Root vegetables galore!

Happy Monday everyone! It's so hard to believe it is already the third day into August... where did summer go?!?!?
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I woke up craving a green juice, and it delivered! I am officially obsessed with starting my morning with juice, and my only concern is that once I start work in a month it will be too time consuming (and not filling enough) for breakfast early in the morning..... juice is best drank (drunk? dranken?) within 20 minutes of juicing, so juicing the night before isn't an option.
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I could get up early to juice which is fine, but I still don't know what to have alongside the juice.... it keeps me full for quite a while during my summer days off, but once I'm back at work I don't want to be messing around with a rumbling stomach which I am chasing around after wild kids!
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This was made from:
- 4 stalks celery
- 2 handfuls spinach
- 1/2 lemon
- 1 apple
I left for the gym feeling completely energized! Today was spinning, and while there was only 2 of us in the class plus the instructor, she did a great job and kept the energy level high. It was an awesome class!
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I have to wonder if my recent obsession with spinning has made a difference in my endurance during long runs. I've been lucky enough to have fabulous long runs recently, and since the addition of weekly or twice weekly spinning is the only big change in my exercise regime, I am curious if that is making a difference. Have any of you found this type of benefit with increasing the frequency of spinning classes you attend? I also stuck around and did another 15 minutes on the reclining bike while catching up on yesterday's newspaper reading :)
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After getting home from the gym, I spent far too much time on the phone with a customer service rep from Cuisinart about my busted blender. Apparently, the first step is to send me a replacement blade (which I have a feeling is not the problem), which takes 1-2 weeks, and then the final step is for me to send mine in to get repaired which takes at least 4-6 weeks!!!!
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So this means I may not have a blender for over 2 months!??!?! I use my blender for EVERYTHING, from smoothies, to soups, to sauces, to desserts. I'm pretty bummed about this :(
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Then I had ANOTHER juice.... the same, plus about an inch of fresh ginger. Love it!!!
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I also spent a great deal of time dealing with my broken laptop and the prospect of having to replace it. I'm mostly upset about all of the documents I am going to lose if we dont pay to get it fixed.... most importantly, my recipe file!!! I had painstakingly saved tons and tons of delicious-looking raw and vegan recipes which are now lost forevahhhh. Oh, well.....
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I recovered from the loss of my beloved recipes by making yucca fries!! I only had one yucca root to use since the other one had gone moldy already.... oddly enough, a ton of the produce (tomatoes, apples, and yuca root) that I had bought just 3 days ago had already gone bad! They were super cheap, but I guess cheap isn't always better if the produce doesn't last.
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I had no idea what I was doing, but I just peeled the yuca then sliced is into thin round. It was a challenge to cut since it is very hard and dense, like a sweet potato. I sprinkled the rounds with walnut oil (you can read more about the amazing health benefits of walnut oil, such as being a souce of natural melatonin and tryptophan, at at The Actor's Diet), salt, garlic powder, cumin, and paprika. I baked them for about 18 minutes or so.

These were fabulous! They are very similar to a regular potato but tasted a bit more sweet and starchy. Yucca root has a great deal of health benefits, such as:
- High in vitamin C, B, A
- Calcium
- Phosphorus
- Potassium
- Iron
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Yet again, boredom prompted me to..... what else.... BAKE!!!! This time I threw together a mixture of chopped macadamia nuts, unsweetened coconut, vanilla, salt, agave, and lime juice. I ended up freezing these... for some reason they didn't thrill me. I think I need to mess with the recipe a bit - it was somehow too cloyingly sweet, yet not sweet enough at the same time.... I think the addition of dates would help tremendously!
I made Mike some shrimp diablo for dinner (unpictured), which was comprised of whole wheat pasta with a very spicy, tomatoey sauce with shrimp and salmon. He raved about this dish and said it was the best meal he had had in a while.... but I didn't try it so I can't say what it tastes like. It's weird to not taste test the food while cooking it...
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My dinner was a bit thrown together, too! I steamed some green beans and peas from Mike's geat-aunt's garden. I was anxious to eat these suckers so I probably didn't steam them long enough..... so I threw them in the microwave for just a bit with some nutritional yeast, salt, and garlic to make a "cheesy" sauce. Yum!
Dessert was a leftover cold sweet potato mashed up with some almond milk, Truvia, and tons of cinnamon. I feel bad since neither this, nor the green beans, made for very attractive pictures, sorry :) - but trust me, it tasted GREAT!! It reminded me of a chilled slice of pumpkin pie!!
Dessert #2 was one of the coconut lime cookies, which again I didn't really care for. Hopefully Mike will eat them, haha. I'm going to go clean the kitchen and then get to bed soon so I can get up early tomorrow and hopefully beat the heat for my run!
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Gratitude Journal:
1. I am obsessed with Cornelius my handsome juicer! I could drink green juice all day long....
2. My father-in-law generously offered to try to fix my computer..... I wish him luck! :)
3. I finished the book I was reading today and got to read outside on the balcony which was lovely
4. It makes me happy to cook a meal for Mike that he loves!
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Seriously, even the little things count........ ESPECIALLY on a Monday I find that it really helps to make a conscious effort of those things that you appreciate. What are you grateful for on this Monday night?