Sproutful Dinner & Randoms

Posted on February 7, 2012 by runningthewindycity

Not every meal can look pretty. In fact some meals that are downright delicious may actually look pretty disgusting.

Take for example, brussels sprouts. I love brussels sprouts, and I love them even more thrown on top of salads and covered in BBQ sauce. But the resulting pictures? Pretty gross. They don’t do the meal justice.

I’ve been craving brussels sprouts for awhile so tonight I decided to make a brussel sprout salad for dinner. I topped some arugula with roasted brussels sprouts (olive oil, sea salt, pepper & cheese- added at the end), and roasted potatoes from last week. I added a huge spoonful of tahini to the middle and then poured Bone Suckin’ Sauce over everything.

Like I said, it may look gross but it was so delicious going down.

Dessert was simple, ricotta cheese, pumpkin butter, and pumpkin granola.

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I’ve been retagged a few times in the 11 random things and instead of redoing it or ignoring the tag, I figured I’d share a few more random things about me and then you all can comment back with random stuff about you. Sound good?

(1) I have a car (a white VW bug) but its not in Chicago. I drove it back to Michigan before Christmas because I hate driving in Chicago, was sick of getting tickets/worrying about street cleaning, and I didn’t want this to happen again.

(2) I travelled to Nepal last Spring. It’s hot in Nepal and you have to wear long skirts. Also you should never ever let anything thats ever been near water touch your lips. Trust me.

(3) I love chocolate, especially cheap chocolate like almond joys, crackles, and m&m’s. If this picture were telling the truth, I’d be holding a huge reeses cup.

(4) I enjoy reading for pleasure but I usually don’t have time during the semester. I’m currently reading The Kitchen House, it’s really good so far.

(5) My first marathon was the Detroit Marathon in 2009. I’m still not sure why this happened but when I finished I felt really dizzy and shakey. About 20 minutes later I started projectile vomiting in the middle of a busy road downtown. Afterwards I felt totally fine, better than ever, I’d just finished a marathon! My mom proceded to take this picture and washed my medal when we got home. Thankfully, this hasn’t been a repeat event.

Your turn, tell me some things about you!

Calling All Bloggers

Posted on January 31, 2012 by runningthewindycity

I need some help with my blog and I figured I’d turn to my fellow bloggers and readers to get some advice.

I really want to buy-out my domain name but I’m not sure the best way to go about it. I know that WordPress has an option (seems reasonably priced) but I’ve also heard of other bloggers using sites like godaddy or bluehost. What do you guys think?

Ultimately this is what I want/need in my blog:

Have my own domain name
Advertise (not an immediate priority but eventually)
Relatively easy to use, I’m not an html genius
Customizable

I would love to hear some feedback and personal stories/suggestions. I feel completely lost about what to do!

Here are some of my eats from today-

Lunch
Salad with arugula, tomatoes, mushroom, cashews, almonds, and nutritional yeast

Vanilla chobani with half of a crumbled blueberry scone

Dinner
Serving of Trader Joe’s Mushroom Fettucine

And some ricotta cheese, pumpkin butter, pumpkin granola, and reeses pieces

I really needed some chocolate tonight

Have a great night!

17 Miler Hunger

Posted on January 29, 2012 by runningthewindycity

Hunger hit me like a ton of bricks this afternoon. One minute I was doing homework and the next I knew I needed food in my belly ASAP.

And of course when this kind of crazy hunger strikes, no food in the apartment will do. Oh no, of course not. Apparently, when crazy, hungry Lindsay strikes, only restaurant food will do! (I really need to stop eating out so much….).

Luckily, Pockets, a sandwich, salad, and calzone place that boasts fresh and healthy food, delivers to our building. So a quick phonecall and 45 minutes later, I was looking down at my lunch, a popeye’s pocket.

The best thing about a pocket is how the warm gooey bread melts the cheese in the salad. Yummy! I literally scarfed this entire thing down. What can I say? I was hungry and it was nearly 2 o’clock. Way later than I’m used to eating!

I didn’t just do homework all day, I also spent a good amount of time in the kitchen prepping some things for this week.

I made two types of roasted tempeh: one with sweet chili sauce, liquid aminos, and teriyaki sauce (on the left) and another with Bone Suckin’ Sauce (on the right).

I covered all of the crumbles in the sauces and then roasted them at 350 degrees for 30 minutes, stirring them once halfway through.

I also made a variation of these Apple Cheesecake Muffins for Ian for breakfast this week because like I’ve said before, if he can’t grab something and go in the morning he won’t eat.

Unfortunately, we couldn’t find the Sweet Kiss spread mentioned in the recipe, so I substituted the last of our Orange Cranberry spread and some plain whipped cream cheese in it’s place.

These haven’t been taste-tested yet but I’ll let you know when they are!

The pocket did a great job of filling me up and I wasn’t very hungry when dinner rolled around. I figured that I should eat something though so I topped some Whole Foods broccoli sesame salad with the sweet chili tempeh.

It hit the spot! I’ve never roasted tempeh before but I definitely will again. The roasting brought out a really rich nutty flavor in the tempeh. SO good!

There’s always room for dessert though

Ricotta cheese, pumpkin butter, and pumpkin granola.

Friday Night Lights time!

What did you do this weekend? Any baking/cooking projects?

Wasted Wednesday

Posted on January 25, 2012 by runningthewindycity

Hah, I bet the title of this post caught your attention! I’m sorry to disappoint you but I did not spend my Wednesday at a bar knocking back drinks (unfortunately ), rather I spent it running those time-consuming errands that seem to just suck your ~~time~~ soul away.

For example, there was some trouble delivering a package to my apartment so I had to run over to the Post Office to sort it out. I innocently thought this errand would take about 10 minutes, well an hour later I left the Post Office empty-handed. No package in sight!

Anyway, by the time I got to work I was not only running late, I was about to chew my arm off. So lunch was had immediately upon sitting down at my desk.

Salad with arugula, tomatoes, mushrooms, edamame, and two shrimp from last night.

Blood Orange Chobani with TJ’s Trek Mix granola

Hah, I laugh at this lunch now. After a 10 mile run and running errands by foot, this kept me full for about an hour and a half. Poor planning on my part! I supplemented by having some Pop chips at my desk and then making a delicious afternoon snack when I got home after running more errands.

I put half of a cut-up apple (the rest will be in my breakfast tomorrow, stay tuned it will be a good one ) in a bowl and sprinkled it with cinnamon, oats, and a little brown sugar and then microwaved it for 90 seconds. I let it cool for about a minute and then added some ricotta cheese.

Yay, makeshift apple crisp

I’m joking but it was actually very good and super easy to make.

Dinner
One of Ian’s friends is in town for the night and while I was invited to dinner I opted out so I could have some ~~alone~~ homework time and Ian could spend some time with his buddy. I took advantage of dinner alone to make something Ian would never eat in a million years, savory oatmeal!

I used Chelsey’s recipe as a guideline but added more nutritional yeast, green onions, and crumbled tempeh to my oats. I just wasn’t feelin’ an egg and I figured the tempeh would create an interesting texture in the oats. It did!

I topped mine with some Cholula hot sauce and dug in. Why has it taken me so long to make savory oats? What’s my problem?

Homework, homework, and more homework tonight. I need to get stuff done so I can enjoy the weekend (aaaand Jersey Shore tomorrow night ).

Have you ever tried savory oats? What did you use as toppings?

Things I Did Thursday ~ 01-19-2012

Posted on January 19, 2012 by runningthewindycity

(1) Continued my trend of arriving everywhere at least 15 minutes early. Case-in-point: I arrived at class today 15 minutes early only to find an empty and dark classroom. Bummer, I really could have used that extra 15 minutes of sleep.

(image source)

(2) Applied for graduation. It’s still amazes me that in May I will have my master’s degree !!

(3) Kept up this week’s salad fad with another bowl of leafy goodness for lunch today.

The mix had arugula, roasted red peppers, mushrooms, tofu, and a clementine all tossed with TJ’s Peanut Vinaigrette. I was so hungry by the time I sat down to lunch, I scarfed this in 2 seconds.

(4) Finally tried one of the pumpkin muffins I made on Monday.

So good, now I know why Ian’s been taking one to work every morning And yes I know the wrapper is Halloween themed but I just HATE greasing the pan!

(5) Tried another uber larabar flavor, banana’s foster.

I meant to just have a small piece to hold me over until dinner but ended up eating almost the entire thing! To me, it tasted much more like banana bread than bananas foster but I’m okay with that

(6) Walked home in 9 degree weather. I’m not okay with that.