Ready. Set. Blog!

Apparently, I am a planner. I've been that way for a long time though I guess I used to take it for granted (or "for granite" as my younger brother Ray used to say). As a kid, a lot of planning effort would go into what outfit to wear to school, how to convince the parentals to unground me so I could go to a movie or sleepover with friends, or how to fit in completing my homework after sports practices. With my more adult priorities, and the post college perk of having no homework, most of my planning goes into what to cook for Cam and me and sometimes our friends, how to fit a run or other workout into my day, and fun weekend or after-work activities with friends or sometimes just each other.


It's not that I can't be spontaneous or have an aversion to figuring out dinner plans on the fly. I just like to plan things when I am able, so that I can be most efficient, so that I can save myself extra time and gas money going to the grocery store 7 nights a week, for example. Doing that gives me more time to do the other things I want to do. With planning I can also eliminate waste.  It is satisfying to figure out a weekly menu that utilizes all of the ingredients on the list (e.g. having basil pesto on Monday and then using the leftover basil for caprese salad on Tuesday), because it is like solving a puzzle. And in addition, my cooking abilities and willingness to stray from a recipe have improved a ton, since I started making a meal list and grocery list for the week because in order to use up excess ingredients without monotony, I have had to experiment with recipes that I had never tried before.


Through my food planning, I have stumbled upon many food blogs. A few of my favorites are Kath Eats Real Food, Smitten Kitchen, Simply Recipes, Annie's Eats, and Oh She Glows, and I like them all for a range of their characteristics from food, of course, to blogger personality and lifestyle suggestions. Having observed the food and exercise blogging world now for over a year, it is my intention to make my own contribution to it with my own blog. My plan (See! There I go planning again.) is to post on anything that contributes to health, happiness, and "foodiness."


For my first post, I absolutely must share what I prepared for an afternoon snack and then dinner yesterday. I did  not exactly plan to start blogging today on this, it just sort of happened, so unfortunately I do not have any pictures of what I actually made, but in my future posts, I will try to have some.


After work yesterday, I was starving and completely weary of waiting until 8pm for dinner (Cam had to help a coworker hang curtains.) So that I would have the energy to go for a run while I waited for him, I decided to concoct some sort of smoothie. Inspired by Kathy from kblog.lunchboxbunch.com, I created my own version of her Vibrant Orange Juice Frosty with a few slight modifications: 1) I was unable to find frozen pineapple at the Teeter, so I opted to double up on the frozen peaches instead, and 2) I am not a big fan of extremely icy smoothies, so I left out the ice. The smoothie turned out very good and definitely tied me over until dinnertime...Also, it gave me the extra boost I needed to go to Food Lion and back on foot to get olive oil, since I did not have quite enough for both of the recipes I planned to make for dinner. Unfortunately the battery of Cam's awesome Garmin Forerunner 110 (GPS watch) was dead, so I didn't get the stats of my run/walk, but I would estimate that I ran about 2.5-3 miles and walked about 2. We've been bad about running after work this week, because Ray is in town, but this weekend we have to get back on track. The 10K is in just a few weeks!


Dinner was delicious. I decided to try the Leek Toasts with Blue Cheese from Smitten Kitchen paired with the Dole-inspired Arugula Salad from kblog.lunchboxbunch.com. I did not stray from these recipes. My only notes are that for the toasts, I put the blue cheese on the toast before the leeks instead of on top, and I used sour dough bread for those. I would definitely make these again. It was a very easy dinner to throw together.

Simmering Leeks

Toasts

As I referred to earlier, a lot of my menu planning involves making a grocery list. I have already done that for you. This list has all of the necessary ingredients for the recipes on this post.


Grocery List:

• 4 seedless oranges, squeezed
• 1 small banana
• ~1 cup frozen peaches
• 1 1/2 lbs leeks (about 3 big leeks)
• 2 Tbs salted butter
• ~1/3 cup olive oil
• Kosher salt
• Freshly ground black pepper
• 6 medium-sized 1/2-inch slices of sour dough bread
• 2 oz blue cheese, crumbled
• 1 large mango, cubed
• 1 avocado, cubed
• 3/4 cup macadamia nuts
• 5 cups fresh arugula
• 1/4 cup lemon juice
• 2 Tbs apple cider vinegar
• 1 Tbs Dijon mustard
• 1 tsp agave syrup
• dash garlic powder

Blogging about eatsercising is fun!