Pomegranate seeds: the versatile fruit

As much as I love fall flavors, it was pretty hard to get into the holiday mood with temperatures conducive to sunbathing back in Arizona. At least now that I'm back in Northern California, it's nonstop rain and fog (the grass is always greener, people)... Luckily buying fall and winter produce gave me a nudge in the festive direction, making me wish it were drizzly and foggy outside (in Arizona). Not like I'm one to complain about 80º temperatures or anything...

Whole Foods had pomegranates essentially for buy one get one free a few weeks back, so I bought my first two, ever. I didn't know how to cut one, let alone what I could do with the seeds. [Enter PBFingers, that did the trick]

From putting the seeds in yogurt to salads, I needed some other ideas to keep stretching out the pom seeds. So my two fall pomegranate meals spanned the spectrum from breakfast to dinner: Maple Pumpkin Berry Spiced Oats and Quinoa-Stuffed Butternut Squash.

Maple Pumpkin Berry Spiced Oats: This is probably my favorite preparation of oatmeal thus far!

Ingredients:

• 1/2 c quick cook oats
• 1 c water
• 1 T maple syrup
• 1 T chia seeds
• several dashes of pumpkin pie spice
• handful pumpkin granola
• handful pomegranate seeds
• handful Craisins
• 1/2 T almond butter
• splash of nonfat milk

While it doesn't look like much, eating the spicy warm bowl of oatmeal made me feel that if I closed my eyes, it would be fall and chilly outside. So basically the best of both worlds, winter flavors with summer temperatures! And now for a similar type of feel at dinner.

Quinoa-Stuffed Butternut Squash:

Ingredients:

• 1 medium butternut squash
• 1 c quinoa
• 1 c water
• 1 T butter
• 1/2 c onions or scallions
• 1/3 c chopped walnuts
• 1/2 c pomegranate seeds and Craisins
• 2 T grated Parmesan cheese
• salt and pepper for seasoning

Preheat oven to 350°. While waiting, half the squash and remove pulp, seeds. Oil a cookie sheet and lay halves flat side down onto the sheet. Bake for 45 minutes, or until tender.

While the squash is baking, melt the butter in a pot and sautée onions. Add water, bring to a boil and then dump in the quinoa. Bring back to a boil, cover, reduce heat and let simmer for 12 minutes. Once the quinoa has absorbed all of the water, remove from heat, fluff and then put the lid back and let sit for 15 minutes.

After the squash finishes baking, take a knife and score the insides, scooping out all of the squash and leaving just the shell. Set aside and chop the walnuts. Then mix into the quinoa. You could stop here (how I prepared J.D.'s squash) or you could add in pomegranate seeds and Craisins for an extra crunch.

Season the mixture with salt and pepper then divide evenly to fill the squash shells. Top with grated Parmesan cheese and return to the oven for 20 more minutes at 350°. Serves two, but realistically there is enough quinoa for four servings.

This quinoa side is what sparked my idea for the "stuffing" I made on Thanksgiving. Now, on to Christmas!

Rise and Shine!

I'm learning how to cope with being unemployed. (Haven't been able to cope with not getting a call-back for eight interviews quite yet. I think when that day comes I've given up completely...)

While I'm still not waking up at the crack of dawn, I've made attempts at keeping busy. First thing in the morning I attempt to either workout (ride the bike or some OnDemand videos) or make breakfast. After my breakfast I try to watch the journal télévisé (French national news from the channel TF1, plays at 13h00 and 20h00 each day - 1 p.m. and 8 p.m.) in hopes of continuing my French skills. My ear for French has gotten a bit rusty, so this helps me hear it at a fast pace and possibly improve my grammar? Anyways, if you click the link it'll take you right to today's most recent broadcast!

While I'm already at my computer, after I watch the news, I scour job sites and apply. And then cross my fingers that something will work out. Then I shower, get dressed, and if I care enough, do my hair.

Once that's finished, I'll read either a French book or something for our book club. The current selection is Brave New World -- can you believe I've never read it before?

Then in the afternoon I have some "free" time to do whatever. Most days, I'm not gonna lie, it's watching t.v. Other days, reading blogs. And then others, if the mood strikes me, I clean. Today I have egg whites sitting on the counter so I'm hoping to make macarons with minimal success. Mine never turn out, so hopefully today's the day.

Now that you know my play-by-play, here's what woke me up this morning:

Oats with coconut milk!!!

We discovered a Sprouts market last week (more intimate and convenient than Whole Foods) and I had to pick up some coconut milk!! I still have a bunch left and don't really know what to do with it! I was thinking maybe a coconut mango smoothie? I have to be careful with how I use it, because J.D.'s allergic to coconut and I can't make anything he'll be eating.

Anyways here's the contents of my coconut milk oats:

• 1/2 c quick cook oats
• 2/3 c water
• 1/3 c coconut milk
• 1 T chia seeds
• 1 medium banana
• handful of chopped walnuts
• 1/4 c Craisins

First I boiled the water, then dumped in the coconut milk and let that simmer a bit before adding the oats and the chia seeds. The rest of the toppings I put on at the end in the bowl. That and a little splash of skim milk to cool it down a bit.

I think I might have made a little bit too much. I'm still pretty full. I think it would be really good with some pineapple or maybe a little maple syrup!

And now let's talk about my workout yesterday.

I did the above workout twice! I struggle every morning because I want to go for a long bike ride, but if I don't wake up around 6-7 a.m., it gets way too hot to do so. Luckily, we have some weird weather rolling through the desert with some thunderstorms last night. That cooled us down a bit to the 80s with a nice breeze.

Yesterday afternoon -- after I already showered -- I decided I either wanted to go for a long walk or run some errands at Target. I finally thought, "what the heck?" and opted to ride my bike to Target. This would do two things for me: save money on gas and limit what I could buy to a small backpack.

It was hot. But towards the middle of my ride, it went back into the 90s, possibly 100s. I was sweaty and gnarly in Target, so for the sake of the other customers, I toweled off and threw some cold water on my face in the bathroom. After the 2.86 mile ride there, I snacked on a Clif raspberry organic fruit bar and downed an entire bottle of water.

Like the last time, I still felt like I was going to hurl, but luckily I had a wallet with me this time and enough water to get over it. I swear, it's too hot in the afternoon to do more than a 2-3 mile bike ride. Eventually, I bought some shampoo/conditioner, face wash and deodorant for J.D., grabbed a few more Clif bars for another ride and went on my way back home.

The 2.86 mile ride home felt much easier than on the way to Target. I think I'm starting to get a hang of this bike thing. I really want to invest in some bike gloves, a solid pump and other things to get me into biking. Maybe when I have extra money to spend...

Either way, here's my attempt at working out over the past week:

It's a start!

Have a good day, everyone!

What is your schedule like? Do you even have a daily schedule? Do you need one? I sure do.

Time for some reflection

I feel like I've been having more major freakouts in the past few days than I've ever had in my life. Living off "savings" without a job to replenish that is a harsh awakening at only 25 years old. I thought I'd still be adding to my savings right now, as my ultimate hope is to soon buy a new car, or rent for as short a time as possible!

I guess we can't always plan everything out perfectly, now can we?

Anyways, while I evaluate my life and the direction in which it's heading (seriously considering being a TA and applying for a master's in French Comparative Literature at ASU), I'm going for a little blog makeover.

Now I am living on a pretty tight budget. So my goal is to eat under a certain budget each day. I'm going to go all Rachel Ray on you and say $40 or less a day, but this is more of a dialogue. As I realize where my money's going on food each day, I'll maybe cutback or boost food allocations on a weekly basis. We'll see.

But first, how about those peanut butter brownies I promised you a few days back?!?!

I cheated a bit to start here by using a regular old box of brownie mix. I would have liked to make them from scratch, but that would require going out and buying chocolate and the box has been sitting in our pantry forever now.

My favorite part about baking is that I always get to channel my inner child and LICK THE SPOON!!! I don't care that it had raw eggs inside... I used to lick spoons all the time when I was a kid and I turned out just fine. Then again, maybe I should stop licking spoons....

...NAH!!!!

I knew I wanted to jazz the brownies up a little so I googled peanut butter frosting recipes and came up with this fluffy PB frosting recipe from allrecipes.com.

• 1/2 cup butter, softened
• 1 cup creamy peanut butter
• 3 tablespoons milk, or as needed
• 2 cups confectioners' sugar

Place the butter and peanut butter into a medium bowl, and beat with an electric mixer. Gradually mix in the sugar, and when it starts to get thick, incorporate milk one tablespoon at a time until all of the sugar is mixed in and the frosting is thick and spreadable. Beat for at least 3 minutes for it to get good and fluffy.

I won a container of PB2 from Mary's blog before I moved and knew this was the best time to put it to the test! I think because it's just ground peanuts and doesn't contain any of the oils, it made for the perfect whipped topping! And it was super fun to mix.

The finished product (kind of looks like a meringue):

It really is one of the best brownies I've made! Notice how I said made and not had... I'm not that snobby :) And it made a ton, too. I didn't even use the entire mixture because look how fluffy it got. Let's just say, I'm happily eating a brownie (or two) a day, even after giving J.D. 1/3 to take to work and share.

And as for today's breakfast it consisted of a homemade tropical smoothie (Jamba Juice size, for half the price) and oatmeal.

Smoothie: 248 calories (if you drink all of it, I could only make it through 75%)

• 1 c watermelon (46 cal): the entire seedless watermelon cost me $1, so I'd say this was about $0.30 worth
• 1/4 mango (54 cal): one mango cost $1, so again $0.25
• 1/3 can chopped pineapple (36 cal): $1.50 for the whole can, so $0.50 spent there
• 3/4 scoop of Aria protein powder (32 cal): $9.99, one scoop is about 1/34 the can therefore $0.30
• 1 container of pomegranate light yogurt (80 cal): $0.50
• Total cost = $1.85

My oatmeal was the generic brand raspberries and creme which cost about $2 for the entire box. Therefore I spent $0.25 on the packet of oatmeal (130 cal). Then topped it with a small handful of chocolate hazelnut biscotti granola (75 cal). The entire box cost $3, so I doubt I even spent $0.25 for the handful.

There, that brings my breakfast tally to 453 calories (again, if all of the smoothie is consumed) and $2.35. Not a bad start to the morning! And guess what, my lunch is FREE because I didn't finish all of my dinner last night, so leftovers are in my future! Granted, I did have to budget out for dinner last night, so it really wasn't free, but as far as today's spending is concerned it is!