One Pot Diet

So, I joked around with a friend the other day that I was on the "One Pot Diet" where you make one pot of food and proceed to eat it all week. Yesterday I realized just how true that really was. I whipped up a hearty batch of Red Beans and Rice with some Andouille Sausage. Andouille, that is such a fun word! Andouille...anyways, I digress.

I really wish I had some pictures for you but my phone is being silly and didn't upload them to my photo stream and I deleted them before realizing that. :( You can see a few of them on Instagram though! My username is ldhart1331. Go look, you know you want to.

I found this recipe here but as you know, I never follow them exactly...

What you'll need:

1 link Andouille sausage (I used Johnsonville)

1 Tbsp Olive Oil

1 small red onion

1 bell pepper

3 stalks celery

4 garlic cloves

1 tsp paprika

1/4 tsp each of salt, black pepper, onion powder, cayenne, thyme and oregano

2 15 ounce cans of red beans

2.5 cups water

Rice to serve it on, I used basmati. 

What you do:

1. Chop those veggies.

2. Chop the sausage to desired size and heat in your big pot. Remove and set aside.

3. Add oil to still hot pot. Add veggies and cook ~8 minutes. Add garlic and all your seasonings and saute another 4 minutes.

4. Add water and beans and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer for 15 minutes. 

5. Mash some of the beans on the side of the pot to thicken it a little and add the sausage back in. Simmer another 15 minutes. 

6. Serve over rice and gobble it down.

This is so flavorful and delicious! I hope you enjoy it!

Lauren 

Many the Miles

Can we all just take a moment of silence for those injured at the Boston Marathon today? If you don't know what I'm talking about, you can read this.

Thanks :)

That being done, today I want to blog about something I hate: running. Wait, hate? I can see where you might be confused because I run at least twice a week, but yes I hate running. Don't get me wrong, it's fantastic exercise and there is something to be said for the feelings of accomplishment that come with it. But in all honesty, this water bottle sums up how I feel about running.

What I really don't understand is all the people out there who say they run because it's relaxing and stress-relieving, yada yada yada. Relaxing? I can think of 100 other things I would do to relax. I can see stress-relieving, if you've had a bad day and just need to be alone with your thoughts but not relaxing.

Bearing all that in mind, I hit a pretty big milestone yesterday. I ran my 200th mile since I started turning my life around last June. I can honestly tell you that is something I never expected to say. I'm pretty gosh darn proud of myself.

 So where do I go from here? Onward! I'm running a Spartan Sprint in two weeks and then I plan to sign up for the Big Ten 10K in July. After that my goal is to run a half marathon! Preferably in Disney World, but that is hella expensive. I need to find me a sponsor haha! If you're interested in donating to the Run Lauren Run fund...well, I'll need to start a fund then!


As always, thanks for reading!
Lauren

Working for the Weekend

You know that song by Loverboy that goes "...everybody's workin' for the weekends..."? I think I can finally grasp just how true those lyrics are. Let's be honest here, we all look forward to our days off but this last month especially those lyrics have basically been an anthem in my mind.

It seems like every weekend for the last month, some of my friends have been in town. They can't seem to manage to all be here at the same time but I'm not complaining. Every week I start off dreading my first night of work and then suddenly it's Wednesday and I have two shifts left before I can let loose and pretend I'm a college student again. Then it's gone, just as quickly as it came and I'm left wondering how I going to make it through my Sunday shift. I love it. I can see now why everyone tells you to cherish your twenties. Time just seems to fly by so quickly. We're already half way through April!

All that being said, I'm going to be dragging my butt at work tonight...but at least there are people coming in to town this weekend!

Go enjoy the sunshine!
Lauren

Not Your Mama's Chocolate Chip Cookies

Cookies.

That's really all you need to say to get my attention.

They're hands down, my favorite food and they are in no way, shape or form good for you. Which is sad. I try not to keep them around because I know I'll go all Cookie Monster on them but I love to make them for other people. That happens to be why this post is in existence. I made a batch of Nestle Tollhouse Chocolate Chip cookies and that got me thinking... "Can I make a healthier cookie?". Now I had to make them. The idea was in my head and it wasn't going to leave.

So, what is a healthier cookie? Well, I decided to follow the original Nestle recipe and just make swaps for the ingredients. Instead of butter I used coconut oil, eggs I used egg whites and so on and so forth. It was a lot of fun, and quite frankly my new cookies, which I'm calling Not Your Mama's Chocolate Chip Cookies, are DELICIOUS. The coconut oil adds a distinct flavor that I actually really like.

Original Nestle Tollhouse dough

NYM'sCCC dough

Not Your Mama's Chocolate Chip Cookies

2.25 cups all purpose flour

1 tsp baking soda

1 tsp salt

1 cup coconut oil, softened

1/4 cup & 2 Tbsp Truvia Baking Blend

1/4 cup & 2 Tbsp Splenda Brown Sugar Blend

1 tsp vanilla extract

1/2 cup liquid egg whites

1 package Nestle Dark Chocolate Morsels

1. Pre-heat oven to 350F. 2.Combine first three ingredients and set aside. 3. Mix next four ingredients. 4. Add in egg whites 1/4 cup at a time. 5. Add in dry mixture a little at a time. 6. Stir in morsels. 7. Spoon on cookie sheet however much you want per cookie. I did 1 Tbsp and got 36 cookies. 8. Bake for 9 minutes. 

The major difference, aside from taste, was that the original recipe yielded 48 tablespoon size cookies while my recipe yielded 36. That is to be expected though as there was less substance in the ingredients. 

Nutrition Info Per Cookie:

Nestle: 114 cal, 6 grams fat, 3.75 grams sat fat, 10 grams of sugar

Mine: 133 cal, 9 grams fat, 7 grams sat fat, 6 grams of sugar

Had my recipe yielded 48 cookies it would've been 100 cal, 7 grams of fat, 5 grams sat fat and 5 grams of sugar. Frankly, I'm just happy that the sugar is lower as that is my main dietary downfall. 

Which is better? You be the judge!

Lauren 

 

Pumpkin Hummus

Hummus, how do I love thee? Let me count the ways...

Seriously though, hummus is amazing. If it weren't for hummus I wouldn't eat carrots or celery. It just would not happen. Not to mention hummus is super easy to make at home and therefore incredibly customize-able. I really enjoy coming up with new hummus flavors.

I can't exactly say that the idea for Pumpkin Hummus was a complete original of mine. I originally found this via Pinterest. You may have noticed it's in Danish...yeah, I noticed that a little too late. Yes I could translate it on my laptop, but my iphone didn't offer me that option so I just decided to make it up!

 What you'll need:

1 can (15 oz) chickpeas, rinsed

1 can (8 oz) pumpkin puree

1/4 cup non-fat, plain greek yogurt

Pumpkin Pie Spice (to taste) - I used 2 tsp

What you do:

In a food processor, process your chickpeas for 30 seconds or so. Then add the rest of the ingredients and process until smooth. You'll have to stop occasionally and scrape down the sides.



That's all there is too it! Super easy!! I like to portion mine out so I can calculate the nutrition information but you obviously don't have to! Like I mentioned earlier, I use hummus to make sure I eat my veggies but this would also be good with some cinnamon tortilla chips or maybe on a bagel?

Enjoy!

Lauren 

May the odds be ever in your favor!

Move over Katniss, the odds were definitely in my favor yesterday.

Yesterday was definitely an awesome day. I started off my morning by discovering that one of my Victoria's Secret rewards cards was worth $100! Meaning I got my new swimsuit free and still have $40 on the card. Not to mention my two other cards each worth $10 and the promotion for a free bag when you ordered swimwear online!

Then I went to the grocery store. Exciting right? There I managed to spend exactly what I had budgeted! Not only is that rare for me but I had to buy cat food as well and that is expensive. I was also pretty pumped because I cut my grocery budget by $40 over the next to weeks to pay for an unexpected bill.

Then the West Lafayette Public Library was having a book sale! $3 for as many books as you could fit in the provided bag. I'm a little ashamed to say I only got three books and a cookbook but thats's still less than a dollar a book!

After that I went on a 4.5 mile run with Mark. If anything, that was the worst part of my day. We've been running in the cold for so long that the warm weather really kicked our butts.

Sorry for all the gloating, but when you have such a good day, you just have to! If it's any consolation, I probably used up all my luck for the next two weeks.

Until next time,
Lauren

March 32nd

There is no way it can be April already.

Seriously.

Where the hell did March go? I can't be the only person out there feeling this way right? The worst part is that I'm trying to think back to what I was doing that could have made March pass so quickly and I've got nothing. My vacation was the last week of February, that should make March seem longer, right? I did switch to night shift halfway through the month. I also started working out with my personal trainer twice a week again. I didn't even get 10 blogs written. Hmm...

Oh well...I guess I just need to accept the fact that it's April and move on right? That and I have to go to work soon so I have no time to type haha. Maybe that can be my April Fool's Day joke, me not showing up for work. On second thought, that wouldn't go over well.

Until next time!
Lauren