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1.  Made my new blog! Go to savvyeat.com !  And, don’t forget to update your blog readers: http://feeds.feedburner.com/savvyeat/mPJi

2.  Volunteered at Fall Fest on Friday evening.  I directed parking, so I didn’t interact with the kids much, but it was still fun!  Some of the costumes were especially cute.. like the baby dressed as a sunflower.  So sweet!

3.  Volunteered by Trick or Treating for Canned Goods on Saturday evening.  Between the 5 SWE members who went, we collected over 430 pounds of food for the local food pantry!!  We also got thanked for our volunteer work with candy at lots of the houses.

4.  Bought our wedding bands!! This is why my eating has been off all day.  We were just going to run a few quick errands, but Dan suggested that we go into Kessler’s to look at wedding bands.  We ended up being there for awhile, but we got a ring for each of us.  Hooray!

5.  Homework.  Not so exciting.

6.  Made this week’s meal plan.   It is a big one!

Have a good Sunday night!

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See you at the new site!

Breakfast was pumpkin oats with apple crisp:

Check it Out!

1. My new Wedding page.
2. Recipe for Dessert Lasagna!
3. Recipe for Spicy Corn Chowder
4. The blog makeover giveaway I’m hoping to win
5. I’m getting married 7 months from today!

I spent all week brainstorming what I would make.

Even though I had dried fruit in the apartment, I decided that I wanted to use cherries.  I made a special trip out to Trader Joe’s.  (Okay, I’ll admit, I’ll take any excuse to go to Trader Joe’s and/or Whole Foods.)

While cooking up my BSI submission, I debated going as a mummy for Halloween:

Aka, I burned myself and Dan went a little overboard with the gauze.  All the cushioning felt better, though.

It was a very stupid mistake, and I prefer to not go into the details.  Let’s just say I do not recommend testing your “mummy skills” while baking this…

Luckily, this morning my fingers felt good enough to go down to this:

But you aren’t reading this to learn about how I burnt myself, now are you?

I hope you’re reading this post to see this:

Dessert Lasagna

Ingredients

• 3/4 of a package of lasagna noodles, cooked
• 1 T butter
• 1 c. chopped walnuts
• 1 T. brown sugar
• 1 1/2 c. dried cherries
• 2 c. ricotta cheese
• 2 c. granulated sugar
• 1 tsp. lemon juice
• 3/4 c. powdered sugar

Instructions

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
2. Combine the ricotta, granulated sugar, and lemon juice in a medium bowl.  Beat until smooth.
3. Melt the butter.  Combine with the nuts and brown sugar.  Toast in 350 degree oven for 5 minutes.
4. In a 9×9 pan coated with non-stick spray, create 1 layer of lasagna noodles.
5. Smooth over a layer of the ricotta mixture, followed by cherries and nuts.
6. Create another layer of noodles in the direction perpendicular to the last layer.  Again, spread the ricotta mixture, cherries, and nuts over the new layer of noodles.  Repeat until ricotta mixture is used up.
7. Sprinkle top layer with powdered sugar.  Cover with foil, and bake for 45 minutes.  Remove the foil and bake for an additional 10 minutes, until noodles are soft and the ricotta mixture is bubbly.

Mmm… sweet dessert lasagna.

Other dried fruits would work too, but I prefer cherries.

Next time, I might add a plain noodle layer to the top, and top it with a sweet wine sauce.  Mostly because I want to try making a sweet wine sauce.  The lasagna is pretty stellar as is, too.

I was originally going to use cream cheese instead of ricotta, but I was worried that it would be too sweet.  The ricotta definitely worked out well.

Enjoy!

And don’t experiment with being a mummy in the process.

You know what that means!  It was also a day for soup!

I’ve only recently discovered a love of soup.  It coincided with my discovery of how easy it is to make soup.  Soup from a can just cannot measure up!

If you’ve looked at my “Recipes” page, you can tell I’ve been experimenting with soup recipes.

Tonight, I made another winner.

And ate it in a Panera bread bowl.  Mmm…

Loosely based off of this recipe from Cooking Light, I present to you:

Spicy Corn Chowder

Ingredients

• 1 T. butter
• 16 oz. frozen corn kernels
• 32 oz. vegetable broth
• 1 c. buttermilk
• 2 T. cornstarch
• 4 oz. neufchatel cheese (cream cheese works, too)
• 5 Hungarian wax peppers, or other hot peppers of your choosing
• Salt and pepper, to taste

Instructions

1. Roast whole peppers in oven at 425 degrees for 12 minutes, turning halfway through.  Set aside.
2. When the peppers are cool enough to handle, cut off the tops and remove the seeds.  Chop peppers into bite-sized pieces.
3. In a large pot, melt the butter over medium-high heat.  Add the corn, stock, buttermilk, and cornstarch.
4. Bring to a boil, and boil for 3 minutes.
5. Add the neufchatel cheese, peppers, salt and pepper.  Reduce heat to medium-low.  Stir until the neufchatel has completely melted.
6. Enjoy!

Yesterday’s Eats:

I was super-hungry all day, and I’m not quite sure why…

Granola, berries, and peach Chobani

AB & Preserves on a Sandwich Thins (smushed = unpictured)

Carrots & Hummus

Chin’s (SWE Meeting)

Plus, more Tomato Basil Bread from Panera than I care to admit, and Pita Chips & Hummus.

Yesterday’s Workouts:

Push-ups, upper body strength training, and some “back to basics” Pilates. I don’t know why I don’t do strength training more; I feel so strong and happy afterwards!

I tried to do a few squats and lunges, but my IT band wasn’t having any of it!

Today’s Eats:

Green Monster

Pear

Pumpkin Oats topped with Apple Crisp.

Free Bread!

The SWE Blood Drive was yesterday.  I’m not eligible to donate for awhile because of my trip to the Dominican Republic in March.

It also doesn’t help that I’ve passed out at little blood tests.

It also doesn’t help that hearing people talk about the blood donation process makes me feel woozy.

All that aside, I can help get rid of our extra post-donation snacks leftovers.

Welcome to my home, Tomato Basil bread and Sourdough bread bowls from Panera.

And congratulations Kristine, for holding a Blood Drive so successful, we actually had to turn people away.

Check back later today for a chowder recipe and my BSI submission!

To start, I roasted the rest of my brussels sprouts. Rather than making them fancy with maple syrup or chai tea, I simply tossed them with some olive oil, salt, and pepper.

I’m definitely picking up more brussels sprouts at the Farmer’s Market this weekend!

There was 2/3 of mac ‘n’ cheese from the other night in the fridge, but eating it plain didn’t sound appealing.  So I jazzed it up!

Jazzed-Up Mac ‘n’ Cheese

Ingredients:

• 1/3 box of mac ‘n’ cheese
• 1/2 oz. goat cheese
• 1 T. asiago or Parmesan cheese
• 1 1/2 T. white wine (I used a Pinot Grigio)
• Lots and lots of oregano

Instructions: Mix and microwave.  It is that simple.  And it tastes pretty gourmet for a dish with a boxed mix as its base!

I have been meaning to clean the apartment for ages, but keep putting it off.  I’ve been so busy that when I finally have some free time, I’d rather spend it relaxing than cleaning.  Last night was finally the night to catch up.  And catch up I did!

Check it out:

• Took all the burners off the stove and clean them.
• Clean the rest of the stove.
• Do the dishes.
• Run the dishwasher.
• Clean the kitchen counter.
• Clean the bathroom.
• Organize my desk.
• Re-organize the kitchen.
• Clean the kitchen table.
• Put away all laundry.

Tonight, I’m cleaning the rest of the living room & vacuuming, and I will have cleaned the entire apartment!  Between Dan and I, he is definitely the cleaner one.  He’s quite proud of my cleaning job this week.

You may recall that a few weeks ago, I bought almost 20 pounds of apples.  About 10 apples were left, and they were at that point where they were too soft to eat plain, but not mealy.  Naturally, I didn’t want to throw them away, so I made an apple crisp!

Apple Crisp:

Ingredients

• About 4 cups of apples, sliced thinly
• 2 T. maple syrup
• 1 T. cinnamon
• 1/3 c. butter
• 1 c. oats
• 1 c. graham cracker crumbs
• 1/3 c. brown sugar
• 1/4 c. raw sugar

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.
2. Spread apple slices in a greased 9″x13″ baking pan.
3. In a bowl, mix the oats, graham cracker crumbs, brown sugar, and raw sugar.
4. Mix the butter into the bowl until coarse crumbs form.
5. Pour the oats mixture over the apples.
6. Drizzle with maple syrup, and sprinkle cinnamon on top.
7. Bake at 375 for 40 minutes.

This apple crisp is Amazing!  Using the graham crackers in addition to the oats made such a difference.

I had mine a la mode with a little chocolate frozen yogurt.  I may or may not have gone back for seconds…

Oh, and as far as workouts go, I did 10 pushups last night.

This morning

I’ll make this quick, since this post is getting lengthy!

Breakfast:

Same green monster as yesterday.

1/2 c. Kashi Go Lean Crunch with skim milk.

How do YOU “jazz up” your leftovers?