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

Kale Friend

Hi Readers!

 Look what I got yesterday 🙂

 Thanks for all the nice words about my TurboFire results! I am super excited.

 Saturday morning I went to the St. Paul Farmers Market – it was raining lightly, but nothing could keep me away from those veggies. The difference between the Farmers Market produce and the regular grocery store produce is huge.

Here are the goods:

And look at the little friend who came home on the kale with me:

All together now:

 I’m a little nervous about the okra. The only time I’ve prepared it before it turned out slimy and really gross. I’m sure if it was deep-fried it would be delicious. Any ideas on preparing okra?

Last night I decided to use the green peppers. They were huge! I thought stuffed peppers sounded delicious!

Black Bean Stuffed Peppers

Ingredients:

2 large peppers

1 cup cooked brown rice

1 cup black beans

½ onion, chopped

2 cloves garlic, minced

1 zucchini, shredded

1 cup salsa

¼ tsp cayenne

Salt and pepper

–

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Cook brown rice. Saute onion and garlic until soft. Wash peppers, cut the tops off, and clean out any seeds. Place peppers in a baking dish coated with cooking spray. You might need to cut off a portion of the bottom of the pepper to help them stand up straight. Mix brown rice, beans, onion, garlic, zucchini, salsa, cayenne, salt and pepper in a bowl. Divide mixture evenly between the peppers.

–

 Cover dish with foil and bake for 45 minutes. I would have liked to add some shredded soy cheese, but we were out. They still turned out great:

 This was very easy to put together, and when I make this again, I will add more salsa, since the stuffing was a tad dry.

Sunday plans:

Laundry

Vacuum whole house

TurboFire

Grocery shopping

Update blog roll…

Relax

Read The Lovely Bones (I’m almost done!)

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 Questions:

 What are your plans for today? Anything fun?

 Do you read any non food related blogs? What is your favorite one?

In Hog Heaven

Hello!

This morning J and I got up early to run 3 miles. After training and running our marathon a few months ago, I am LOVING these low mileage days. We are in week 1 of training for our 10 mile race in October.

Then I went to the St. Paul Farmers Market. I have been to smaller Farmer Markets before, but St. Paul is pretty large. I was in hog heaven. Check out what I got:

 Beautiful flowers

 Green and yellow zucchinis

 Green beans

 Potatoes

 Swiss Chard

 Kale

 Beets

 Sweet Onions

 Pickles!

All of this totaled $20. My wallet was as pleased as my belly will be!

I didn’t buy any, but I saw big bundles of Bok Choy for $1. I recall buying that same amount at Whole Foods for over $10. I know I’m late getting on this Farmers Market bandwagon, but I am hooked!

Now I need to figure out what to make with these wonderful veggies. Those potatoes look so good, they might get eaten first!

Plans:

TurboFire 20 min abs, 40 min stretch: one of my favorites, the stretch feels so good!

Lunch!

Twins game tonight with friends

Hopefully catch up on some Real Housewives of NJ!

–

QUESTION OF THE DAY: What are you having for lunch today?

Have  a great day,

Holly

Fresh Fruit & Family

Hi everyone, how is your weekend so far?

Mine has been great, mostly because I spent most of the morning and afternoon with my sister in law D and soon-to-be aunt in law E. We have so much fun together.  E is getting married to Uncle M next year, so we got to talk about all sorts of wedding stuff. She brought her books/magazines and we talked about colors, flowers, dresses, food, cake, songs, etc. Everything. It was fun for me because J and I had a small wedding with just family, and then six months later we had a huge party/reception for friends/family. With E’s wedding being so large, it is definitely fun to help plan and share ideas.

But the best part of the day (except for seeing my niece Lil D) were these:

O

M

G

Can you believe those cinnamon rolls?

They reminded me of her:

 (source)

How about these delicious cherries, strawberries and almonds:

Or, can you believe these beautiful grapes and peaches?

They were all bought from the Minneapolis Farmers Market (which I have sadly never been to, but I am planning on going next week now!). All of the fruits were so delicious.

I had 1/3 of a cinnamon roll, and a small plate full of fruit. And a bunch of almonds. They were delicious and had some type of crunchy coating. Yum.

After hours of wedding talk, I finally came home and played some Mario Kart on the Wii. I didn’t do well (no surprise) but I actually had fun (what a concept, right?)

The rest of the night should be pretty low key for J and me, I’m planning on putting more features on the blog, updating my blog roll (if you haven’t told me you’d like to be included, please let me know!), updating TurboFire, etc. Oh and I also have to DO my TurboFire workout for the day: 20 min Abs, 40 min Stretch. Should be a great workout!

Have a great night!

Holly