Long posting, coming up!

Hi friends! I promised I would get back on track once I was back in Chicago, but things have been so busy!! I started this blog once my job working in a school was out for the summer, and I am wondering how in the world I will find the time to blog regularly once I am working again!! Any advice, from any of you expert bloggers out there?

So, going back to YESTERDAY:
I woke up not very hungry, so I checked my email for a bit and then headed out for a run first thing. I had planned to run yesterday instead of today because the weather was super cool - highs in the 60s - which I LOVE! It was rainy for most of my 4 miler, which made it really enjoyable. In fact, I was sad when the rained stopped toward the tail end of the run.

Once I got back I STILL wasn't quite hungry, but eventually I had a bowl of blueberries - I had this bowl x2.Also, here is a picture of some Naturally More samples the company sent me: last night I dipped into the almond butter, which was great! However, Elise just notified me that except for the stuff that is specifically labeled as "raw", these, and most other nut butters, are NOT raw. But, I have them in the house, so I will probably eat them until they are gone! Hubby doesn't eat a lot of PB.

While staying with my grandpa in Indiana the past few days, I stumbled onto this guy - a mini, pint-sized version of a food processor. My gpa said I could take it since they have never used it - I was psyched because I was just about to spring for a full sized one, but they are so pricey!! Even though canned beans are not entirely "raw", to me they are still healthy and better than some crap I could eat instead, and again, they are something my husband won't eat so I wanted to use them up.

I threw the can of chickpeas (or were they garbanzo beans? does anyone know what the diff is?) into the mini FP with a little bit of lemon juice, some water, some garlic, and some salt. It was soooooo delicious and creamy!! I know technically if it doesn't have tahini in it than I don't it's called hummus, so I don't know what you want to call this concoction, but it was a great salad topping!

For dessert I made a GM with half soy milk, half almond milk, spinach, a shot of Amazing Grass wheatgrass, and a shot of Amazing Grass chocolate amazing meal. Yummy!

The plan for Wednesday night was for me and Mike to go to the Taste of Chicago. Now, oddly enough, even after living within an hour of Chicago for most of my life (and now living IN Chicago), I have never been to the Taste! Most people think it's miserable anyway - hot temps, crowds of people, the cops usually end up breaking up fights, etc. However, I had wanted to go at least once - especially since I hear they have a lot of fun new veggie options these days that I wanted to try! We also live pretty close to Grant Park so I figured it would be a fun night.

However, after getting a call from my friend Sarah, we made a last-minte change in plans. We were invited to go on a yacht ride on Lake Michigan to see the Navy Pier fireworks!!!! I was so excited to be asked (after getting over my initial discomfort with the whole boat idea - last time I was on a boat I got seasick!) - that I ran to the kitchen to whip up some treats to take on the boat.

The amazing, delectible cookie dough that I made was SO FABULOUS that I ate every last drop. Hmmmmm, so much for that plan to take some with me... so I went to the store to stock up on more ingredients, came back and made another big batch! Here's the recipe:

Yummy Yacht Balls:

3 c. coconut (unsweetened if you can find it) + 1/4 c. for dipping later

3 c. dates

3 c. walnuts

8 T. agave nectar

3 T. almond butter or other nut butter

dash of vanilla

pinch of salt

cinnamon to taste

Grind up the walnuts in food processor or nut grinder. Throw all ingredients into Kitchenaid mixer (or FP if you have a good one) until mixed. You can add more agave nectar or peanut butter if the flavor needs enhancing, or if it would help thin out the texture.

Now, I'm sure these would be awesome baked, but since they are egg-free and don't have to be baked (and I wanted to keep some sembance of raw-ness), I made them into balls and rolled them in remaining coconut. Store in freezer.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Please make these, your stomach will thank you!! ;)

Later for dinner I wanted to experiment with making pesto in my new mini. I threw in ALL of the basil off our little plant, some EVOO and lemon juice, garlic, and salt. This did nothing - I think I needed to have more ingredients for it to start to blend it properly. So, I threw in a ton of spinach and some water, and this ended up working ok. I also added some pine nuts for texture and flavor.

I tried to be cool (as a cucumber?) and make cucumber "pasta" by shaving it a la Gena-style (using a veg peeler since I don't have a fancy spiralizer), but the slices were too thin. It was decent.....

Luckily I had eaten about a dozen Yummy Yacht Balls prior to dinner so this filled me up.

Here are some pix from the beautiful yacht!!

Mike and I - I would have loved to get some pictures of the whole group (Sarah, Travis, Travis's cousin Andrew, and Andrew's girlfriend Gina), but the flash on my camera is broken so once it got dark there was no more picture taking for me.

The fireworks on Navy Pier!!! They were stunning!!

I snacked on a few of my YYB (which are healthy and vegan, in my opinion) on the yacht as well as went through a bottle of Riesling. I love Riesling! Nice and crisp for a night on the boat :)

Mike and I were completely stuffed by the time we got home around midnight. But.... I saw a package had come for me.

Ahh!!! I was SOOO excited to receive this enormous package from Newman's Own Organics!! Honestly, this picture doesn't do it justice, there is a TON of stuff here. Also, here is some info about the new Newman's Own Organics product line, that the company sent me:

"When Nell Newman and business partner Peter Meehan started Newman’s Own®
Organics: The Second Generation® in 1993, they were sure there was a market for organic snack foods, but they couldn’t have anticipated just how fast the demand for their products would grow. What started with pretzels and grew to include other snack foods has now expanded to many other organic items: coffee, tea, olive oil, balsamic vinegar, organic dried fruit, and pet food. The partners anticipate adding a number of new items each year in all these areas.
Nell approached her father in 1992 about the possibility of an organic division. He offered to cover one year’s expenses for Nell and Peter to determine the feasibility of an organic product line under the Newman name. The one stipulation was that, once established, they would return the seed money, so that it could be added to his charity money. They not only managed to do this within a short period of time, but also became an independent company in late 2000. This had been the goal from the beginning. They were, though, committed to following the philanthropic role of Paul Newman and bringing out products that he was proud to have his name associated with.

Newman’s Own® Organics' products meet all the requirements of the USDA’s National Organic Program. Ingredients have been grown on farms that have not used artificial fertilizers or pesticides for three years or more. The farms and processors have also met the USDA’s organic standards. The products are sold nationwide in a number of mainstream supermarkets and in a large number of stores featuring natural and health foods. The pet foods are sold in specialty pet stores as well as many of the other outlets.
The Newman’s Own® Organics Guide to the Good Life: Simple Measures that Benefit You and the Place You Live (Villard) written by Nell with Joseph D’Agnese was published in spring, 2003. It is filled with practical advice for improving the quality of one’s life and the environment without drastically altering one’s life. Packed with facts, anecdotes, humor, and a heavy dose of sanity, it is organized around the way people actually live, allowing readers to easily identify what areas of change are viable for them.
The sale of Newman’s Own Organics products generates money for the Newman’s Own Foundation to give away. Since 1982 Paul Newman and the Newman’s Own Foundation have donated more than $250 million dollars to educational and charitable organizations worldwide."

The truth is that I would never have eaten anything after I got home if I had not had that nice wine buzz going - I wasn't really hungry at all - but Mike and I were giddy with excitement about our new goodies!! So, we split these:

I LOVE white cheddar flavored anything, and this did not disappoint!!! I kept going on my own and had these:

They were good too, but left a super BBQ-y taste in my mouth which left me wanting something sweet. Instead of reaching for a healthy but delicous YYB, I reached for this....

I dipped these in some soy milk. Sooooo good!!! So far I'm extremely impressed with all of the Newman's Own Organic food products. I can't wait to try more of them! :)

Lots of snacking

Hello everyone!

Sorry for the double postings yesterday. This blogging business is going to teach me to have more patience! :) This morning I snacked on some blueberries before leaving for the gym. At the time I wasn't hungry enough for a Green Monster, but once I was in the car headed to work out my stomach started to rumble and I realize that maybe I should have eaten something a bit more substantial!

I made sure to leave with enough time so that I could do a bit of cardio at the gym before the hour-long sculpting class. However, I got to the gym, parked, and realized I had left my purse at home. UGH!! This was an annoyance because I needed my wallet to get a couple last minute items at the store on the way home from the gym, and I knew it was going to be a very busy day with few minutes to spare, so I forwent the idea of the extra cardio, ran home, grabbed the purse and headed back to the gym. Fortunately I got there right on time for the beginning of class.

This was my first time attending the morning sculpting class, and it was really good! It was a lot of plyometrics and weight sculpting with a bit of cardio thrown in, too. Lots of ab work, too, which I liked!

After the class (I skipped out on stretching at the end to save time - bad Val, I know) - I picked up a couple things at the store that I needed for dinner tonight.

Right now it's 2pm and I've had an ENORMOUS amount of food since my blueberry breakfast, but nothing worth taking pictures of. Basically I snacked my entire way through making the food for dinner, so you will get caught up, picture-wise, once I post those later tonight! Get excited! ;)

Long posting ahead!

I'm so impressed with all of the bloggers out there who many to post upwards of two and three times per day! Although I did post earlier today, it was a late posting about yesterday... so I really wanted to make sure that I actually posted about today, today!!!

This morning I got up with just a few minutes to spare before heading off to the gym, where I was planning to go to the morning spinning class. I quickly made some coffee with a splash of soy milk, and sat down to check email/my blog while I downed my caffeine. I was sooo pleasantly surprised and excited to find that I had gotten a lot of great responses to my blog! I'm not sure how soon bloggers typically develop a solid reader base, but I have a feeling it takes quite a while. So, when I received some emails about my blog I was quite pleased :)

Unfortunately, I was so excited about all of this that I left for the gym much later than I should have. By the time I got to the gym, although I was only about 3 minutes late, the class was already full :( Now, for the longest time I have hate a "hateful" relationship with spinning! I would go to class just because I knew it was good for me - basically it was a less injury-prone exercise that was good for cross-training on my non-running days. But recently, after finding some awesome, exuberant spinning instructors that make class a lot of fun, I have changed the status of my relationship with spinning to "love/hate". Hey, baby steps right?

But regardless of my newfound appreciation for spinning, I was secretly a bit happy that the class was full! I inwardly breathed a sigh of relief, and then went to do the hip abductor machine. I continued to do a few other weight machines, and relished in the fact that I had escaped an hour of long, torturous spinning class. However, I happened to look up only to see that an older couple was leaving the spinning room!!! I actually struck up a conversation with them and found out that it was their first class and that they enjoyed it, but that it was harder than they thought and also that they "had to leave to get ready for a party in a few hours". Haha, yeah, that's what we all say!! I am constantly inviting reasons in my head why I need to leave spinning class early ;)

I went back and forth for a few seconds, and then decided that I may as well suck it up and go back to the class - since there was finally a seat for me - and therefore there were no excuses not to! I typically go to the Tuesday and Satuday classes but had never been on a Sunday morning, and I found that I really liked the instructor today. In the end, although it is always a pretty intense workout, I was definitely glad that I stuck it out!

After spinning class was over, I hopped onto one of the reclining bikes and did 20 minutes. Then, a few more minutes doing weight machines and some crunches, and then called my dad from the gym...

A bit of background info: my grandmother, as of yesterday, has been in the hospital for a heart arrythmia, pneumonia, kidney problems, and possibly some other issues, and once my dad had to go back to work tonight he called to see if I could go to stay with my grandpa while my grandma stayed in the hospital. The plan was for me to stay a couple days - until my grandma got back from the hospital - so after I left the gym I went to the grocery store to get a couple vegetarian staples to bring with me, since my grandparents are GREAT people - but definitely not the healthiest eaters!! I went back to the condo to get packed up and to say goodbye to Mike for a couple days, only to find out that the plans had changed and that my dad was going to be staying with my grandpa for another couple days, so I didn't have to make the trek to Mishawaka, IN (which is a few hours by train and car).

Since I was then free to follow my original plan for the day, I made us a quick breakfast before Mike and I left to go to his parents' house for the day. Now, I should mention that when I came back from the gym, Mike SPECIFICALLY requested this particular breakfast. That is how good it is... despite the fact that I'm sure there will be many skeptics out there when I tell you what the "secret" ingredient is!!!

All of you food bloggers out there are very familiar with the Green Monster smoothie, but for my friends and fam who aren't, this is how I make it:

Morning mix: 1 cup vanilla soy milk, a few handfuls of spinach, half a scoop of Jay Robb's chocolate whey protein powder, 2 T. of PB2, and some ice - blend until ALL of the spinach is completely blended.

When I have it later in the day, I usually make a similar smoothie but since I don't always need to protein powder at that time, I make it instead with soy milk, spinach, and a banana, forgoing the PB2 and protein powder. But, I've tried many combos and it turns out great every time!

I have been making these GM's for a while now and I am so proud to have hooked Mike on them too. Even better, one of our friends from IU, Matt, crashed at our place last night after a late night, and he was fortunate enough to sample my GM for breakfast too :) I'm happy to report that he liked it! For those of you who have never had the joy of slurping down an ice-cold Green Monster, you CANNOT taste the spinach AT ALL if you do it right!! Just blend, blend, blend away.

Off to the in-laws house: when we got there, Yaya (my Greek grandmother-in-law) had prepared some vegetarian dolmades for me, which typically are stuffed grape leaves, but she used cabbage instead of the grape leaves. I don't have the picture of her version, but here is a pic off the internet:



I also had some of Yaya's pizza - and here is the delightful Yaya posing with me, sporting her "Anthony L" apron:

We spent most of the afternoon outside on the patio - it was a gorgeous day!! - and getting very excited for our upcoming weekend in LAS VEGAS!! We will be staying at the Monte Carlo. I am of course incredibly psyched for the unlimited, endless buffets, and you will be sure that I will be taking pix for you all to drool over! ;)

Later that night, I had some salad - compliments of Yaya - and some delicious BBQ shrimp that my father-in-law put on the grill for me. A little while after dinner, I wanted to weird out :) the family by making them Green Monsters. Suprisingly, they all seemed to love it!!!! It could be a charade - but I'm pretty sure they actually really liked it. Most everyone asked for seconds, which is always a good sign ;) I forgot to take a picture of this GM, however. I also enjoyed a bowl full of cherries and blueberries.

Once Mike and I returned to the South Loop later that evening, I cut us a couple pears, which were juicy, cold and delicious. A bit later I was of course craving another GM (the banana kind this time), which hit the spot, but I wasn't quite satisfied until I completed the day's snacking by having a Chocolate Raspberry Luna Bar which is VERY YUM!! Alright, I am going to go post this and cross my fingers that I do a better job posting the pictures this time - although I already know that one of them will be sideways and not right-side-up - I'm learning! :)