Veggie Egg Scramble

I had a departure from my normal oatmeal this morning.  My family was hungry for breakfast and since I am the only one that eats oatmeal I was out voted 2 to 1 on that this morning.

I like my oatmeal because I feel like I am getting all that I need to start the morning:  fruit, oat grains, flax seeds, protein from the almond milk and it’s just plain yummy.

So this morning I decided to make a normal egg and toast meal a bit more nutritious.  Veggies added to the eggs made me feel like it was making up for my lack of fruit this morning.  The multi-grain bread was filled with millet, flax seeds, and bulger (Not pictured I added some Michigan cherry jam to the toast which made it like cherry pie!).  Pretty close to my oats.  I also made some silly looking turkey bacon.  :)

It was a good compromise I think.

Today will be a low-key day.  Maybe just a small walk this evening with the dogs.  My knee/leg feels pretty awesome for what I did to it yesterday. I’ll talk to you soon!

Have a great Sunday.  :)

White Bean Salad With White Bean Hummus

Today I had a late afternoon party that involved food to go to.  I wanted a lighter lunch That involved white beans and this fit my plans perfectly!  I made a white bean salad and a white bean hummus.

For the salad:

In a medium-sized mixing bowl I added:

• 1/2 can of chunk light tuna
• 1 diced bell pepper
• 1/4 cup diced red onion
• 1/8 cup diced green olive with pimento
• Juice from 1/2 a lemon
• 1 TBSP olive oil
• S&P to taste

I put it all on top of a bed of chopped romaine and added a bit of diced avocado on top.  On the side I put some of my white bean hummus (top right of photo) and pita chips.

For the Hummus:

• 1 can of white beans rinsed and drained
• 1/4 cup of olive oil
• 1/4 cup of tahini
• juice of 1 lemon
• 1/4 tsp paprika
• 1 clove of garlic

Whirl it up in a blender/mixer!  You may need to add some lemon juice or water (I use the latter) to get it to a consistency that you like.

This meal really hit the spot!  I am looking forward to a left over lunch tomorrow.  :)

I am going to clean up a bit around the house and relax for the evening.  Probably ice my knee too.  It feels pretty good but I did quite a bit today (a lengthy walk  and bike ride, not to mention gardening too! ) I need to slow down a bit tomorrow.  This happens when it feels good I do too much  and I am hurt again.  Not this time.  :)

Take it easy and I hope you enjoy the rest of your evening too!

Talk soon.  :)

Monster Green Tuna

Happy Friday!

Today I am playing catch-up on the inside of my house.  While my outside gardens are looking great, the inside needed a bit of attention.

I started out the day with some oatmeal:

I promise there is oatmeal somewhere in there!

Then I did my circuit workout which I do MWF.  Today was a Tabata style (four min each move, 10 moves, 20 sec on, 10 sec rest.  It felt great doing a few leg moves (medicine ball wall squats, skater lunges, dumbell plank rows).  I hope to get a few more in next week.  I am so happy my leg/knee is getting better.  It will be week 8 next week!

I did not think I would make it without running or doing knee bending exercises.  I do plan on switching it up on Thursdays for Yoga instead of cardio.  I did that this week and it felt great.

Lunch was a giant tuna sandwich.  It’s got to be one of my favorites now.

Here is what I did:

• 1/2 a smashed up avocado
• 1 can of chunk light tuna (minus a serving for the cat)
• 1/4 cup chopped red onions
• 1 stalk of celery diced
• S&P to taste
• multi-grain bread

It came out great!  I have used mashed avocado in egg salad but never tuna.  I will do this again!

It’s one of those days again when it was 3:00pm and I was ready for dinner but I have plans tonight.  So I made a green smoothie to keep me going until then.  I got out a cup to put it in and I found that my daughter put this little guy on top.

She is always rummaging through my cupboards and drawers seeing what fits together.

I thought he was cute so I left him.  I am just wondering where the other parts of his body went?

I hope you had a great Friday

Have a good night too!

Talk soon.  :)

A Veggie Garden To Be Proud Of!

I got my garden done today!  I divided the area into fours and decided that the distance between the walkways was a bit too far.  I ripped it up again and here is what I came up with:

With six sections I can easily get around without stomping on the soil and compacting it.  Hopefully this will help me with weeding.  :)

I went a bit crazy at the farmer’s market this morning!  It was so busy today!  I don’t think I have ever been there when it was that busy!

I got the soils tilled in and the walkway put in.  With the hard part over (putting in the walkway twice) the fun part begins!

I got them all into the old wheel barrow.

Then I got to work planting.  There is definitely more pretty plants than edible ones.  Oops!  My goal was to make a pretty veggie garden and I think I accomplished that.  (I am also a gardening mess and probably could use more sun,no judging!).  :)

My husband was very impressed!

Now it all needs to grow!  I tried super hard not to over plant.  I only have a few veggies and herbs towards the insides of the squares and annual flowers around the edges for color.

I am proud to say this is my veggie garden.  You don’t understand how my gardens have looked for the past twelve years.  Weeds, overcrowding, lack of nutrients, and at some point probably a lack of water!  To top it off I have a horticultural and biology degree.  I can only wonder what friends, family, and neighbors must have thought.  :)

So mission accomplished.

I am dirty and it’s time to hit the shower.

Have a great night!

 

Chicago, I Love You!

No, I have never been to the windy city for any other reason than just passing through.  That fact has not changed, but I have a whole new appreciation for the city.  Recently I found myself in Detroit at Comerica Park for a Tiger’s game.

It was there I found the Chicago hot dog!  How is it I have never had one of these before?!

I am not sure what gives the relish its errie green color, but I was awed and slightly disgusted by it when I saw my husband order one.  After a while of eying his and watching him eat it, I had to try one too, and it was amazing! It consisted of: a hot dog, bun with poppy seeds, relish, onion, hot peppers, tomato, and a pickle all sprinkled with a touch of celery salt!

Here is a view from the park:

We spent some time in the city walking to Greek town and around the stadium.  It gave me a better feeling about Detroit in general.  The area around the stadium, Ford Field, Greektown, The fox, etc.  seems very nice!

Our view of the ball field from our seats:

When you get your local news out of Detroit Michigan like I do, sometimes you feel that all it has to offer is murders, stabbings, kidnappings, robbery, and any other nasty thing you can think of. In this area I felt pretty safe.

I enjoyed seeing the older buildings and churches there too (wish I had gotten pictures!).  So beautiful!  You can see what Detroit used to be if you think real hard.  My Grandpa (no longer with us) lived in Detroit when it was booming.  He always spoke of it fondly and I could see it on my trip there.

So yes, people were constantly asking us to buy something or were asking for money, but I enjoyed seeing Detroit in a new light.  Isn’t that normal in big cities anyway?

Salad and Plate Beginnings

I started these seeds in a large pot about a month ago or more.  They are finally getting to an almost usable size!  I put them in the container since I knew my garden was going to be under construction.

I got all of the dirt moved in after an hour and a half of shoveling and moving it.  I did not get much farther because we visit my parents all day on Tuesday.  I got this done when we got back.

You can see when I started just how poor the soil is compared to the new topsoil.  I am going to till it up tomorrow.

To go along with my salad, I am making salad plates!  I have been looking for a set of new dishes for almost a year now.  I can’t seem to find a set I like, and if I do it’s made in China which bothers my husband.  He does not want us eating lead.  So I am making them myself.

I started with the salad plates since that is what I use most of the time for sandwiches etc.  I am using a slab technique with a decorative impression.  I cut them out and put them into the original salad plate lined with paper.  You can press it in and use it as a mold.

I have a pottery wheel but it is so hard to get a set to look relatively uniform.  So this is how they look in their rough stages:

Here is how they look after they are dry.  I’ll fire them and then glaze them and fire them again!  I am working with them a bit at a time.  For the dinner plates I want to incorporate some of this design mixed with imprinting hosta leaves.  I can’t wait!

That’s all for now.

Have a great night!

Gardening Chiller

When you work on your garden, you get hot!  I had one of these to cool me down.

Into the vitamix:

• 1 -2 lemons peeled (I had a couple of small halves left over and I added another whole one) and cut up a bit
• 2 cups filtered water
• 2 cups of ice
• Liquid stevia to taste (I used about 15 drops)
• Mint as a garnish.

It was so icy and refreshing!  Full of lemon flavor.  It’s my new favorite drink!

Today I spent a good part of the day working on my vegetable garden.  With all the time I spent on it, I ended up back to square one.

I am going to do things a bit differently this year.  I want it to be more decorative with a mix of veggies, herbs, and flowers.  Normally I just plot out the veggies in rows and don’t do the best at weeding.  It ends up ugly, but I get some good produce out of it.  ”This is the year of the garden!”  Which is what I say every year.  :)

This is left over from last year:

I liked the walkway and tried to do my new idea using the existing ones, but I only had a few stones left (see on the left). I tried to match up with what I had but it did not work out.  We went to three stone places and it just did not work out.

I ended up getting some new decorative walkway stones that I will use to divide the garden into four sections that I can easily get access to for weeding and tending to the plants.

I used to do a big garden out in the back yard but it’s hard to take care of. This plot I am using is dead space next to the deck and a nice view from the side of it so I’ll see what I can do with it.

Deck view:

I am excited and I feel good about my garden this time.  I bought some topsoil (a yard in the old trailer) to amend my sandy, sandy soil.

I got the old walkway out and tomorrow I will get started on shoveling all the topsoil into the area and mixing it together.  I hope I get it done in time to make it to the farmers market for some plants.  If not i’ll have to wait for Thursday.

It’s time to clean up for the night.  I did a circuit workout this morning (slowly adding in more leg work, it’s been 7 weeks of my IT rehab), lot’s of weeding, tilling,  mowing the lawn, and I am ready for some relaxing!

I hope you all have a great night!

It Was A Good One

This morning started off with breakfast out.  I had a veggie omelette (hold the cheese), hash browns, and one triangle of toast (my daughter eats it up before I get to it.  :)) It was good as always where we go.

Today they were giving out carnations to mom’s.

I got this pretty red one!

Then we headed to the pet food store to stock up on dog food.

My bigger dog had some issues with dog foods lately so we put her on “Blue Buffalo” dog food.  I guess we need to keep her on that.  My little dog get’s it by default.  I guess the source of protein in the dog food is pretty good.  My dogs always seemed so hungry.  Hopefully this will help with that too (I hope so it’s not cheap).

For my mother day’s dinner I grilled burgers.

I had my favorite hamburger buns (whole wheat bakery one’s from Kroger)!  Yum!  You have to split them yourself!

They were topped with all the fixings of a proper burger:  lettuce, tomato, onion, pickle and Swiss cheese.

Mine overflowing as usual with the toppings!  It’s not good unless it’s sloppy!

My favorite sides too.  Regular potato chips dipped into baked beans.  It gives me my sweet from the beans and the salty of the chip.  :)

It was so beautiful out (75 and sunny!) that I took a walk with only my little dog.  He was the only one that wanted to go.

He’s resting up after the walk.

All in all it was a very nice day.  I hope you all had a great weekend and Sunday!

Talk soon!

Red Horse Chestnut

One of my favorite trees that I have is the Red Horse Chestnut or Aesculus carnea.  I got him about 10-12 years ago.

I got him back during my tree farming days.

So pretty!

I took the pictures just after a rain this morning.  Everything looks so vibrant!

Have a great day!

Bridge to Dinner

I am usually ready for dinner at 4:00PM.  Friends make fun of me because of this.  I don’t know maybe they are right and I should belong to a supper club.  Hey, I believe you should eat when hungry.  :)

Lately though, I have had a few dinner events that schedule dinner for me at 6 or 7:30 PM even (so late!)!  In these situations I find that a smoothie helps me stay full until then.  I don’t want to eat too much before eating again.  This seems to do the trick.

Into the blender:

• 2 cups raw baby spinach or kale (what ever you have)
• 1 scoop Jay Robb vanilla protein powder
• 1 cup Ice
• 1 cup unsweetened vanilla almond milk (In my blender I use 1/2 cup, in a Vitamix 1 cup so I can drink it with a straw not a spoon.:))
• 1 TBLSP chia seeds (can top with or mix in, lately I like to top mine)

This gives me a serving of veggies, some protein, and fiber to keep me going! It also is a great late afternoon pick me up when I am feeling slow and sluggish.  If I need some extra staying power I eat an apple or a granola with it.  I am in love with these Kashi ones:

The caramel ones remind me of a healthy “star crunch” type snack.

So if you need a pick me up this afternoon or a bridge to dinner, I hope this helps.

Have a great Friday!