When life hands you a virus:

Take a NAP. Or four. I think I've slept more in the past week than any week in my entire life.

I didn't exercise. I worked quite a few half-days (which always ended with me crawling into my bed at about 2:30pm thinking I should've stayed home), and I took a day off to feel better. There wasn't a ton of food for a while there. Unless juice, popcicles, soda, water, and drugs count as food. Here's the montage of those three days of my life:

Fruit & Protein smoothies

Mashed potatoes. The day the fiance came home to find out that I hadn't eaten anything except juice and popsicles all day, he made me a batch of these. My neck glands were so swollen that I couldn't bear the idea of chewing!






I'm proud to say I've beaten that virus with all my might and am back to my regularly scheduled programming. With that, here's a peek at what I've been doing and eating.

New type of smoothie, inspired by the fiance's PB milkshake.

PB&Greens Smoothie

1 banana

2 c fresh spinach

1 tbsp PB or any nut butter

1/4 scoop protein powder
1 c almond milk
1 heaping Tbsp Cocoa powder
water to blend

I admit it's a truly atrocious color, but it tasted good.

Saturday I was feeling a little better and I picked up some treats to share before we went to the farmer's market. 

That's a locally made cinnamon roll, blueberry scone, and some pomegranite chobani yogurt and peaches. I ate 1/2 the scone, a bite of the roll, and all the fruit&yogurt. 

Then we went to the farmer's market: 

I had some peppers and tomatoes from my Dad's garden to use up, but I had reached my energy limit for the day (Yes, at noon. I told you I was sick!) So I sat at the kitchen table and instructed the fiance in the making of gazpacho. 

He made this: 

Turn into...

And it was eaten in a variety of ways all week

With bread. 

And some Polenta Pizza. Which kind of broke down into Pizza Polenta Casserole.

What is Polenta Pizza? Well, it's based on Emily's creation. And then I had a conversation with her via the internet about whether it could be made into a thin crust - almost crispy, you know? So I tried it. 

I used her recipe, added 1/3 c of grated hard cheese (like parmesan) to the polenta, and prebaked for 15 minutes. While it was prebaking, I caramelized (heh!) some onions, peppers, and eggplant. I covered the 'crust' with the veggies and topped with mozzarella and parmesan cheese. I baked it 30 more minutes. It was SO good, even if the middle was a little soggy. Next time, prebake longer. Or just decide that a soft polenta casserole is what you want. 

THIS BROADCAST WAS DISRUPTED DUE TO ENORMOUS THUNDERSTORMS ROLLING THROUGH.

Almost 24 hours later, I'm completing the post. Just so you know. 

Ok, so I was talking about delicious things...

I think I told you about my 5 lb box of catfish. It reappeared, broiled with lemon and olive oil, broccoli, and potatoes. It's so good...my kind of meal. I need to get back to eating like this.

While the fiance was making gazpacho, I had him make some pesto from our overflowing basil plants. He made a good size tub, and we used it to stuff some chicken breasts and we also tossed some pasta in it for another amazing dinner. Served with cheesy cauliflower (the key to making it lower calorie is really nutritional yeast! Then you use only 1/3-1/2c of shredded cheese per WHOLE HEAD of cauliflower. Plus greens. We love greens...in fact, we love them so much, we had them two dinners in a row.

BBQ beef short ribs. Remember the local grass-fed beef guy from the farmer's market? Here's his card if you want to get ahold of him. I fast-braised (ummm, pressure cooked...) some beef ribs in spices. Then tossed and finished it in BBQ sauce. There are some greens again...and a tasty corn muffin. I also ate two corn on the cob since it's corn season in Iowa. I eat mine plain or with lime and chili powder. As much as I love butter, I don't like it on corn. Seems slimy.

And some uncooked greens - a beautiful salad, but my picture is AWFUL. I'm sorry about that! It's spring greens and spinach topped with onions, roasted red pepper, and bleu cheese. Finally, I reduced some balsamic vinaigrette and cooked some fig halves in it. So good and so special for a work lunch. My only regret was that I ate it in tupperware...and not on a pretty plate.

Well, this week is flying by, so I'm going to get going. Hopefully next time I check in, I'll be able to give you some awesome science news OR some more interesting eats. Any preferences?

Eating Requires Activity: Like I said, I was super sick, but Monday was 20 min elliptical/2.5 mile run. Tuesday was a 1500m swim. I just got back from weight lifting class, but it's so beautiful out I'm thinking a run would be awesome.