Chai Brussels Sprouts

I couldn’t decide what I wanted to eat tonight.  So I ate a little bit of everything.  Problem solved.

I’ve been seriously lacking in the fruits and veggies department lately.  This is highly unusual for me, so I was craving all kinds of produce at dinner.

An apple with peanut butter.

Kale Chips.

Chai Tea Brussels Sprouts. Yes, you read that right.  Chai. Tea. Brussels. Sprouts. It sounds weird, but give it a shot.

• Ingredients: Brussels sprouts, olive oil, 1 chai tea bag
• Instructions: Preheat the oven to 425 degrees.  Wash and cut the brussels sprouts.  Toss with olive oil.  Cut open the tea bag and sprinkle some of the tea leaves over the brussels sprouts (I only used about half the bag).  Roast for 15 minutes.

It is super easy, and gives the brussels sprouts a sweet and spicy flavor.  I’m sure it would work with other teas, as well.  Try it!

And a little bit of mac ‘n’ cheese.

All together now:

I love having a bunch of mini dishes instead of one big main dish!

I’m going to go crack open our bottle of Hallowine from yesterday, and enjoy a glass with one of the pumpkin brownies that just came out of the oven.  Recipe to come tomorrow. Bonus:  they could be made vegan very easily!

How did you spend your Sunday?

PS:  Giveaway!  Eating Bird Food is hosting a eggcellent giveaway from Cookware.com for Rachael Ray Cookware! Giveaway ends 10/30.  Go now to enter!

Eight Months…

Eight months from today, I’m getting married! 🙂 Yay!

Workout #2

I had my second of five Pilates Reformer Training classes.  Once I complete all 5, I can take any of the Reformer classes at my studio.  I can already tell I’m going to be sore tomorrow; the Reformer seems much harder than Mat work!!

Eats

Yesterday, we found this in the mailbox:

My Kashi cereal sample arrived!

By the time I got home from Pilates & the running store, I was starving and wanted a quick, light meal.  So I went with “breakfast for dinner” and had my Kashi sample with skim milk.  I’m still hungry though, so I’ll be having something else to eat before bed!

It was pretty good; I think I would like the original flavor better than the Honey Flax.  There was nothing inherently wrong with the Honey Flax cereal, but I typically don’t like honey-flavored cereal.  I’ll be buying the original Go Lean Crunch, though; the nutritional stats are impressive!

Priorities.

Kelly posted today about priorities, which got me thinking.  I have a lot on my plate.  To name a few things I have going on in my life (in no particular order):

• Finishing my degree.
• Wedding planning.
• Half-marathon training.
• Finding a full-time job.
• Being involved in Society of Women Engineers.
• Helping teach the freshman engineering course.
• Interning for MixMyGranola.
• Spending time with Dan.
• Spending time with friends.
• Calling my mom regularly.
• Meal planning & cooking.
• Blogging.

Looking at that long list, I don’t know how I’m doing it all, honestly!  If I’m not careful, I could fall behind in some or many of these.  To see where all my time is going and what areas I’m not spending enough time on, I’m going to record where all my time goes for a week.  Next week, I’ll make a list of changes to keep myself healthy and sane as I juggle all of this…stay tuned!

Eat.Sweat.Blog.

The Eat.Sweat.Blog challenge starts tomorrow!  I have at least one reader interested.  Who else is with me?

Giveaway!

You can win some Trader Joe’s pumpkin butter and other yummy pumpkin treats here. Check it out!

Change of Plans

So, remember how I was planning my next beet dish?  Well, Dan and I were starving when we got home and decided we wanted something quicker than that.  In other words, the beet dish has been pushed to tomorrow.  Check back tomorrow night for my report!

Instead, we had

Almond butter, pumpkin butter, & apple slices on a Sandwich Thins, all toasted together. Seriously, love this combo, and it is even better warm!

Mixed veggies.

Popcorn sweetened with a little brown sugar and cinnamon.

Dessert?  The last of my Scharffen Berger chocolate. So sad. 😦

Giveaway Time!

If you haven’t already, check out these awesome giveaways!

1.  Leslie’s Pirate Booty Giveaway.  (I love this stuff!)

2.  Dori’s Fitness DVD Giveaway.  (These look like fun; I want to try them!)

Eat.Sweat.Blog.

I decided to do the Eat.Sweat.Blog. challenge for the month of October.  Basically, you need to exercise for 20 days in the month of October, and complete 10 of their “feats.”  Feats include going without soda for the month, bringing your lunch to work 10 times, volunteering with your local food bank at least once, eating local food for one day, and more!

So, who wants to join me in this challenge?  Let me know!
And finally, I’m looking for some recommendations/recipes for some plane and hotel-friendly snacks for my upcoming trip to California… so leave me a message with your best recommendation or recipe!

Autumn Dinner!

I was definitely in a cooking mood today.  I made:

1.  Pumpkin Curry Soup

2.  Applesauce

3.  Roasted Pumpkin Seeds

4.  Pumpkin Puree

5.  Irish Creme Brownies

Yum!  We enjoyed the soup, applesauce, and some bread from Trader Joe’s with Kelley while we watched Bones and Fringe.  Okay, Dan only watched Bones because Fringe is too weird for him. 😉  Sadly, these shows are on at the same time as Grey’s… thank goodness they put the episodes online!  If you watched the premiere, don’t give anything away, please!

Applesauce

First up was the applesauce.  I mixed apples, cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice, brown sugar, water and lemon juice in the crock pot and cooked it on high for 3 hours.  It started off looking like this:

And ended up looking like this:

Okay, the picture is horrible and fuzzy.  I’ll take a better one when I eat the leftovers. 🙂

Pumpkin Curry Soup:

I got the recipe from one of the stands at the Farmer’s Market.  Sadly, I was not impressed by this soup.  It was very bland.  Adding some curry powder and pepitas certainly helped.  I think I’m going to freeze the leftovers, and add lots of veggies and more seasoning to it when I eat it later!

Brownies

I used a Cooking Light recipe that I found here. Since I have no eggs, I tried combining 1 T. ground flaxseed and 3 T. of warm water to replace each egg.  Unfortunately, it didn’t quite work, so the brownies were very crumbly.  But still delicious.  And totally worth using up the last of my chocolate and Bailey’s.

Pumpkin Seeds

Always delicious, need I say more? 🙂

All in all, I cooked a lot of autumn foods today!  What’s your favorite autumn ingredient?

Giveaway:

To win a Nathan Quickdraw Hydration Plus Bottle, go to Leslie’s blog here and enter by tomorrow!