arugula

I interrupt my regular posting for a BIG Announcement:

As I mentioned, I am one of the top 3 finalists for Richmond’s Healthiest Person – a contest sponsored by Retreat Doctors’ Hospital. The voting starts today and goes until next Wednesday, June 16th. Obviously, I would be honored to win the title of RVA’s Healthiest Person, so I need your help. Thank you in advance for Clicking here to vote for me!

Back to the regular scheduled programming – here are some of my eats for the week.

Dinner on Sunday was easy peasey = White bean and arugula salad from The Whole Truth Eating and Recipe Guide.

White bean and arugula salad

I followed the recipe but added some CSA beets and local raw cheese for a little variety.

I also broke out the vegan cranberry cookie I brought from annaB’s gluten free bakery at Broad Appétit,

annab's gluten free bakery

This g-free cookie was delicious, as was the other items I was able to sample at annaB’s booth. The multi-grain bread was amazing!!

I was craving cereal for breakfast on Monday and ended up diving into a bowl of Barbara’s brown rice crisps with a naner.

Barbara's brown rice crisps

This gluten free cereal was sent to me for review. I must say, I was weary of gluten free cereals, but this one hits the spot. It’s just like rice krispies, but a bit healthier with less sugar, fruit sweetened instead of sugar and brown rice rather than white. Because the cereal isn’t very sweet, I like to add a couple drops of stevia to my milk to sweeten it up a bit.

Other eats included left over meatless sloppy joes and more arugula salad.

As you can tell, we’ve got a lot of arugula in the house right now.

For breakfast yesterday morning I decided to try my hand at the blueberry tahini idea I picked up via the carbonated ice cream on Sunday.

I made a normal bowl of oatmeal/oatbran and topped it with a blueberry tahini compote and a drizzle of agave nectar. As expected, this combo did not disappoint! Blueberries and tahini are quite possibly a match made in heaven. And, here’s how I made the compote.

Blueberry Tahini Compote

1/2-1 cup, frozen blueberries , thawed for a few minutes
1/4 cup water
2 drops of stevia
1 tablespoon tahini (ground sesame seeds)

Heat a small sauce pan with blueberries water and stevia on medium heat. Stir, while lightly smashing the blueberries until the mixture starts to bubble a little (about 4-5 minutes), add tahini and stir. The compote should thicken up a bit, but not too much. Turn off heat and spoon the compote onto your oats.

Other fun things I’ve been nibbling on include homemade wasabi edamame trail mix.

Love the spicy, sweet, savory combo of this mix.

And I can’t forget the roasted summer veggies! I tossed carrots, squash, zucchini, onion and mushrooms with a little evoo, sea salt & pepper and put them in the oven for an hour at 425°. Served with quinoa- this makes the perfect summer dinner.

In terms of working out – I’m still doing the New Rules program as well as cardio workouts. Yesterday evening I went with Isaac to do a sprint workout with some of his ultimate frisbee teammates. Let’s just say that I’ve never done a sprint workout before and it was KILLER! I think I need to start incorporating speed work to my weekly routine as I am seriously slacking in that area. ;/

Happy Wednesday my friends.

- Brittany

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Yesterday turned into a relaxing evening at home. After leaving the office early to grab a glass of wine and appetizers with some folks from work, Isaac and I just decided to head home and just hang out. We took Olive for a nice little walk around the hood and then watched The Great Gatsby. I’ve actually never read the book or seen the movie so it was interesting for me, however, we had only made it half-way through before I started to get sleepy and coaxed Isaac into heading to bed.

I had big plans to go on a morning run with the meetup.com ladies boot camp group, but after getting a second opinion on my knee injury this week I’ve realized that I really need to take a break from running and other high impact activities. It stinks because I was just getting to know everyone in the group and now I’ll need to refrain from going for a while.

I won’t bore you with the details of the doctors visit, but the outcome is that I’m suppose to do strength training exercises for my left leg (particularly the hamstring), take a prescription grade anti-inflammatory, buy and use ankle weights, and I need to be ellipticaling, biking, walking, or doing other low impact activities for cardio rather than stair climbing or running (of course, my two favorites). I go back for a check-up in 8 weeks so hopefully things have improved and the swelling has decreased, then I should be able to go back to higher impact activities. I’m going to try very hard to stick to these guidelines as I really want it to heal properly.

Enough about the injury- instead of going for a run this morning, Isaac and I woke up early and went to the South of the James Farmer’s Market. I was hungry as soon as my feet hit the floor so I whipped up a bowl of banana chia oats before heading to the market.

Yes, I’m stilling using Better N’ PB – and, yes I still like it.

We had to be quick at the Farmer’s market because Isaac had big plans to tailgate all day for the Nascar race. Do you think it makes you more of a redneck if you go to the Nascar race parking lot to tailgate but you don’t even have a ticket for the race? I’m torn- it could go either way.

I had to take a picture of the most unique vegetable I saw today.

I thought it was a huge butternut squash but apparently this is a special variety of pumpkin.

I’m still upset they weren’t actually butternut squash- think about all the fries one of those babies could make.

My favorite purchase: fuzzy flowers!!

I have no idea what type of flower these are, but I saw them and couldn’t resist. They’re just so pretty!

I also got some yellow baby tomatoes.

And a bag of fresh arugula.

For lunch I put my purchases to use and made an arugula salad with orange bell pepper, tomatoes, broccoli, avocado, cucumber, mushroom, and locally made herbed tofu.

I topped the salad with TJ’s goddess dressing after the photo- it was quite tasty.

I’m off to hit up Dick’s (seriously why is it named this?) for the ankle weights I need and then perhaps swinging by the mall for a little clothes shopping.

I hope the weather is as beautiful where you are as it is here!

- Brittany