Intervals

I had one of those lazy Sunday evenings filled with Dexter, comfort food and pumpkin pie ice cream.  All enjoyed in my warm bed 🙂

I can’t remember the last time I just chilled out on a Sunday without homework stress lurking in my mind.  It was quite blissful.

As was Monday’s breakfast.

Hello, VOOs (vegan overnight oats).  I sure did miss you.

In the mix:

• 1/3 cup rolled oats
• 2/3 cup almond milk
• 1T ground flax
• splash of vanilla
• 1/2t pumpkin pie spice
• 1/3 cup pumpkin puree
• 1t maple syrup

Mix.Mix.Mix.

Topped with:

• dried cranberries
• 1t maple syrup
• sprinkle of cocoa nibs
• Justin’s Chocolate Hazlenut Butter (1t butter + 1/2t almond milk microwaved for 15 seconds)

The hazlenut did not drizzle like I’d hoped but I’m enjoying the spotted effect just as much.

Peppermint tea on the side.

By the way, I’ve managed to lose two pairs of gloves over the weekend.  I’m out of control.

Lucky for me I have a 3rd pair so my hands weren’t freezing when I walked to the grocery for a couple of soup related ingredients.

With the soup simmering away (don’t worry, I’ll get to the soup later) I got on down to the work out room for a 40 minute interval workout on the eliptical.  And speaking of interval workouts I also got in a great treadmill version on Sunday.  Alternated between interval 4, speed 5.5 and interval 2, speed 6 (or 6.5) every quarter mile.  Every mile I got water and did 2 30-second planks.  I now have floor burn on my forearms…

After my workout I was hungry so I cooked up 1/4 cup quinoa to eat with Sunday night’s leftovers.

We used the Orange Pan-Glazed Tempeh recipe from 101 Cookbooks and it rocked!

Modifications (based on what we had on hand):

• store bought orange juice instead of freshly squeezed
• nixed the ginger
• soy sauce instead of tamari
• white rice vinegar instead of mirin
• garlic powder instead of cloves (because I’m lazzzy)
• 8 oz. of tempeh instead of 10 oz.
• nixed the cilantro and lime

Quinoa and steamed broccoli rounded out the dish.

We used the extra glaze to drizzle over the quinoa and broccoli but I used some soy sauce with the leftovers since there was no more glaze.

Upon finishing lunch = stuffed!  Two hours later = starving again!  It’s a good thing I brought a snack to work.

Looking forward to this Black Bean Soup from Cooking Light.

I used canned black beans instead of dried and doubled the recipe.  I just read a review and one person said they also used canned beans so they omitted the water.  Uh oh, maybe I should have done that.  Hope it doesn’t taste like bean-y water!