Tag: paleo pasta

Cooking/Recipes, Health & Fitness

Jeans for curvy girls, bracelets for skinny wrists, and paleo pasta (to maintain the skinny wrists)

heather

Today’s post is going to be a lot like my brain – all over the place but full of little interesting tidbits of information.  I’m assuming you are OK with this because you keep reading my blog. 🙂

I’ve been wanting a pair of skinny black jeans for awhile now.  I actually ordered these from Madewell, but they were insanely tight. I know jeans are too tight when Tim’s eyes almost pop out of his head when he sees them on me. I sent them back and kept my eyes out for another suitable pair.  Well, Old Navy’s harassing, non-stop emails finally paid off for them. I was threatened with losing my bonus cash or cash bucks or whatever the heck they are, so I ordered a pair of their Rock Star Skinny Jeans in the Curvy fit.  Holy Cow. These could very well be the best pair of jeans I’ve ever bought – even better than my James Jeans, which were my previous favorite.  They are snug, but not too snug.  They don’t hit me in an awkward part of my belly. They are flattering.  They are the right length.  The black is a nice, true black.  At 1/5 the cost of the James Jeans, the Old Navy jeans are a steal.  I’m considering buying like 5 pairs just in case Old Navy decides to discontinue them.  I LOVE them.

Man, this is going to be a pretty materialistic post. The next thing I’m going to talk about is another recently discovered love – Pura Vida bracelets.  I first ran across them at the yoga studio I go to.  They had this bracelet made of salmon colored thread with silver balls woven through it.  Here it is.  It caught my eye immediately because I thought it was soo beautiful.  It was $15 though, which seemed like a lot for what it was. So I checked out the website – you can get a ton of bracelets very cheaply on the website! I signed up for their emails and immediately got a 50% off coupon.  I ordered one of the multi-packs, and I couldn’t be happier.  They were way to large for me, so I had to trim down the ends (and then re-melt them), but now they fit great.  I’m hooked.  If you want to try them out, let me know. I can send you an email, and you’ll get 50% off your first order too.

I was hoping that devoting more time to yoga, meditation, and reflection would make me less want-y. However, so  far all I have noticed is an obsession with yoga pants and hippie bracelets.  Maybe I should just give it more time?

AND….. I tried one new recipe this week (between all of my online shopping).  I made paleo spaghetti, and it was so good that I’m making it again this week.  I roasted a spaghetti squash (cut it in half, took out the seeds, rubbed the inside with olive oil and salt, and cooked it cut-side down for 30-45 minutes in a 375 degree oven).  Then for the sauce, I followed this recipe.  I was short on butter, so I used 3 T of butter and 2 T of olive oil.  For the meat, I turned some of our ground pork into sausage using this recipe.  When we mixed it all together – wow!  It was super delicious and very easy.

And there’s my update for the week.  Hope you are having a productive Sunday!

Cooking/Recipes

Porky Pasta

heather

Hellloooooooo!  It’s Tuesday morning, and I have to go back to work today.  Bah!  Blurg! Tim had the day off yesterday, so I took it off as well and used some of the free time to do some experimental cooking.  My basil was going nuts, so I decided to make some pesto using this recipe.  It’s incredibly easy to make, especially with a food processor.  I left out the Parmesan to make the recipe more paleo, and neither Tim nor I noticed it was missing. I baked a spaghetti squash in the Nesco Roaster, shredded it up, topped it with some ground pork and then poured a sizable helping of pesto over the whole mess.  I stirred it well, added some salt and pepper, and wow.  Delicious.  Tim has named this recipe, “Porky Pasta,” which I think is funny.  I think this would taste great with some sauteed veggies (zucchini?) as well.  The recipe makes A LOT of pesto, so I poured the remainder into ice cube trays, covered each cube with a little olive oil, then pressed saran wrap into the cups and froze the tray.  This morning I’ll pop the cubes out and put them in a freezer bag.  Each cube should be about 2 T of pesto.  I’ve never frozen pesto before, so hopefully this works out well.  Pesto is too expensive to waste!!

I also tried a new Health-Bent recipe, Barbacoa Meatballs with Guac.  This was another insanely easy recipe.  You mix up an assortment of spices, add it to the meatballs, bake them, and you’re done.  The “guac” is a very simple recipe – avocado and lime juice and s&p.  The meatballs did turn out a little dry, but we found that drizzling them with olive oil took care of that problem.

And there you go – two easy recipes to try.  Hope you have a great Tuesday!

Health & Fitness, Paleo

Fantastic Bruschetta Chicken Recipe

heather

I ran across this Bruschetta Chicken with Zucchini Pasta recipe last week and HAD to try it as it features one of the 4 herbs I have in my herb garden – BASIL!  My basil is growing fantastically, as is my oregano (it came back from last year – thanks Diane!).  The dill is doing pretty well too.  The parsley is not producing as much as I want to eat, but it’s persevering.  The cilantro is dead and buried.  RIP cilantro.

Anyway, back to the recipe.  I wish I would have thought ahead and made up the bruschetta and marinade yesterday.  As it was, I made everything when I got home from work last night and let the works sit for about an hour.  I made a few alterations to the recipe – Tim does not like balsamic vinegar, which is a pretty integral ingredient in bruschetta, so I went light on that.  Also, I had no walnut oil, so I used olive oil.  I also smashed the chicken breasts in a plastic baggie, so that they were nice and flat and would cook evenly, then I added the marinade to the baggie and rubbed it all over the breasts (wink wink).  I also forgot to buy a lemon, so  I used 1 T of lemon juice instead of the juice and zest from one lemon.  They turned out SUPER delicious.

I used my mandoline to create the zucchini noodles and to shave a little bit of flesh off the tops of my fingers.  I can’t figure out how to the use the little tool that is supposed to prevent you from shaving off the tips of your fingers.  It mystifies Tim and me utterly.

The combination of the parts – sauteed zucchini noodles, grilled & marinated chicken breasts, and garlicky, basily bruschetta – turned out fantastic.  This was a perfect summertime supper.  We will definitely make this again!  I can’t wait until my coworkers’ gardens explode with zucchini, so I can have it for free instead of paying $1/zucchini at the farmer’s market from some douchebaggy farmer who complains about how people hand him cash (not all perfectly sorted and straightened out).  I love having produce from the FM, but I hate buying it there.  Too many people, dogs, strollers, and sun. It’s so hot and crowded.

Tonight I’m making beef & liver meatballs, accompanied by sweet potato salad.  It’s going to be deeeeelicious.