Catch Up

I’m on a Pinterest Rampage this week as I try to catch up with my one-a-day goal by the end of the month. Prior to this post I had done 16 out of 24 so, uhm, yikes!

Martha’s parsnip fries came out very well. Crispy on the outside and almost buttery on the inside. We ate them with corn dogs for lunch–classy!
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This Cinnamon Quinoa Bake seems promising. I tasted a little corner of one and it tasted pretty good and had a nice texture. I look forward to nuking for 15 seconds and slathering with almond butter and a drizzle of honey for weekday breakfasts. I used regular soy milk and doubled the vanilla extract, subbed honey for the maple syrup just because we were out of the good stuff.
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And lastly, I tried to make these homemade fruit leathers but uh, they died. They were baking at 170 degrees for many hours and I needed to go out so I left Ian in charge, but he’s sick, as mentioned earlier, and he didn’t tend them so well so they became homemade fruit shards of charcoal. Oh well. I’ll try this again some day when I can commit to the task.

Sleepy-time yoga and good morning ginger smoothie

I tried a different set of bedtime stretches last night, this 8 minute yoga routine. It felt nice and I liked that I could do the poses with my sweetie already in bed (the other one I tried takes up basically the whole bed) but I’m not sure I agree with the last pose. It starts as a lay on your back with knees tucked to your chest pose, but then you rock yourself into a sitting position, then back down, repeat for 2 minutes. I may have done it incorrectly because in practice it was a pretty lively action, not the kind of thing you do RIGHT before drifting off to sleep, which is the sequence’s intention. But hey, read the description yourself and give it a whirl.

Then this morning I made this berry beet smoothie, minus the apple and adding a few blackberries. I didn’t make a whole huge batch so I guesstimated on all the quantities. I happened to have a ton of roasted beets in the fridge from yesterday’s beet tart, so I used a couple slices of that instead of raw. The ginger and orange juice cut right through the sweetness of the beets, banana, and strawberries, and it is quite the zesty little pick-me-up. This one will have a spot in my weekday morning smoothie rotation for sure–YUM-YUM!

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DIY Muesli

This is a great weekday breakfast because you can throw stuff together the night before and only have to add fresh goodies in the a.m.

1 cup extra thick rolled oats (I used Bob’s Red Mill Organic–awesome stuff!)
1/2 cup plain Greek yogurt
1/2 cup 2% milk
1/2 teaspoon quality vanilla extract
Dash sea salt
A good pour of orange juice
Nuts, chopped (I used toasted hazelnuts, blanched almonds, raw walnuts)
Fresh seasonal fruit, chopped (I used DEElicious apricots and a few gooseberries)
Drizzle honey

Combine the yogurt and milk in a medium-sized mixing bowl and whisk together. Add the oats and stir well. Cover bowl with plastic wrap and stash in the fridge overnight.

Remove from the fridge the next a.m. and note how much of that moisture was absorbed into the oats. Add enough orange juice to wake them up! Mix well, then add whatever nuts and fresh fruit you have in the house. Drizzle with a little honey and top off with a splash of more milk.

Hearty, healthy, and tasty to boot! It’ll be a good morning indeed!