Sunday, April 8, 2012

Productive Saturday

We started our chill out weekend on Friday with making turkey burgers at home and getting all of the laundry done.

On Saturday, I went to the gym to Body Pump class. I also hit up Body Pump on Wed AM at 6:30. After going to Crossfit last week, we started talking about working out and getting older. Maybe it was my birthday that made me start thinking about it, but I was really thinking about how stay fit as you get older. After Crossfit, I decided to take a look at my gym and realized I can make more of an effort to get to the classes with an instructor that will provide a structured workout. Crossfit is a great work out but it is expensive and I don't know if I want to be in that type of hard core environment right now. Therefore, I really made an effort to go back to the gym & it feels great.

When I got home, I started cleaning and cleaning things out. I also made a yummy soup for lunch, Southwestern Chicken Soup. Super easy to make and delicious! Rather than buying tortilla chips, I just put a pita in the toaster oven until crisp then sliced it up.

















(Photo from Real Simple)

Here's the recipe:

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Empty the salsa into a large saucepan. Cook for 2 minutes over medium-high heat, then add the chicken, beans, broth, and cumin (if desired). Bring to a boil, lower heat to a simmer, and cook for 10 minutes, stirring occasionally.
  2. Top each bowl with a sprinkling of onions, a dollop of sour cream, and some tortilla chips (if desired). For a soupier dish, use 4 cups of broth. 
 After cleaning, cooking, and walking Evie, we lounged around. Here's Evie with a weird expresssion. She was licking her lips wanting to get a lick of my soup.

Remember awhile back, Erik and I made wine? Well, it was time to bottle it yesterday. 
 
Here is the wine ready to be bottled























We used some of Erik's beer tools to siphon the wine into the bottles. It was a quick & easy process!

Annnndddd, here's Erik with my sunglasses on and his yukelele. hah! The wine we made was Chardonnay but it tastes pretty sweet, more like a Reisling but it is good!

For dinner, I made another Real Simple recipe that was so good - Eggplant Parmesan Rolitini.

 (Photo from Real Simple)

Another easy recipe that was delicious & we had plenty of left overs, too!

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Heat oven to 450° F. Divide the oil between 2 rimmed baking sheets. Dividing evenly, arrange the eggplant slices in a single layer on the baking sheets and turn to coat in the oil; season with ½ teaspoon salt and ¼ teaspoon pepper.
  2. Bake the eggplant, rotating the baking sheets halfway through, until soft and beginning to brown, 12 to 15 minutes; let cool. Reduce heat to 400° F.
  3. Meanwhile, in the bottom of a 9-by-13-inch or some other 3-quart baking dish, spread ½ cup of the marinara sauce. In a large bowl, whisk together the eggs, ricotta, oregano, 1 cup of the mozzarella, and ¼ teaspoon each salt and pepper.
  4. Place about 3 tablespoons of the ricotta mixture on one end of a slice of eggplant, roll it up, and transfer it to the prepared baking dish. Repeat with the remaining eggplant slices and ricotta mixture.
  5. Top the eggplant rolls with the remaining cup of marinara sauce and the remaining cup of mozzarella. Sprinkle with the Parmesan.
  6. Bake until the cheese has melted and the sauce is bubbling, 20 to 25 minutes. Let cool for 5 minutes before serving.
We also started finally watching Mad Men. We tried to watch it a few months ago and didn't really get into but we are trying again. I think that the show moves kind of slow and is dialogue heavy. Also, the main characters of this show are cigarettes and liquor. It is interesting to see how the industry was years ago so we're going to stick with it and see how Season 1 is. 













No comments: