Eat for Health, Eat for Fun: LITTLE BITES, BIG FLAVOR

Monday Evening

Monday nights after work I never have a whole lot of time for the gym because Zach and I have Bible Study at 7. So I made the most of the time I had and did a sweaty half hour on the treadmill. Ran a mile, climbed at a 15 incline and then sprinted out a four minute finish.

Weight: 118.5 Ha! Not quite as high as I expected after so much rich food this past weekend! For a Monday, I'll take it :)

Dinner Time

Because of the limited time on Mondays it is also a good night to use up leftovers (which you know I alllllways have ;) ) In the spirit of making room in the fridge for all the leftovers we are bound to have this week I re-heated a tasty dinner of green beans and the baconless Italian style bacon alfredo.

I maintain that this green bean recipe is not only one of the simplest but also the tastiest I have ever made!!

Still in awe of the fact that this is tofu and not pasta. Yummmm.

Dessert Experiment

I have been itching to create something else off of the blog Chocolate Covered Katie and found something that looked fast and easy with just a handful of basic ingredients:

Peanut Butter Cookie Dough Cookies!

I just threw peanut butter, unsalted peanuts, vanilla, raisins and salt into the blender and whirred away. No baking required!

This is not the last time you will hear me say these words: I NEED A FOOD PROCESSOR. I used to think I didn't really need one and could just use the blender anytime a processor was called for. Well, it is just not the same. A processor breaks things down so much better and can handle things much easier. I would reallllly love a Vita-Mix but do you know how much those things are? I do and it's NOT cheap.

Anyway since I DON'T have a Vita-Mix this was not quite as smooth as it was supposed to be. My blender didn't want to have anything to do with chopping up the peanuts. Not the raisins so much either... Luckily I like textures and didn't mind a bit of chew :)

I of course had a tiny piece to taste and it. was. AWESOME.

I put it all in the fridge for a bit before forming into little mini cookies.

I actually never ate one of these (besides that small bite) because I made them for our Bible study leader who recently became a vegan. He ate one, professed his love for it and then proceeded to eat about 7 more... I think he liked them :) He took the rest home and I am going to have to make these again (like tomorrow?) So we can enjoy some too! Zach did eat two of them and proclaimed them "AMAZING!!!" :)

Our hostess tonight had made some kind of gooey, delicious s'mores bars of which I could have had five. Instead I ate intuitively and just had a small sliver. If you can tell it's only the size of two fingers. I feel as though the pictures always make portions look bigger than they really are!!