The Ninja

After sleeping in for the past 2 weeks it’s become ridiculously hard to get myself up for AM gym visits. Since I’ve had to pry myself out of my cozy bed these past couple days I came up with a new (time-pressed, non-gym) morning ritual that includes 10 minutes of yoga upon waking. I either do a portion of a video from exercise tv, yogadownload.com, or my own sun salutations. It’s the perfect thing to wake up to when I only have a limited amount of time before rushing around the house to get ready.

A little stretching, relaxing, and strengthening feels particularly delightful in the morning. If you don’t already incorporate a little movement upon waking in the AM (and I’m not talking about a movement performed in the bathroom), I recommend giving it a go.

Namaste.

I just noticed that there are some interesting things hiding in that photo. Do you spy Bob on the top shelf? I love him.

So after my yoga sess yesterday morning I got ready for work and then ate a cloud of chia seeds topped with a spoonful of fake pb.

For this particular bowl I used:

• 1/4 cup old fashioned oatmeal
• 1/4 cup oat bran
• 1/2 cup water
• 1/2 cup unsweetened vanilla almond milk
• 1 T. chia seeds
• Sprinkle of cinnamon

I put the water, milk, and chia seeds together in a small sauce pan, stirred the mixture together and let the chia seeds “gel” up for approx. 10 minutes. I then turned on the stove top (medium-high heat), let the liquid come to boil and then added the oatmeal, oat bran and cinnamon. I turned the heat down to medium and cooked for about 5-6 minutes.

This method is different than my standard recipe because I typically add the chia seeds in after cooking the oats. Either way works but I thought I’d share this new method as well.

Lunch today involved left over sweet and sour tempeh, coconut lime basmati rice, and kale salad.

For a snack I made a little mix of TJ’s High Fib cereal, raw almonds, and some chocolate covered popcorn….

from Isaac’s Popcorn, Indiana holiday gift stash.

I’m not sure what’s gotten into me, but I’ve been into chocolate covered things lately.

Tonight for dinner I made a recipe from Tosca Reno’s Eat Clean Cookbook. I received it a while back, but just now got around to making something from it.

I didn’t take a photo (it was too dark), but no worries because there are 8 leftover patties so they’ll definitely be making an appearance. But for now here’s the photo from the cookbook.

Making the patties was fun because I used a new kitchen gadget we got from Isaac’s grandparents- The Ninja Master Prep.

I tried out the chopper portion of the Ninja for the patties. I’ll admit I was a little skeptical about how well it would work but as it turns out this little machine is quite powerful. It holds 2 cups of food and has double blades which makes for nice, even chopping. I did the black bean patty mix in two batches and It worked liked a charm. So far I’m happy with the Ninja, but I have yet to try out the smoothie/drink master. It has a lot to live up to considering the VitaMix is it’s competition. And, as you know, my old Cuisinart already got karate kicked out of the kitchen by the Vita so we shall see….

In terms of the black bean patty recipe, I liked them but they weren’t all that flavorful and to be honest I think my recipe for black bean burgers is better. To prove that mine are rather tasty here’s what a co-worker sent me after trying them, “Well…I finally got the BBBB’s made. And WOW…..I was in love, oohhing and aahhing the whole time I was eating it.”

If that doesn’t make you want to try them, I don’t know what will.

- Brittany

Tagged as: black bean burgers, chia seed oatmeal, Ninja Master Prep, Tosca Reno, yoga