Lauren Loves Good Food

Swimming in Soup

October 12, 2010

Sunday night dinner is crucial because I need the leftovers for Monday’s lunch. That’s why when I found a recipe for lentil-tomato soup that served 11 I opted not to cut the recipe in half. Leftovers = Wednesday dinners and I need all the help I can get.

Bree’s Lentil-Tomato Soup (recipe from here)

So thick and filling!! My first time cooking with lentils was a success.

While the soup was simmering away I was baking away my school stress with a little dessert for Joey and I.

I had all the ingredients for Pumpkin Pie Brownie Cupcakes so it was a no brainer.

I halved the recipe. I hate having a ton of cupcakes around because I end up having to single-handedly finish them off. I know that sounds like a reward but I simply can’t eat a full cake or an entire batch of cupcakes before they get old. 5 cupcakes sounded like the perfect amount 🙂

The recipe was super simple and fun because the brownie layer started to peek through the pumpkin layer. It was very Halloween looking. See what I mean?

There’s only 3 because we couldn’t wait for daylight before eating one of these! I also had a spoonful of homemade oreo ice cream that Joey brought back from his family birthday celebration. His Aunt Cathy makes it herself and it’s CRAZY good. Remind me to delve into the world of homemade ice cream at some point in my life.

Joey finished the ice cream off after work. That brat! At least he let me photograph it first.

He was in charge of ice cream consumption and dinner. He made Kath’s Confetti Shrimp and Grits, which we’ve made before so we knew it was good.

It wasn’t as good as last time 😦 I don’t blame Joey though. I blame the polenta that refused to thicken and the frozen bell peppers.

Oh well. C’est la vie.

Did I mention I picked up a new granola? Orange cranberry, that went on my Monday VOOs. Plus some chai flavored almonds generously donated by the little sister.

Yummmmmm

By the way, I survived my paper, midterm and presentation and now I’m finishing one last paper and heading out to CB and Potts for burgers, beer and bingo. Minus the burgers 😛

How do you celebrate your accomplishments?

Cinderella

October 11, 2010

tags: Honey, Oats, Peanut Butter, Tomatoes

Except I’m not the princess turning into a maid at midnight I’m the one turning into a pumpkin. The other day Angela admitted to Googling “Is it possible to eat too much pumpkin?” I wish she had given the answer because if it is possible I’m probably pretty close to doing it…

But we’ll get to that in a minute. I’m glad you all approved of my picture-only-post. But it meant having to skip over the 11-mile run Joey and I went on yesterday. The last long run before our half-marathon next Sunday!!

It went really well and at one point I lost count of how many miles we’d done and Joey informed me we were already on our 6th mile! The time and distance seemed to be flying by. It flew a lot less quickly during the last 3 miles, especially the last huge hill running straight into the wind. Yuck 😦

We finished in 1:50:14 which is 14 seconds over our ideal race pace but that wind was killer so I’m okay with that time. I came home and sprawled on the floor for about 15 minutes and proceeded to feel wiped out for the rest of the day. How do you marathoners do multiple 20 mile training runs???

In case you were wondering, that orange goo filled ravioli was yesterday’s lunch and it was leftover pumpkin and butternut squash ravioli from Carrabba’s. OH.MY.GOSH.SO.GOOD.

Let me refresh your memory

It was like pumpkin pie stuffed inside a noodle shell. No, I’m not already planning on going there again this coming weekend…

Okay, maybe I am.

Mom invited us over for a dinner that I could not resist, plus a brand new kitchen to help cook in.

I cut up a ton of veggies to roast.

Beets, zucchini, yellow squash, red & orange bell pepper, garlic, red onion

Green beans got their own bowl

All the veggies were coated in olive oil and salt and roasted on 400* for ~35 minutes.

Is there anything better than a big plate of veggies? Beanie and I reflected on the days when we used to “hate” veggies. How naive we were.

While I was doing the easy chopping, my mom was mixing up a big bowl of shrimp, tomato, avocado, lime juice, garlic, and cilantro for tacos!

Handmade corn tortillas? Yes please.

This dinner hit the spot! We finished out the evening at home with some friends and SNL. The ONLY good thing about this episode was Bruno Mars (amazing!). Remember when SNL used to be funny? Not the case these days.

My Sunday consisted of more running in the wind, blehhh and paper writing/editing, blehhh x2. Oh and me nearly OD-ing on pumpkin. But I’m not complaining.

It’s chilly in Colorado so hot oats and hot tea were on the menu.

This was a mix of homemade Scottish oats and rolled oats (1/4 cup each) + 3/4 cup water + 1/3 cup vanilla almond milk. Then in went 1/3 cup pumpkin and on went a tablespoon of pumpkin butter + a piece of crumbled pumpkin bread. If I’d had some pumpkin pie I probably would have thrown that on top too, but I didn’t so I went with homemade peanut butter.