Friday In Philly

Heeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeey!  Hello from Philadelphia!!

Friday morning, after a early breakfast of Chobani vanilla yogurt, cherries, and granola, it was off to Charlotte Douglas Airport to catch my flight to Philly for the Healthy Living Summit! 

Five of us- Erin, Kelly, Caitlin, Allison, and me, were on the same flight, and four of us were in seats near each other, so it made the experience a blast!

I tried hard to get in some reading for our next book club book, which if I haven't mentioned is One Day, the book associated with the movie starring Anne Hathaway.

I couldn't really get into it though because Erin and I were so busy chatting!

After a short flight up to Philly, we met up with many more bloggers at the airport.

And caught cabs to the hotel.

We were able to check in early at the hotel, which was great!

We got a corner room and have a pretty sweet view from it!

Roommates taking pictures of our view.

We regrouped, and went down to the lobby to meet a bunch of other people for lunch.

The lunch spot was a walkable from our hotel, so we headed down the street.

Our big group was kind of a spectacle.

We arrived at this funky little vegetarian place called Govinda's

I ordered a grilled veggie on spinach wrap with mozzarella.

It was pretty tasty.  It had a little spice to it!

After lunch we headed to a froyo place we'd seen on the walk over.  It was so hot out and froyo sounded wonderful!

Caitlin stole my camera and starting snapping pictures of me.

So I got her back ;)

Haha :)

I got a mix of Kahlua, PB, and coconut froyo, with chocolaty toppings, except for rainbow sprinkles for color!  Any place that has Kahlua froyo is okay with me!

Froyo was followed by checking in and more importantly picking up our HLS swag bags.

The contents this year are awesome, the bag was actually HEAVY when carrying it back to the room!

Seriously great swag this year!  I'm psyched!  The biggest problem is going to be how to get it all home.  I think I may have to check a bag on my return flight...

Anyway, I'm having a great time, and will be back with a recap of the cocktail party!

That Wasn't Chicken

Have you guys ever see this picture with this fortune? 

Oh man, it makes me laugh every time!

The other night, Greg was home and I decided to make us "not real chicken" chicken for dinner.

I've used meat-free options before, like meat-like veggie crumbles, so I figured it was time to give the chicken substitute a try.

This dinner was really easy and came together in about 20 minutes.  Win!

I just used the oven directions to cook the "chicken", which was basically just cooking it in the oven with sauce (plus I added cheese to make it "parm style").  Then, I threw together leftover pasta and spaghetti squash, with a little extra tomato sauce.  Plus some grilled zucchini for my veg.

Viola! 

The verdict?  We liked it.  It definitely tastes a little different than chicken, but it's a pretty good substitute, and wonderful if you are feeling lazy about cooking like I was that night!

What other meat-free options have you tried?  Any recommendations?  I've seen BBQ "tips" and tofu sausages.  I've wondered how they are...



Cooking For Two Is Better Than One

Greg's been home the last couple nights, and I usually put a lot more effort into dinner when he's around.  The other day I picked up some huge portobello mushrooms at the grocery store, since my man loves mushrooms.  Monday night, I gave Greg the option of stuffed or burger style for dinner, and he wanted them burger style.

First I marinated the mushroom caps in the following for about 15-20 minutes:

1/4 cup balsamic vinegar

2 tablespoons olive oil

1 teaspoon dried basil

1 teaspoon dried oregano

1 tablespoon minced garlic

salt and pepper to taste

Then I heated up the grill pan and tossed them on.  I think my grill pan is probably my most used kitchen thing lately.  I find myself using it about 3 nights a week probably, to grill veggies and other stuff!  Anyway, I cooked them about 4 minutes on each side or so.

I put slices of Havarti cheese on each, and served them on a sandwich thin with tomato and lettuce, with a side of baked sweet potato fries.

It was a hit!  My batch of sweet potato fries was exceptionally good this time too.  Sometimes I have issues with them being mushy.  I used this recipe, and it seemed to help.

Yesterday was kind of a dreary, colder day, and I really wanted to make some soup.  I feel like I always make Mexican/black bean soup, and don't really branch out, so I started looking for an alternate recipe and found this recipe for soup.

I mostly followed it as it was, but added about 1/2 an onion, and omitted the coriander.  I also used whole wheat rotini pasta and veggie stock for my liquid.

Yum!  Look at all those delicious veggies and legumes :)

On the side we had cheesy garlic bread and split a slice of leftover pizza.

This recipe made a pretty huge amount a soup.  I have two more containers of leftovers in the fridge!  I'm glad Greg's been home to motivate me to cook.  It helps a lot to have someone there to cook for, so I don't gravitate towards eating cereal for dinner!

Greg got an I Phone yesterday and spent last night fiddling with it.  I'm extremely jealous since I don't even have internet on my phone!  I'm old school, I know!  

Other than walking Clyde, fiddling with the new phone, and working on some house stuff, it's been a pretty low-key the past couple nights at Casa De Holding Pattern.  How's your week going?



Chillin and Grillin

Whoa, the weekend went by fast, didn't it?!

Did anyone else experience the crazy storm we got in Charlotte Saturday night? Check out some of the pictures of hail I took (from the safety of inside my house!):

Looks like snow!

Crazy!  Right?  This might be the biggest hail I've ever seen.  I was happy to have my car in the garage!

Saturday night I actually had plans to see a movie with my friend Kerrie, but we canceled when the hail and tornado warnings started coming in.  I think Clyde would have cried if I'd left him too, he was pretty much glued to my lap all night. 

Anyway, we survived the storm, and Sunday morning I woke up in the mood for some eggs and potatoes.

I made a batch of scrambled eggs, and also some homemade home fries.  

Here's my trick for homemade home fries.  I take a potato or two, stab them to let the steam out and microwave them for about 2-3 minutes.  Once out, I cut them up and saute them in a pan with a little olive oil or butter and season with salt, pepper, and usually a little paprika or rosemary.  The cook up pretty fast that way, which is great, because I'm an impatient person ;)

I also had some of the previous day's coffee over ice for a nice cool glass of iced coffee.  Perfect breakfast :)

Later in the afternoon, Kerrie and I decided to see the movie we had canceled seeing the night before.  We saw The Lincoln Lawyer.

I really liked it!  There was a bunch of twists and it had me on the edge of my seat and I thought Matthew McConaughey was great in it.  This is my kind of Matthew McConaughey movie- I like the ones he's a lawyer in, like A Time to Kill, and stuff like that more then the goofy ones, although, he's good in How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days too!  I have a friend that read the book and she said the book is really good, so I kind of wish I'd read the book first.  Usually, when I read the book first that makes me like the movie less though, so I guess it's okay that I didn't this time.

After the movie, I headed home and walked Clyde, who had gotten kind of antsy in the few hours I was gone.  The walk seemed to calm him down.  Then had to figure out what to make for dinner.  I looked through the fridge and realized I had this guy in there:

It's a Listada De Gandia eggplant!  Pretty huh?  I googled for a while looking for a recipe for this particular eggplant, but mostly found the standard eggplant recipes.  I found a couple recipes that looked good, but would take too long (I was starving!), so I opted to grill some of it with some zucchini and red pepper.

Grilled veggies are probably my favorite summer food.  So glad to have them back :)

I threw them in a Flat Out wrap with some spinach and goat cheese.

With a side of cottage cheese for extra protein.

Good stuff!

This week is kicking off a couple weeks that are going to be off the charts busy!  

Eeeeek.  Hope I survive it all!

Raining On Sunday

It was a very rainy Sunday in Charlotte...

And I loved it.  I was totally in the mood for a cozy, stay inside kind of day.

I made myself a fried egg and some rye toast when I first got up.

Later in the morning I got into my jar of granola from Erin and ate some with milk poured over, cereal style.  Yum!

It was actually a productive rainy day for me.  I decided it was about time I cleaned my closet, and since the coldest days of winter appear to be over, that meant putting all my heavy sweaters/clothing away.  I decided to be really selective too and actually get rid of a bunch of stuff.

Later on I broke for lunch, which consisted of eggplant parm leftover from dinner with friends on Friday night, and a side of steamed broccoli.

After a brief lunch, I headed back up stairs and finished cleaning my closet.  Much better...

I actually have FOUR huge trash bags of clothing that I weeded out to donate!

Later in the day the rain started to clear and I was finally stir crazy enough to want to get out of the house and go to yoga.  I went to a nice hour long power class at OM.

I heard from Greg in the afternoon and he said he'd be home for dinnner!  Yay!  We weren't sure if he'd be home Sunday night or Monday morning, so I was happy to get an extra night with him.

I brain stormed dinner ideas and decided to make BBQ tempeh.

I used a cheese grater to shred my tempeh, then mixed it with about a cup of BBQ sauce and put it in the fridge to marinate.

Later, I sauteed some yellow/orange peppers with onion til soft, then mixed in my BBQ tempeh.  Very easy.

I served it on a bun, with a side of vegetarian baked beans and steamed broccoli.

Good stuff!  The BBQ tempeh was kind of like a sloppy joe.  It was kind of impossible to keep the filling in the bun!  Greg liked it a lot though.  I usually make tempeh Asian style, so this was a nice change up.

Do you like tempeh?  How do you usually cook it?