MaraNatha, I think I love you.

Hi guys!

So I have noticed that my blog has been doing that I-think-i’m-going-to-post-posts-on-different-days-then-they-were-posted-on thing again. How annoying! Anyway, I hope everyone had a wonderful What I Ate Wednesday (even though my post says that I posted it on Sunday…)! If you missed this week’s link party, check it out here and continue post WIAW stalking with me!

So, I kind of have a new obsession.

It’s not really new, but the way it is coming back into my life, you would think I have never seen such a food.

Lately, breakfast has meant putting almond butter on everything I can find.

Favorite things to smear in almond butter:

• Apples
• Apricots
• Dates
• Plums
• Green smoothies
• & Spoons

Do I have a problem? Perhaps.

It all happened when those awesome makers of MARANATHA ALMOND BUTTER sent me a free coupon good for any of their butters. I really wanted to try this product before I bought it. Afterall, it is the most expensive nut butter I have ever seen.

I’m not sure why their almond butter taste better than any other I have tried. It is just delicious! I cannot explain. it’s dry roasted almonds, seriously.

Thanks MaraNatha for this review and changing my views of almond butter!

For more MaraNatha products, visit here.

Can you guess what tomorrow’s Friday Feature will be? 😉

What is your favorite type of nut butter?

Feature Friday: Being Bitchy

As I’ve said before, I don’t force blog posts when I’m not in the mood. This week has been insane and I just don’t feel like a long, drawn out post!

Wednesday I worked at the day job from 7-12 then headed right to the new market hoping to have a better week than the first. We arrived an hour late but it was all good. We did better than the first week (which really isn’t saying a lot) and had a fun time doing so. After the 13 hour work day, I was exhausted.

Thursday I was scheduled to work 9-5 at the day job, then got asked to stay until 9 at night. Because I am a push over and can never say no, of course I stayed.

Today I am beat, tired, sore, and stressed out.

I’ve had no time to work out, make good food, or post.

I have every right to act like a whinny cranky bitch! 🙂

Breakfast:

Kiwi, bluebs, nanner with PB and coconut, dried cherries, ‘stashies.

Still open for a few guest posts while I’m gone! Comment below or email me if you are interested!

What I did Thursday

Hey hey, it’s What I ate Wednesday!

Hey hey, it’s What I did Thursday! 😛

Thursdays are always fun, maybe that will be the next blog sensation?

Anyway, what an eventful Thursday! I am pooped. So much running around today I love my days off!

I really wanted to go to Whole Food’s today but then I remember that I am broke as a joke.

So, I cashed a few checks, gathered up some change, and said, “hey, I can pay those bills next week!” (you probably think I am joking but I am so serious.)

Might not be much change but it turned into $23!

Whole Food’s/Trader Joe’s:

Two favorite flavors right thurr.

Yummy finds from the salad bar!

Money saving tip: When at the Whole Food’s Salad Bar, be sure to load up on the good stuff. For example, I never get lettuce! I usually take my salads to-go so I can add whatever greens I have at home instead of paying $7.99/lbs for lettuce. Same goes with tomatoes! They add a lot of weight.

Veggie sushi!

Raw pumpkin seeds!

After our Whole Food’s/Trader Joe’s adventure we were STARVING.

We spotted a sushi place we have not noticed before and decided to stop in and check it out. Scott and I are HUGE fans of sushi, we eat it just about every week! We love trying out new places for a good roll or two. (or three?)

We started off with some miso soup:

Which happened to be cooked PERFECT! Crunchy green onions on top were awesome!

Next I ordered the veggie lunch combo which included the sweet potato roll and the asparagus roll:

Sweet potato rolls are always a win for me 😉

I also ordered a another roll because I was HUNGRY! This roll was called Veggie Heaven: Mushroom and avocado in a (vegan) tempura roll with ginger sauce. Topped with sweet soy and spicy mayo.

This is totally vegan! This fancy roll originally came with a spicy mayo, which I forgot to ask to not have, but since he knew I was vegan he gave me this yummy carrot and onion sweet sauce that was so creamy! Best roll ever. The mushroom and avocado literally melt in your mouth, delicious!

I ate 19 pieces of sushi.

(3 rolls)

I honestly think this was the most impressive sushi restaurant I have been too. Not to mention how incredibly friendly and helpful the staff were! That seems to be hard to find these days. We will diffidently be going to Sumo Sushi & Seafood next time we are in the area.

After this lovely afternoon of foodie goodness I met up with my bestie for a long nature walk:

Then sat at the Starbucks sipping on some green tea with lemon aid for quite some time.

Heather had the lovely idea of making some banana soft serve at my house. I’ve actually never made this before! I couldn’t wait to try it out in the Vitamix:

We looked up a few recipes but then decided that it would be best to make our own.

& What flavor would we choose?

Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip, duhh!

• 2 1/2 frozen bananas, chopped
• 1 glob PB
• 1/4 cup chocolate chips

Blend the nanerz until creamy. Add the PB and choco chips than blend for another minute.

Enjoy!

After this, she helped my bake some cookies for the market on Sunday. We made Espresso Chip Oatmeal Cookies, yum! I wonder how they will sell.

Have you ever had banana soft serve? If so, what do you add to yours?

WIAW week 20

 Breakfast

Day two of my green smoothie challenge! I have not mentioned this but I will be sure to inform you later! Basically I am drinking a GS every morning for about 3 or 4 weeks, not sure yet.

Lunch

 

Tofu salad sammich with these babies!

Dinner

fail.

Messy nori burritos’!!! Deff. should have cone rolled these.

Dessert

Recipe hijacked from Jessica @ Dishin’ About Nutrition!

Jessica, how did you know my favorite type of cupcake?

 

This cupcake was actually pretty healthy! Love it.  I’ve never made cupcakes using whole wheat flour but, not bad!

What is your FAVORITE cupcake flavor?

 

Cinnamon Roll Oats

Because you can never have enough fun with oatmeal

Incase you missed out on Wednesday’s Banana Split Oats, you can find them here.

Cinnamon Roll Oatmeal

• 1/2 cup water
• 1/2 cup non-dairy milk of choice
• 1/2 cup 1 minute oats
•  1 scoop protein powder
• 1 T PB
• 1 t vanilla
• 1 T cinnamon, or more 😉
• 1 T maple syrup,
• toppings:  plain coconut yogurt for the “icing”, maple syrup, and even more cinnamon!

 How to make it

• Bring milk and water to a boil
• Stir in the rest of the ingredients (minus the topping obviously) and reduce heat.
• Cook for about 4 minutes stirring occasionally.
• Scoop into your favorite oatmeal bowl and get crazy with the toppings!

So sweet, and so satisfying

 

I’ll be back tomorrow with a full FM recap. I plan on taking my camera this time!

What do you want to see pictures of?

WIAW week 19

Hey kids!

It’s that time of the week again!

 

For me Wednesdays now mean busybusybusy. Today I am going to Zumba for the first time in 2 weeks, then coming home to shower, then going to school to take a math exam… yuck, then going straight to my doctor’s cause I am not 100% better, then going straight to work! Meanwhile I need to be studying for my yucky med terms exam.

So consider this a mini WIAW!

Breakfast

Banana Split Oats

Makes one HUGE serving

• 1/2 cup water
• 1/2 cup non-dairy milk of choice
• 1/2 cup 1 minute oats
•  1 scoop Sun Warrior protein powder, I used chocolate! (review coming tomorrow, promise!)
• 1 T PB
• 1 t cinnamon
• 1 t maple syrup
• toppings: banana, chocolate chips, ground pecans, plain coconut yogurt, and of course, a cherry.

1. Bring milk and water to a boil
2. Stir in the rest of the ingredients (minus the topping obviously) and reduce heat.
3. Cook for about 4 minutes stirring occasionally.
4. Scoop into your favorite oatmeal bowl and get crazy with the toppings!

& that’s it for now! 

What did YOU eat today?

Good-Bye Winter Diet

& hello summer!

Oh my goodness, did I miss a WIAW post? Whoops! It’s been pretty busy around here. Forgive me?

I probably wont be doing much posting for the next few days due to the Farmer’s Market (FM) craziness.

I have been keeping up with my exercises though!

• Sunday: 3 mile walk/jog outdoors
• Monday: 4 mile nature walk
• Tuesday: Pi/yo, 2 1/2 mile fast walk on tred.
• Wednesday: Slow 2 mile nature walk, 1 hour Zumba
• Thursday: Probably nothing. Early day at school right now then straight to work afterwards.

Lots of cardio so far this week! I guess I was just in that kind of mood. I think this is good for me though due to that winter weight gain! After work last night, I came home and tried on my jean shorts from last summer and YIKES! Not happening anytime soon! I wear sweat pants literally everyday, so trying on jeans (especially shorts!) was a somewhat of a breakthrough. Despite the muffin top, I think my weight should be back on track in a few weeks. Mainly because I eat A LOT better in the warmer months with all the fresh produce available and the fun warm weather activities.

See? A salad! I’m getting there. Just don’t judge me for that bag of PB pretzels i ate right after this!

What are some of your personal tips on getting (back) into shape?

Have a good weekend!

Nutty Giveaway

As promised…

!!!HOMEMADE NUT BUTTER GIVEAWAY!!!

That’s right! I can’t wait any longer. I want two lucky winners to win some of nut buttah and review it on their blog! What do you think? I’m sure you can make room in your nut butter cupboard, right?

There will be TWO winners.

first winner:

Peanut Butter smooth and extremely rich in flavor!

second winner:

Roasted Maple Pecan Butter rich and buttery with lots of cinnamon!

***Just incase you are wondering about the photo of the chocolate PB, I was planning on giving away some of my chocolate PB but honestly, I don’t really like it. ***

How to enter:

separate entries for each

1. Leave a comment below telling me which nut butter sounds the best
2. Follow me on Twitter, comment telling me you did so (or already are)
3. Tweet about my giveaway, comment telling me you did so
4. Link back to this post on your blog

Opened world-wide

Contest ends 5/5, winner announced 5/6

May Goals

Hii bloggins! ♥

Did you have a good first day of May?

I know I did. You know why? Cause mine was filled with lots of food, duh!

Quinoa with sun-dried tomatoes and basil, black bean burgers, Peanut Butter Cookies

Because Megan reminded me!

1. Save MONEY. On food, gas, and other mindless spendings. Even though I’m a major tight-wad, my savings are getting extremely low. My savings are basically for when I decide to transfer to a better college I would have to stress about mu-lah so much. Ya digg?
2. Don’t over-eat on the sweets, nuff said.
3. Work on them ABS 3 times a week! I love working out my abs, I know, I’m weird. Something about sore abs makes me feel like a million bucks.
4. Run outside for 3 miles.
5. Put school first. This 8 week semester just might kick my butt.

 What are your goals for the month/summer?

Teaching Zumba this morning went pretty well. I messed up a few times but, we just laughed about it. I couldn’t practice my routine at home because my CD wouldn’t play in my CD player! They said I did really good though. I’m so lucky to have such a supportive class! Also, I’m realizing how hard it is to yell out directions and shake my butt at the same time! I don’t like it when Zumba instructors don’t yell out what’s coming next, it’s quite frustrating!

Oh, and before I go, here’s a sneak peek at tomorrow’s post:

I spy a GIVEAWAY

May Day

Happy Sunday!

& Happy May!

My cookies turned out PERRRFECT this morning! As much as I use this recipe, you would think they would always come out the same but not this time! If you haven’t tried my recipe here it is:

Perfect Peanut Butter Cookies

Yummy yummy!

Were not going to the Market today because it’s closed on Sundays! 😦

Good thing we didn’t drive an hour down there to find that out!

So now the plans are cooking out. 🙂

I love Cooking Out Sunday’s!

What’s your favorite veggie to grill?

Mine is eggplant, asparagus, and squash. (can’t pick just one you know!)

TOMORROW I’M TEACHING ZUMBA!!! SO excited. Wish me luck because I have not practiced at all. :O