red onion

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

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Boo-Hiss… Mason not only lost but we lost BAD. I don’t wanna talk about it.

On to better things… today was beautiful out. I wish I could have played outside instead of sitting inside at a desk all day. Isaac and I woke up bright an early and went for a little run/walk before work.

After the run, I had some kashi go lean and sipped on a frothy orange juice latte aka an orange put through the juicer. It was delish- per the usual. I need some more fruit for the juicer pronto!

I packed my lunch for work which included spring mix, ½ an avocado, ¼ cup of wheatberries and grape tomatoes. All shook up with 1 T of TJ’s sweet poppy seed dressing.

Work went by and I headed home to get ready for the game. I was excited for dinner. That is, until I starting eating it. First off I’ll explain the better of the two disappointments. Eden Organic Baked Beans. They weren’t awful, but I wasn’t at all impressed. The taste seemed a little off and I think I like my beans to be a little sweeter. I guess I am just a Bush’s Vegetarian Baked Bean fan. Bush’s is what I grew up on and I still love them.

And now for the worst BBQ ever: Trader Joe’s Chicken-less Pulled Chicken. Before going vegetarian I used to really like pork BBQ and I thought this would be a good treat. No such luck. I didn’t like the texture or the flavor. The “chicken” was slimy and extra chewy. I would never buy this stuff again.

Here was my plate before the taste test.

Both Isaac and I took a bite of the sandwich and then it was tossed. I hate wasting food, but I knew neither Isaac or I would eat it.I loaded the other half of the ww mini bagel bread with a bit of cream cheese, lox, tomato, and red onion… much better!

Because I was so disappointed with dinner I grabbed some wasabi peas and some mixed dried fruit as a snack to take with me to the game.

I had forgotten about these little pebbles until they started popping up on some blogs lately…. And, yogurt covered pretzels, gotta love the sweetness.

After the game we went to sulk over our loss at Very Berry fro yo. I got a mix of coconut, chocolate, and tart yogurt flavors with a bunch of fruit and a sprinkle of granola for toppings. It was awesome. And, my snacks totally made up for the lackluster dinner! But that’s nothing new… snacks are always good. So is fro yo.