Beware: Long Post Ahead with TWO recipes!

Thanks for being patient with me yesterday, we had a really busy day and I knew I wouldn’t give Friday justice if I wrote about it yesterday.

Friday was a nice day, it started out with a cafe au lait on my way to work and then a breakfast wrap once I got there. I asked The Chef for something different that the egg sandwiches I had been eating and he came up with a great wrap. Inside the wrap was scrambled eggs, potatoes, green peppers and onions. There was also something really spicy inside but I couldn’t figure out what it was, maybe jalapenos. No matter what the spicy element was, it was delicious!

 

For lunch, I had staff lunch again since it was vegetarian pizza. The pizza was topped with every veggie in the rainbow and I had a small salad on the side.

Around 3, my stomach was rumbling again so I had a the coconut cream pie larabar. OMG. I loved this bar, I haven’t been a fan of coconut until recently and this little bar really packs a coconut punch. I really enjoyed it and plan to add it to normal bar rotation 🙂

Last weekend, I  made a bag of dried butter beans and I knew I wanted to try my hand at making butter bean burgers. I googled it and low and behold I found my friend Jessy’s blog.  Jessy’s recipe is vegan and I didn’t have nutritional yeast on hand so I made some modifications. Here’s how it went:

Butter Bean Burgers

Makes 6 burgers

3 cups cooked butter beans (if using canned, should be about 2 cans drained and very well rinsed)

1 diced onion

1 diced red pepper

1 tbsp crushed garlic

olive oil for sauteing

2 tbsp minced jarred jalepenos

1 cup bread crumbs

1/4 cup Parmesan cheese

1 egg

garlic powder, onion powder, salt and pepper (all to taste)

In a medium saute pan on medium heat, saute onions and red pepper in olive oil until the onions are translucent and then set aside to cool slightly. Meanwhile, mash the beans with a potato masher until most of the beans are completely mashed, you do want to leave a few whole beans for texture. Add in the remaining ingredients and combine well with a wooden spoon. Form the mixture into six patties.

Once the patties are formed, you have a couple of choices. You can freeze them for later use or you can cook them right away. When you are ready to cook them, heat a little olive oil in a cast iron skillet (or regular if you don’t have cast iron) on medium low heat and cook the patties about 4 minutes on each side. If you cook them from frozen, it may take a little longer. You can also bake them in the oven for about 16-18 minutes at 350* if you prefer and oilless method.

The butter bean burgers were fabulous! I served them on Sandwich things with jack cheese, ketchup and mustard.

On the side we had sweet potato fries, mmmm.

For dessert, I had a TINY amount of Turtle Mountain coconut milk vanilla ice creamwith a nutella spoon. I would have had a larger portion but it was all we had left 😦 Let me tell you, people, this is GOOD stuff. I love it love it love it! If you don’t like coconut, you probably will not like it but if you do, you are in for a real treat.

After dessert, off to bed I went. We had to wake up early to make it to yoga on time. Once we were up, I had a cafe au lait and a bowl of cereal. I had a mixture of Fiber One Shredded Wheats, Quaker Oatmeal Squares, ground flax seed and dried blueberries all topped with milk. This was a great bowl of cereal, since I had been in a rush all week, I was missing my morning bowl of cereal! I ended up not finishing the whole bowl but the dear husband was there to polish it off 🙂

After last week’s yoga debacle, I received an email from the studio owner letting me know she was sorry for what happened and wanted to assure me that the class IS a vinyasa I and II class. She is also giving me a free class sometime soon, which is always good. I feel so much better now that I heard from her, I really didn’t want to leave my yoga home. 

This week’s class made up for last week’s, that is for sure! We started out with the breath of fire and continued to build heat from there. We did lots of sun salutations (yay!), a gorgeous standing flow that included warrior I, warrior II, triangle, side angle, moon warrior, standing splits into PIGEON!! Oh my, was it ever great. After the standing flow, we worked on arm balances and then she challenged us to give wheel a try. We warmed up with bridge and then gave it a go. I had only every tried wheel pose once before on a yogadownload and I couldn’t get myself up. This time, I could get up but I could not get my head off the floor. Rest assured, I will keep at it until I get it. We ended the class with shoulder stand. I noted during class that shoulder stand had just become a normal pose for me. Six months ago, I could not get myself into it. It is amazing what the body can do with practice!

After the powerful yoga class, I was ready to face the day. Even the dear husband, who normally prefers hatha, said he felt great and more awake after the class. This was unusual for him because he normally doesn’t “get” the mental affects (or should it be effects?) of yoga, he does yoga purely for the stretch. We were both on cloud nine as we went about our errands.

Once we were home, we had a quick lunch. I made Boca Spicy “chicken” patties on whole wheat english muffins with blue cheese dressing.

On the side we had steamed green and yellow beans with “carrot balls”  tossed in olive oil, sea salt and garlic.

And for an extra spicy kick, a hot and spicy pickle. I actually could not finish the pickle because it was just TOO spicy.

For lunch dessert, I had two cherry cordial kisses. So good!

After lunch, we cleaned the whole house, with the exception of the office. The only time the house gets cleaned these days is when we are having company 🙂 While we were scrubbing, I made caramel lattes to get us through.

 

Once we were finished, I had a little food prep to take care of followed by girly maintenance. Our friends, Becky, Cris along with their two small children, Kristen and Reagan, arrived at six on the dot and we started dinner. I planned an easy dinner because I knew we would be busy, and since I am working to find balance in my life, easy was the way to go. I made baked salmon that I marinaded in fat free balsamic dressing

 

And what I am calling cauliflower bake. The first time I had this, my friend Sarah made it and both the dear husband and I fell in love with it. After consulting with Sarah, I figured out how to make my own version.

Cauliflower Bake

16 oz of cauliflower florets, I used frozen

1 package (8 wedges)  light laughing cow cheese

1/2 tbsp crushed garlic

1 tbsp minced onion

1 cup bread crumbs

1/2 cup Parmesan cheese

salt and pepper to taste

2 tbsp olive oil, divided

1 cup water

cooking spray, I use a misto with olive oil in it

Pre heat the oven to 350* and prepare a baking dish with cooking spray. In an large skillet, saute the cauliflower in 1 tbsp olive oil until it caramelizes slightly. Season with salt and pepper and then add water to the pan and cover. Cook until the cauliflower is completely cooked through, you can test it by mashing it with a fork, if it turns to mush, it is ready. Drain the cooked cauliflower and place into a mixing bowl. Add in the garlic, onion, cheese and salt and pepper. Mash with a fork until almost smooth.

In a separate bowl, mix bread crumbs, Parmesan cheese, a little salt and pepper and the remaining 1 tbsp olive oil. Mix well until you have a fine crumb mix, you may need to adjust the ratio depending on how dry your crumbs are.

Add the cauliflower mix to the prepared baking dish into a smooth layer. Top with the breadcrumb mixture and bake for about 15 or 20 minutes until the crumbs are golden brown.

We also had some kale the escaped the camera because it steamed up my lens and I was too impatient for it to cool down. The cauliflower seemed to be the star of the evening, well, if you exclude the wine.

During the evening, we drank wine

Our friend Cris opening a bottle of local wine

and nibbled on an impromptu cheese tray.

It was a lovely night with friends and we can’t wait to do it again soon.