Portobello Goat Cheese Burgers

Before I get to my delicious dinner creation tonight, here’s a recap of my eats today. As I discussed in yesterday’s post about eating ample amounts of goodness to help me get over this dreaded cold, I ate a lot of fruits and veggies today:

Breakfast this morning was a chopped Granny Smith apple sprinkled with cinnamon, topped with a Stonyfield Greek caramel yogurt + 1/2 serving of cashew pieces:

I had a lunch date with a girlfriend I haven’t seen in awhile. We had a fun time catching up at PF Chang’s, where I munched on a mixed greens salad + steamed vegetable dumplings:

After lunch, I headed to the Marine Corps base to watch a ceremony that my hubby was in. Being that it was 90 degrees outside today (which feels pretty damn hot when you’ve been spoiled living in San Diego!), I came home craving a cold snack, so I had a Yasso strawberry frozen Greek yogurt bar…

… and then I felt like I needed some more protein, so I had a serving of cottage cheese along with a nectarine:

For dinner tonight, I wanted to use the portobello mushrooms I’ve had sitting in my fridge. I came up with a burger creation that is definitely worth sharing with you!

Portobello Goat Cheese Burgers

Serves 2 

Ingredients:

• 2 large raw portobello mushroom caps
• 1 TBSP olive oil
• 2 TBSP balsamic vinegar
• 2 oz creamy goat cheese
• 2 handfuls of raw spinach
• 2 whole wheat burger buns (Nature’s Own)
• 1 vine ripe tomato, cut into thick slices
• 2 TBSP white cooking wine
• 1/4 TSP garlic powder
• 1/4 TSP dried basil leaves
• Pinch of sea salt & pepper

Heat your grill to 350. Warm cooking wine in a skillet over medium-low heat. Add spinach and cook just until wilted, then set aside.

In a bowl, whisk together olive oil, balsamic vinegar, garlic powder, basil, salt and pepper. Cut the stems off the mushrooms, then brush the balsamic mix on both sides of each one.

Place portobellos on the grill stem side down, and cook for about 8 minutes, or until mushrooms are tender.

Flip mushrooms over, and brush them again with the balsamic mixture. Cook 5 minutes more.

Spread 1 oz of goat cheese on each portobello, then top each with tomato slices and wilted spinach. Let them cook for 2-3 minutes longer, then remove from heat. Place on burger buns and enjoy!

Nutrition stats per burger: 300 calories, 15 g fat, 13 g protein, 31 g carbs

Last on my list of eats for the day, my snack tonight was a treat. My parents sent Adam and me a gift…

Chocolate covered fruit from Edible Arrangements! Tonight I ate a chocolate covered apple, banana and strawberry:

And on that delicious note, I’m off to enjoy the rest of my Friday night. Hope your weekend is off to a good start!

What to do About an Energy Zapping Cold

Last Sunday I mentioned that I had caught an upper respiratory thing, and here I am 5 days later, sniffling as I type. I don’t get sick that often, and this damn cold is really putting a damper on my week.

Okay okay, I realize I may sound like a total brat saying that about a silly cold, but this thing is really zapping my energy. I would like to be back to normal pronto!

I started to think today about the things I do to get better ASAP when I catch a cold. I know that my best defense in not getting sick in the first place is my healthy lifestyle — eating well, getting enough sleep, exercising daily. When I start to feel something coming on, I definitely try to take even better care of myself to prevent it from getting worse. But once I have a full-blown cold, I don’t have much confidence that anything I do speeds up the process of getting it out of my system. However, because I hate feeling under the weather so much (though I suppose no one enjoys it!), I always attempt to get better by doing more of the following – pretty common sense – things:

Food

I really believe that food can be a powerful form of medicine. When I’m not feeling great, I amp up the amount of veggies and fruits I’m eating and try to get as many vitamins and antioxidants as possible into my system. Today’s breakfast included Greek yogurt with berries, and lunch and dinner were both produce packed salads.

Lunch: chopped fennel, nectarine, figs, walnut pieces, and balsamic vinegar

Vitamin C 

When it comes to curing a cold, getting Vitamin C is a must. I rely on these Emergen-C packs to give me a daily dose and then some…

Sleep

It’s a no-brainer, but sleep is so important in recovering from being sick. Last night I went to bed early and slept 9 hours! Sure, I have NyQuil to thank for knocking me out, but I definitely think I need to sleep more than usual to get back to 100%.

Green Tea

I’ve been making sure to drink a couple cups of green tea daily. A source of powerful antioxidants, the hot tea also feels great on my itchy, sore throat.

Move a Bit

Though my inclination when I’m feeling sick is to curl up on the couch 24/7, I have been partaking in light exercise all week. Yes, I’m taking it easy, but I also think it’s a good idea to get my body moving. This week I’ve gone for long walks with Harley, done yoga, and biked at a lower resistance than usual, all of which have made me feel a little better.

Salty Water? 

My grandma swears by gargling with warm salt water to cure a sore throat. I happen to believe that it helps rid germs that are just coming along, but don’t really know that it helps once I’ve gotten full blown sick.

Question: Do you have any cold remedies that you swear by? If so please share!

Off to relax and hopefully get an ample amount of sleep!

A Few Sights from the Dog Beach Today

“A person can learn a lot from a dog, even a loopy one like ours. Marley taught me about living each day with unbridled exuberance and joy, about seizing the moment and following your heart. He taught me to appreciate the simple things — a walk in the woods, a fresh snowfall, a nap in a shaft of winter sunlight. And as he grew old and achy, he taught me about optimism in the face of adversity. Mostly, he taught me about friendship and selflessness and, above all else, unwavering loyalty.” – John Grogan, Marley & Me: Life and Love with the World’s Worst Dog

“There is no psychiatrist in the world like a puppy licking your face.” – B. Williams

Broccoli Cheddar Stuffed Potato

Today was one of those days when I couldn’t figure out what I’m in the mood to eat. This afternoon I decided I’d make stuffed portobello mushrooms for dinner, only to find myself feeling totally icky about the idea of eating mushrooms when it was time to prep them.

Looking to be inspired by something else, I peered around my kitchen and laid my eyes on a couple of potatoes. Thus, a veggie stuffed potato dinner was born:

This recipe spices up a plain potato by adding some color to it with broccoli, red bell pepper and cheddar cheese. It can be the star of your meal, or eaten as a side dish.

Broccoli Cheddar Stuffed Potato

Serves 2 

What you need:

• 2 large russet potatoes
• 1/2 c reduced fat shredded cheddar cheese
• 1/4 c light sour cream
• 1 c broccoli, chopped into bite sized pieces
• 1 red bell pepper, cut into small pieces
• 1/4 onion, minced
• 2-4 TBSP of white cooking wine for sautéing
• Sprinkle of paprika
• 1/4 TSP each salt + pepper

Preheat your oven to 400. Poke holes in the potatoes, and bake on your oven rack for an hour.

Remove potatoes from oven. Slice lengthwise and let them cool.

Meanwhile, heat cooking wine in a large skillet over medium heat. Add onions and cook for a few minutes until lightly browned.

Add bell pepper and broccoli, and cook for about 5 minutes, or until veggies are softened.

Scoop out the flesh of the potatoes, leaving about 1/2 inch of potato on the skins. Place in a bowl and mash.

Add veggie mixture, sour cream, cheddar cheese, paprika, salt, and pepper to the potatoes. Mix well.

Place stuffed potatoes on a baking sheet. I baked mine on a pizza pan with holes in the bottom to make the skins crispier.

Bake until lightly browned, about 15 minutes.

Nutrition stats: 440 calories, 9 g fat, 19 g protein, 74 g carbs

This meal was exactly what I wound up being in the mood to eat. Yum!

A Letter to My Younger Self

Well, I’m officially part of the quarter century club. Today is my 25th birthday!

I have to say, I’m pretty happy with where my life is at. I know that my life now is a result of all the decisions and choices I’ve made throughout the years, so although I wouldn’t take things back, there definitely are things that I wish I knew when I was younger… say, 10 years younger. I started to consider the top life lessons that come to mind, ones I now truly understand and try to live by. With that being said, here is a letter to my 15 year old self:

Nicole,

There are times in life when people give you advice, whether it’s solicited or not. Sometimes you listen and really consider what they’re saying; sometimes you listen and ignore them; sometimes you simply don’t pay attention at all. This is one of those times where it’d be in your best interest to listen up and take in these wise words:

Firstly, don’t forget to put things into perspective. If you won’t remember it in a few months or even a year, it’s not really worth getting upset about. On the flip side, don’t hesitate to be joyous about the little things in life.

“There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.” – Albert Einstein

Life is more fun when you stop trying to act cool. Just be yourself, and be confident that the person you are is deserving of great relationships and experiences. Laugh so hard you snort, love being in school and learning, be a total goofball, admit that you’re absolutely horrendous at geography, whatever… life is too short to be anything but yourself!

“When I was young, I thought confidence could be earned with perfection. Now I know that you don’t earn it; you claim it. And you do that by loving the wacky, endlessly optimistic, enthusiastically uninhibited free spirit that is the essence of style, the quintessence of heart, and uniquely you.” -Cecelie Berry

Let’s pretend the book and movie He’s Just Not that Into You is out circa 2002. Watch, read, and listen my friend!! If a love interest is acting like a total jerk, immediately move on. Why waste your time dating men who don’t treat you well? This also applies to non-romantic relationships. If you’re constantly putting way more effort into a friendship than the other person and the friendship is causing you more angst than enriching your life, it’s time to move on. Once you demand better for yourself, you’ll find yourself attracting great people into your life.

“In my opinion, the best thing you can do is find a person who loves you for exactly what you are. Good mood, bad mood, ugly, pretty, handsome, what have you, the right person is still going to think the sun shines out your ass. That’s the kind of person that’s worth sticking with.” – Juno

Whether you’re having the best time of your life or experiencing a seriously crappy week, never forget to recognize how blessed you are. Point blank period.

Last but not least, you should probably be nicer to your mother. You have a lot more in common with her than you think, and you two can become great friends.

Love,

Your older self

A Soup & Salad Kinda Night

After living with a cold-stricken man for the past week and trying to resist the bug, I’ve officially caught an annoying upper respiratory thing. Whomp.

While I’m confident that I can overcome cold #237 of my life (okay, perhaps that’s a dramatic overestimate), it never feels good to have a pounding headache, itchy throat, and feel exhausted for no apparent reason. I love to relax for a couple hours, but beyond that, I seem to have a tough time just hanging out. I suppose I just like to be busy and productive. But today, I resisted the urge to push myself to do a lot and kept it pretty low-key.

And keeping it low-key means no-fuss meals like tonight’s dinner, soup and salad. It took all of 5 minutes to put together, and was a healthy under-the-weather meal. Every ingredient happened to be from Trader Joe’s — tomato and roasted red pepper soup, a baby baguette, arugula, a goat cheese medallion and figs:

Eating this dinner started to make me think about how eating healthy doesn’t have to equate to slaving away in the kitchen. With so many healthy options at our fingertips, nutritious meals can be super easy like this one. I think that it’s partly a matter of making smart choices when it comes to the food we eat, and it’s also about having the knowledge in understanding what foods are healthy for us. Here’s to a week full of good choices!

Quote of the day: “The food you eat can be either the safest and most powerful form of medicine or the slowest form of poison.” -Ann Wigmore

Hiking Iron Mountain

“Somewhere between the bottom of the climb and the summit is the answer to the mystery why we climb.” – Greg Child

Last night Adam surprised me with an early birthday gift — a CamelBak for use during my outdoor workouts! It’s a backpack that you fill with water and can continuously drink from. This was a perfect little gift, as I’m always thirsty and drink an insane amount of water, especially during exercise. What a smart man I married!

Wanting to put my new workout gear to use, today my little family and I headed to a nearby town called Poway to hike somewhere we had never been to before, Iron Mountain.

showing off my new CamelBak

In reading reviews of the mountain prior to going, I had seen a few time estimates at 4 hours. My first thought was that there is no way Harley would last that long, as she has crazy amounts of energy but not so much endurance. The summit we hike a lot usually takes 90 minutes roundtrip, and that really tires her out. But once I read a review of a 79-year old man saying he did it in 3 hours both ways, I decided that we should give it a shot (and if a 79-year old can do the hike, Harley should be able to do it right?!).

Adam and I guesstimated that we could do the 7 mile roundtrip hike in about 2 hours. In the end, I clocked the excursion at around 2 1/2 hours — 1 hour and 15 minutes to climb up, 15 minutes of hanging out at the top, and a few minutes over an hour getting back down.

Based on what I had read, I expected the trail to be super crowded, especially since we went on a Saturday and didn’t get there until 11 am. Compared to the very popular Cowles Mountain, I didn’t think that Iron Mountain was too packed at all. I was pleasantly surprised that we easily got a parking spot in the lot, after reading in reviews that the lot stays filled up from 7 am on.

As far as the puppy goes, I’m happy to report that Harley did a pretty good job on the way up. On the descend, she kept trying to lay down and kind of reached her breaking point at the very end, but we made it! The three of us had a great hike together:

I think that last photo is pretty hilarious.

When we got back to the parking lot, Harley kept oddly sticking her face underneath our car. We thought maybe she was just tired and looking for shade, but I peered underneath near my back tire to see a face staring back at me that looked like this…

A muskrat! I’m not going to lie, my heart might have skipped a beat (or two or three). Looking from the back of my car, all I could see was its long tail coming out. Yikes, I get the creeps just looking at a photo of one of these big rodents. Adam had to move the car around for a minute for it to finally jump down (I may or may not have been squealing) and then hit the ground running. Adam thinks the muskrat must of had something wrong with him to be so close to humans during the day like that. All I know is that I’m glad that Harley didn’t get bit when her face was looking right at him underneath the car. A trip to the vet would not have been my idea of a good end to our hike!

I love hiking because I get to workout, be outdoors enjoying the weather, give Harley some exercise, and spend time with Adam all at once. It’s kind of awesome! I definitely enjoyed Iron Mountain and would go again. The hike is pretty long but not too difficult, and is just a steady incline and nice walk pretty much the whole time.

I think the hike tired us all out, as I’m currently blogging while resting my achy feet, Harley is curled up passed out, and Adam is laying on the floor watching a movie. I plan to continue relaxing until our dinner date tonight. Enjoy the rest of your weekend!

Spinach, Goat Cheese & Tomato Ravioli

Hi friends!

Here are three things I’m loving this Thursday:

#1 – Stumbling upon NBC’s Olympics website and discovering that I was able to live stream the women’s gymnastics all-around competition this morning. Sure, it sort of spoiled my watching it on TV tonight, but it was cool to be able to see it while it was happening.  I ❤ Gabby Douglas, she is so damn cute! This distraction may or may not have decreased my morning work productivity. 😉

#2 – Yasso frozen Greek yogurt bars:

I spotted these babies for the first time at my food store and nabbed the strawberry flavored ones. At just 70 calories a bar with no fat and 6 g of protein, these bars are tasty and might be my new favorite nighttime snack.

#3 – Last but certainly not least, my dinner tonight was awesome – a recipe I made up as I went along for spinach, goat cheese, & tomato ravioli:

This recipe is inspired by one of my favorite Italian restaurants in the San Diego area, who makes a goat cheese and tomato ravioli dish. Though I haven’t been there in awhile, I’ve ordered it almost every time I’ve eaten there because it is just that good. With these ravioli in mind, I bought won ton wraps during my last grocery store run. These ravioli turned out even more delicious than I had hoped for!

Spinach Goat Cheese & Tomato Ravioli 

Serves 5 

Ingredients:

• 35 won ton wraps
• 6 c fresh baby spinach
• 3 vine ripe tomatoes, chopped
• 1/4 shallot, minced
• 2 garlic cloves, minced
• 4 oz creamy goat cheese
• 1/4 c fresh basil, coarsely chopped
• 2 TBSP white cooking wine
• 3 TBSP safflower oil
• 1 TSP fresh lemon juice
• Grated lemon peel from 1/2 lemon
• 6 TBSP water
• Salt & pepper

In a large saucepan, warm the cooking wine over medium heat. Add garlic cloves and shallots, and cook for about 3 minutes.

Add tomatoes and basil, and cook for a few minutes until softened. Mix spinach in, and heat just until wilted. 

Transfer tomato/spinach mix to a large mixing bowl. Add goat cheese in small chunks, as well as the lemon juice and lemon peel. Sprinkle salt and pepper to taste, and combine well.

Place a spoonful of mixture onto the middle of each won ton wrap. Fold one half of each wrap over, and seal with moistened fingers.

*I kept a bowl of water next to me and kept wetting my hands with it. Sealing the wraps is a little tricky, but it’s important to keep squeezing the sides together in order to prevent the tomato/spinach mixture from later spilling out of the ravioli.*

Next, heat 1 TBSP of the oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Place 11-12 of the ravioli in the pan, and cook until lightly browned on each side, about 2 minutes each. Pour 2 TBSP of water into the pan, then put a lid on it and let the ravioli simmer for 2-4 minutes, until the water is soaked up.

Using a spatula, remove the ravioli from heat and onto a serving dish. Repeat this process 2 more times until all ravioli are cooked.

Per serving (7 ravioli): 300 calories, 14 g fat, 10 g protein, 32 g carbs

Wake Up (Your Body) Call

“To have a friend and be a friend is what makes life worthwhile.”

Fun fact: Today is National Girlfriends’ Day. Shout out to my amazing girlfriends, love you ladies!

I often like to start off my days with some movement. Sometimes it’s just a few yoga poses (I talked about my favorite ones here), other times I take Harley for a nice long walk. And then there are days when I like to get sweaty first thing in the morning. Today was one of those days, so I did the following easy breezy workout. The idea is to do a very quick cardio routine, with your heart rate up the whole time. With some quick stretching immediately following, it’ll take around 15 minutes and is a nice way to get moving before heading to work, class, or wherever your day takes you.

Whenever I hear someone say they “don’t have time” to exercise, I think of how doable it is to spend (at least) 20 minutes working out on most days, doing simple routines like this. If I have a super busy day ahead of me, I know that a short workout is always better than no workout at all! Remember, every little bit counts when it comes to your health.

Baking a Giant Cookie at 7 in the Morning

That’s right, this AM before I began working, I baked a cookie the size of a pizza.

Why?

Because today is my hubby’s birthday!

I blogged about celebrating his turning 26 a few days ago, but today is Adam’s actual birthday. My, how far we’ve come since our first birthdays together…

New York City, 2007:

Since our birthdays are only 6 days apart (yep, mine is next week!), the first summer we were dating, we went skydiving together to celebrate both of ’em:

It was so much fun, I’d do it again in a heartbeat!

On the menu for tonight:

Dinner: my spaghetti squash casserole  + fresh bread

Wine: A bottle of Mark West  Pinor Noir (<– pretty cool website!), which I actually broke out our wine chiller for to set it to the ideal temp. Their wine is near and dear to our hearts – it’s what we were drinking when Adam proposed! I love it because it’s yummy and not pricey.

my favorite new wine glass

Dessert: The giant chocolate chip cookie I mentioned before (recipe found here), with light vanilla bean ice cream. Although I made a few switches to the recipe to make it not quite as sinful [light butter + less sugar + less chocolate chips + flax eggs], eating this cookie with light ice cream is like ordering a Big Mac and fries with a Diet Coke. Okay, maybe not as bad, as I made it myself and no animals were killed in the making of this dessert!

Okay, maybe I shouldn’t quit my day job… but I have a feeling it’ll taste pretty good!

Post dessert, I’ll probably roll myself onto my couch in a wine hazed sugar coma (it’s a good thing I worked out today!!) and watch the Olympics. I’ve been staying up late watching gymnastics and swimming every night since it started. On that note, I’m off to enjoy my night!