healthy laps

I tried green juice today!  I added some leftover wilted kale to the mix that was leftover from our kale chips the other night.  I also added the following:

• 1 apple
• 1 pear
• 1/2 orange
• 1/2 lemon
• 3 kale stalks

It really tasted like green lemonade!  I think this is my favorite juice combo yet!

I have so much juice pulp now, so look for some juice pulp crackers coming up!

I also started the day with a slice of Millet toast and my favorite superfruit jam (I have yet to try the other 3 flavors!) and a banana with almond butter.  Perfect, delicious, filling and satisfying!

I decided to hit up the gym tonight since my legs were still throbbing from my weekend workouts this morning!  So, before the gym I snacked on a YouBar.  YouBar sent me some samples of their bars, shakes and trailmix to try out a few weeks ago, but I just got around to trying one today!

You Bar is a great company.  They has multiple ingredients on their site and you can literally create your own bar, shake, cookie, trailmix, etc with those ingredients!  It sounds like a really cool idea to me.  I did not get to chose my own ingredients, but they did send me a few samples.

I tried their Great Date with Chocolate Bar today which was a combination of Dates, Whey Protein, Honey and Cocoa.  Sounds like my kind of ingredients, huh?

Well, unfortunately, I didn’t love the bar. 😦  It had the consistency of a powerbar, which I hate!  Kind of rubbery.  I love the idea of the site, but I was hoping that the bar would be more like a granola bar.  I am assuming that the other bars I received will be similar, but I’ll try them out at some point anyways.  I do have high hopes for the trail mix though!  How can you go wrong with some ingredients thrown in a bag?!  So, i’ll be back with a review of those!

At the gym, I did a little warm-up on the elliptical and then hit up some weights.

Back & Biceps

• Lateral Pulldown (3 sets of 12, 50lb weight)
• Seated Row (3 sets of 12, 40lb weight)
• 21’s (3 sets, 18lb bar – these are my absolute favorite!)
• Hammer Curls (3 sets of 10, 7.5lb weights – tired from those 21’s!)
• Back Extension (3 sets of 10, 10lb weight)
• Leg ups (2 sets of 15, twists)

Then, I ran 6.5 miles super easy!  I wanted to get some miles in for the week, and stretch out my sore legs!

Dinner was a quickie, but really really goodie tonight!

Last week, I got my weekly update from 101cookbooks.com and Heidi had a feisty green beans recipe on their.  Brant and I both love green beans, so we had to try it out!

The recipe has quite a few ingredients for green beans, but we both this it was worth it!  It was still quick, and we did leave out a few ingredients that we didn’t have on hand.

Feisty Green Beans

from 101cookbooks.com

Serves 4-6 (we cut the recipe in half and served it over quinoa for a main dish – it was a perfect amount)

Ingredients:

• 1 pound green beans, thinly sliced
• 1/2 cup golden raisins
• 1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
• 2 garlic cloves, thinly sliced
• 1/2 medium yellow onion, finely diced
• 3 bay leaves
• 1/3 cup white wine
• 1/2 teaspoon hot paprika
• 1 teaspoon ground cumin (omitted)
• 1 teaspoon ground coriander
• 1/2 teaspoon curry powder (omitted)
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• scant 1/2 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
• 6 ounces extra-firm tofu, cut into 1/2-inch cubes (omitted)
• 2 tablespoons unsalted butter
• 1/3 cup crème fraîche or sour cream (omitted)
• 1/4 cup sliced almonds, toasted (used sunflower seeds)
• one handful of finely chopped fresh cilantro (omitted)
• salt and pepper to taste

Directions:

1. Cook the green beans in a pot of well-salted boiling water for about a minute, just long enough that they lose their raw edge. Drain and dunk in ice-cold water to stop the cooking. Drain again and set aside.
2. In a small bowl cover the raisins with scalding hot water for five minutes, drain and set aside.
3. Heat your largest skillet over medium heat. When the pan is hot, add the oil, garlic, onion, and bay leaves. Cook for 5 minutes, or until the onions and garlic start to brown just a bit.
4. Add the wine and cook until it has mostly evaporated. Carefully remove the bay leaves.
5. Stir in the paprika, cumin, coriander, curry powder, salt, crushed red pepper flakes.
6. Stir in the tofu and raisins and cook until heated through, a minute or so.
7. Add the butter and green beans and stir until the butter has melted.
8. Remove from heat and stir in the crème fraiche, then most of the almonds and most of the cilantro. Taste and add more salt and some pepper if you like. Serve topped with any remaining almonds and cilantro.

Even with the missing ingredients, this came out great!!

To make this into a main course, instead of a side dish, we served the green beans over quinoa.  We left the quinoa plain because the green beans had more than enough flavor to carry though!

Filed under: Eating Laps, Recipes, Running Laps, Uncategorized | Tagged: bars, Eating Laps, juice, kale, quinoa, Recipes, Running Laps, weights |