From the monthly archives:

August 2009

Huge

by eatingbirdfood on August 31, 2009

Today’s weather was the first sign that summer is almost over. I’m a little sad, but also excited because I love all things fall – particularly the cuisine and foliage here in VA- it’s beautiful! My car thermometer was at 68 degrees at 5:45AM and I don’t think it got much warmer over the course of the day- maybe 75 at the most. The reason I was up and in my car while it was still dark out is because I went to a 6:00AM boot camp class. The class s offered at my gym and is taught by the same woman who coaches the Ladies boot camp meetup.com group I’ve been attending. It was intense, but I loved it. I think she mentioned at the end of class that we did over 150 pushups! Too bad I had done arms yesterday as well. Needless to say I’m sore!

Since the end of summer is drawing near I thought I would post a few photos of my favorite summer eats- salad. In reality the above statement was just a ploy to post a bunch of salad pictures that were taking up storage space on my camera. :)

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Salad number 1: baby spinach topped with locally grown yellow tomatoes, red purple onion and cabbage, cucumber, and avocado.

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Salad number 2: baby spinach with red tomatoes, a sunshine burger, roasted eggplant and raw corn & avocado salad.

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Salad number three was massaged kale with carrots, tomatoes, TJ’s goddess dressing, and a slice of TJ’s naan.

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Salad number four was massaged kale with tomatoes, sun dried tomato, and red purple cabbage.

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Salad number five was actually my lunch today and the reason for the title. Look how big that slice of tomato is. It’s about the size of my palm! And it was homegrown without steroids! Under the monstrosity that is a tomato there are black beans, red purple onion, hickory smoked tofurkey, and organic spring mix.

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Last but not certainly not least, the sixth salad was my dinner tonight. And I definitely saved the best for last as this was so tasty. I used the organic spring mix, onion and cabbage, cherry tomatoes, and topped it all with fish sticks oven “fried” tofu.

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I added a little TJ’s goddess dressing and mixed it all up. Soooo good!

So there you have it- what I’ve been eating for lunch and dinner almost everyday this summer- SALAD!

As you can tell I use a lot of the same salad staple- tomatoes, onion… and the cabbage- it’s seriously been in the fridge for over 2 weeks and is still good. But I also try to switch it up so that having a salad isn’t boring. To be honest salad is one of my favorite foods- it’s just so versatile!!

Do you love salad or think it’s blah? What’s your favorite summer food?

- Brittany

{ 24 comments }

New Workout Motivation

by eatingbirdfood on August 30, 2009

Goodness gracious, time has simply slipped through my fingers. My camera is overloaded with pictures I’ve taken of my eats over the past week, but haven’t had a chance to post. At this point I can’t remember which bowl of cereal was for breakfast (or dinner) on which day and what salad was eaten with what. Oh the woes of a food blogger. I decided to save myself the trouble, let the past be the past, and do a post on the more recent events. Sound cool?

Saturday started out lovely. I met up with the ladies boot camp meet up group again. Thus far I’ve attended 3 meet ups and I’m really glad I joined- I’m having a great time meeting other women who enjoy working out and it gives me a good reason to wake up early on the weekend. We ran for about an hour all around the James River doing a little bit of everything: trails, roads, stairs. All the variety, picturesque views, and chatting made the time fly by.

Once home I was ravenous. I had a big purple smoothie and slurped it up rather quickly per the usual.

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Next on the agenda was a swedish massage. Isaac had given me a gift certificate a while back so I put that baby to good use. I don’t get massages very often, but when I do, I absolutely love them. Ahh….

After getting all relaxed Isaac and I decided to grab a bite to eat for lunch. We’ve both never been to Pita Pit before so we gave it a try today. I got the Babaganoush: Hummus and roasted eggplant spread. The Middle Eastern dynamic duo. I added almost every veggie possible and everything was stuffed in a whole wheat pita.

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The pita was good, but for some reason I felt it was missing a little something. I just couldn’t put my finger on what it was. No worries, it didn’t go to waste. I ate every bite.

Next stop was Dick’s. I keep trying to win the $100 gift card they’ve been giving away everyday via twitter. I’ve had little luck, and I’m still in dire need of some new workout clothes. I poked around and found two items on the clearance rack that were calling my name.

Here’s my new motivation to workout for the next few days:

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The tank is Alo- a brand that makes eco-friendly workout gear for both women and men. And the other item is a cute Nike sports bra. Whoa- workout gear is so pricey. Even with the above items being on sale, it cost me over $50.00!

Does new workout gear motivate you? What are some other things that get you motivated to workout?

I also got the pink M-wrap pictured above, but at a soccer store. I played field hockey in high school and making headbands out of pre-wrap was the norm. I can’t get regular headbands to stay in place on my head, even Goody’s Stayput headbands with the grippers don’t work for me. However, pre-wrap is cheap (2 bucks for a spool), colorful, and you can make your own headbands. Great for gals like me who have bangs that can get annoying while working out.

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DIY Headband

  1. Get a roll of pre-wrap from a sporting goods store. (Mueller and Cramer make pre-wrap in a variety of colors.)
  2. Wrap the pre-wrap around your thigh twice.
  3. Roll the pre-wrap down your leg and off.
  4. Use as a headband.

*It might take a couple times to make it the correct size for your head, but other than that it’s easy peasy.

**You can also make a headband by just tying a knot at the ends

In terms of kitchen creations, I listened to an interview with Dreena Burton online last week. She was so down to earth and personable- I throughly enjoyed the interview and was compelled to buy one of her cookbooks. I went directly to Amazon and purchased Eat Drink Be Vegan. Of course I couldn’t wait to try out some of the recipes.

Last night I got to work trying out the first recipe. I picked the (Hide the lentils) Tomato Sauce for no other reason besides the fact that I had a bag of red lentils circa 2008 that was taking up way too much space in the cabinet.

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I followed the recipe exactly, only I used fresh tomatoes (peeled and crushed in the Vita) as a sub for the canned crushed tomatoes. I served the sauce on a bed of whole wheat couscous and a few leaves of spinach.

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Overall Isaac and I both liked the recipe but I think it would have been even better with some extra veggies like zucchini or broccoli cooked in. I do have leftovers of the sauce that can be used in another recipe that I’ll be making this week. You’ll have to wait and see what that recipe is!!

After dinner we went to the movies to see 500 Days of Summer. It was adorable and there were a ton of good songs on the soundtrack. I love Zooey Deschanel- especially knowing that a lot of the soundtracks (for the movies she plays in) include some of her own songs. Plus Joesph Gordon-Levitt is pretty good looking.

Speaking of movies and cute guys- has anyone seen 17 Again? I had secretly been wanting to see it, but knew Isaac most likely wouldn’t be game. Imagine how excited I was when I saw that the Cardio Theater at my gym was playing it last week. When I went in the movie was mid-way so I watched until it ended (about an hour) while ellipticaling. The eye candy definitely kept me working out. I know Zach Efron is every tweens dream guy, but I can’t help but think that he is hott. If I were 14 again I’d definitely have a pinup photo of Zach (from teenbeat of course) adorning my bedroom wall. :)

- Brittany

{ 17 comments }

Best Homemade Snack Ever and New Workout Trend

August 26, 2009

Need a savory snack? Try sun dried tomatoes! Their absolutely delicious- I’ve been hooked on them ever since visiting Italy. The combination of freshly baked bread, sun-dried tomatoes, balsamic, and olive oil was a little bite of heaven on earth. However once I was back in the states I could only find completely dried, hard [...]

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Raw Food Caribbean Extravaganza

August 24, 2009

I was excited all week to attend my first raw food “cooking” class this weekend. I found out about it through the Richmond Raw and Living Foods meetup.com group. I just now realized that meetup was a big part of my weekend. As I mentioned before, I’ve found it hard to meet people since being [...]

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Meeting Up and Monsters

August 22, 2009

I was up and at it early this morning because I attended my first ladies boot camp group (found on meetup.com). It was nice. About 9 people showed up and we went for a trail run. I was a bit apprehensive because I have a tendency to trip whenever I run (or even walk) on [...]

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Can You Make Fried Brown Rice?

August 20, 2009

Of course you can! I proved this by putting a healthy spin on Thai Pineapple Fried Rice. To start, I sautéed a red bell pepper, garlic, green onions, and a tiny tiny bit of habanero chili pepper. Then added 1 egg. Mixed in a the sauce of vegetable broth, tamari (wheat free soy sauce), curry [...]

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