It’s Wednesday! Which means the blog world is buzzing, thanks to WIAW!

But I have a confession.

I don’t have many exciting eats to show you. Mostly because…

Confession:

I’ve been eating the same thing for breakfast and lunch almost every single day. I’m not kidding. What kind of foodie am I? I have a smoothie with a side of peanut butter for breakfast, and a big salad topped with avocado for lunch. I know. Boring. But it’s delicious, and it’s how I know I’m getting in my fruits and veggies every day!

Yum, look at that avocado! Gotta get those healthy fats

Confession:

I drink more diet coke than I probably should.

(source)

I’ve tried to cut it out entirely, but since I don’t like beer, that meant that if I went out with friends, I was left with the option of water. Borrrrrring!

Confession:

I love to cook… but I don’t really like cooking for just myself. So unless I have friends over, or a potluck to attend… even dinner is usually kind of boring.

Sometimes I just throw half of a spaghetti squash into the microwave (um yes, I’m too lazy to bake it) and top it with some TJ’s marinara sauce and nutritional yeast. That’s right, a 3 ingredient dinner.

So those are my foodie confessions. I’m sorry I’m not sorry. We all have our downfalls, right?

Other [Non- Foodie] confessions:

• I love watching 16 & pregnant
• If I’m alone in the car, the radio is always as loud as it can go. Always.
• I think beer is gross. Pass me a diet coke
• I have a habit of drunk texting tweeting

Do you have any confessions?

<3 Liz

Maybe it’s the 10pm ice cream habit, or the dinners out, or the [many] drinks that were consumed over the weekend. Maybe it’s my lack of motivation on the cardio machines, or maybe it’s the fact that I live 1 block away from a frozen yogurt shop…

Whatever the reason, the skinny jeans are feeling a little tighter than usual. And instead of buying new clothes, I’d prefer to just fit back into the ones I have…

So I need your help!

(Cheesy image source)

What do you do when you need to get “back on track” with healthy eating? How do you get your feet back on the pavement, or your shoes on the treadmill? 

Song suggestions? Workout tips? Lighter recipes? I’m all ears. 

On a happier note, I got an amazing package from Eating Like a Horse! She’s the sweetest! My box was PACKED with goodies. Everything from pesto, to snack bars, to a chocolate peanut butter spread. (She knows I’m addicted to pb + chocolate!)

I stashed a packet of the pineapple infused raisins in my purse yesterday and it was such a nice pick me up snack! The chocolate spread I’ve been enjoying on the biscuits, and I can’t wait to try the pesto! Oh, and don’t even get me started on her homemade gluten free granola! It’s amazing!! If you haven’t checked out Eating Like a Horse yet, go! She’s awesome, and her blog will make you smile, I promise (Thank you, Jemma, aka Celery and Cupcakes, for organizing the swap!

Happy Monday, friends. Here’s to a fresh start!

How do you get back on track?

<3 Liz

Things I learned at the Raw/Vegan Workshop:

• I could never eat 100% raw
• I like fennel
• I need a spiralizer

The class was sponsored by Ellwood Thompson, a local grocery store that specializes in organic and local products. Raw food is food that hasn’t been heated over 118 degrees, which supposedly means your body gets more nutrients. I’m skeptical, but I figure, it can’t be a bad thing. I love vegetables, anyway you prepare them

The woman teaching the class showed us how to prepare two different recipes:

Raw Apple Fennel Salad 

 Raw Zucchini Pasta

Both were good, but the Apple Fennel salad was definitely my favorite. So, I’ll share the recipe with you, since I’m nice like that.

Apple Fennel Salad

Serves 4

• 2 granny smith apples
• 1 fennel bulb
• 1/4 cup fresh mint
• 2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
• 1/3 cup lime juice
• pinch of salt

Julienne your apple (aka chop it into little rectangles) and slice your fennel bulb thin. If you have a mandolin slicer, you could use that, but a knife works too. Toss the apples in the lime juice and add the fennel. (This keeps the apple from turning brown, and it tastes good!) Then mince your mint, and add that to the apple & fennel. Drizzle on the olive oil, and bam. You’ve got a raw vegan salad on your plate.

I thought the taste of this was really fresh. It wasn’t overwhelming, and I think it would be a great salad for a barbecue!

Have you ever tried a “raw” recipe?

In other news, my blogger swap package came from Eating Like a Horse and it must have cost her a fortune to send it because it was packed with goodies! But that package deserves a post of it’s own… so come back tomorrow (Thanks, Jemma, for organizing the swap!)

Happy Friday everyone! Any exciting plans? Some raw food recipes perhaps?

<3 Liz

So from your side of the interwebs, this post probably looks pretty standard. But here’s the view from my side:

Um yes, I’m typing this post from my brand new MacBook Pro. Mmmhmm. I know. You’re jealous.

Actually, you’re probably not jealous, because I’m pretty sure I’m the last blogger ever to have still been using a pc. Well. At least I’ve caught up. I practically peed my pants when the delivery came at work. And it took all the willpower I had to go to my afternoon meetings, and not just drive home to have an immediate bonding session with my new baby.

Now I’m trying to decide if I should get insurance what type of insurance to get. I break things on a regular basis… so it seems like a good idea.

Anyways, since it’s WIAW, it seems appropriate to share some of my recent eats.

I’ve been eating this black bean and corn salad which is seriously the most refreshing summer salad ever!

Greek yogurt + blueberries + Bear Naked Granola (I swear there is yogurt under there!) This is such a go-to summer meal. Super quick and easy to make!

I’ve also been getting plenty of fiber *ahem* by loading up on squash fries!

Anyone have any iphoto tips? I’m still learning my way around it, but I’m definitely looking forward to have some decent photo editing software! Now if only I could get my lightbox set up…

What are you eating this Wednesday?

<3 Liz

Over the weekend, I went to the Richmond Vegetarian Festival. That’s one of the awesome things about Richmond… there is a festival for everything

The best part was definitely all of the yummy samples!

I got to try Bruchetta from Trader Joe’s

And tons of samples from Vega!

I also sampled some ice cream from So Delicious, and lots of Nature’s Path goodies to take home! Good Foods Grocery even had vegan cake samples!

Everything was delicious! Despite all of the sampling, I still had an appetite for lunch

I tried some falafel, hummus & grilled veggies:

It was fun being able to taste anything without having to ask if it was vegetarian-friendly!

Does your city have a lot of festivals?

In case you were wondering, The Caramel Heath Cake was a hit at the Birthday party on Friday. Saturday, I grabbed some vegetarian sushi with friends, before hitting the [putt-putt] course.

And the rest of the night was spent at a benefit concert, where my friend was performing. I somehow ended up having a small, impromptu after party, where lots of “jello” was consumed

Tonight, I’m taking a Raw/Vegan cooking class, so I can’t wait to get some new recipe ideas!

What did you do this weekend?

<3 Liz

Thank you dad…

For being patient when I asked 100 questions a day (Is this oak or pine?)

For writing me back, every time I wrote you a note (Even the ones just reminding you to get your lunch out of the fridge)

For [constantly] reminding me to get my oil changed, check my tire pressure, fill up my gas tank…(I still need that)

For teaching me how to do a front handspring… (and for showing my whole team how to do a real back extension roll)

For setting an example of how a man should treat a woman, and a father should treat his children (you’ve set the bar high!)

For being able to fix anything. (And I mean anything)

For worrying about me. (Even when I didn’t want you to.)

For letting me do all the things mom would say no to (Like putting up a gymnastics bar in the living room.)

For being my coach, my Sunday school teacher, my mechanic, my friend, and first and foremost, my dad.

I love you dad, Happy Fathers Day!

-”Chee”

Caramel. Toffee. They’re both kind of a light brown color… they’re both often mixed with chocolate… and I think in my head, they were kind of the same thing. Like I know they’re not, but I didn’t realize they’re not. Does that make sense? No? Well that’s ok. Read on.

I love birthdays. Love them. Really, any reason to celebrate is good with me. So yesterday I volunteered to host a little birthday party for a few friends tonight. It was last minute so I didn’t do much preparing, but I knew I needed to make a cake. I mean, give me an excuse, and I’m happy to get in the kitchen

I had stumbled upon this Brownie Caramel Pecan cake from Oh She Glows earlier this week and it looked SO good. But for some reason, Heath bars were calling my name… and I’m not very good at following directions… so I ended up making something new.

Caramel Heath Cake

Adapted from this recipe by Angela @ Oh She Glows

Ingredients:

• 1 cup sugar
• 1/2 cup butter
• 1/2 cup water
• 1  cup mini semi-sweet chocolate chips
• 1 cup Heath chips (they’re in the chocolate chip aisle)
• 4 eggs
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 1 & 1/3 cup all purpose flour
• 1/2 tsp. baking soda
• 50 caramel pieces, unwrapped
• 1 Tbsp. milk (I used coconut)
• 3 Tbsp. butter
• 1/2 cup Heath Bars, smashed
• 1/2 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips (For the top)

And now for the preparation:

Heat your oven to 350, and grease a cake pan. (The spring form ones are perfect for this!)

Melt the butter, sugar and water on the stove until it just starts to boil. Remove from heat and stir in the chocolate chips and the heath chips. (They’re a mixture of toffee and chocolate, so they won’t melt quite as smooth as the chocolate chips.) You’ll have to stir for awhile until it’s almost smooth. Then beat in your eggs and vanilla.

Combine with the flour and baking soda and pour all of that into your greased pan and bake for 20 minutes.

While that’s in the oven, melt your caramel, butter & milk in the microwave. This will be a lot of 30 second intervals + stirring, over and over. You’ll start to think it’s not going to work, and you’ll start to get mad at me for making you do this, but don’t worry. You’ll forgive me in the end.

Take the cake out of the oven when a toothpick comes out clean, and then pop it out of the pan. Slide it on to wax paper, and then drizzle the caramel on top. While the caramel is still melted, sprinkle your crumbled heath bar + chocolate chips. Admire your work.

The only downside of cakes is… you can’t really taste test it… but based on the [4,000] tastes I had of the batter… it’s going to be good.

Let the celebrations begin!

What’s your favorite kind of cake? 

<3 Liz

Yesterday was kind of a bad day. [Insert work frustrations.]  But thats ok, because:

1. I usually love work, so a bad day just means that I got a little frustrated…

2. When I’m frustrated I liked to run. Or clean. And both of those were on my agenda anyway!

3. It’s a new day, and not just any day, it’s What I Ate Wednesday!!!

So in case you missed the memo, I’m a vegetarian. Why? Well, mostly because I just don’t like meat. For lots of reasons. One being the taste. Yet for some reason, this caught my eye:

And I threw it in the cart. Impulse buy? Um, yes. But I liked the Lightlife “Smart Ground” so much that I thought I’d give it a try.

So I threw together my 4 ingredient dinner:

• Veg-friendly “pork” + Whole wheat bun
• Broccoli slaw + Hummus (I needed some veggies)

And dinner was born. So how was it?

Well. The broccoli slaw topped with hummus was delicious, of course. And the “pork”… well honestly I don’t remember what pork tastes like but… I guess this tasted like pork. So I didn’t really like it.

Sometimes I’m kind of an idiot. I know.

But before the dinner fail, I went for a run, which was awesome, since I hadn’t be running for awhile. Oops. It wasn’t an easy run, (I think I’m still detoxing from the second hand smoke of the weekend) but I cranked out a few miles. Good thing I had an awesome playlist. (Thank you Wiz Khalifa. I love you.) I’m still loving my rap/mashups kind of playlist.

What kind of music is on your playlist these days? 

Do you ever try things you know you won’t like? Are you an impulse buyer? 

<3 Liz

I’m not really the “camping type.” I like showering. I like sleeping in my bed. I like using my vitamix every morning. And don’t even get me started on my texting/tweeting/blogging addictions. Woah.

However, I threw caution to the wind, and spent the last 5 days at Bonnaroo! (Sorry for being MIA for so long! And thanks Kat, for doing a guest post, on Friday!)

The music was amazing! So many great artists all in once place. The heat was pretty intense, and I definitely wasn’t prepared for the crowd (about 100,000 people…) but it was so much fun!

The main stages were called the “Which” stage and the “What” stage. (There was also “This Tent”, “That Tent”, and “That Other Tent”.) Only slightly confusing

Needless to say, after 5 days without showering, I was ready to come home and scrub the dirt off of me! I’m also craving some veggies. Even though I packed some snacks, I also “supplemented” those snacks with some not-so-healthy options. Oops

The first place we stopped didn’t have a lot of vegetarian options. I had a bowl of pinto beans

And food at the festival looked like this:

Ashamed yet?

But I earned my girl scout badge for camping, and I definitely made some memories I’ll never forget, and that’s what really matters!

And last but not least, the winner from the Lightlife giveaway is:

Brittany from a Healthy Slice of Life! Brittany, send me your address, and your coupons will be mailed asap

Are you the camping type? Or are you more of an indoors person?

<3 Liz

Hey friends! Since I’m still rocking out at Bonnaroo, the lovely Kat is doing a guest post for me! She’s awesome, and if you haven’t checked out her blog, do it!!