Bake-a-thon (or bake-o-rama)

Thank goodness it's Thursday and a long weekend ahead!

Yesterday was bonkers at work, so after leaving the office I ran to the grocery for some dinner fixins. Yes, this was my first trip to the grocery store this week. Yes, I have been a slacker.

I've been dining sans-meat for the past few days, so dinner last night was a Gardenburger with 1/2 an avocado and organic ketchup, plus a huge salad:


It included:
*butter lettuce
*1/2 orange bell pepper
*6 fresh strawberries
*sprinkle of blue cheese
*balsamic dressing

Well, that was the plan, but I didn't have any balsamic so I mixed together a teensey bit of evoo, balsamic, salt and pepper, and fresh basil. The basil and stawberries together were so tasty!

After I chowed down the bake-a-thon commenced. I made a peach cobbler thanks to Erica @ Itzy's Kitchen.



I accidentally bought 4 lbs of peaches instead of 2, but the more the merrier, I figured. I used brown sugar for everything rather than white sugar or sugar in the raw since I already had it in the cupboard. Such a tasty recipe! I took the pup for a walk, waited for the cobbler to cool, and dished up a bowl with some cool whip scooped on top. I know cool whip is just whipped chemical ick, but it's so good. It's on my list of things to quit eating someday, but last night I enjoyed every delicious, highly processed bite.

I also made some peanut butter bars , another recipe from Erica's great site. It included:
*peanut butter
*oats
*chocolate chips
*egg beaters
*flour
*honey

Rather than making them into bars I smushed the mix into muffin cups and baked them for about 15 minutes.



Next time I won't bake them quite as long. They were an eensey bit dry (Parker may have thought differently since he consumed a GIANT glass of milk while eating his this morning) but they were also really tasty and a great afternoon snack. They definitely tasty healthy, but hit the spot for something sweet.

(sidebar: sorry for the terrible bake-o-rama photos. I'll have to bribe Parker into helping me take some pics with his far superior camera. Hopefully you get the idea of how everything turned out...)

Lunch today was another gardenburger. Yes, I might be hooked. This time I skipped the avocado since the one last night wasn't quite ripe yet. Unripe avocados are not nearly as tasty as their ripened, squishy, delicious counterparts. I just stuck so some ketchup shmeared on top. I also made a caprese salad:



*2 tomatoes
*1 1/2 slices of fresh mozz, chopped up into small pieces
*lots of fresh basil
*a little evoo and lots of balsamic
*salt and pepper

I may have been a bit overzealous because I couldn't finish the whole plate, but it was so tasty! I love those summer flavors mixed together.

Lately I've been hearing a lot about coconut water. It's low cal and supposedly really tasty. I often crave juice in the afternoon so I thought this would be a great alternative:



(pay no attention to the miscellaneous junk all over my desk in the background)

It was....just.... meh. Mom and I were laughing yesterday that sometimes things that are healthy taste too healthy. Sometimes I would rather they just taste like cheez its or diet coke. There were a couple other flavors of coconut water at the store so I'm not sure I've given up on this possibility just yet, but I'm not jazzed up about this new snack option either. I used to dump crystal light into my water in the afternoon (or have a diet soda- gah!) but now I stick to water. Sometimes something sweet around 3:00 is a lifesaver, so the search continues...

I hope you have a lovely, relaxing holiday weekend!