Lunch time walks

Most days at lunch time I walk the length of a trail near my office. It is 1.5 miles out and then 1.5 miles back. It is actually a really nice trail

It follows a stream

And crosses over it occasionally

It is shaded and cool and overall a great place to spend an hour every day.

Lettuce Wraps

So I have an abundance of leafy greens thanks to my CSA and if we are being perfectly honest, I am getting mighty tired of eating salads. Enter Thai Peanut Sauce.

Holy moly it was delicious. It was basically still a salad - but I wrapped all the goodies up in the lettuce to make lettuce wraps. Not quite PF Changs but I will definitely be making it again. Actually - the recipe makes quite a bit that I now have in my freezer so hopefully it thaws well!




Not sure why the picture is sideways. Blogger sometimes changes the orientation without asking. Takes too long to switch it around though!

Meal Plan, week of 5/10-5/16

This should be an interesting week since I'm not going to be around much and then I am gone AGAIN for another wedding this weekend. So - I have a feeling I am going to have a lot of produce to eat next week since I won't be around to eat it this week.

So here is what I am eating this week:

Breakfasts: Muffins, oatmeal, bananas

Lunch: Primarily leftovers and misc. produce from the CSA delivery

Dinner:
Monday: Lettuce wraps with Thai Peanut Sauce
Tuesday: Dinner at Candice's house
Wednesday: Dinner with new neighbors
Thursday: Dinner with a friend in town
Friday - Saturday: Out of town for wedding
Sunday: Either salad or a freezer meal, depending on how much produce I have left

This is going to be a busy week!!!

Strawberry Shortcake

What do you do with a bunch of strawberries? Make strawberry shortcake, of course!!!

Garden, week 2

My garden has been growing and I am so excited! Since last week, I've added 3 more pots - 2 with cucumbers and 1 with rosemary. The peppers are getting taller and the zucchini has basically gone out of control! I think I have lots of zucchini in my future! The basil has gotten significantly larger too. It smells AMAZING. I wish a picture could capture the smell of fresh basil.


There have been 2 new developments that are pretty exciting. My tomatoes are flowering which means it won't be too long before I have some baby tomatoes growing. And finally, I have 1 tiny carrot sprout! I put a ton of seeds in this pot so I am hoping to see a lot more soon!!

The sage, rosemary, and cucumbers haven't sprouted yet but I am hoping to see some little sprouts in the near future!!

CSA, week 2

We got our second CSA delivery this week and it is looking like a lot more salads are on my horizon. I just finished the spinach from last week and we got another huge bag of it plus another head of lettuce. We have lots of strawberries this week too! YUM! Finally - for something different we also had some broccoli. We were supposed to have asparagus but it looks like we got broccoli instead - oh well I love both.

Here is my half of the goodies for the week:

Here is our BEAUTIFUL head of lettuce before we chopped it in two.

Sooo - I need some spinach recipes ASAP!!!

May $$ Goals

May is going to be a VERY busy month. I've got events 4/5 weekends in May and plans throughout the weekdays as well.

My goals for this month:
Mini-eating from the pantry challenge. I have a bunch of food in the freezer and with my weekly CSA deliveries I should have plenty of food to eat this month without spending much money. Any money I have extra will go towards my emergency fund. So far it is day 4 and I have spent $0 on groceries. Hopefully I can keep my expenses at a minimum.

My major goal is to not spend too much extra money. I am going to be traveling for 3/4 of the next weekends and I am going to try really hard not to eat on the road or grab food at the airport. It is very tempting to grab something quick and easy but I think if I carry peanut butter sandwiches with me and some healthy snacks I will save money and feel better than I would have had I eaten the greasy 'road food.'

My second major goal is to pay off all my debt this month. I didn't have much and what I did have was related to moving expenses so hopefully by the end of May I will be debt free other than my mortgage :)