Nutella Burger

Hi Friends 
 
I have been MIA lately – sorry for not reading/commenting much, oh and sorry for no post from me yesterday! Wednesday morning (at work) I suddenly felt very sick. It just hit me like a ton of bricks! I couldn’t keep anything down (not even water) so I went home and slept. I slept all day long, got up to eat some soup that Jason brought me and then went back to bed.
 
I went into work late on Thursday and now I feel much better. I could barely stay awake and walking across the room was a workout, so there was no way I could read/comment or write a blog post!
 
Vegas Recap (here is day 1 if you missed it)
 
Saturday morning we got up pretty early – we were still on Central time (and tried to keep it that way!). Jason had some homework to finish up, so while he worked on that I got a quick workout in: Jessica’s At Home Cardio Blast. Seriously, this is such a nice, quick workout and you don’t need any equipment, which is great for traveling.
 
Afterward we set out to see the other side of the Strip. We started at the Wynn:

This place was gorgeous!!! There was a wedding later that day so most of the garden area was blocked off.

The Venetian was lovely as well:

I loved going into all of the shops. We thought about taking a gondola ride, but we were ready for lunch. Jason’s brother proposed to his wife on one of these gondolas, how romantic, right?

OMG we ran into Harrison Ford!!!

We walked over to Caesar’s Palace and headed to Mesa Grill (Bobby Flay’s restaurant!):

I love watching Bobby Flay on Iron Chef, and I figured he’d have a great menu. We needed good Vegas food after the big letdown the day before… On the weekends they have a Brunch menu, and I chose the Blue Corn Buttermilk Waffle with Blackberry Bourbon Syrup and Crème Fraiche:

It was unbelievable!!! Doesn’t look like much, but it was very filling. Jason had the Spicy Scrambled Eggs with Ham: 

This meal totally made up for the crummy buffet the day before!!! With full bellies we continued our venture:

Finally, a place I really wanted to visit: M&M World! Jason got a tie and I got some PJs:

4 floors of M&M merchandise. It was such a hilarious place:

We started to head back to the hotel. I wanted a chance to take a nap before going to dinner and then to the show – I did not want to be yawning the whole time! We caught the end of the Bellagio water show:

I also made a new friend:

After a quick hour long nap, we got ready to head to dinner. One of my favorite chefs/judges on Top Chef is Hubert Keller – so we made plans to eat dinner at his Burger Bar in Mandalay Bay.

This place was amazing! We started off with some beer, Blue Moon for me, Fat Tire for Jason:

I got the Hubert Keller Burger:

(Buffalo, caramelized onions, baby spinach, bleu cheese on a ciabatta roll)

And Jason got the Kobe beef burger with zucchini fries:

I can’t even describe how good this food was. The spinach and caramelized onions AND bleu cheese tasted so amazing. I wish I could go back and eat this all over again!
 
But the best part of dinner hadn’t even come out yet:

The Nutella Burger. Oh yes.
 
A bun made of a glazed donut, a Nutella mousse patty, topped with passion fruit gelatin (cheese!), strawberries (tomato) and kiwi (lettuce)
 
!!!

!!!
 
We grabbed a cab and headed to the Bellagio to see “O”.

I wish I could have taken some pictures, but I understand that it can be dangerous for the artists to see flashes, etc during their performances. Just believe me when I say that I was in awe the entire time! The stage was a large pool of water that opened/closed many times throughout the performance – so sometime the artists were in water, and other times not. Here is a picture of the stage from the Bellagio website:

As you can see, the center of the stage is a pool of water — the artists would perform in the water and on the stage (and in the air!). I was amazed the entire time.

Absolutely amazing. After the show we walked back to the hotel and called it a night.
 
I would go back to Vegas just to see O or another Cirque show and to eat at Mesa Grill and Burger Bar again. Ok, I’d go just for Burger Bar!

Have a good weekend everyone!

New Friends & New Veggies

Hi Friends 🙂

Did you have a lovely weekend? I did! Lots of relaxing and unwinding, but I also made a new friend 🙂 and got a lot done around the house.

On Sunday morning I went to meet Kate!

We had a lovely time together. We grabbed a cup of tea and then hit up the St. Paul Farmers Market. Check out the goods I brought home:

Those little potatoes are so good. I might use this recipe that I’ve made before. Yum!

Kate I had a wonderful time getting to know you better! Any other MN bloggers want to get together, let me know!

After that I went to church and I’m so glad I went. As you know, it was one of my September goals to attend church every Sunday. Well, I missed the first 2 Sundays but I’m getting into it now!

I also read another chapter in The Dance of Fear.

I am working on a post for Tuesday that discusses my thoughts on the subject. Just by reading the title, do you have any thoughts to share?

Questions:

1. Do you have any family heirlooms/treasures? My mom recently showed me her charm bracelet from her high school years, as well as a few of her mother’s rings and her father’s cufflinks. Jason and I have a set of dishes from his Great-Grandmother:

Aren’t they beautiful?

2. What was the highlight of your weekend? I definitely enjoyed meeting Kate, but I also enjoyed getting so much done: cleaning, organizing, reading, relaxing, and getting to church.

3. Will you be watching Thintervention tonight? What are your thoughts on the show so far? Like I’ve said before, I appreciate that Jackie talks about diet AND exercise, and I think that The Biggest Loser emphasizes exercise, which I do not think is a good message to send to viewers.

Have a good day!

Holly

Deep Fried Reese’s PB Cups

Good Morning Friends 🙂

I’m glad you liked my MN State Fair pics – I asked you to guess what this pic is:

And most people guessed Deep Fried Oreos – you were close, but these are Deep Fried Reese’s PB Cups. Here is a look at the inside:

It was glorious. And I loved that we got two, one for each of us. Some of you asked about the state of MN cardboard cutout thing: those were wine samplers!

Jason and I were at the fair for what seemed like days, but it was really only 4 hours. It was so hot and there were soooo many people there. The biggest bummer of the day? The barns were closed – CLOSED for cleaning. When we got to the fair, I wanted to eat first, then go to the barns – smelling the animal poo and then eating did not sound appetizing! Well, we got to the Cattle Barn at 2:58 and then it was announced that the barns close at 3pm for cleaning and will reopen on TUESDAY! Ugh, this happened last year (barns closed) and I checked online BEFORE leaving for the fair, and I couldn’t find any information on barns closing. It was a sad day. I did manage to snap a few pics of animals on our way out – but I never did get to see the big bunnies or chickens, or ducks, or geese, or sheep, etc. 😦 I understand they need to clean the barns, don’t get me wrong, I was just bummed that we didn’t get to go in.

We did get to see a Lumberjack contest, which was pretty cool. Axe throwing, chainsaw art, wood chopping, etc. We would have stayed longer but I felt like I was baking under the hot sun, so we got moving.

I finally went running on Saturday!!! Maybe I won’t have to walk my 10 mile race in October. It felt great to just get out there and do it – I don’t have a Garmin or any kind of gadget, but it took me about 40 minutes to run 4.5 miles.

On Monday night I did 20 min HIIT (TurboFire) and a FBB Strength workout – I love feeling so STRONG. After this 10 mile race I am definitely devoting more and more time to strength training. It makes me feel good and it makes me look good. What could be better?

For my post workout snack I had this:

Peanut Protein Ice Cream. I followed HEAB’s basic recipe and added some peanut flour (instead of cocoa flour) and some choc chips and…some red/green sprinkles. They were sitting in the cupboard just waiting for Christmas, so I cracked them open and threw some in. It was wonderful and was so cool and soothing on this (super hot!!!) MN day.

In other news:

Check out The Nutrionist Reviews Giveaway: Wheatgrass!

Check out Tina’s 30 Days of Reflection for Self-Love which starts on September 1st (tomorrow!) – I will be participating, and I hope you will be too!

What: 30 Days of Reflection for Self-Love

Who: Anyone!! Literally – pass this along to whoever. Share it on your blog or with people outside of the blogosphere. Everyone can participate. This is NOT a prayer or Christian only cause. It is for every person who wants to take time to love him or herself and gain a new perspective on their value. Call it prayer, meditation, self reflection, quiet time…whatever. It is for EVERYBODY! If you know you want to participate and feel like this can reach others the same way I believe, CLICK HERE to join!

Where: Here on Faith, Fitness, Fun with a very short post published every morning with the brief message to reflect on each day.

When: I will begin the daily reflection posts on September 1 and they will continue for the 30 days of the month of September. Take literally 5 minutes sometime throughout each day to reflect on the topic.

How: Click and comment on THIS POST to let me know of your interest. Then, simply jump in by taking a few minutes each day for self reflection on the given topic. Comment as much as possible on the daily reflection posts. I want there to be more focus on taking the few minutes for reflection over anything else. However, participating with comments helps you to declare the affirmations and something about having them in writing makes it feel more real. Also, I’m hoping for this to continue in future months and plan to include thoughts/quotes from other bloggers in future reflection posts.

–

Question:

What is your favorite post workout snack?

Do you like fair food? What is your favorite treat? I love pronto pups and mini donuts!

Have a good one,

Holly

The Great Minnesota Sweat Together

Our day in pictures:

Question: Any guesses as to what these are??? (pic below)

Have a great Monday!

I Love My Potbelly

Hi Friends 🙂

How was your Saturday? Ours was great. As I shared with you yesterday, 8.27.07 was the day that Jason proposed – yes we celebrate almost any anniversary we can think of!

Back in August of 2007, I kept having dreams about the number 827 or $8.27 or 8.27 and it seemed like whenever I glanced at the clock it would read 8:27. Or, my purchase amount for things happened to be $8.27. I wish I was making this up, but it is true!

It was the craziest thing! Finally I mentioned it to J because it was so odd. Later he told me that the day I mentioned my 827 phenomenon was the day he picked up my engagement ring. 🙂 He took that as a sign that August 27^th was THE DAY to propose.

He took me on a picnic lunch that day – and we ate Potbelly sandwiches. If you have a Potbelly near you, I sure hope you have eaten there before. Their food is AWESOME. Now, every year around 8/27 we will eat at Potbelly’s in honor of our little anniversary.

For me: Roast Beef on multigrain bread, with mustard, lettuce, tomato and hot peppers

For Jason: Turkey on white with mayo, mustard, hot peppers

And a few Root Beers 🙂

Afterward we shared this:

I have no way to describe this cookie, except for this: It is the most amazing sugar cookie on the face of the earth. It tastes like cookie dough and just melts in your mouth.

And, one of the best things about Potbelly: their Hot Peppers. These babies are HOT HOT HOT. We bought a whole jar!

Thanks everyone for your nice comments yesterday. I am truly blessed to have such a wonderful, supportive husband who shows me every day how much he loves me.

We are off to the Minnesota State Fair!

What are you up to today?

Holly

Healthy Living Blogs

Good Morning!

Thanks everyone for entering the Nuttzo Giveaway! If you haven’t, please click *here*.

The winner will be announced Monday morning! Good luck!

Also, check out Averie’s giveaway! And let her know you came from Couch Potato!

Have you heard of Healthy Living Blogs?

Healthy Living Blogs is a new resource for the health blogging community. Created by Lindsey of Sound Eats, HLB is a site designed to enhance the positive community of the healthy living blog world. Bloggers and readers can explore the site and find more blogs to love, bloggers in their area, and forums to deepen healthy discussion and support. If you’re interested in having your site listed on HLB, simply send the following information to healthylivingblogs@gmail.com and check the site out for yourself!

Email subject line: MEMBERS

Your name (please share if you prefer to go by first name, first and last, or however you prefer to be known on the Internet)

Blog Name

Blog URL (please start with http://, not www.)

Your twitter handle, if applicable

Your location (if you prefer not to disclose this information for privacy’s sake, that is completely understandable. We’ll simply include your blog listing in the A-Z listing, not by location, too)

Any specific labels (i.e. vegan, gluten-free, weight loss, running, etc.

–

Sorry for the short post, but J and I had a jam packed day yesterday and we have another busy day today. I need to finish up my fruit pizzas for the bbq/get-together (pics posted tomorrow!)

Have a great day!

Holly

Questions:

Are you a part of any blogging community? Which ones?

What are your plans for today?

Nuttzo Giveaway!

Good Morning!

Its time for another ***GIVEAWAY*** – woohoo!

The folks at Nuttzo were kind enough to send me two full size jars of Nuttzo multi-nut butters.

I have not opened either one. I want to give one to a lucky reader and keep one for myself. It is up to the winning reader to choose their Nuttzo flavor.

Choice 1:

Nuttzo

Valencia peanuts, cashews, almonds, hazelnuts, brazil nuts, sunflower seeds and flax seeds (all organic!)

 Check out the stats:

Choice 2:

Peanut Free Nuttzo

Cashews, almonds, brazil nuts, chia seeds, hazelnuts, flax seeds, pumpkin seeds (all organic!)

The stats:

Thanks again Nuttzo folks for the great products!

***I will announce the winner Monday August 23rd***Winner will be chosen randomly***

Here is how to enter to win a jar of Nuttzo:

1. Leave me a comment with the Nuttzo flavor of your choice.
2. Subscribe to The Couch Potato Athlete (upper right hand corner above my pic)
3. Add me to your blog roll
4. Post about this giveaway on your blog – ***this will give you 3 extra entries to this giveaway, so if you link to this giveaway, please leave me 3 separate comments letting me know you did so!

***My Opensky Shop will be complete later today – I will post soon about all of the products I will have available***

Other Giveaways!!!

***Alyssa at Gluten Free Muse has a HUGE Amazing Grass Giveaway. Check it out:

***Averie at Love, Veggies & Yoga has an AWESOME Tempt Hemp Giveaway. Check out the goods:

Plenty of stuff to win! Good luck!

Have a great Saturday!

Holly

Winner Winner Beet Lunch

Good Morning!

First I’ll announce the winner of the Raw Crunch Bar giveaway!

And the winner is  The Empty Nut Jar! You left the 35th comment! Please email me at couchpotatoathlete@gmail.com with your name and address and I’ll get those Raw Crunch Bars shipped ASAP!

I got in a great workout last night, I did some FBB strength training and some TurboFire HIIT – I love when I feel my blood pumping!

Katie’s post really influenced my decision to do more strength/weight training. I love cardio, but I really want to be STRONG. Thanks Katie for the push in the right direction!

I made a really simple lunch today. My sister L made it for me when she was visiting last week. We picked out some lovely beets at the Farmers Market. I boiled them up, let them cool a bit and then peeled and sliced them. My hands didn’t get too pink from the beets:

I added some goat cheese and dressed the salad with this:

Who could not love Paul Newman dressing? Ok, who could not love anything with Paul Newman’s face on it? Then I sprinkled the salad with some walnuts, and ta da:

I’m going to add this to a bed of greens, but it looks so purty on its own!

Speaking of purty, check out what I got in the mail:

I’m pretty sure there will be a giveaway involved with this as well. Maybe Saturday?

I’m working on a series of posts about budgeting, specifically budgeting for food and meals. I’d like to use you all as research 🙂

–

1. About how much do you spend on food/restaurants each week? Is this just for you or for you + spouse/sig other/roommates/etc?

2. What dietary needs do you have? (example: we are a dairy free household)

3. Do you plan meals/snacks ahead of time or do you decide each day what to eat?

4. What is your favorite meal to make at home?

–

Have a great day!

Holly

Follow the Leader

Good Morning!

Did you go to the Healthy Living Summit over the weekend?

I know, I know, I’m tired of all of the HLS posts too – only because I’m jealous of those who got to go! A few weeks ago I was really bummed I wasn’t going. Even this past weekend I was feeling upset and kind of left out. But today? I’m not feeling that way anymore. I’m new to this whole blog world and I’m still learning about everyone through their posts.

I have been looking at my blog more and more and wishing that it was one of the “great” blogs that I read every day. I kind of feel like I’ve been trying to make my blog into something it isn’t – I’ve been trying foods and recipes and workouts that OTHER PEOPLE do – and although that is a good thing (I like to try new things) – I kind of feel like a follower? Instead of a leader?

 One of my favorite blogs to read is Love, Veggies and Yoga. I like Averie because just looking at her lifestyle and mine, you can see we are quite different. I am not a vegan. I do not do yoga. I do not eat a lot of raw foods. I love her blog because it is unique – it is about her life.

Reading the comments in Averie’s blog yesterday led me to this: The Blogger’s Manifesto:

 “The Internet is made of people. People matter. This includes you. Stop trying to sell everything about yourself to everyone. Don’t just hammer away and repeat and talk at people -— talk TO people. It’s organic. Make stuff for the Internet that matters to you, even if it seems stupid. Do it because it’s good and feels important. Put up more cat pictures. Make more songs. Show your doodles. Give things away and take things that are free. Look at what other people are doing, not to compete, imitate, or compare . . . but because you enjoy looking at the things other people make. Don’t shove yourself into that tiny, airless box called a brand — tiny, airless boxes are for trinkets and dead people.”

–

If I had a cat I’d show you cat pictures. 🙂

I am going to focus more on what I want to write about – not just the “popular” things: overnight oats, peanut flour, turbofire, hot yoga, larabars, etc. Those things are great and believe me, I’m not trying to tear anyone down who likes those things. It just seems to me that there are a lot of redundancies in blogs. And I don’t want my blog to get lost in the crowd. I want to focus more on the things that make me happy: relaxing, tv shows, movies, reading books, saving money, budgeting, organizing, drinking tea, cooking, baking, etc.

So expect to see some changes from this Couch Potato Athlete – and all will be changes for the better. Starting with:

A GIVEAWAY.

The nice folks at Raw Crunch sent me some bars to try out. They are delicious. Check em out:

Here is the unwrapped Cranberry one. Look at all the big seeds and nuts!

They are crunchy and so delicious. They reminded me of Clif Mojo bars. Raw Crunch bars are organic, handmade, uncooked and unprocessed. They are also soy free, gluten free, dairy free and peanut free (except the chocolate is only wheat/gluten free and dairy free). Check out the ingredients in the Goji Berries bar:

There are 4 flavors – and I will give one lucky person one of each flavor to try!

To enter:

1. Go to Raw Crunch’s website and then leave me a comment telling me how much you love my blog telling me which flavor you would like to try.
2. Subscribe to Couch Potato Athlete – and leave me a comment telling me you did!
3. Add Couch Potato Athlete to your blogroll – or let me know that it already is!
4. Send me $100 Link back to this giveaway on your blog – and leave me a comment letting me know you did!

You can enter up to 4 times, but please submit separate comments (instead of writing “I did them all!”).

I will announce the winner on Thursday August 19 in the morning!

Good luck! Oh, and I might throw a few more goodies in there too. 🙂

Holly

Garlic Taters

Good Morning,

I decided to take Sunday off of blogging. My sister L, niece F and nephew H left today. It is so sad not having them here! Just when I was getting used to their sleeping and eating schedules and living here all week – they have to go back to Oklahoma. The only upside to them leaving is the lack of cheerios all over kitchen floor…

Thanks for the comments on Sat and Sun about getting rid of an all-or-nothing attitude. I hope to one day have the “gray” attitude some of you talked about. I really like Tina’s attitude about a healthy balance – some days I see her having donuts for breakfast, but then balancing that with a nice big veggie filled lunch and dinner. For me, if I start the day with donuts for breakfast, I’ll end up with a bagel/cream cheese for lunch and McDonalds for dinner! That is not a balanced day!

With my sister here last week, she did some cooking for us. 🙂 It is always nice to have someone else cook, dontcha think? On Sunday morning she made these wonderful roasted fingerling potatoes that we picked up at the Farmers Market on Saturday.

She started by roasting a head of garlic Saturday night, and letting the garlic cool in the fridge overnight. Then, on Sunday morning she washed and sliced the potatoes, rubbed them with oil and sprinkled them with salt and pepper. While the potatoes roasted in the oven, she mashed the roasted garlic and mixed it with a stick of butter. (Paula Deen would be so proud!) After the potatoes were done roasting, she put dabs of the garlic butter all over the potatoes, then put them back in the oven. When the butter is melted, the potatoes are done.

Fabulous.

What made the potatoes so great (in addition to having someone else make them for me) was the oil. It wasn’t just any-plain-ole-oil – it was Garlic Gold Oil. The folks at Garlic Gold were kind enough to send me some Garlic Gold products to test out. I got some original Garlic Gold:

Garlic Gold Oil, Garlic Gold Meyer Lemon Vinaigrette:

And 4 different crispy, crunchy Garlic Gold Nuggets. Regular, Parmesan, Italian Herb and Sea Salt.

These products are all organic and the possibilities are endless! I can see myself using these products almost every day. They would work great with roasted veggies, salads (according to the packaging they are a great alternative to bacon bits!), pasta, pizza, fish filets, chicken breasts, making garlic bread, anything. I used the Garlic Gold Oil and Parmesan Nuggets on my Kale Chips:

These products will be added to my Opensky shop (which should be finally opening soon, I will keep you posted!)

 My workouts have been all over the place today. For some reason TurboFire didn’t sound good to me, so I did 2 new workouts from Women’s Health magazine: a kettlebell workout (that I did with a 10 lb. dumbbell instead) and a short yoga routine. It felt great to do something different. This week my focus turns to running – I need to prepare for my 10 mile run in October, but for some reason I bought this at Target today:

I am a sucker for Billy Blanks dvds! I find his dvds to be so motivating because he seems to know just what to say to make me push myself even harder. He really seems like he cares!

Questions:

Have you tried Garlic Gold? What did you think?

Do you do all the cooking in your house? Or do you have you roommate/spouse/sig other/parent who takes care of the cooking?

What was the highlight of your weekend?