Recipes | healthy laps

avocados, cucumbers, oats & bbq’s

Posted on June 26, 2010 by Jen

Two of my most favorite things are avocado and cucumber, especially in the summer. Cucumbers are so refreshing. They contain a lot of water which will help to keep you hydrated and they taste good so many different ways.

This week, I was searching some blogs for recipes and came across and Avocado Cucumber Smish Smash from Kristen, so obviously I had to try it out! Check out her website for the full recipe, but I will tell you that it only contains 4 ingredients!

It is so simple, refreshing and delicious! You definitely want to give it a try.

I used a whole cucumber and 1 avocado for mine and made a meal out of it on top of a sprouted wheat bagel.

It was really good.

Back up to breakfast…

Thursday night I prepped some overnight oats to enjoy Friday morning and placed them into the fridge to ‘sleep’.

1/3 cup rolled oats
1/3 cup yogurt (i used banana mango!)
1/3 cup almond milk
1 tbsp chia seeds
1/2 sliced banana

I mixed everything up and let it sit in the fridge overnight. When I was ready for breakfast, I pulled out a delicious bowl of cold oats.

Topped with a super ripe champagne mango and homemade chai granola.

Chia seeds are a miracle worker…they make the overnight oats! It was great and really filling.

Dinnertime rolled around and I was ready for some BBQ-ing! It is perfect BBQ weather today, so we were psyched.

Apps – Hummus, Salsa and Chips

Has anyone tried these chips from TJ’s? They are great!

And, the main course!

Wild Rice Waldorf Salad, Green Salad with CSA lettuce and honey balsamic dressing and a veggie burger for me!

Lots of good stuff. I love Friday night’s at home!

Filed under: Eating Laps, Recipes | Tagged: BBQ, overnight oats, Recipes, veggie burger | Leave a comment »

homemade pesto, 3 ways

Posted on June 25, 2010 by Jen

What is a girl to do with all of this garlic?

I mean, I do love garlic, but you can only use so much!

I comtemplated making a few different things, but decided to make three big batches of pesto since it can be easily frozen to use later on.

(I highly recommend that you make all of these recipes right now! :))

I started with my own version.

Simple Spring Garlicky Pesto

Ingredients:

1 bulk & stalk of spring garlic, chopped
2 cups fresh basil (mix of sweet and regular from my porch garden!)
1 cup kale (for more bulk)
1/2 cup toasted pistachios!
1/2 cup parmesan cheese
1/4 cup olive oil
sea salt to taste

Throw everything into a food processor and blend away.

This pesto is awesome! Surprisingly, the pistachios were a wonderful addition to this recipe!

Vegan Garlic Scrape Pesto (from Oh She Glows)

I was a little ify about making this one, but really wanted to try it out. I’m glad I did! It is delicious…I even ended up doubling the recipe. The garlic scrapes give it a hint of garlic, but it is not overpowering at all – yummy!

First, make your Vegan Parmesan Cheese!

Throw 1/2 cup toasted sesame seeds, 2 tbsp nutritional yeast and 1/4 tsp of salt into a food processor and blend until crumbly!

Then, mix up your pesto!

3 garlic scrapes
1.5 cups vegan parmesan cheese (see above)
2 tbsp lemon juice
1/4 cup olive oil
1 handful spinach (I used swiss chard – just used to make it green)

Throw it all into your food processor and blend.

(recipe makes about 1.5 cups)

The vegan parm cheese is surprisingly cheesey!

Lastly, our favorite red pesto from 101cookbooks.com.

Red Pesto (from 101cookbooks.com)

12 sun-dried tomatoes (not in oil)
2 cloves garlic
pinch red pepper flakes
1 tsp fresh thyme (from my porch garden!)
1/3 cup olive oil
1/4 cup toasted walnuts
pinch salt

Put the following ingredients in a blender and blend until you love the consistency. I like to leave this one a bit more ‘crumbly’ because it tastes great!

(recipe makes about 1.5 cups)

I ended up doubling all of these recipes and put 1/2 away in the freezer.

How do I freeze pesto?

Easy!

Spray a muffin tin with olive oil and put fresh pesto into a mini muffin pan (or ice cube trays) and freeze. After they are frozen, they pop right out of the tin. Put in a ziplock bag or tupperware and store in the freezer.

This way, you can just take out and defrost what you want, instead of having to defrost the entire jar of pesto at once.

I like to take a few cubes out and defrost them over low heat with a little extra olive oil to make sure it mixes up well. Serve over pasta, rice, vegetables, in salads or anyway your heart desires!

Tip: Plan to make a few recipes together so that you only have to clean up once. 🙂

Filed under: Eating Laps, Recipes | Tagged: garlic, pesto, Recipes | 6 Comments »

carrots, lettuce & almond butter

Posted on June 16, 2010 by Jen

It has been a great day of eats over here! And, I woke up to the sun! I love it.

But, I actually wasn’t feeling so great when I woke up, so I decided on a berry smoothie. In a bowl today because I felt like it. 🙂

I made a thicker mix today so that I could eat it with a spoon.

3/4 frozen banana
3/4 cup frozen spinach
1/2 cup frozen berries
1/4 cup plain yogurt
3/4 cup water
1/2 tbsp chia seeds
1/2 scoop Vega chocolate protein powder

With a serving of Galaxy Granola’s new Hint of Honey Granola. This might be my favorite flavor. Just a hint of sweetness.

Don’t you love my new bowl??

I love the color of the smoothie in this bowl. 🙂

The smoothie kept me full until lunch, when I broke into something fun.

A Carrot, Lettuce and Almond Butter Wrap!

I spread a thin layer of salted almond butter on a whole wheat wrap and stuffed it with CSA lettuce and thinly sliced carrots. Then, wrapped it up.

Surprisingly, this combination is really tasty. I was in search of a new lunch option and this just worked. (Thanks to Meghann for the idea!)

I ate my wrap along with a grapefruit that has been in my fridge for weeks. It wasn’t super juicy, but it was still sweet.

And, leftover carrots and a raw chocolate chip cookie from One Lucky Duck.

A solid lunch.

After work, I snacked on a granola bar and I got in a workout.

5 minutes stretching
25 minutes stability, balance and strength training (3 full circuits of the following: 12 bicep curls on 1 leg, 12 squats, 12 overhead press on 1 leg, 30 seconds of mountain climbers, 12 lunge + lift on each leg, 12 triceps kickbacks in static squat, 30 seconds of jumping jacks, 12 pushups on knees, 12 YTA’s on 1 leg)
30 minute swim
10 minute stretch

Then, it was finally time for dinner. It was easy to figure out what to make with all of our goodies from the CSA – a BIG salad!

First, I dressed my red leaf CSA lettuce with honey balsamic and olive oil. On my base of lettuce I added slightly sauteed CSA sugar snap peas & radishes, a sunshine veggie burger, rosemary pecans & cranberries and goat gouda.

The sugar snap peas were so fresh and delicious! Blanched for 1 minute, then sauteed in just a touch of olive oil, salt and pepper. They were still super crispy.

We threw this salad together very quickly after our swim. The flavors all worked really well together and it only took about 15 minutes to prepare. It was heaven on my plate. 🙂

Filed under: Eating Laps, Recipes, Restaurant Reviews | Tagged: dinner, Recipes, salad, smoothie, swimming, weights, wrap | 3 Comments »

grow your own herbs & veggies

Posted on June 15, 2010 by Jen

This morning I did something really fun. I planted a bunch of veggies and herbs on my porch!

I love having an assortment of herbs at my disposal whenever I want to use them. It sure does beat buying them at the grocery store everytime you need them! Plus, it will save you a few bucks in the long run.

Herbs and spices can make or break a recipe. They add wonderful flavors to a dish. Fresh herbs taste so much better and have so much more flavor that dried herbs.

This year, we are growing a variety.

Basil, Sweet Basil, Thyme and Dill

Chives, Rosemary, Parsley and Stevia

Two varieties of tomatoes – Herloom and Pineapple!

And, Peas!!!

We had our very first peas last night! I picked 3 off of the plant. 🙂 Yummy!!

Can you spot the peapod?

After planting, I got right to breakfast.

Baked Apple Oatmeal!!!

I measured out a serving of my pre-made Steel Cut Oats and mixed in a dash of milk and a shake of cinnamon, then heated it in the microwave for 30 seconds just to take the chill off.

Meanwhile, I chopped up 1 apple and mixed it with cinnamon. I then mixed 1/2 of the apple in with the oatmeal and put the other 1/2 on top with another shake of cinnamon.

Place in the oven (I used my toaster oven) at 350 degrees for 5-7 minutes until the apple is soft and hot! Note: I used an oven safe bowl so that I didn’t have to dirty too many dishes.

Drizzle with real maple syrup.

Enjoy!

This was really really good! It tasted like a baked apple that I grew up loving. Next time, I would add some walnuts.

It’s almost lunch time! I’m ready to break out some leftovers from last nights Sprouted Quinoa with Strawberries and Lime.

Have a great afternoon.

Filed under: Eating Laps, Recipes | Tagged: herbs, oatmeal, Recipes, veggies | 6 Comments »

mint mojito iced tea

Posted on June 12, 2010 by Jen

This stuff is good!

Awhile back I was in New York City and tried a Mojito Iced Tea. It was so good, that I wanted to recreate it at home. So, this morning I did just that.

I boiled some water in my kettle and added it to my mint tea (I used a peppermint/spearmint mix that I purchased from a tea shop, but mint leaves would work as well!).

I wanted the tea to be really minty, so I added 3 tsp of tea leaves for every 1 cup of water. When making iced tea, you want to brew your tea twice as strong as you would hot tea. I added 9 tsp of tea leaves to my container and 3 cups of almost boiling water for brewing.

I also added 4 tsp of honey for sweetness. I just wanted to add a hint of sweetness to the tea. More sweetener can always be added later, but you don’t want to much!