St. Patty's and College Hoops!

Happy St. Patrick's Day! Mine started off in a manner that would make any Irishman proud, with booze before 10 a.m.

...inside Jessica's double chocolate Irish coffee cookies, that is:

AKA lots and lots of Bailey's inside. Don't worry it cooked off, but I made a major mistake of licking all the spoons while making the dough. Yikes, that was strong haha.

They were a hit with my coworkers, who all seemed skeptical about eating Bailey's-laden cookies in the workplace. It was also my first "holiday" at work, and wasn't sure how wearing green would be perceived on St. Patty's Day in the baseball world. Luckily, everyone else is just as dorky as the rest of the world and I got high fives and praises for wearing my green today. I'll take it.

I guess this post is turning into a bit of a blogger round-up, because I continued my trek through vegetarian eating with Elizabeth's cranberry and apple quinoa salad (via Angela) for lunch yesterday. I made a few tweaks myself, but enjoyed it immensely!

What really made this was cooking the apples in vanilla extract! I could smell it through my entire house. Then added to it, by toasting coconut in the same exact pan. Holy deliciousness. And oh yeah, I switched sweet potatoes (I'm obsessed, I realize) for carrots and threw in some spinach to make it more green and lunch-friendly.

And then finished off the day with a little Mexican. I haven't really eaten much vegetarian Mexican food, but I found this neat recipe for a Mexican casserole and it seemed easy enough. So I ran with it. It was delicious, flavorful and super, super easy! It would also be pretty tasty if you opted to throw some meat in there ;) Margarita NOT optional, well, unless you're underage.

Ingredients:

• 1/2 can corn
• 1/2 can black beans
• 1 c tomato salsa
• 1 can seasoned Rotel tomatoes (and the juice)
• 4 c shredded Mexican cheese blend, divided by 2 cups
• 1/2 diced Bell pepper
• 1 1/2 c cooked rice
• 1/2 onion, chopped
• 1/2 c sliced olives
• Taco sauce for seasoning
• Salt and pepper for seasoning

Directions:

Like I said, this is super easy! Basically preheat the oven to 350° and chop all your veggies while cooking the rice. Then stir everything but two cups of cheese into a big bowl and mix well. Season according to how spicy you want it. Then fill a greased casserole dish with the mixed ingredients and top with the remaining two cups of cheese. Or in my case, omit olives and save for half of the dish, to accommodate to the tastes of those who don't like olives... Finally, cook 30-35 minutes or until bubbly.

I devoured mine with chips and a margarita. And was too full for a second serving, much less than a second cookie.

This afternoon I scooped up some Mexican leftovers for lunch and now I'm preparing to watch my UC Santa Barbara Gauchos take on Florida in the NCAA March Madness college basketball tournament!!!!! It kind of broke my heart not to pick them to advance in the tournament for the bracket I filled out at work this morning. We're having a little office rivalry going on, over who has the best picks. Funny, I worked in collegiate athletics in my last job so I wasn't ever able to bet on sports. Now, I just don't see the need to, since I'm so overwhelmed with sports in my professional life :) But I filled out my (first, shockingly) bracket this morning:

Yup, I have Kansas taking Duke in the final by a score of 78-72. You can see how I did with the up-to-the-minute results bracket here. As of 3:00 p.m. PST, I'm 5-for-6, missing only the No. 13 Morehead State/No. 4 Louisville game. Who in their right minds would have picked Morehead State to take that game?!?! I'm sure a lot of brackets are ruined because of that game. But it's good to see a 13-seeded team topple a No. 4 seed. That means there's hope after all for my Gauchos!!! Olé!!!!!!!!!! (I've got the channel on and I'm ready to support my alma mater, win or lose!)

If you filled out a bracket, who do you have winning the tournament?! :)

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!

Thursday is the new Friday

Last night J.D. and I enjoyed our first night "out" here in Arizona. We made it to that free rock concert I'll get to in a bit.

Thursday morning started off very slooooow for me. Hey, since I have free days, I'm going to take advantage of it while I can! I got up, did a million errands and then explored my OnDemand fitness channel. Pre-workout I threw together a tropical smoothie that included piña colada yogurt, mango, pineapple and its juice, watermelon, banana and a small handful of frozen raspberries for texture. I didn't end up adding any juice/water/milk to the smoothie because the watermelon basically turned into a juice when blended up!

I drank a glass of this for breakfast, got my butt kicked in a kickboxing cardio 35-minute video, and then had another glass of this with my peanut butter and jelly sandwich lunch!

A quick shower was in order and I was ready to go by the time J.D. came home from work. We drove out to Toby Keith's I ♥ This Bar & Grill about an hour before the show in hopes of grabbing some dinner before the place started to get packed.

The ambiance in the entire place was concert-ready, black lights all over the place and the regular lights turned waay down. I settled on a pulled chicken sandwich with spinach, roasted red pepper and Swiss cheese and instead of regular fries on the side, got a heaping side of sweet potato fries! Unfortunately, I was not able to finish them...

Alongside my meal I ordered my favorite beer of all time, a Blue Moon with a slice of orange.

The guitar tells you I'm over 21 ;) Now on to the concert! I'm not much of a country fan... but it didn't matter because the local rock station put on a three-band rock concert (my favorite music, if you care). We enjoyed the opening act while eating and savoring our drinks at the guitar-shaped bar.

The band was good and the beer cold, a perfect combination for a Thursday night. If nothing else, I've expanded my horizons to include a new local band! We waited around a bit in between sets for the next band to come on. I didn't know anything about the second band, but I heard some clips from the headliner on the radio station and knew I was down to hear from band No. 3.

However, band No. 2 absolutely sucked. It was screamy, off-key and just super bizarre. It kind of reminded me of Franz Ferdinand on crack. We also had cooped Woodstock up in his crate in the bedroom for several hours and didn't feel like keeping him in there too much longer. Knowing that the headliner wouldn't play for probably over another hour, we decided to go home instead. I'm a little bummed, but I'll look them up on iTunes or something! Hey, in one month they radio station is hosting another free concert so maybe we'll stay for the entire thing then!

Lucky for him, J.D. has a late night at work today (fall NCAA sports start THIS WEEK, it's so weird not to be working them!!!), so his boss let him come into work this afternoon. And since he didn't have anywhere to be in the morning, he made me breakfast!!! So sweet :)

He made me an egg and bacon sandwich with some more of that pineapple mango home made salsa. Oh yeah, and more fruit on the side.

While J.D. was off at work, my doorbell rang and to my surprise a Hope Aurorae Yoga Mat sat at my door, beckoning me to open it! You see, Aurorae sent me their Hope Yoga Mat to try out and rave about to you all for my shop. And let me tell you, it was an AMAZING experience! I've used a few yoga mats before and with our hardwood/tile floors, most are way too thin to comfortably work out. Aurorae is so spongy and feels thick and cushiony. However, the mat is quite thin, so it stores pretty well! On top of that, the mat also comes with a towel and rosin bag. I don't know about you, but I get so insanely sweaty when practicing yoga. This was like the answer to all my yoga prayers! I didn't slip around and my knees never once felt the hard tiles beneath me. Obviously, with the new mat I was inspired to try out some more workouts On Demand. Today was all about Yoga For Surfers.

I don't know about you guys, but yoga kills me! I enjoy it and definitely feel the workout, but my wrists always burn and I can't really hold the positions as long as suggested. Granted, I'm still on the beginner side, but I don't know if I'll ever be this flexible! Yoga faithful: Have you noticed that?? Or are you a pro at in and this is something I'll just get better at/ignore??

Not only did I enjoy the mat, but Woodstock did as well.

And yes, I WOULD get a pink yoga mat :) Woody looks like a little surfer himself on the Aurorae Mat. Anyways, if you're curious and want to try one for yourself, I've put the mat in my shop (click there to see it!) because it's soooo awesome! You can select from a variety of colors too.

After my practice and shower, it was time for a quick lunch. I cooked up some quinoa and made a vegan-ish warm salad.

As the quinoa cooked, I put some oil and vinegar in a pan and heated up tomatoes, celery, spinach, carrots, cucumber, Craisins and chopped walnuts. Once it cooled a bit, I halved some grapes and then tossed it all in with the quinoa. About a cup of the quinoa cooked up to probably give me 3-4 side dish portions. Since I'm on my own for dinner tonight, this might be a good side with some chicken :)

After polishing that off, I was ready for something sweet:

A Ciao Bella blood orange sorbet popsicle!!! SO GOOOOOOOOD. I don't care that summer's coming to a close, this keeps it going.

Enjoy the weekend kids! Have any fun plans?!?!