Here are a few fun pictures from Thanksgiving at my grandmas’s house!

Anna wanting to help Papa with the turkey.

Corey taking Anna for a ride in the purse.

Her response, “more, peeese. more, peese”

More to come.

————————————-

Last night for dinner I wanted something fresh, light and crunchy. Since Thai is one of our favorite meals – I thought it would be a perfect back-to-the-grind-after-a-long-holiday-weekend meal.

Brady and I agreed that it was.

The meal had a few parts.

My rice cooker helped make the perfect brown rice. The lentils were cooked as the package says and left plain so I could cover them in sauce. The veggies were a mix of fresh red, yellow and orange peppers, asparagus, carrots, broccoli slaw, and water chestnuts. The veggies were lightly steamed. Then everything was covered in sauce.

For the sauce – I had a lot of ideas and so I combined them to make something new.

I started with a basic Thai peanut sauce:

• 3 cloves of fresh garlic, pressed
• 1 T. fresh ginger, pressed or minced
• 3 T. water
• 4 T. light sodium soy sauce
• 3 T. light coconut milk
• 4 T. peanut butter, all natural, no sodium, creamy
• 1/2 lime, juiced

I mixed all of this together but it was a little too liquidy and wasn’t the taste I was going for. It needed more.

So…

I took half of the Coconut Peanut sauce and mixed it with 3 tsp. of Red Curry paste.

Then I added a dash of chili powder and some ground red pepper.

The result was the perfect Thai Spicy Peanut Red Coconut Curry Sauce!

Got that?

Then, since I was making this dinner for more than just Brady and I. I made more sauce with remaining Coconut Peanut sauce and Red Curry paste.

I also simmered some chicken in the sauce for Brady.

My only complaint is that we don’t have leftovers!

Have a great day! I am off to teach class!

Share on Facebook

Anyways, after teaching NoLimits Cardio this morning at 6am I am fading. I just made a cup of pumpkin spice coffee from Gevalia and it’s way better than I expected it to be! Some flavored coffees do not taste good, but this is excellent. I’ll make you a cup, if you come visit!

We had a fun play date this morning and the girls were exhausted when nap time rolled around. They are now sleeping soundly and I am enjoying my “me time” getting things done around the house pinning, blog reading, and eating. 5 more minutes and I am getting back to things.

Since Brady was in DC this week, i didn’t do much cooking. I did make the most wonderful and satisfying dinner ever, though. Thanks again to my love – Spicy Peanut Dressing from Trader Joe’s.

Broccoli Slaw with Tofu and Peanuts

• 1 bag of broccoli slaw
• 1 T. Spicy Peanut dressing
• 1 T. soy sauce
• 1/2 cup chickpeas
• 1/2 block if extra firm tofu, pressed
• 1/4 cup honey roasted peanuts + more for eating out of the bag
• 1/3 cup avocado (or however much you are in the mood for)
• cooking spray
• salt and pepper
• Spicy Peanut dressing from Trader Joe’s (or another peanut dressing!) to dress

1. Spray a frying pan or skillet (I dislike the word skillet) with cooking spray.
2. Sautee the broccoli slaw in the 1 T. dressing and 1 T. soy sauce.
3. Add tofu and chick peas and continue cooking until tofu starts to brown and broccoli slaw get softer and glazed.
4. Mix in peanuts, avocado and drizzle with more dressing.
5. Sprinkle with salt and pepper, plus a little fresh basil!
6. Enjoy and try not to lick the bowl.

Do you like broccoli slaw?

I LOVE It! I often make it with rice vinegar and tahini. It’s so crunchy, filling and takes on so many great flavors!

Share on Facebook

I hope everyone had a great weekend!  I can’t believe it is already Sunday night! We had such a nice weekend – I’ll rewind…

Friday:

After work and school we headed to Grandview to meet Katie and Kurt and a few other friends for drinks and dinner at Brazenhead.  I had great portobello quesadilla and a salad.  Everyone enjoyed drinks and we had fun catching up on life, babies and weddings!

Saturday:

Saturday started early with a spinning class that kicked my butt!  The instructor is one of my favorites (she is the type that yells at you and you feel like she is personally talking to you – I can’t go as hard as I did before I was 30 weeks pregnant, so I am looking forward to returning to her class after the baby gets here!) Then I came home, showered and we headed out.

We ended up going to Polaris so we could go to a bunch of places at once.  I was excited to find some great deals at Old Navy in the maternity section!  Then we met up with friends from college at Panera!  It was so great to see them!  We had fun catching up and then we were on our way, and so were they!

We hit up Costco for a restock on fruit/veggies and food for Feb. (update on the Gain Green Challenge coming soon).  Then we stopped at Home Depot for some baby closet organization planning, Target for random odds and ends and a few other places.  We came home exhausted and with a full car.

We were greeted by the delicious smell of Mama Pea’s Spicy African Peanut Soup cooking in the crockpot.  We unloaded and were ready to sit down and eat.

I altered the recipe just a little bit because of what I had in my pantry:

Spicy African Peanut Stoup

• 1 can chickpeas, drained and rinsed
• 1 1/2 t. curry powder
• 1 T. cumin
• 1 tsp. ground red pepper
• 1 T. garlic powder
• 1 T. tahini
• 1 can fire roasted tomatoes, in juice
• 1 can light coconut milk
• 3 c. water plus boullion cubes of your choice (I used chicken)
• 2 T. natural peanut butter
• 1c. lentils,  rinsed

Combine all ingredients in a crock pot and turn to high for about an hour.  This gets your crock pot good and going, then switch it to low for the next several hours.

This stew was so good!  Both Brady and I loved it!  Add this to your must try list!

Share on Facebook

Before we started the process and after we went to 2 Krogers to get the pretzels and chocolate, we need to fuel up with some healthy cookout food! We had:

• boneless skinless pork chops(marinated in Carribean Jerk) on the grill – I had baked tofu
• corn on the cob
• baked potatoes and sweet potatoes
• Peanutty Cabbage-Apple Slaw
• guac with chips for snacking before dinner

Here is the Slaw:

Peanutty Cabbage-Apple Slaw

• 1 small head of green cabbage
• 2 small apples
• 1 jicama (optional – I added this to make more slaw for my lunch)
• a sprinkle of peanuts

Dressing:

• 1 tbsp. light miracle whip
• 1 tsp. sesame oil
• 3 tbsp. rice vinegar
• salt and pepper
• sesame seeds

Put the cabbage, apple and jicama into the food processor to shred. Mix with dressing and serve!

Pretzel Time

After dinner was cleaned up we set to work on the 20 bags of pretzels, 15 lbs. of chocolate and 600 yds. of ribbon. The goal was to make wedding favors that consisted of 2 pretzels each for 260 guests =over 500 pretzels! We started around 8:30, after a relaxing dinner on the deck (we probably should have started working a little faster but we were enjoying the summer weather!). While we worked the boys watched the CAVS game and cut ribbon.

Pretzel Preview:

Working hard, and accurately – you can see them measuring each one!

The pretzel party concluded around 10:30, just in time to watch the end of the CAVS game. Bummer.

The plan for tonight is to bag and bow the pretzels!

Share on Facebook

Peanut Butter and Jelly Bars

• 1 stick of light butter (melted) – next time I will try canola oil
• 1/2 c. egg whites
• 1 c. natural creamy PB
• 1/2 c. brown sugar
• 1/2 c. white sugar
• 1/2 c. honey
• 1 tbsp. vanilla
• 1 c. crushed peanuts (I used dry roasted) use 1/2 in dough and 1/2 on top!
• 
  
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1 1/2 c. ground up oats (food processed into a flour mixture)
• 1 1/2 c. white flour
• Lower sugar jelly of your choice

Mix first set of ingredients together until creamy. Add second set until thick and doughy.

Spread 1/2 of the mixture onto a greased 9×13 pan. Cover the layer with preserves – I used strawberry then place the rest of the mixture on top of the jelly. Sprinkle the remaining peanuts on top.

Bake for 45 min. at 350.

The verdict:

Everybody said they were good, but tasted like a sandwich. The oatmeal may have made the dough taste too much like bread. I think I would try to make them with a more shortbread style pb cookie layer!

Share on Facebook

Low Fat Honey Roasted Peanut Peanut Butter Cookies with Mini Choc. Chips

• 2 pouches peanut butter cookie mix
• 1 c. unsweetened applesauce
• 3 egg whites
• 1/2 c. mini choc. chips
• 1/2 c. honey roasted peanuts

Mix all ingredients together and bake at 350 for about 25 min.  I made bars with this dough because they are easier and take less time!

I cut them up and packed them to take!  Then I made some rice krispie treats because they only take a second and they are gluten free for my cousin.  Here is a pic of them packed up to go.

Ok, I’m exhausted now.  That was more than I have done in the past 3 days.  I ate some noodle soup tonight and it gave me some energy.  It’s amazing how food can do that! 

Share on Facebook