Sweet Potatoes

roasted root vegetable wheatberry salad.

June 8, 2011 by Hillary 5 Comments

Hey hey. Hope you had a lovely Wednesday!

I stumbled upon a small farmers’ market today outside of Trader Joe’s, so naturally, I shopped around the local vendors before doing my weekly round-up at TJ’s. I was so happy to see that the local CSA farm, Grub, had golden beets. I snatched the last bunch to make the KERF Know Your Roots Salad – I heart beets! I also picked up a beautiful basket of strawberries and a few zucchini. Welcome, summer produce!

After soaking up some sun poolside, I decided to tackle the recipe in the peak of the afternoon heat; I wanted dinner to be ready and photographable a.s.a.p. after my evening workout at the WREC.

I cooked the wheatberries, roasted the veggies, thoroughly washed and dried the greens, and made the dressing… all in my bikini ;) It was a crazy idea, but entirely worth it!

I couldn’t wait to get home after my incredibly challenging workout (see below) to a 90%-prepped, wholesome meal that was ready in under 10 minutes.

I caught the last sight of daylight just in time for a photo shoot.

Roasted Root Vegetable Wheatberry Salad

recipe slightly modified from KERF

5 small golden beets + greens
2 medium sweet potatoes
1 T + 1 tsp. olive oil
1 tsp. cinnamon
1 c. dry wheatberries
1 T maple syrup
2 T apple cider vinegar
1 tsp. dijon mustard
2 cloves garlic
sea salt + black pepper
2 T raw sunflower seeds
chevre

Cut greens off beets – thoroughly wash and dry.
Peal beets and potatoes. Chop into in bite-sized pieces. Toss with 1 T olive oil and cinnamon. Roast @ 400F for ~45 minutes, stirring occasionally.
Combine wheatberries with 2 cups water. Bring to a boil and let simmer for 45-60 minutes until tender.
Sauté beet greens in 1 tsp olive oil and sprinkle of salt.
Combine beets, sweet potato, wheatberries, greens and sunflower seeds in a bowl.
Combine maple syrup, vinegar, mustard, garlic, salt and pepper in a jar. Shake to combine.
Pour over salad and toss gently. Garnish with chevre. Serve warm or cold.

Serves 4.

Oh, boy – a winner of a dinner indeed! I savored every chewy, sweet, tangy, creamy, nutritious bite. The beet greens were a bit tough (you could substitute any other dark, leafy green), but the flavor of the roasted veggies and apple cider vinaigrette had all of my attention.

How do you like to eat wheatberries?

Wednesday’s Workout

4 min. jump-rope
60-minute cycle class

It was ridiculous! Think Bikram heat + vigorous spinning. My roommate and I can’t stop talking about how intense it was. After the final two songs, I felt like I had just sprinted across the finish line of a race – whew!

1 mi. indoor track run
100 walking lunges
10 minutes abs + arms

Stay cool, stay healthy. See ya tomorrow!

Hillary

Can’t Complain

June 17, 2010 by Hillary 14 Comments

There aren’t too many things I can complain about right now. Well, maybe the wind. I’m not a fan of windy weather. I suppose it’s another excuse to wear my cozy Uggs in the middle of June though. Despite the less than ideal climate, home life is pretty plush; the eats are particularly superb.

Waffle Wednesday

Van’s Organic – wahoo! – Flax Waffles

Half 1: Dad’s Homemade 0% Yogurt, S + B Berries, Organic Agave

Half 2: Flax P.nut Buttah + 1/2 Organic Banana

The following meal might be one of my very favorite dishes… ever! That’s huge, folks. I made this once last summer, and I’ve been anxiously awaiting peach season ever since.

Summer Salmon with Apricot Peach Salsa

[original recipe @ In Praise of Leftovers]

Life is tough.

Want to make the most-delicious tasting Omega 3’s?

Salsa:

Chop 2 small ripe peaches and 3-4 ripe apricots and place in a small mixing bowl. Add ~1/2 c. chopped onion, 1/3 c. chiffonade of fresh basil, and 1/2 – 1 whole [red or green] jalapeno pepper – finely chopped. Sprinkle with a couple teaspoons of sugar, a pinch of salt, and drizzle of olive oil.

Salmon:

Rinse and pat dry a filet of wild salmon. Brush meat with olive oil and place in a glass baking dish. In a small bowl, combine a few tablespoons of light brown sugar, salt and a pinch each of oregano and thyme. Rub onto oiled filet. Bake @ 450* until fish is opaque, approx. 12 minutes [depending on thickness].

Meanwhile, cook a pot of quinoa [or brown rice] for the whole grain base. Then assemble your summery salmon + salsa and enjoy by ~~candlelight~~ sunset.

Speaking of summer and salsa… College Lifestyles Post #3: CLassy Sassy Summer Salsas.

* * *

Other good things:

Lunch at Renata’s Creperie with Miss Molly.

032

Buckwheat Crepe + Apple [subbed for chicken], Pear, Jack & Chevre Cheese, Onion, Chiffonade of Fresh Basil, Honey + Crème Fraiche

Jitter Bean daily.

I love lattes & they love me.

Sweet Tater Fries + Homegrown Arugula Salads.

Enough said.

Much-needed haircuts.

Hair is a serious matter.

Not only do I strive to keep my insides at their healthiest, but I also believe maintaining your outer ~~beauty~~ health is important too. I like to give my mane a healthy trim every 3-4 months. How important is skin/hair care to you? How often do you get your hairs trimmed?

Sweet Tater + Black Bean Balls + 3 hours of So You Think You Can Dance… I’m off!

XOXO,

Hillary

Sweet [Sweaty] Summertime

June 7, 2010 by Hillary 17 Comments

Thank you for all of the encouraging comments about my desire for direction in my life and with my blog. I thought about what ya’ll had to say; since blogging is still a young hobby in my life, I feel like all I can do at the moment is keep putting one ~~foot~~ post in front of the other. Good things come with persistence, practice, and patience…

So… what have I been eating lately?

Steel Cut Oats

Apple Raisin Walnut Honey

Banana Brown Sugar Coconut Pecan

Do you see why I loveee mornings so so much? I go to bed dreaming about diving into another bowl of creamy, chewy, healthy steel cut oats… so maybe it’s a tad weird, but that’s how foodies roll, right?

Sweet Potatoes

The other night when I realized I had all four of the ingredients to make Caitlin’s Sweet Tater + Black Beans Balls, I got super excited. They were ridiculously easy to prepare, and ridiculously delicious to eat.

Sweet Tater + Black Bean Balls

1/2 sweet potato, mashed
1/2 c. black beans, rinsed + drained
3 T organic medium-heat salsa
ground flax

To cook the potato, pierce with a fork and then microwave for appox. 6 minutes until tender. Meanwhile, preheat the oven to 350*. Combine the mashed potato, black beans, and salsa in a small bowl. Roll into balls [should make between 6-8]. Spread the flax onto a flat surface and roll each ball in the seeds, to coat. Place on a greased baking sheet + let cook for about 20-30 minutes, depending on size. Enjoy with sour cream or Greek yogurt – yum!

Salads

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After the sweatiest 1-hour spin class tonight + 1/2-mile jog, I came home stoked for sweet taters: round 2. I’ve made renditions of this salad quite a few times before, substituting the potatoes for squash, and either way, it’s quite the taste bud pleaser.

To make: Peel 1 large sweet tater + chop into bite-sized pieces. Place in a small bowl, drizzle with real maple syrup, ground flax, cinnamon + coarse sea salt. Mix to coat. Spray baking sheet with chlorofluorocarbon free canola [or olive] oil and bake in a preheated 350* for appox. 30 minutes. Then place your hot taters atop a hefty portion of organic spinach, creamy avocado, chevre, and red onion. Finish it off with a drizzle of olive oil + balsamic and fresh black pepper.

* * *

So… what have I been doing lately? Well, let’s see… soakin’ up the sun + sweating a ton!

I may be a California girl, but that does not mean I’m necessarily a summer/sun lovin’ girl. Perhaps a shock to some, but my body was raised in a climate that rarely exceeds 60* F, where rain is the norm most of the year, blue sky is received with a celebration, and you wear your winter coat to the windy beach.

circa 2007

That’s to say, I don’t know what to do with myself when I wake up in the morning to an apartment that’s a whopping 82*! So far I’ve figured out to stock my fridge with a huge pitcher of ice-cold green tea… and forget about doing laundry; there’s no way I’m putting on any real clothes – swim suit + shorts is all I need.

Hope your week is off to a spectacular start!

With much appreciation,

The Nutrition Nut

Humboldt County Readers: If ya’ll would like anything from the beloved Trader Joe’s, let me know by tomorrow night. I’d be happy to pick up your favorite product for you : )

Every Day is Earth Day

April 23, 2010 by Hillary 20 Comments

All day yesterday I had a million ideas swimming around in my head about what I wanted to write about in honor of Earth Day…but as you may have noticed, I never got around to getting those thoughts out to the world wide web. Between a dead loner phone and a busy schedule, the Internet and I were running different routes yesterday.

Anyway, did you all celebrate Earth Day by being “green”? I try my best to be friendly to Mother Earth every day. Here are a few ways that I reduce my footprint:

Ride the bus to and from campus.
Recycle. Recycle. Recycle.
Wash and reuse plastic food bags.
Bring reusable bags to the grocery store.
& rarely ever use produce bags.
Use a stainless steel H2o bottle.
Use cold water only for laundry.
Buy recycled paper products.
Buy locally grown products if available.

How do you GO GREEN?

Of course yesterday’s efforts wouldn’t be complete without making a Green Monster. I went all out and added more green to the mix by adding avocado – yes, you heard me right…avocado in my smoothie. Ashley’s smoothies always entice me by their thick, glossy appearance – I had to give it a try.

1 cup baby spinach, 1/4 avocado, 1/2 cup frozen very cherry berry blend, 1/2 cup unsweetened vanilla almond milk

The verdict: it tasted healthy…obviously. Even though it may look like a chocolate shake, it was far from it! Seriously…how more pure can you get?

I can hardly recollect what else I consumed yesterday, but I do remember going to the gym for a 1-hour spin class + 1 mi. run + a bit of conditioning. Oh, and I carpooled to the gym : )

* * *

Today I woke up excited to know that I had finally made it to Friday – it was an emotionally stressful week to say the least. After a green lunch [veggie burger + edamame hummus + avocado], I decided it was necessary to celebrate Cookie Friday. So…I pulled out a few frozen cookie dough balls I stuck in the freezer from the previous celebration and within minutes, I had gooey, warm chocolate chip cookies.

I had another thing to celebrate today:

I am officially a participant of the Nike Women’s [1/2] Marathon 2010…and Courtney is too – hip hip hooray!

Naturally, I celebrated by going for a 32-minute run around the neighborhood in the beautiful, late-afternoon sun. Nothing else is a better cure for letting go of a rough week.

Court and I are ecstatic! I think this girlie weekend will be epic.

Dinner

Ya’ll seriously need to copy Caitlin on this. It is what you see – a ‘baked’ sweet tater & vegetarian baked beans – and it’s “epic” [as she would say]. It may be a little starch/sugar heavy, but just focus on all the incredible nutrients on my plate.

I may or may not have just polished off my fresh Friday cookies sitting here writing away; I’m not too worried about it though : )

Can I bicker for just 1 second?

Weekend Weather Forecast: 80* sunshine
Hillary’s Schedule: O. Chem Exam #4 Monday @ 10:00am

I’m going to figure out a way to soak up the sun somehow. I am going to find a way…

Happy Weekend!

Hillary

Cookie Crumbs & Carrying On

April 16, 2010 by Hillary 7 Comments

Hellooo and hooray for the weekend! I hope ya’ll have something exciting and/or enjoyable planned. Whatever you do, don’t forget to enter my Greek GIVEAWAY by Sunday @ 12:00pm. You’ve got three chances to win! …and speaking of Greek, I had my free honey Oikos for breakfast today with the last of my homemade granola and half of a crunchy pear. This was too sweet for my a.m. taste buds. It seems as though most of you prefer Plain Jane style when in comes to Greek, too.

After class this afternoon, I attempted to run outside. Key word: afternoon. I should have known…exercise in the middle of day is rarely a success for me. I gave it another shot though, and ran for 20 minutes around campus and our track until I finally listened to the throbbing pain in my upper back and gave in to walking. I added another 10 minutes to my watch as I made my way back to the gym where I did a thorough stretch. My legs are still unusually sore from Tuesday – what the heck! Hello, off week. You’re excused to leave now.

Lunch was an exact repeat of Wednesday’s eats, because 1) today was a lazy day, and 2) why wouldn’t I want a very berry Green Monster & jam-cheddar sandwich again?

Then I turned on Food Network – which I haven’t watched in ages! – while I winded down from the week with cookie baking. I think many of you would agree that the kitchen can often be a place to destress [ahem, Allie & Jenna]. So, I got to making Pioneer Woman’s “Good Ol’ Basic Chocolate Chip Cookies”. [Before you read on, go check out this amazing blog!]

I made a couple tweaks to the original recipe:

1 cup real butter

1 cup brown sugar, firmly packed

1/2 cup granulated sugar

2 eggs

2 tsp. pure vanilla

1 1/4 cup all-purpose flour & 1 cup + 2 T whole wheat flour

1 tsp. instant coffee granules

1/2 T baking powder

1/2 T salt

2 T ground flax

~2/3 bag Guittard semisweet chocolate chips

Note to self: Do not make cookies while home alone, and there isn’t anyone with whom to share 3 dozen cookies. I ended up eating more cookies than I deserved, but then I thought about Allie and Tina who have admitted to eating 4 1/2 granola bars or half a dozen cookies themselves; then I didn’t feel so bad. How do you handle food guilt?

***

I was surprised that I never got hungry for dinner, but when 8 o’clock rolled around I finally decided to eat something. I threw together a salad [basically a repeat from last night plus a bit a creamy chevre]. I made a smart choice in eating dinner [like I would miss a meal!] because it was nothing short of scrumptious!

I have a quiet, yet BUSY weekend planned. I’m hoping to tackle a few lingering items on my to-do list, fit in a couple worthwhile workouts, and pick up the slack with my studies.

“See you” soon!

Hillary

Everything Edible + Greek GIVEAWAY

April 15, 2010 by Hillary 55 Comments

Hello dearest readers. So close to Friday, aren’t we? I can almost taste it. Speaking of taste, let me share with you everything edible about my Thursday. I started my day with a bowl of pear-almond oatmeal — nothing you haven’t seen me eat before. I think I’m due for some new oatmeal combos [hint hint.]

1 cup water

1/2 cup rolled oats

1/2 d’anjou pear

1/2 T ground flax + cinnamon

almonds + agave

I had the house to myself again this a.m., so that meant blasting T.Swift and registering for Fall classes. I know…already? That’s college for you – ya never stop. Finally, after 6 semesters of registering for classes, it’s starting to get easier. I was able to get all the classes I needed; but, unfortunately, my schedule is all over the place. There’s always some bad with the good. Here’s what will be on my academic plate for Semester #7 [16 units in all].

Human Physiology + lab
Science of Food + lab
Human Nutrition
Foodservice Administration
Consumer Health [online]

Before catching the bus, I threw a bar and an orange in my backpack…which would later become my lunch. I got this Honest Bar while in Sonoma over the weekend. It was a first for me. Honestly, I wasn’t as impressed as I thought I would be. The almond extract was extremely overpowering and left quite the aftertaste. Yet, I’ll give it texture props. I’m hoping the PB + Chocolate flavor will get a better score from the Nutrition Nut.

My food lab was cancelled today, so I went to the gym during the time I would normally be cooking with my classmates. Working out in the middle of the day felt really off; as a result, my exercises weren’t all that energetic:

indoor track run – 1.5 mi.

30 min. Arc Trainer

wimpy abs + arms

***

A little bit of different schedule today meant that I didn’t have to make dinner in a hurry, or eat at a ridiculously late hour.

I made blog-inspired sweet potatoes:

Peel & cut sweet potatoes.
Toss in a large bowl with a drizzle of olive oil, baby drizzle of maple syrup, cinnamon, ground flax and sea salt. [I measured everything with my naked eye.]
Bake @ 325* for 20 minutes.
Flip flop.
Bake @ 350* for 10 minutes.

TJ’s Sorrento Arugula Mix, 1/2 Avocado, Red Onion, Pumpkin Seeds, Olive Oil + Balsamic

This was a 10 star dinner : )

***

Alright, alright…to the GIVEAWAY already. If you read my most recent post, you know that Stonyfield sent me a handful of free coupons for their organic, Oikos Greek yogurt. Well, they have generously offered to sponsor a giveway for you all so you can enjoy the greatness of Greek too!

One lucky winner will receive:

1 free 16 oz. coupon

4 free 5.3 oz. coupons

1 blue reusable grocery tote bag

How To Enter!

There are 3 ways to enter to win this great Greek gift. Each way will give you an additional entry, so you can do one, two, or all three!

1. Leave a comment telling me your favorite way to eat Greek.

2. Tweet about this contest on Twitter. [include a link to this post + @HILLontherun]…and then leave another comment telling me you tweeted.

3. If you have a blog, mention the giveaway and link back to it in one of your posts…and then leave anot
her comment telling me you posted about it.

U.S. residents only please. The contest will run until Sunday, April 18 at 12:00 p.m. PST, when I’ll randomly select and announce the winner!