My day off

I have to admit something.  I am horrible at relaxing.  No, seriously – I’m really bad at it.  I don’t take off days to relax.  I take them off to get things done I would never get done if I didn’t have a whole day free to do it.  Some of that free time is usually spent cooking and that for me is relaxing.  But instead of cooking one thing, I try to cram in as much as possible, making tons of dishes, which kind of takes the relaxing part out of cooking.

I took yesterday off to get some wedding stuff in order and to recuperate from the half day we spent driving back from Brad’s parents.

I was up early at 6:30 to have the same breakfast I had last Friday.  My last two flax waffles with 1/2 Tbsp. of AB + syrup, an egg white fluff, and watermelon.  Sorry for the darkness, the natural light was working for me, even though I took this photo on the floor in front of our huge windows.

The rest of the morning I spent applying for jobs.  My goal was to apply for at least three, but I ended up applying for five.  I’m a little discouraged about the job situation.  I know I should be happy to have a job while so many other do not.  I just never thought it would take this long to find another one and I’m very much looking forward to the day when I don’t spend 2 1/2 hours commuting each day.

Around 11:30 I set out to run and grabbed a Kind bar since my belly was starting to speak to me.  I had planned to run from uptown to one of the adjoining neighborhoods at 8 am, but better late than never right?  I thought I would explore a new greenway about 15 minutes away.  It isn’t actually new, just new to me.  It was nice to have a change of scenery.  My runs from uptown get a little monotonous sometimes between waiting at lights and avoiding less than attentive drives.  It was nice to just run and not worry about running into anything or stopping.

Unfortunately, I didn’t pay much attention to the fact that I disregarded several landmarks and when I backtracked to return to my car, I got a little mixed up.  Thankfully, a biker pointed me back in the correct direction.  I ran about 5.13 miles, but since I only turned my Garmin on when I ran, I probably went a little farther walking back to my car.

I had a very productive time at the farmer’s market where I totally wracked up on veggies and a little fruit.  I bought a beet of which I’m a little scared.  I’m thinking about making some juice but wondering if I’m going to like it.  Any suggestions for a juicing newbie?

After a trip to TJ’s and Marshall’s I spent the rest of the afternoon baking, after a quick smoothie in a bowl lunch plus some crackers and humus.

First up was applesauce

I washed all of the apples Brad’s mom sent home with us.

Then, I used our handy dandy apple corer.  I have to admit, I never knew I would appreciate this little gadget so much, but it made coring all these apples easy as pie.

Just push and you cut the core out and slice the apple in one easy step.  I found that this didn’t completely cut the core away from the pieces.  So, I pushed it back through and then pulled the pieces off, which was pretty easy.

Next, I boiled and boiled these apples in a pot filled about 2/3 the way with water (added after top of the apples).  I didn’t really mind the time, because I just wanted the apples to be mush.  I then drained the water and put the apples in the Vitamix.

Do not ever fill the Vitamix almost completely full.  Applesauce went everywhere!  Our entire collection of knives and the knife block needed cleaning anyway, I guess.

I think I’m going to try to freeze the applesauce in 1/2 cup servings for baking purposes by the end of the week.  Up next, using the applesauce to bake!

Blueberry Oaty Spelt Muffins

Mix dry ingredients:

1 1/2 cups rolled oats

1/2 cup spelt flour

1/2 tsp. salt

1 Tbsp. baking powder

1/2 tsp. baking soda

Mix together the wet ingredients in a separate bowl:

1 cup buttermilk (I substituted 1 cup skim milk + 1 Tbsp. lemon juice)

2 Tbsp. butter

1/4 cup agave syrup

2 Tbsp. molasses

1/2 cup unsweetened applesauce

Mix wet and dry ingredients together, then add 1 1/2 cups blueberries.

Grease muffin tin and pour until each tin is almost completely full (these muffins will not rise much) Bake at 350 degrees F for 35 minutes.

These little guys were pretty tasty, but the recipe really needs tweaking.  The batter was too liquid-y and I really should have added more flour.

Plus, I really struggled trying to get these muffins out of the muffin tin in one piece.  But that wasn’t their fault, it was the fault of the Pam Olive Oil spray I used (don’t worry, you can’t actually taste any olive oil flavor).  I’m not sure if the problem is this variety of Pam non-stick spray, or something is wrong with the nozzle on the can, but it doesn’t spray out evenly, so you get half the muffin sticking to the pan.

I followed all this baking up with 30 day shred level 3!!! I’m really proud of myself for getting through this.  I’ve heard it’s super hard, but I did it.  I’ve gotten a lot stronger doing the 30 day shred, which I think is now almost past the 30 day mark.  However, I didn’t do a bit of weightlifting over the July 4th weekend.  For the next month before the wedding I’m going to concentrate on getting my weekly running mileage up and try to get in at least 2-3 sessions with Jillian a week.

The muffins ended up being the focal point of my dinner (crumbled muffin + Greek yogurt + sunflower seed butter). Due to an extremely late lunch and tasting all the stuff I made during the afternoon, I wasn’t very hungry.  Don’t worry, I took good care of Brad and made him a delicious meal, but that will have to wait until later to recap, plus, another little treat I will share soon.

Did I mention I chopped up almost all of my farmer’s market veggies for lunches this week?  I got this idea from Brad’s mom who had chopped up a bunch of veggies for salads, which made salad making so much easier at lunch time.

I chopped carrots, celery, red peppers, parsley, and cilantro.  I also put half of the celery in water (in the plastic ware in the top left corner), which is a trick my grandmother taught me to keep the celery fresh.  I think this will make my almost daily salads stress free!

I made a list of things to do this morning and I’m pretty sure half of them didn’t get done.  I always have high expectations for my days off, maybe too high (?).  But at least I have a good handle on the next few days ahead.  It’s going to be another weekend out of town for us this upcoming weekend, so at least the house is in order and the grocery shopping is done.

Do you have trouble relaxing or can you totally let go during your free time?