Balsamic Asparagus and Zuzana Light Workouts

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Roses from Mr. Gaunt. Tulips from my mom.

Tuesdays are our eat early nights. Although there is something weirdly nice about eating dinner at 5pm. It just sort of gets that task out of the way, and reduces the likelihood of it getting “too late, and too tired” to make anything. Resulting in eating garbage.  I wish I could convince myself everyday to just come home, straighten my house and make dinner. I’m working on it. So Tuesdays I have yoga and Mr. Gaunt has class at 6:30, so we eat early.

Using what we had on hand I went for easy and classic. The chicken is just breaded with Italian bread crumbs, and the Black Beans and Rice is a boxed thing. The Asparagus though was done Mr. Gaunt’s favorite way, with balsamic!

It’s nothing fancy, just trim, throw on a cookie sheet. Drizzle with olive oi, balsamic, and salt and pepper. Bake for 10-15 minutes on 345. Comes out a little crisp on the edges and very tangy.

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The last couple weeks I’ve been working 9 hour shifts at work to help train new season employees. It’s definitely challenging, but more entertaining than my previous task of doing NOTHING! Our busy season has just started, so the hours may get longer and longer. I need to stay on top of my working out and not use long work days as and excuse to be lazy. I’m continuing to go to the gym right after work at least 3-4 days a week, plus yoga on Tuesdays. Recently I read a post from Emily Martin (The Black Apple) about a great online workout video series that I have decided to try! They are short, like 12 minutes and super intense I guess. Has anyone tried these?

Zuzana Light from bodyrock.tv

Earth Day at the Gaunt Household

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We celebrated earth day by doing a little more work on our little piece of earth.

Having a yard is never end work, did you know this?

No to mention, I’m someone who really likes my surroundings to look pretty nice, so keeping a yard looking fab is near impossible. In Washington things just grow and grow and grow. I know this is awesome in lots of areas, but in the weeds/grass area, it mean constant maintenance.

This year we decided to get rid of one of the larger garden beds in the middle of our yard. It looked like this last year:

If you look past that table you can see the large garden to the right. YES its beautiful and lots and lots of things grew fantastically, but it was too much. The whole garden was too much last year. Too much work (for us) and too much food. It went to waste. this year we decided to downsize a little. We wanted to still garden, but bring it to a much more manageable (for us) size. We both work 40+ hours a week in the summer, and we are busy on the weekends, we just don’t have the proper time to dedicate 10 hours a week on maintaining a large garden. So we are still keeping the 3 smaller beds along the fence, and have already started this years crops.

A few weeks ago after clearing out that large bed, we used Scotts EZ Seed  to fill it in with grass. We really love having a big yard, and that one was really taking up a huge portion of it. It’s crazy to think when we first moved into this house there were two more gardens we filled in with grass. When we filled those ones in we actually used the grass we removed from building our patio and transplanted into those cleared out beds. For this huge bed we didn’t have any grass to transplant, so Scotts it is!

At this height its hard to see all the new grass. Mr. Gaunt is worried that it will be patchy and weird, but I have faith that it will grow in nicely, and like the rest of our yard, slowly be overtaken by clover (which if nothing else makes it nice and green!). Here is a close up of the grass where you can see it really is growing well.

Another big task I accomplished today was cleaning out the blueberry bushes. These were here when we moved in, and at first we thought they would be awesome, but we realized they are probably super old. They ended up only producing a few leaves, while most of the branches were just dead. I think we got maybe 2 blueberries. I read an article that said we could cut them back and fertilize them and they might re-grow, but again it just wasn’t something we were interested in. At the end of last year I decided to clear these beds (that became overtaken with weeds) out (although I lost some pretty awesome strawberry plants…sad) and start fresh. However the roots were insane and I ended up just hacking them back until this weekend. It seems the roots had finally died enough that the whole root ball came out. This is what they looked like last year.

And today they look like this. I plan to put potatoes, garlic and maybe sweet peas in this bed. I need to fix that one board too.

Mr. Gaunt edged our biggest bed (that we planted things in last weekend). I cleaned up the Raspberries (which are twice as big this year as they were last year at this time…eeek!) Plus tended to our 4 herb pots (which are growing like crazy!)

This bed we cleared out AGAIN! (it has a horrible Morning Glory problem). We have plans to pour a concrete slab here when we can afford it, for the BBQ, and such. I would love to plant things in it, but the Morning Glory will kill anything we plant here. A slab seems like the only option, and it butts right up against the sidewalk, so it makes sense.

Last I mowed the lawn and looked over my Earth Day work with pride! I got a little sun and felt good!

What did you do on Earth Day?

Menchies in Bellingham!

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Bellingham has a lot to offer, good restaurants, good coffee shops, good farmers market, even good ice cream. However, when we moved back to Bellingham from Colorado we realized that something very important was missing (besides an abundance of outdoor pools) a self serve frozen yogurt shop!

In Colorado we mostly frequented the Yogurt Land near our house. And despite the droves of teenagers that it was always packed with, Yogurt Land rocked my socks off. I’ve been known to have Yogurt Land for dinner, seriously. Then I moved to Bellingham and it was goodbye Yogurt Land….sad. When Mr. Gaunt and I made a trip to Seattle in January, we went out of our way to go to the Yogurt Land in U District…sooo worth it.

Fast forward to late February when I posted on Facebook how sad I was that there wasn’t a self-serve frozen yogurt shop in Bellingham, and one of my friends commented that there would soon be a Menchies! A What? A Menchies! It’s JUST like Yogurt Land (sorry if they are actually more different than I realize) although they have a more cheerful decor, and WAY more topping options at one time. So me and all my friends spent the last couple months COUNTING DOWN THE DAYS until the Menchies would open…holla! So excited!

So on April 21st at 11 am the Bellingham Menchies opened its doors. I actually held off until about 5:00 because I usually prefer an evening “ice cream”, not a morning “ice cream”. So in place of dinner Mr. Gaunt and I headed to Menchies in search of my Frozen Yogurt fix.

I was not disappointed.

Check out that sweet patio!

I got Original Tart, Mango Sorbet and Cake Batter

Mr Gaunt got Original Tart, and Peach

This is the dried toppings section. I tend to go for the fruit and nut toppings

My toppings included: Strawberries, Kiwi, Mango, Almonds, Coconut, Yogurt Drops and Cheesecake Bites

Mr. Gaunts toppings were: Sour Gummi Worms, Butterfingers, Frosted Animal cookies, Gummi Bears, Strawberries, Bananas, Cheesecake Bites (I know...eww)

Happy as a clam

It was actually really cute because it’s a local family who bought the franchise. The husband was our SUPER FRIENDLY cashier, and the wife and her two daughters sat next to us eating some yogurt in between greeting customers. I love that a family owns and operates it, not some big company. It’s more Belligham that way.

Menchies also has such amazing options for Vegan, Gluten Free, Sugar Free and Dairy free folks. YAY YOGURT FOR ALL!

We are going again tonight with my sister. I’m stoked.

Roasted Cabbage and Turkey Burgers

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I originally saw this idea on Meghann’s Blog, and it looked really good! I love almost anything roasted, I love the crisp edges and how savory it always is….yum! Cabbage however, is not something I ever thought about roasting. I’ve eaten cabbage raw, and sauteed, and boiled, but never roasted, such a great idea. Mr. Guant also loves cabbage, so it was a win win.

I planned this for tonight because I have Yoga on Tuesdays, and I HATE being too full. We usually eat dinner around 6pm (mind you we work at 5 and 6am respectively) but on Tuesdays Mr. Gaunt has his biology class at 6:30 and I have Yoga at 6:45. I’ve made the mistake of eating too much too close to yoga, and I feel GROSS. So I figured a cabbage dinner would be perfect for tonight.

To prep the cabbage I peeled the outer layers (the yucky ones) sliced it thin (maybe an inch) and drizzled it with olive oil, balsamic, salt n pepper and some generic spices.  Then I roasted them at 400 for about 30 minutes, just watch em for brown edges.

I topped the slices with a red pepper spread I had on hand (although marinara, caprese, bruschetta, anything would do) and topped with a turkey burger patty and shredded Parmesan. You could also top it with a veggie patty, to make it vegetarian.

I’m looking forward to yoga tonight. It’s not fancy yoga, just the free yoga at my gym, but I really like it. It aligns me for the week, helps me stretch and calm. I would really like to maybe go to a real yoga studio some time, but at $15 a class, I will continue to stick it out at my gym.

Pumpkin Gnocchi and PicMonkey

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I tend to blog mostly on my iMac, which although it has Photoshop, it doesn’t have a mouse, and I hate using Photoshop with the little pad. So to do little photo edits like frames, text, and simple exposure adjustments, I was using a free online tool called Picnik. Picnik was awesome, and require NO log in, which was so nice to not have ANOTHER account. It had all the basic tools, and even fancier tools if you did want to buy a membership (I never thought this was necessary). Needless to say I was pretty bummed when I found out a couple of months ago that Goolge had purchased it, and was closing Picnik. Sad day.

But then I heard good news! Google had opened up a new free tool PicMonkey (stupid name Google) which appears to be just as good…maybe better. I’ve only used it a few times, but it is super user-friendly, especially if you ever used Picnik. You should check it out!

Moving on. Today was a little crazy at work, we are training new people, which always tests my nerves. I got off work and felt totally annoyed. My job currently involves holding the hand of adults (who may or may not have any computer skills) through a web-based program where they submit artwork to be published. In general I wouldn’t say I’m a very patient or understanding person, so this job is really pushing me. So I used the gym today to really push through my frustrations. I actually did running intervals, which I haven’t done in a long time. I got sweaty, and my feet hurt, but by the end I really didn’t feel annoyed. So that’s good.

Tonight for dinner Mr. Gaunt made (store bought) Pumpkin Gnocchi, and home made sauce. The sauce was homemade tomato sauce, light cream cheese, onions, spinach, red pepper flakes and turkey pepperoni. It was really good, and I don’t even like Gnocchi (It feels like balls of playdough in your mouth).

I’ve also been eating a ton of watermelon! It’s so good, so crunchy, and makes me super full. I highly recommend eating a ton of it, it will make you happy. I think I’m going to go take a walk around my neighborhood as the sun goes down while Mr. Gaunt does math homework.

Spring Weight Loss, and Cooking

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Oh the battle continues. If nothing else, at least I haven’t gained MORE than 25 pounds. not that a 25 pound gain isn’t substantial, because trust me, my pants tell me it is. Buuut after I gained 25 pounds a year ago, I have managed to go down 12 pounds (at my wedding) and then back up 12 pounds, but no higher.  Which means there are a few pairs of pants that I can no longer wear (which were my fitted pants at my smallest) but other than that, I haven’t really had to buy a new “fatter” wardrobe. However today I ripped some linen pants (truth be told I wore them to the threads last summer) but needless to say they felt a smidge tighter this year, and sure enough the threads gave way and ripped. Ugg….so fat. Which also puts me at ZERO capris (homie doesn’t wear shorts…eww) for this summer. Speaking of Capri’s, I’m feeling like I don’t even know what Capri trends are this year. Who can clue me in? Is it skinnies? Linen? Boyfriend? I’ll have to look this up. As you can tell I have not stepped foot in a  mall this season.

Moving on from Capris, I’m still (and let’s get real here folks, as long as there are cupcakes and potato chips on this earth, always will be) on a mission to lose 25 pounds. The weather is nicer, and I’m spending more time in my yard, and less time on the couch. Mr. Gaunt and I have stocked the fridge with healthy food tonight, including bottled water (which I know is bad, blah blah, but its the only way I drink water). My hope is to get back on track with cooking!!! My family really really likes to eat out, and there are tons of great restaurants in Bellingham, BUT it’s so easy to make it a habit. Therefore we are going to really try to only eat out on the weekends. All of this in attempts to just get a little more in shape for summer.

Tonight I searched “Healthy baking” on Pinterest, and got some great ideas for snacks. First up I made these NO BAKE ENERGY BALLS. I made a couple of substitutions, being no chocolate chips (that just makes them candy in my house) I also did flax meal (is that the same as ground flax seed?) and I did Apple infused Honey, because I found it on sale at the BGO.  All the ingredients (besides the honey) I actually had on hand too! These are pretty yummy, in a granola bar/oatmeal cookie sort of way. Although not so amazing I will eat them all in one sitting. Which is pretty much the key to all food in my house.

I also whipped up some of these Zucchini Parmesan bites, which actually ARE amazing, so I might eat all of them before I have time to take a photo tomorrow. We will see. I felt really proud of myself because I actually used frozen shredded Zucchini from last summer! Go me!

Last but not least, I’m really trying to do some interesting things with my hair. Pinterest is just riddled with adorable do’s, I really shouldn’t be so hair-lazy.

Also in BARGAIN SHOPPING NEWS: Guess who found (not expired) Aveno Spray Waterproof Sunscreen for $1.99 a bottle at the BGO today! THIS GIRL! That is such a good deal on spray sunscreen! I stocked up too, we are pale folks.