Back in December Tina made a Greek Casserole that looked really good. I didn’t even consult the recipe today before grocery shopping or cooking-I had my own idea in mind.  The result was good!

Ingredients:

-1/2 medium onion, chopped
-1 tsp olive oil
-3 cloves garlic, crushed
-1 pound ground turkey
-1 block silken tofu
-3 cups spinach
-1 cup chopped parsley
-2 cups mushrooms (I used shitake and oyster), coarsely chopped

-1 pound small pasta shells
-1 can white beans, drained and rinsed (alternately, omit the meat and add 2 cans of beans)
-1 pint cherry tomatoes, cut in half
-6 ounces sliced kalamata olives
-8 ounces feta (I used goat milk feta)
-1 tsp salt
-1 tsp dried dill
-Fresh ground pepper to taste

Instructions:

-Preheat oven to 350*.

-Prepare shells according to package.

-While pasta cooks, cook onions and garlic over medium high heat until glistening. Add ground turkey and stir to break apart.  Brown turkey.

-While turkey browns, add tofu, spinach, parsley, and 1/2 tsp salt to a food processor and process until smooth.

-Add dill, 1/2 tsp of salt, pepper (to taste) and mushrooms to meat mixture, turn off the heat.

-In a greased casserole pan, add pasta, meat mixture, tofu mixture, beans, feta, olives, and tomatoes-stir to combine.

-Bake for 20 minutes.

-Enjoy!

Lu LOVED this.  She couldn’t get enough.  I didn’t use cherry tomatoes and instead used canned diced tomatoes.  With the canned tomatoes it was only a 2.5 out of 5 stars from both Shaun and me.  With the addition of the fresh cherry tomatoes? It would easily be a 3 or even a 4.

I ran to the top of Waterdog Lake road today without stopping!  YIPPEE!!!  I totally thought that that goal would take me longer than 24 days to accomplish but I did it!!!  Now I just need to do it faster 🙂

Let’s rewind, shall we?  This morning Lu slept in until 9:45! What?!?!?!  She was a tired munchkin.  When she woke up she was HONGRY.  I got some apple and cheese in her STAT while I made oatmeal.

Daddy put on some cartoons (so he could get cuddles) and she watched for about 10 minutes.  She doesn’t get to see much tv-I’d say this is the first time this month. (He had just woken up too)

I made some apple oats for the 4 of us-the birdie always gets some oats:

Mine had peanut butter and pumpkin butter (YOM) on top:

Lu ended up bartering a trade.  She got about half of my oatmeal and I got her apples.

We finished breakfast at 10:30-Lu normally eats lunch at 11 but since she slept so late her schedule was all messed up.  We decided to go to Waterdog so that Shaun could ride his bike and I could run.  It was drizzling almost the entire time we were there, but it was nice.  As I was running up the hill I kept thinking “Wouldn’t it be cool if I get all the way up?”  I had left before Shaun (he had to get his bike ready) and when he caught up with me he said “You’ve run this whole way? Man that was fast.”  He was very proud of me when he heard that I ran all the way to the top.  It’s about 2 miles and I did it in 25 minutes-not too shabby!

When we got home I heated up the last of our leftovers for the week.  I made myself a salad with spinach, spelt, roasted root veggies, chicken, goat cheese, and some Annies Goddess mixed with balsamic.  I remembered yesterday that I can’t have cow’s milk but I can have goat and sheep!  YIPPEE!!!

I also had some sourdough with vegan spread.

Want a closer look?

I got that cheese yesterday at the farmer’s market-it’s form a cheese maker in Petaluma. Triple YOM.

Lu had the veggies and chicken with some raviolis sometimes I think I should just post her food 😉 :

“This ravioli? I EAT IT!”

After she went down for a nap, I went to Whole Foods.  I had a sample of some chips and salsa and some bread-nothing amazing.  I had a CRAVING for a cookie but got a square of dark chocolate at the register.  Whoever thought of that was GENIUS.

When I got home I made some tea for my new mug:

Isn’t it pretty? I have plans for some beet, apple, kale, and lemon juice when the munchkin wakes up.

On the menu for tonight?  Greek casserole.  Be on the look-out for a recipe.

Lastly, I’ve been really bothered by the whole Julie Powell discovery of yesterday. I’ll admit to reading a lot of her current blog this morning while Lu and Shaun slept.  In her book she came across so endearing. Not so much on her blog.  It got me thinking about blogging and narcissism.  You have to be somewhat narcissistic to have a blog.  To think that someone would be interested in your thoughts is inherently narcissistic.  There are definite degrees of narcissism though and I hope that I don’t fall on the super narcissistic side.  Just having that thought probably means that I do.

One of my favorite bloggers, the Yarn Harlot is on the lesser end of the narcissistic scale and she celebrated her sixth blogiversary yesterday.  She’s been blogging for six years.  She’s also written 7, seriously funny books and is just fabulous.  She’s never profited from her blog but instead has donated money to Doctor’s Without Borders and as of yesterday she has raised $1,000,110!!!  She’s awesome.

We went to Border’s this afternoon to get Shaun a new book to read.  He got Drive by Daniel Pink.  I saw Dan Pink talk a week and a half ago at work and this book is right up Shaun’s alley.

I knew as soon as Shaun said he wanted to go to Border’s that we would be going to T.G.I. Fridays.  We don’t really go to many chain restaurants but about once every six months Shaun likes to go to Fridays.  Every time we go he says, “I feel like we’re in the land of gluttony” and every time we get our food he says, “This isn’t as good as I remembered it.” Finally, every time we get the check he says, “This is more expensive than what I remembered.”  Tonight he said a great one that I hope becomes part of his repertoire, “This isn’t as good as your food.” No matter, he likes his Friday’s fix, so we go twice a year.

To start, the service was NOT good.  They forgot about us for about 15 minutes.  Thankfully, Lu was really good.

I finally asked a passing waiter if we could get some help and he was EXTREMELY apologetic and took our order right on the spot.  I got a glass of not so good chardonnay-I thought maybe it was corked.

Right before we started eating, I was handing my camera to Shaun and we knocked the entire glass over.  I wasn’t sad since it missed us and the camera and I didn’t really like it to start.  Two waiters came running to clean it up and they brought me another glass of wine, on the house. Turns out it wasn’t corked, it was just gross wine.

Lu had milk: 

And Shaun had 22 ounces of Sam Adams.  He wanted me to take a picture of him drinking so you could see how big the glass was.  He told me to tell you that he’s not a little person-the glass is just really big.

After the initial wait, I was worried about a Lu meltdown but thankfully the food came fast.  She got a burger with a side of mandarin oranges.  She had shared 2 mandarin oranges with me earlier in the day-the ones I got from the farmer’s market-and LOVED them.  She didn’t like the canned mandarins-I worry that I’m creating a total food snob!  She ate ALL of her burger though.

I got a southwest chopped salad with chicken, black beans, tomatoes, corn, avocado, olives, and tortilla strips.  I had them leave off the cheese and instead of chipotle ranch dressing, I had them bring me salsa.

It was okay.  I ate a lot of lettuce, since my daughter was evidently ravenous and ate more than half of the goodies-I’m not joking.  She had almost all of my avocado and olives and then about half of  the chicken and beans-she wasn’t a fan of the corn though.  I wasn’t very full after I was done.

Shaun got a New York Strip steak with mashed potatoes (oh Lu had about a fourth of those too), and cole slaw.  He wanted me to take a picture while he cut into it (he’s silly, but I’m thankful that he supports me!):

He really liked the sides and the steak was “good” but he also said that the steak I make is MUCH better-SCORE!  I’ll share my secrets soon ;)  They did actually cook his steak medium rare which doesn’t happen that often at chains.

For dessert, Shaun and Lu shared a brownie with vanilla ice cream and chocolate and caramel sauce.  I had 2 bites of the brownie but Lu and Shaun demolished that thing.  I forgot to take a picture of it.

I may still make a No Cook Oatmeal Treat but we’ll see.  I need to look at my monthly menu and make my grocery list for next week.  You will be seeing a how-to for cooking artichokes and beets soon.  I promised BethT and Stacy!

Lastly, after watching Julie and Julia last night I was curious about Julie Powell and if she had done anything since writing the book.  Her new book came out in December.  It’s called Cleaving: A Story of Marriage, Meat, and Obsession. It’s evidently about how she and her husband had multiple affairs and how they’re trying to get their marriage back and her obsession with another dude.  Seriously?!?!?!  That makes me so sad and makes me NOT want to read the book. Here’s part of one (of the many) horrible reviews from the link above:

“If you are someone who believes in the sanctity of marriage, of civility, or even in simply basic respect for other human beings, this is NOT the book for you.
Throughout the book, Powell is consistently despicable. I know that’s harsh, but it’s true. Julie Powell cheats on her husband: first in college before they’re married, then again, and again, and again during their marriage. She returns to her husband, promising fidelity, only after her situation forces her to return – and she has no intention of honoring her promise of fidelity. She only stops seeing her boyfriend when HE breaks it off, and even then she (by her own admission) stalks him for several months. I’m not a traditionalist when it comes to marriage, and I respect and appreciate that different people are in different situations that may not always involve monogamously living happily ever after. But Powell wants it both ways. She wants a traditional marriage. But she also wants her husband AND boyfriend to both dote on her lovingly and exclusively, with no jealousy or repercussions…”

And another:

…If you read Julie and Julia, you probably came away really liking the author and loving how she found meaning and stability in a regimen of cooking every Julia Child recipe in Volume 1 of MtAoFC. For God’s sake, don’t read this book and find out what’s been going on since in Julie Powell’s life…

That makes me sad :(  Boo.

Today was supposed to be our one nice day in the middle of all these rain storms.  I had planned to meet BethT and Stacy up at the San Francisco Farmer’s Market and I woke up to rain. I looked at the weather and SUNNY skies were forecasted so it was a go. It rained almost the entire time.  We had fun though and I’m glad we went.

Before heading out, I made a bowl of oats with pear and apple:

A la Tina, I cooked the pear and apple with cinnamon and a little vegan “butter” before adding the oats and milk.  Lu had already eaten but she saw this and had about 1/4 of my bowl-she’s already mastered the skill of eating with nut butter on her spoon!

When I got to the city, we had planned to meet at the Coffee Bean and Tealeaf.  I got a chai latte with half the vanilla powder:

And then we were off!  It was hard to take many pictures because of the rain, but I did get some 🙂

Here are some brussel sprouts that were SO PRETTY.  They called my name and so I got some 🙂

I also got some artichokes there because Beth has never made them at home, so I promised her a tutorial 😉

Next up, we saw this awesome looking cabbage-Beth got some.  I think she said it was Savoy (?) cabbage:

They also had this weird veggie there that I know I’ve read about but can’t remember what it is-anyone know?

And then these Satsumas!  They were giving samples and OMG they were SO good:

I also got some mushrooms, goat cheese, heirloom beans, and BEAUTIFUL beets.  I can’t wait!

Finally, the whole reason we met there was to get a Roli Roti Porchetta Sandwich.  Beth had written about it a few weeks ago and I knew I had to have one.

We stood in line, in the rain, huddled under my little umbrella, for about 10 minutes.  The line is normally much longer but the rain was keeping people away.  It was so worth it.

The chef and his rotisserie! He was an incredibly nice guy and gave me some pork belly to try. SO YOM!

First, he rubs the bread on his cutting board to soak up all the juices and salt:

Then he carved the meat:

Tenderized and chopped up the skin:

Assembled the sandwich:

(Beth is eagerly awaiting her sandwich!)

Then it’s topped with some grilled onions, an amazing herbed salt, and some greens.

The SMELL!  It was mouthwatering and amazing.  I couldn’t wait to try it.  Ya know what? Totally worth it-so so so good.

Stacy also got some roasted potatoes that were to die for. Yom.

I ate half of my sandwich and the other half is waiting for me to devour it later.

I didn’t get any pictures of us three girls-oops! 

After lunch we went into Sur La Table because they were having a sale-it was a madhouse!  Nothing was worth standing in line, so we mosied on home.

While I had my “morning out”, Lu and Daddy went to a local environmental education museum.  Daddy reports that they had a blast!  So much so that both Daddy and Lu are taking naps.  I don’t know what’s on the agenda for later but I’m excited to hang out with Lu-I miss her!

It’s becoming a tradition to get take-out sushi on Friday-I like this tradition 🙂

Here’s the spread:

A close-up of one of the boxes:

That’s an avocado, yam, and cucumber roll for Lu, a summer roll (spicy tuna topped with tuna sashimi), and a rainbow roll.  We also got a cherry blossom (California roll, wrapped with tuna and topped with seaweed salad), a winter roll (fresh crab on top of a tempura shrimp and cucumber roll) and some yakitori for Lu.

Lucy enjoyed dinner:

This is what her rolls start off looking like:

And when she’s done with them:

She eats all of the inside and a lot of the rice and that’s it-it’s very cute.  When we don’t get her a roll she BEGS for ours and since ours are raw, we get her her own.

Here’s the damage we did:

I ate all of the seaweed salad, 2 pieces of the cherry blossom, the rainbow roll, and the summer roll, 1 piece of the winter roll, and 3 of Lucy’s roll-what she didn’t eat.  I feel just the right amount of fullness and Shaun has a nice lunch for tomorrow.

I HATE that they use styrofoam though :(  I wish they’d use recyclable containers.

Jill mentioned on my earlier post that she misses sushi (she’s preggers). I missed sushi SO MUCH when I was pregnant.  It was my FIRST real meal after having Lu.  Elaina brought it to me in the hospital-it was wonderful. Hang in there Jill-it’s worth it!

After dinner I made one of my No Cook Oatmeal Treats (I had one of these last night too that I forgot to report).  I was going to wait until later to eat it but it was calling my name, so I ate it:

And I’m done with food for the night.  I feel like I ate alot today but I was hungry when I ate and I had a great workout this morning.

If I can convince my husband to get off of the XBox, we’re going to watch Julie and Julia tonight-can’t wait! Unfortunately, he can, so we’ll see if this happens.

Monica made some No Bake Oatmeal Cookies last night and they looked soooo good.  I decided to throw something together that sort of resembled those and I came up with what I think may become a staple in this house.

It may not look like much but it is oh so tasty.

Ingredients:

-1/4 cup oats
-2 tsp peanut butter
-2 tsp honey
-2 tsp rice milk
-1 tsp coconut (optional)
-1 tsp cocoa powder (optional)

Instructions:

-Warm up your peanut butter and honey in the microwave for 20-30 seconds.

-Mix remaining ingredients into peanut butter and honey mixture.

-ENJOY! Serious YOM!

Thank goodness it’s Friday afternoon!  I get to go home and hang out with my 2 favorite people all weekend-YAY!  I feel like I haven’t seen Lu enough this week and I miss her.

I had a haircut today over lunch-I need to get a picture of it.  Well, I did take an iPhone picture but it wasn’t flattering so you don’t get to see it ;)  It’s just a bit cleaned up.  Before I went, I had some coconut milk yogurt.

Not very exciting quote:

I REALLY got chocolate this time:

I added some of my Mom’s granola:

I’ve had the vanilla, chocolate, blueberry, and mango version of this now.  Vanilla is by far the best-YOM.

After my haircut I picked up some greek food.  The vegetarian platter from the Gyros House:

Their bread is to die for!

I was pretty hungry, here’s what I ate:

I always try that red stuff and never like it.  I wish they wouldn’t give it to me but this “platter” is pre-made. 

I had a hankering for chocolate:

My co-worker got Thomas Keller’s newest cookbook Ad Hoc At Home.

It’s BEAUTIFUL.  I immediately ordered one for myself and one for my aunt-who reads cookbooks for fun.  I’d love to go to Ad Hoc one day.  Well, actually, I’d LOVE to go the French Laundry but I don’t think a $400 per person meal is in my immediate future.  I got to go to Le Bernadin when I was on business in New York a few years ago but I don’t think I’ll swing that for French Laundry.  I think getting to go to a 3 star Michelin restaurant on business is probably a once in a lifetime event.  I also got to go to 1 star Michelin that trip-Gramercy Tavern.  It was the first time I had pork belly!  Who knew 4 years later, it’d be all the rage? 

I digress.

This afternoon I got hungry around 3:45 and had an apple-a Fuji-it was good:

And then my co-worker offered me a “peanut butter puck”:

It tasted JUST like the peanut butter filling from a Dewar’s chew. Dewar’s was a local candy and ice cream (the BEST ice cream) company in Bakersfield-where I grew up. They are known for their chews which are kind of like salt water taffy but the peanut butter and almond ones have a filling.  This thing brought me right back to childhood  I ate 3/4 and was sad that I didn’t have a peppermint chew to cleanse my pallet.

Now? It’s time to GO HOME!

We’re having sushi tonight-yippee!

Do you have any fun plans this weekend?

I had to finish out the week with a song quote from my morning workout, dontcha think?  I woke up before my alarm at 5:26 this morning (I’m sure Kath would get a kick out of that) but I such a hard time getting to class. I really don’t enjoy this teacher.  I used to really like her but 5 years later, she still tells the same jokes and says the same things and plays the same songs and I’m over it.  I did get there though and guess what?  She had new music and a brand new profile.  I want to say that it was a GREAT class, but I can’t :(.  The music was fabulous-Black Eyed Peas, Train, Kings of Leon, etc. The workout was awesome-interval training-super challenging-fun.  BUT the teacher WOULDN’T SHUT UP.  She talked or SANG (!?!?!?!) 90% of the class.  So it would have been a FANTASTIC class had she been quiet. *sigh* I DID get a good workout and now I want to go buy Train’s new album. 

Before class I had a half a banana with PB:

And while I was procrastinating getting there, I noticed that my food scale is organic!

(it made me giggle).

After class I really felt like a Jamba smoothie and so I got one (giftcards are so dangerous!).  I got an all fruit Sixteen Mega Mango with banana added in-next time I would add 2 “shots” of banana (yes that’s what they call it):

It was okay, it left a weird feeling in my throat?

This morning I put on boots that I haven’t been able to wear since about halfway through my pregnancy and they fit!  I’ve got muscular calves so they wouldn’t zip before.  I paired the boots with a dress that I picked up yesterday at Target.  I just grabbed a medium off the hanger and didn’t try it on, hoping it would fit.  Guess what? It did.  When Shaun saw me he said, “Woah. Wait a second? What are you wearing? You look HOT! Where’d you get that?”  It seriously made my morning.  Thanks honey!

You wanna see, don’t you?

It’s blurry but you get the idea.  The dress is blue with green and white detail.  It’s not online for some reason.  I also paired it with my new trench (also blurry):

Lucy says, “Hi!” If you notice she has a shoe and a banana in her hand, shortly after this picture she was trying to eat out of her shoe.  Daddy did some investigating and it seems she put banana in there and was trying to eat it out.

In that blurry picture you can see a Lucy with cheeks stuffed, trying to get the last piece of banana from Daddy and he won’t give it up because it’s in her shoe.

She’s 16 months old today.  I can’t believe it.

Lastly, I have a confession. As Marissa defined it yesterday I have, schizoscaleia.  I weigh myself everyday.  I have very defined times when I can weigh though. 

My rules:

-first thing, right after I go to the bathroom
-naked
-If I mistakenly have even a sip of water, all bets are off-no weighing.

or

-right after a morning workout-again naked

Since September 30th my weight hasn’t really budged.  This week?  The week I decided to stop obsessing about calories in and calories out and to eat when I felt hungry and to not limit anything (except dairy). Yeah that week?  Well I lost 4 pounds.  I’m at my lowest weight since having Lucy.  I’m 2.5 pounds away from where I was when I had her.  All exciting stuff right?  Yes BUT I’m ready to step OFF the scale.  Not 100% ready.  I’m still going to weigh once a week because I do need that checkpoint (either I need it or I’m not ready to give it up yet).  I AM NOT going to step on the scale until next Friday.  I don’t care how much she beckons to me.  I’m not going to do it.

So there!

Do you weigh yourself?  If so, how often?  Do you have weird rules like me?

We at leftovers tonight and the 3 of us had 3 different meals. 

Lu’s:

She had chicken breast and roasted root veggies and then some raviolis (from Daddy’s lunch this week).  Unpictured was a banana, Cheerios, and rice milk. I got her that plate today-isn’t it cute?

Shaun had a meaterific BBQ beef and cheese sandwich with chips and salsa (and a blurry picture):

I had a salad:

It has roasted root veggies, spelt, chicken, spinach, and the last of my peppers with some Annie’s Goddess dressing. The fennel was the star again.  One of my friend’s commented today that Goddess dressing is like crack and that she could just drink it straight.  I have to agree.  It’s good-my favorite.

I also had about 5 of these chips.  Casa Sanchez is a local company and their chips and salsa are so yummy! Especially the thick cut ones!

It was my turn to put Lucy to bed tonight (yay cuddles!), which means it’s Shaun’s turn to clean up the kitchen.  I came out to my clean juicer parts looking like this:

That’s one way to put it up 🙂

Tomorrow’s Friday!  You know what that means?  The Office is on tonight!  And it’s new! 

I’ve got 6 am spin in the morning so after The Office it’s off to bed for me. Have a great night.

It’s still raining and dreary out there.  Oh well, we need it 🙂

Today I had a meeting from 11:30-12:30 and I got hungry at 11:25 :-/.  So I had some coconut yogurt topped with my Mom’s granola:

I thought I had grabbed the chocolate one this morning so imagine my surprise when I saw this:

Mango not chocolate.

The quote today wasn’t very good though:

After my meeting, I had a beet burger with avocadoes from my parents tree, the mayo from last night, and TJs BBQ sauce-all on a whole wheat bun.  Sadly, I’m out of pickles :(  I also had a few potato wedges with the leftover BBQ sauce:

It was quite filling and I ate all of it. YOM.

I got hungry around 3:30 and had a very deceiving pear.  It looks not very good but it was ripe, juicy and delicious!

What are some of your favorite afternoon snacks?