whole wheat couscous

First off I just want to say thank you so much for all the congratulations wishes that I received by email, in the comments on my last post, and via twitter. As you all probably know I am super stoked about the festival and I can’t wait to share this experience with you all as well!

In other food news, I’ve been loving fall themed meals and snacks lately. Here’s a brief highlight:

Pumpkin Chia Seed Oatmeal

1/4 oat bran
1/4 cup oatmeal
3/4 cup water
1/4 cup unsweetened vanilla almond milk
1/4 cup canned pumpkin (or pureed pumpkin)
1 tablespoon chia seeds
cinnamon to taste

Cook the oatbran, oatmeal, and sliced banana in the water and milk on medium heat by stove top. After about 5 minutes, or when the oats get thick enough for your tastes turn off the stove and mix in the pumpkin and chia seeds. Let the oats sit for a couple minutes, transfer into a bowl and add the toppings of your choice. I love to use nut butters, pumpkin seeds, nuts, or coconut. Enjoy.

Spooky S’mores Z BAR

I remember last year when they were first released everyone in blogworld, myself included, was on a hunt for these little bars. Although I have a stash of bars filling up a whole section of my cabinet space I couldn’t resist these so I bought three.

I know they are marketed for kids, however I like them because they’re just the right amount of calories (130) to have as a snack, unlike the traditional CLIF bars, which are meal replacing bars . I’ve been bringing them to work for a sweet mid-afternoon snack. The Spooky S’mores flavor tastes a lot like the Chocolate Chip and it’s definitely not like eating a real s’mores, but it does the perfect job of satisfying my sweet tooth with natural sweeteners such as organic fig paste and brown rice syrup to boot. I found these bars at Kroger (a chain grocery store in my area) but I’m pretty sure many grocery stores carry them.

Thai Red Curry (This one doesn’t really fit with the theme, but I wanted to include it)

I used one of the Thai Kitchen coupons I won from HealthyYum to buy a red curry sauce. I have to admit it took me a while to pick a Thai Kitchen product worth trying. Not to say that many of the products didn’t look and sound delicious but when I turned the package over and took a look at the nutrition label I couldn’t justify buying something (even if it was free) with that much sodium. I ended up settling on the red curry sauce 10 minute simmer sauce.

I threw some plain tofu, frozen stir-fry veggies, and fresh Thai hot chili peppers in the sauce and cooked everything for about 10 minutes. I heated up some whole wheat couscous while the curry was simmering. Don’t you love how quickly couscous cooks? Before serving I tossed some fresh chopped basil into the sauce and served it up for Isaac and I. It ended up tasting pretty good but the sauce wasn’t anything to write home about. I had tasted it before adding the peppers and it wasn’t all that flavorful or spicy to me- I was expecting a little kick, but nope. For the record, I probably won’t buy this sauce again.

I hope everyone has a lovely weekend. It’s rainy here and we don’t have any big plans so we’ll probably clean the house a bit, hang out and just relax. Do you have anything fun planned?

- Brittany

PS. If you are planning on attending the Foodbuzz Festival and would like to meet up please let me know!! I think I am going to take Friday off work and try to get an early flight out so that I have some time to explore the city before the festivities begin on Friday evening.

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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.

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.

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:

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.

DIY Headband

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

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.

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.