Big salad with marinated portobello mushrooms and skillet pasta

What can I say, I saw a couple of beautiful large portobello mushrooms at the store, and I bought two.  I followed the recipe to roast the mushrooms in Veganomicon, and made a big salad.  That was our dinner two nights in a row.  Walnuts, goat cheese (naturally, this was not on the Veganomicon recipe), avocado, white beans, cucumber...on top of spinach and romaine. 

Skillet pasta (with another salad) on another day:

Onions, peppers, collard greens, garlic, spices, marinara sauce, pasta, water.  One pot.  Done quickly, except for the chopping.  If you want a "go to" meal on a night that you get home late, have to cook dinner, deal with a child, and get ready quickly after dinner to go to the pool at the Y, this is it.  (On that note...time to go to the Y).

Oh, and I made my spouse lemon cupcakes from scratch.  His birthday is this week.  He had to make his own frosting.  Recipe was from Vegan with a Vengeance, but I used regular milk (it's what I had), so they aren't vegan.  Nice and lemony though.

On another note...week 1 on Weight Watchers on line, and I gained a pound.  This week, I lost 3.8 lbs.  Just goes to tell you that eating too much sodium the day before your weigh in will mess you up for a few days.  Only 11 more lbs to go.

Enchiladas

Today felt like an Enchilada day.  Actually, yesterday, when I took the meat out of the freezer to defrost, felt like an enchilada day.

Boy it was a lot of work and a lot of dishes.  I cooked the beans from dried.  I also made an avocado/yogurt/sour cream/lime/cilantro sauce to cut the heat.  I used El Pato, and it was spicy.

Silly Little Goals

Earlier this summer, when Biz started her summer fitness "101 days of summer" challenge, I thought about signing up.  Really I did.  But with full time job, kid, husband who travels...I decided to pass.

But I secretly had a goal.

It all starts in January.  My niece started a group called "Club 365".  The goal: we would aim to get 365 miles of exercise in this year.  I know that's only a mile a day.  Well, for some people the goal was probably to work out 365 days (depends on your level!)  I jumped into that head first and kept on going.  The group has petered out a bit.  There appear to  be only 8 people of the original 50 still tracking their miles.  And to give my niece credit, she's pretty pregnant now.

It did not require "running" or "walking".  There are basic running and walking miles, and a conversion for other activities.  I basically consider approximately 10 minutes of any kind of cardio to be a mile.  So my 45 min bike ride to work?  4 miles.  An 800 - 1000 yd swim?  3 to 3.5 miles.

So in June, I made a goal to hit 90 miles.  That's 3 miles a day.  Until that month, I had gotten from 55 to 80 miles.  Well, I didn't even come close - only 72 miles.  Partly because that included a week in Arizona.  And it was hot.

Well, it's July, and I decided to try again.  This month, triathlon training helps, as Saturdays I easily get in 7 miles or so, so I can afford to skip a day.  And I made it!  What's even better, I SMASHED it!

Already, with still two days to go (one of which a Saturday), I passed 100 miles this morning with my little Level 1 of 30 day shred (which I count as 2 miles, by the way).  Yay for me!

Now it's off to shower.

I am a WINNER!

I won a giveaway at Love Veggies and Yoga last week.  A great little collection of natural personal care items...They came in the mail today!
Tom's Deodorant (Tom's business started in 1970, a great year)
Tom's toothpaste
Tom's bar soap
Badger after sun balm (I am religious about sunscreen, but things do happen)
Dr.  Hauschka Melissa day cream which should reduce the appearance of blemishes.  I need that!

And coupons for FREE Stonyfield farms frozen yogurt on a stick!  Can't wait to try these out.  Also coupons for free juice.

Thank you Averie!

Weekend Eats Plus Around the Homestead

I had some nice open-faced sandwiches for lunch yesterday with fruit (yes, those are organic CSA tomatoes, the first of the season...so delicous!)

I made granola for the family...spouse and child have been eating a LOT of yogurt and granola for breakfast.  Like Kalli, I have been concerned about the amount of sugar found in everything.  My son really likes the vanilla yogurt.  I used to buy the plain, and I'm not quite sure how he got onto the vanilla.  It's organic, no HFCS, but still sweet.  So my spouse and I - at the same time and unbeknowst to each other - starting stirring half and half plain and vanilla yogurt (maybe even more plain).  And he hasn't noticed the difference. 

Usually, we crumble on a Nature Valley oats and honey granola bar (spouse's snack of choice).  Made from real ingredients, but it's still...sweet.
I make my own granola.  I usually put a little bit of sugar in there - much less than most recipes call for.  I found a recipe years ago for granola with NO added sugar in The Simple Living Guide by Janet Luhrs.  I've always wanted to try it.  Well, today was the day.  I edited it a bit...granola is one of those things that you can heavily adjust.

Granola:
4 cups oats
1/2 cup unsalted sunflower seeds
1/2 cup sliced almonds
1/4 cup wheat germ
pinch salt
1 tsp cinnamon

Wet stuff:  Put in food processor until smooth
2 bananas - either frozen and defrosted, or fresh
1/3 to 1/2 cup chopped dates
1/4 cup hot water
1 Tbsp maple syrup
1 Tbsp olive oil
The dates and bananas add just enough sweetness to the granola.  I'm not sure you can even taste the maple syrup.  I mostly put it in there in case my spouse asked if there was anything sugar-like in there (in case it wasn't sweet enough).  Anyway, I just gave the bowl to my son and it's empty.

Around the homestead:
We have bluebirds!

On Gardening:  Last year, we built a self watering container and planted squash (butternut, delicata).  It was a dismal failure.  We only got a few squash and they were tiny.  We ended up composting them.  We really need to turn our compost.  But we can't.  See why:

Yep, a delicata plant started growing from our compost and has given us a single delicata squash.

This year, we decided to go with tomatoes in the self-watering container.  They are MUCH more successful.  The plants are taller than me (there are 3 in there) and almost taller than my husband.  And I'm not sure how to hold up that front plant.

CSA Haul!

Last week on on the thin side, this week was NOT!

1 basket strawberries
4 plums
3 avocados
1 head romaine
0.3 lbs lettuce mix
2 cucumbers
1 lb zucchini
1 bunch onions
1 bunch fava greens
2 lbs tomatoes

Looking forward to chopping and eating lots of salad!  I think I'm going to have an open-faced egg and tomato sandwich for breakfast.

All About the Grill

That's tonight's dinner.  I defrosted some grass-fed tri-tip and decided today was a good day for the grill.  I also took a couple of onions and 2 lbs of zucchini and give them the same treatment.

We don't have a lot of experience grilling meat, and yes, the tri-tip was a tiny bit overcooked (still figuring out the meat thing AND the grass-fed thing.  Most recipes are written for grain-fed meat.)

The marinade was pretty simple.  I have a Williams Sonoma grilling cookbook that I received as a birthday gift from my great neighbor.  I didn't have the beer it called for, so I used red wine vinegar.