Let's talk about...

Food! Everyone's favorite topic!
I am definitely on a get healthy kick, exercising daily and all of that.  Luckily for me I already eat pretty healthily, you can ask Ben, I won't eat a meal unless it has something green... naturally green. On top of that I could basically eat just fruit and veggies for the rest of my life and be a-okay. Friends at work back home told me I was a rabbit.

I have found that it isn't as easy to eat healthy when you're living on your own.  In the 'Boro Ben and I would cook dinner together, which splits the work up.  Here it's all up to me. While it's not such a pain, after a day of dealing with tiny people, okay some of mine are actually bigger than me but whatever, I would just rather eat a bowl of cereal than deal with cooking something.  So I have decided to add crazy meal planner to my repertoire along with crazy cat lady.

 I have decided to start planning out my meals weekly and preparing them on Sunday. Well somewhat preparing them, I don't plan on preparing a weeks worth of salads and letting them get all wilted! I'm more so talking about pre-portioning my snacks for the week and cutting up all of my veggies and fruits so they are set to go.  

I've been learning a little bit from all of you bloggers out there just how to do this. I'm pretty excited about this new venture and I'm hoping it will help me to keep myself from eating a whole bag of pretzels, a healthier snack but not so good when you stuff your face with them.

I hope you'll be along for the ride as I try to figure out just how to cook all by myself... well until May when Ben get's here and I hand over the work! Just kidding, a little bit, well not really.

Miles has even been enjoying the green smoothie I've been putting together!

How do you make sure you're eating healthy?

- Liz

A week of firsts

So, as the actual beginning of student teaching draws closer, my Pinterest boards have been filling up with sandwichless lunch ideas.  Since I'm working all this week through lunch time, I figured it would be a great time to test out some new lunch recipes.  My next few blog posts are going to be centered around my new lunch recipes and whether or not I think they would actually be good for taking to school!

I decided I would start off with some easy snack ideas.  My first recipe to conquer was baked apple chips.

Ingredients:
4 fresh apples, sliced to about a 1/4 inch thick
Parchment paper
A mixture of sugar and cinnamon

Directions:
So, first things first, you need to slice the apples pretty thin.  If you have a mandoline, this is the perfect time to break it out! While you're slicing, let your oven preheat to 225.

How cute is my new paring knife???

Lay out your parchment paper on a a few baking sheets - I used three total.  Lay the apple slices down.  Do not let them overlap!

Sprinkle the cinnamon sugar mixture on top of each slice.

Bake in the oven for one hour.  Take the slices out, and flip them over.  Again sprinkle some cinnamon sugar on them.  They should be starting to curl at the edges.  Bake for one more hour.

Last step is to let them cool, and then dig in!

My rating:
I would give these apple chips a 4/5.  They are super delicious, but I wish they took a little bit less time and got a bit crispier.  I think next time, I may turn the heat up just a little bit, to see if that might make them crispier.  I really enjoy the flavor and the fact that they're pretty healthy for you.  These are definitely a snack I would take to school, and we have plans to make some every week.

My next adventure is with homemade potato chips!


What snacks do you take to school or work?

- Lizzie

ready, set, get healthy!

Mill Creek Park

So Ben and I have been doing a really good job at keeping up with running and staying active daily. Ben has been doing Insanity.  I've tried it before, but it's just a bit too insane for my taste, so I have moved on to iPhone apps and this awesome website I have discovered - SparkPeople. It's an awesome website that allows you to track your food and exercise.  That's great and all, but the best part is that you can get meal plans and view recipes from the site.  This morning we're trying out a new breakfast recipe - applesauce oatmeal muffins.  We've actually already gone running this morning too - 1.25 miles.  We head up to the local park - Mill Creek as often as we can.  It's a bit disappointing because it's not incredibly close, but the scenery completely makes up for the drive.  If we can't run at the park, we normally head out from my apartment and run up to the college fitness center, there's a track around the soccer and baseball fields, but it just isn't very exciting and honestly pretty boring.   If we can keep this up, I think we'll be in better shape in no time.  We decided last night that from here on out we will only be trying recipes from SparkPeople, because they provide us with healthy choices and show us the nutritional facts on each meal.  The recipes all look delicious too and we can't wait to try out a lot of them... especially the slow cooker meals!

Other than that, not much has been happening in my world.  Finished the first week of school without much difficulty.  It's going to be a tough semester, but I know I can do it with a bit of effort.  Speaking of effort this dreary Sunday is going to be dedicated to homework, so the rest of the week will hopefully be a breeze.

Updates on our muffins later! If they're as delicious as they sound I'll post the recipe.