Spinach & Mushroom Quesadillas

Last week I made Pioneer Woman's Spinach and Mushroom Quesadillas for dinner.

They were FABULOUS.

Do yourself a favor and make these.  You'll be glad you did.

Serve them with some roasted broccoli if you want.

Birthday Funday Part I

Our Beloved Kathryn turned 30 last month and we couldn't let this milestone go by without the appropriate amount of pomp and circumstance.  Knowing she wouldn't want a party we celebrated with Birthday Funday!  It started Sunday night after the Super Bowl and lasted all day Monday. 

Birthday Funday started as all good birthday bashes do, with presents and cupcakes!

With the all the money I saved not throwing a party I got to buy presents!  I decided to copy a gift idea that I received for my 30th birthday.  30 gifts for 30 years (more to come on how I did this without going broke).  After opening presents for what seemed like hours we were all pooped and headed to bed.

In the morning we had pancakes and bacon.  But not just any pancakes.  We had geek-cakes!  For Christmas Brett & Kathryn got Hubby a set of Star Wars pancake molds.  We waited for this special occasion to bust them out.

Seriously, I think we all geeked out a little bit over these.  Even Lily.  She may be a little more geeked out by the belly scritching actually.  

Starting the day with a stack of geek-cakes and a stack of back is a pretty sweet deal.

We were geeked out at the start of this meal then went down hill from there.  I declared our Orange Banana Pineapple juice to be Orange Panana Bineapple.  After several attempts to correct what I was saying I finally gave up.  Panana Bineapple juice it is then.  Would you like some?

In the middle of a story she was supposed to be paying attention to our birthday girl discovered that if you remove Yoda's ears and rearrange them he becomes a puppy.

Yoda puppy = Yuppy = Hilarious

What can beat a yuppy geek-cake?  Beats me!

Check back tomorrow for part two of Birthday Funday!

Weekly Meal List 2/19

Saturday: Chicken piccata

Sunday: Lentils with sausage & kale

Tuesday: Spinach salad with salmon & barley

Wednesday:  Leftover lentils

Friday: Pioneer Woman's Spinach & Mushroom Quesadillas

February Monthly Challenge

I might as well call this the month were I lose my mind!  

You're aware of just how much sugar is consumed in the month of February, aren't you?  In case you need a refresher, like I did, let me remind you about what goes on this month for most people.  They stop caring about their New Year's resolutions, if they haven't already, and start eating whatever they want.  This includes gobs and gobs of Valentines candy, Super Bowl party snacks and Girl Scout cookies.  But for me, it's the month I decided to reduce my sugar intake.  

The first day of the month isn’t even over yet and I’m already hating this challenge.  In fact in an email I sent to Kathryn I said:  

WHO THE HELL thought it was a good idea that I eat less sugar?  WHO?  I need to know because when I find that idiot I'm going to give them a piece of my mind!!!!  Today is of course the first day of this idiotic plan AND it's the day that FREAKING See's Candy is onsite selling all their stupid sugar filled crappy candy that just happens to be delicious!

I’ll give up meat again if I can have a piece of See’s Candy.  Damn those stupid See's Candy people!!!!  This challenge is going to be WAY harder than last month’s.

The problem is that although I’m eating reasonably healthy meals I’ve been sugar crazed since around Halloween.  I don’t know what my problem is though because I’m not normally a big fan of sweets.  Sure I like them and partake but they don’t usually call to me.  I’m way more into salty/savory treats.  But not lately and that needs to stop.  In reality this is probably the best month for me to reduce my sugar intake though I’m not feeling the love for that right now.

When I came up with this stupid-ass idea I decided to review where my wasted sugary calories are coming from and here’s what I came up with.

My daily goblet of coffee -- I can’t drink coffee that actually tastes like coffee so it gets sweetened with flavored creamer and sugar.  

Soda -- I don’t drink soda often but it’s just liquid sugar and nothing about it is remotely good for me.

Candy -- I’m not a huge candy fan but I’ve found that if it’s around lately I can’t seem to resist it.  If it’s there I’m eating it.  For example, my boss brought in a big tub of Red Vines.  Red Vines probably wouldn't even rank in my top 50 favorites because everything chocolate would come first and then a whole bunch of other non-chocolate candy that I like way better.  But because there out to be seen all the time I just keep eating them.   Sometimes I can resist for a day or so but I always come back even though I don’t even really like them.

Baked sweets -- Clearly baked sweets are terrible for me but I don’t eat them very often... not even right now in my candy-craze.  I’m definitely eating more baked sweets than I should but this isn’t my major weakness because they’re not as prevalent.  

Here are the modifications I decided I could live with:

Coffee -- I only drink coffee on work days.  I never drink it on weekends.  Clearly I can cut back and still survive so I’m cutting down on my coffee to only 3 days a week.

Soda -- Gone!  I have no need for this and it irritates me that I’m drinking empty calories.  I’d much rather drink my empty calories in the form of coffee.  Besides I’ve gone a whole year without soda and can easily go days without it so this shouldn't be that bad.

Candy -- Also gone!  This one is going to be difficult.  This is the one that is going to make me uber cranky and possibly want to rip someone’s head off.   Because I’ve been consuming so much of it lately it’s going to be hard to change my ways.  But I’m confident it can be done.

Baked sweets -- I’m not putting a quantifiable limitation on this.  Obviously special occasions involve baked goodies and I’m not going to be miserable because I can’t have a bite of cake.  I plan to just make good decisions and only enjoy the things I really like (in reasonable amounts) and pass on the things I don’t really care about.  

AND THEN, like that isn’t enough, I decided to have a second challenge for February.  I’m going to meditate at least 5 minutes a day.  This is going to be a whole different kind of challenge.  I’m a little nervous and a little excited.

I'm hoping the lack of candy combined with the meditation at least means I won't kill someone.  Wish me luck!

Review of my January Monthly Challenge

For my January Monthly Challenge I basically pretended to be a vegetarian.

I am amazed at how easy it was not to eat meat for a month.  I allowed myself the option of eating fish and seafood but didn’t intend to rely on those a lot.  Instead I prepared meals with lots of veggies, grains and beans... and surprisingly, I really liked it.  Even Hubby didn’t complain.  I wouldn’t say he loved it or would want to do it all the time but he didn’t complain.  We both learn that there are yummy meals out there that don't revolve around a big piece of meat!

Over the course of the month the only meat (including fish and seafood) I ate was:

• A stupid Slim Jim because for a moment I completely forgot about my challenge.  Oops!
• A tuna fish sandwich at the beginning of the month before I’d really gotten back on track with regular grocery shopping.
• Sushi with friends.
• Shrimp in some quesadillas which were fabulous.
• A bite of a friend’s salmon at lunch.

I am very thankful I not only survived for a month without eating meat but that I actually enjoyed it.  I will most definitely incorporate more meatless options into our weekly meals and I can be confident that neither of us will be miserable.

If you're interested in incorporating more meatless meals into your life here are a few websites you can check out.

http://www.meatlessmonday.com/

http://www.veggienumnum.com/

http://www.vegetarianized.com/

Weekly Meal List 1/30

Sunday: white bean soup with kale

Tuesday: grilled provolone cheese sandwich with pesto or for Hubby grilled turkey and provolone without pesto

Wednesday: spinach salad with salmon, barley & oranges for me, salmon with barley for Hubby.  I'm so excited to try this salad it's a little ridiculous. I saw it in my favorite magazine, Real Simple, and almost started drooling.

Thursday: pioneer woman's pantry pasta - I never got to it last week because we had so many leftovers from the roasted veggie pasta and the lentils.

Grilled Portobello Benedict

The main influence in deciding to go vegetarian for a month was our friends Brett and Kathryn.  Neither one of them is actually vegetarian but they both consume way more veggie based meals than meat based meals and they both truly enjoy them.

Hubby and I get together with them every week for our Shop & Shoot Night.  Shop & Shoot Night consists of dinner all together then the boys go shoot stuff in video games and Kathryn and I go shopping.  Week after week they've shown me that fabulous meals don't have to revolve around meat.  

When they came over for dinner this week I decided to finally try Kathryn's highly recommended recipe for Grilled Portobello Benedict (adapted from Ellie Krieger's version).  Since it was her recipe Kathryn did most of the cooking and I was her helper/photographer.  

You'll want one portobello per person.  Note there are only three.  Hubby ate scrambled eggs with ham and cheese.  There's no way he'd even dream of eating this.

Start by cleaning the portobello mushrooms. Remove the stem and weird gills and wipe with a damp paper towel.  Coat the mushrooms in olive oil, salt and pepper on both sides.  Grill in a grill pan or BBQ if you want to stand outside in the cold.

While the mushrooms are grilling crack two eggs per mushroom into a mixing bowl.  Please note my fabulous action shot here.

Beat the eggs a bit with some milk (and butter if you're Kathryn).

Scramble the eggs but don't let them get brown or Kathryn won't eat them.

When the mushrooms are done take them off the heat but keep them in the pan.  Add some spinach on top.

Top the spinach with the scrambled eggs.  The heat from the mushroom and the eggs will wilt the spinach.

Then top the eggs with feta (or whatever cheese you'd like) and some prepared pesto.

Here you should add some toasted pine nuts.  Unfortunately we forgot but we did add avocados instead which were quite tasty.  If you'd like you can also enjoy your Grilled Portobello Benedict with a little arugula salad like we did.  Just toss some arugula with a little olive oil, salt, pepper and parmesan cheese.

After our shopping trip Kathryn and I tested recipes for the drink contest at our upcoming Super Bowl party.  I really wanted to like this drink.  Mostly because of it's name.  It's funny and naughty.  It's a Dirty Pickle.  

I didn't care for it but Kathryn, who likes dirty martinis, says that if you like dirty martinis and pickles you'd like this.  It tasted way too much like alcohol for me to like it.  I prefer my alcohol to taste like candy which is exactly what my super secret entry for the drink contest tastes like.