has decreased. But now that I’m training again, it’s time to amp it back up!

Next, I headed to three different grocery stores to get some essentials + Super Bowl foods! While shopping I had an unpictured Kombucha + half a vegan oatmeal raisin cookie. Delicious :D

I only had about an hour before I had to leave to go to Peoria, so I showered and grabbed a piece of leftover Amy’s pizza and was out the door.

One of my girlfriend’s from back home’s daughter is turning two, and she had a birthday party for her at the coolest place ever. Basically it’s like an amusement park for kids:

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OK and maybe some adults..IMG_1601

Gosh, who would do that?? I’m just a big kid ;)

 

After the party, I headed on back home, where I started on laundry and getting a little food prep out of the way for today.

We’re just having a few people over, but on the menu here in the ran household is as following:

Carinvorage:

  • meat balls and bbq sauce
  • wings

Both/vegetarian:

  • Meatless balls and bbq sauce
  • Quinoa Confetti casserole from ED&BV
  • Guacamole & salsa and blue chips
  • Cashew hummus and veggie sticks/crackers
  • Cookies, cookies, cookies!

Knowing that I’d have a lot to do, I prepared a LOT last night:

 

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IMG_5292Biscotti

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Homestyle chocolate chip cookies

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Spice cookies

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homemade BBQ sauce

Creamy Cashew hummus from ED&BV

Phew! I was beat after this.

Between rounds of cookies, I broke for dinner. I wasn’t all that hungry since I had been taste testing all night, but decided a salad would be a good dinner.

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Romaine, spinach, red and yellow bell pepper, goat cheese, red wine vinegar, EVOO, and dulse flakes. I picked up some of these flakes after trying the seaweed salad last weekend at Hyashi. Unfortunately, I made the mistake of smelling them first. They smelled like fish food. Blech. Naturally, the whole time I was eating the salad, I tasted fish food. Needless to say, I ate about half the salad and threw the other half out. Ya win some, ya lose some, right??

I also some leftover chickpeas from making the hummus, so I decided to mix them in maple syrup, coconut oil, and rice vinegar and roast them to have with my dinner:

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Shane came home not too much later from a bachelor party he was at, and we watched a couple epi’s of Big Bang Theory while I had a “second” dinner:

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My own Mix My Granola that I had been sent (review to come soon!) – and then called it a night.

Nine glorious hours later, and I awoke wanting to try out a new product I got from the health food store yesterday!

Maca is supposed to provide energy and help with hormone stabilization. Here you can read more about the benefits of Maca powder

I had tried it, but just in the form of Angela’s RUN Glo Bar, and I thought it gave me lots of energy then. So this morning for breakfast, I mixed 1/2 t. with another 1/2 t. of cinnamon, and then put it atop some Barney Buttered Brown Rice Flour toast and a Barney Buttered nanner:

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It was pretty good! Slightly sweet, though it mixed very well with the cinnamon. I think this might become a staple!

Plus some beet, carrot, apple, and spinach juice:

 

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Well I better get crackin’ on my to-do list! It’s a pretty lengthy one to get done before tonight!

First off to the gym to do a full body weights sesh. The maca powder better live up to its standards ;)

Ciao!

Do you like to “play” like little kids do? Or are you more of a sit back in watch the kids-type? Obviously I have to join in on the fun. I could never turn down a water balloon fight, bumper cars, or an oversized play house. Obviously :D

Surprise Valentine

Hey hey all! How’s your Saturday morning going so far? How about your Friday night?

Mine was pretty awesome!

 

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More on that in a bit ;)

Woke up and had my new obsession:

 

 

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Yoatgurt!

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Cooked like the last batch, it amazed.

Worked until about 11:00, and then came home, did a little cleaning, and nommed on a different sort of wrap:

 

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With the innards being leftovers – squashed acorn squash, black beans, sea salt.

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And a couple of these may or may not have been consumed.

I had to be at the gym I’ll be training at to get some more paper work done around noon, so after playing with the pets watching the pets play with themselves, I headed back out (into the snow storm we were having) and headed to the gym.

 

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LOVE the gym I’ll be training clients. All of the equipment is super new, and there aren’t several treadmills out of commission like the gym I’m a member at does. After getting put into the system, I stayed for about an hour to check out all the equipment to make sure I knew what each machine did and how to adjust them. That’d be super embarrassing if I was training a client and didn’t know how to adjust a seat for her, no?

When leaving, I found out my car was dead, and thankfully the owner helped me out. He had a jumper box (don’t know what you call it?) and it started it right up! *phew!* I had a movie to go to with some girlfriends (Dear John!) and I wanted to shower and get ready beforehand.

So I finally got home, pulled in the drive, clicked the garage door clicker, but garage door no go up. Sad face. Apparently the snow storm made thousands of homes go without power. Luckily, I only had a half hour until Shane got home from work, so I chilled in my car (with the radio and engine on this time ;-) ) until he got home with the key. And coincidentally he arrived home just as the power decided to turn back on! :D

Scarffed down a post-workout snack of veggies and hummus:

 

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Showered, dressed, and shortly after my ride was there to take me to the movie. The movie was AWESOME. I had read the book a couple summers ago, and loved it. However, usually movies NEVER live up to the movie that plays in my head when I read. But this one did a very good job. Besides, Channing Tatum is downright gorgeous. It should be illegal. Gah.

Two and a half hours, one bag of home-popped popcorn, and 5 tissues later, I got back home around 7:00 to this on the counter!

 

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Next weekend we won’t be able to celebrate Valentine’s day, so the hubski decided to surprise me with an early celebration!

 

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One of our anniversary wines.

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My favorite Pinot Noir EVER. I drank half the bottle. And now I have a headache…oops!

I did, however, get home too late for the reservations he made at my favorite restaurant, so instead, we popped in a couple Amy’s pizza’s –

Spinach pesto and cheese and tomato:

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Just as good! Well..maybe not, haha. But still fun! :D

We finished off the celebration with some Wii bowling and Big Bang Theory watching, and just stayed in on the cold, windy, snowy night.

Woke up this morning, albeit a bit hungover, and had a yummy, stabilizing breakfast!

 

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Weird looking happy face :D Millet toast w/ Earth balance and cinnamon on one piece, and Barney Butter (!!!) on the other:

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Oh we meet again, you delicious butter, you.

I gotta get outta here because I have a super busy one today!!

-long run (5 miles)

-food shopping for the big game tomorrow :D

-driving into my hometown for my friend’s two-year old’s birthday and hopefully having time to help Destiny’s mom move into her new house

-come back in time for the hubski to get to a groomsmen’s dinner

-cook for tomorrow!

Phew! That’s a lotta to-do’s! Better get started :D

 

What are you doing for Valentine’s Day this year, if anything?