Monday, Monday

Happy Monday everyone! I hope all of you had an awesome day. I'm super excited to be heading to Phoenix tomorrow evening, and then Hawaii early Wednesday morning! I am going to try and keep a semi-consistent blog schedule even while there, and I've already set up tomorrow and next week's Tattoo Tuesday so you won't miss either of those features. Also, Hank's Mom already hooked up the internet in the new house, so hopefully it's up and running when we arrive, and I can make a million posts from the beautiful Hawaiian coast! We should be really busy during the day but I am definitely going to try and fit in some time at night for quick updates before I head to sleep.

Today was a great day at work! My sophomores had "booktalks" due, which are basically glorified book reports. For this assignment (they do it 8x per year!) they choose any book (over 200 pages), write a summary and review, and present their book to the class. I always love love love these days. I've gotten a lot of awesome book recommendations via this project, and the kids seem to really enjoy it. My seniors are working in their book clubs, so today I was more of a facilitator than anything. After work, I headed out for a workout with some of my girlfriends. It's awesome- we went on a nice run, then did military style bootcamp circuit sets- lots of cardio and plyometrics. It's SUCH a hard workout, and I always leave feeling amazing. Thank you Paula and Robyn!

When I got home, I was pleased to find that my new phone had arrived, and when Hank got off work he set it up for me. I am so happy to be back on bbm and "in touch" with everyone. I'm also glad to have such a fast phone- my old curve would crash even when I'd try and take a photo! So this is really a treat. Soon after, our friend JP arrived with his girlfriend, Danielle! She lives in Connecticut, so this is the first time we've met her. She is so incredibly sweet and I'm stoked to see our friend so happy. We ate dinner at Hugo's, and then came back here to hang out. It's been a great night and my heart is so happy. Aren't they cute? :)



Before I go, I wanted to leave you with a quick and healthy meal idea! It's not a recipe, since we technically just heated up and added things to existing items, but I figure it might get your wheels turning!

Potato Gnocchi with Vegetable "Meat" Sauce



You'll need:
1 package potato gnocchi
1 jar tomato sauce
1/2 bag Boca (or comparable brand) meatless crumbles
1 green bell pepper
1 red bell pepper
3-4 leaves fresh basil
2-3 cloves of garlic
a nice sized head of broccoli

For the cheesy garlic bread:
1 Ezekial hamburger bun
Mozzarella cheese (we used Horizon Organic but you can forgo the cheese or use vegan)
Garlic powder

This is SUCH an easy, quick dinner to make. All you do is boil a big pot of water, and once it's boiling you add the gnocchi and let it cook for 3-4 minutes, until they float to the top! Done.

While the water is boiling, throw the entire jar of sauce in another large pot and then add the frozen "meat" crumbles and all the raw veggies. Whenever Hank and I make a quick sauce (and I'm not going the truly homemade route) we always add tons of veggies in, and if we're feeling crazy we sometimes will do tofu or seitan. It makes for a nice "semi-homemade" addition and adds a LOT of vitamins and nutrients.

So all you do is heat up the sauce, toast the bread and add some cheese...wait for those little potato cuties to boil to the top...and you're done!

WA-LA! A quick, healthy meal. You can totally change this up too, and do whole wheat pasta or whatever. This is the kind of meal we make when we aren't in the mood to actually cook, and because we cook the whole package of both the gnocchi and the sauce, we both have an entire lunch to bring to work the next day. Healthy and economical, awesome! :)

This is the potato gnocchi we used, from Trader Joe's. We decided to make this instead of the peanut tofu last night, so the packaging is long gone. But for the entire package the calories aren't bad at all, and I think there's 1.5 grams of fat for the entire thing. I can only eat about 1/4 of the total amount, so it's not bad at all.




This is the BEST sauce EVER. Seriously, go to Trader Joe's and buy this stuff. The best part about it, is that it has no sugar, which is a typical (unnecessary) ingredient in most tomato sauces. Tomatoes should be able to stand alone, without sugar, and this sauce has a truly delicious flavor, with hints of basil and oregano. Yum.



Let me know if decide to try out that sauce or anything you saw above! I hope all of you have a beautiful evening. Tattoo Tuesday will be up at 8am Arizona time tomorrow, so check back then. :)

xoxo