Green Grass

My grass is pretty green...

How about yours? I was just thinking today how we are such a society of greener pastures. The grass is always greener somewhere else, yet most of us are so fortunate with what we have and we don't even realize it because we're too busy looking over the fence at the other side. I know especially when reading someone's blog, you're getting a little peak into their daily life and it's easy to start having thoughts of "why can't my life be like that" or "their job looks like so much fun" and so on. I know I catch myself doing this from time to time. And when I stop and examine things, I've got a great husband and family, a great house (even if it does need some updates here and there!), and I absolutely love my job, there is no reason for such sillyness!

Okay, off my soapbox and onto the food!

Breakfast was a super thick creamy green monster I had to eat it with a spoon. I love it when they come out like that.



I used:

1 large handful of fresh kale
1 small frozen banana
a few frozen peaches
1 cup unsweetened vanilla almond milk
1 scoop vanilla protein powder

I also had half a granny smith apple and some AB.

I was an absolute zombie this morning, I haven't gotten good sleep all week. And you know what sounded really good? Coffee. I gave it up over a month ago and have been really happy without it, but I always told myself if I wanted it, I could have it, but I just wouldn't let myself get back into an everyday habit where I have to have it or I get a headache.


So I pressed about a half a cup and poured that into a half a cup of almond milk. It was divine.

Lunch was eaten out and scarfed down way too quickly to blog. But I had a green salad from a local deli along with a half of a white corn polenta cake with bleu cheese from the hot bar. Ah-mazing!! I want to recreate the polenta bad! Only with goat cheese instead. Anybody know where to get white corn grits? Can't seem to find them anywhere.

I had sundry snacks throughout the day, it was a very snacky friday.

Then of course it was time for our friday night dinner-in date! Yay! So I made a couple (okay four) stops on the way home from work. First stop: the Turnip Truck, a little mom and pop natural food store close to where I work.

Here, I got a big carton of So Delicious unsweetened coconut milk (I plan on using this instead of my usual Almond Breeze this week) I also got a couple of tubs of organic green salad stuff for 99 cents each!! And I got some sunshine burgers which I hadn't tried yet, and some no sugar added apple butter... mmmm. Oh, and my new favorite pasta, the quinoa fusili was on sale, bonus!


Next, it was off to Woodland Wine merchant which is conveniently located almost next door to the Turnip Truck. Here I got a couple of bottles of wine for the week: a bottle of Pinotage (my new fave red) and a bottle of organic reisling.



I then stopped at Aldi and grabbed a container of Goat cheese, some mushrooms and my fave Tomato Basil pasta sauce, then it was off to Kroger to try and find some type of Italian sausage for the husband to go with the pasta I was planning to make. It's not as bad as it sounds, as all four of these places are literally so close you can see them all at once. So I didn't find what I was looking for at Kroger, but got sidetracked in the produce section eyeing some peppers I thought might be good mild peppers for our salads. So I asked the somewhat over zealous produce guy if they were hot and he said he didn't know, but there was only one way to find out. He then proceeds to go to the back and cut one up, he brings me a slice and has a slice for himself. I politely took the hunk 'o pepper and ate it, and he at his. And at first I was pleased, it tasted like a banana pepper. But slowly we both began to realize these peppers were muy caliente!! I thought for a second my mouth might actually be bleeding. I grabbed the rest of what I was there for, checked out and ran for my car so I could down the bottle of water I had in there! Wow, did that ever teach me a lesson, I'll never ask about peppers again!

So I came home and promptly got to cooking. I got the pastas on, sauteed the mushrooms with a little olive oil and I threw some garlic and wine seasoning from the melting pot in there (so good on everything!) and once those were done I threw a half a sunshine burger in the pan with them to get heated through for my pasta.



So while everything was simmering, I threw us a couple of quick salads together with just some of the greens I got at TT and some goat cheese, Kermit had Italian dressing on his and I had Annie's balsamic, soo sooo good. I missed goat cheese and I'm thrilled that Aldi carries it now, it was only $1.99!!!




Our pasta was super delish. His had spirals, sauteed mushrooms, tomato basil sauce and parm.


Mine had: GF fusili, half a sunshine burger, sauteed mushrooms, tomato basil sauce and parm. I was absolutely delighted with the sunshine burger. I love the ingredient list and will def be buying those again, it also made a really good addition to my pasta. I enjoyed all of this with a glass of pinotage.


After dinner we were stuffed, we had plans to watch a movie then go for a late night stroll, but we just ended up vegging out in our new living room and chatting with some wine, that was nice too.

Once my food had settled, I had some of this:





the husband opted out, his loss.

It's forecast to be an absolutely glorious weekend here, I am so looking forward to it. I think the husband and I might go for a run tomorrow. We have never run together, so it should be fun! We shall see.