yellow tomatoes

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

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I won a YAS tank from MizFit and I’m so pumped! New workout clothes make me really excited and motivated to hit the gym so this is a really good prize:

Also, just because I’ve never worn anything with skulls on it before, I’m interested to see if people look at the ground when they walk by me at the gym or run when I come in the door because they think I might beat them up. ( I kind of doubt this will happen, it is a yoga tank and not a leather jacket, but it would be funny) ALSO I have to mention that I don’t consider myself a lucky person, and I don’t know why I have been so lucky lately.. maybe it’s my lucky month, nope, that can’t be it, because I won the cookbook in July, MAYBE my life is turning around and I am now the luckiest woman ALLLIVVEE. That would be awesome, I’m just crossing my fingers that some of this luck with rub off on to my job search.

On to the food.. last night for dinner I randomly threw a bunch of things together to go with Barilla Plus pasta because my cabinet is overflowing with different types of pasta. I buy it often, but I don’t cook it very often, so the packages have just been sitting there quite lonely. See:

So my delicious concoction, also known as, ”Chicken” Pesto Pasta for one, has these main ingredients:

6 Morningstar veggie “chicken” strips
3 Sundried tomatoes (they were packed in oil but I rinsed them)
4 small Mushrooms
1/2 cup Yellow cherry tomatoes cut in half
1/4 cup Fresh Basil
1 cup Spinach
2 tsp of pesto
3 cloves of Garlic ( I love garlic and I was home alone)
1 cup of Penne pasta

While the pasta was boiling, I put a little olive oil the chicken strips and garlic in a skillet. I sauteed those items for about 2 minutes then added the mushrooms, tomatoes (both kinds), basil, and pesto. When everything was about finished I added the spinach and once it wilted, turned the stove off. I used about 3/4 of a cup of pasta and spooned the pesto mixture on top. As the title suggests, it was quite delicious. And easy!