Just another magic Monday

I know most people won’t necessarily say their Mondays are magical, but if you keep your mind right (& drink your coffee), they can be! It’s all about positivity, friends. If you need some helpful tips, read this short article I found: Get Your Mind Right: 5 Tips for Untangling Your Can’t-Do Mindset.

First off, I want to show you all the final products from last week. I posted late and didn’t get a chance to add these in. It includes the paper bat cutouts and the finishing touches to the veggie shepherd’s pie topped with mashed cauliflower. Yum!

 

Has anyone tried RX bars yet? I absolutely love them and tried them after I saw a promotion online. They are a little pricey for me, but I found a new customer deal where they ended up being only $1 each, so I decided to try them out. It took a few weeks before I even opened the box, but it was worth the wait! Minus the fact that they get all stuck on your teeth (not cute), they’re delicious and have a decent amount of protein. My favorite ones are the blueberry and mixed berry.

Since my box is now dwindling, I decided to scope out some copycat recipes to hopefully cut some costs. Their bars are over $2 and after 10 minutes of calculations, mine are around $1.35. I had to use organic dried blueberries (which cost $5.99!) because of my lame grocery store, but I found the same size bag at another place for $3.39. This would have cut my cost to $1.14 a bar!

I used a recipe from Veggie Balance and just like the real thing, there are only 5 ingredients. She said you could get 10-12 bars per recipe, but I wanted a decent sized bar and cut mine into 8. This increased the calories to 228 and to 9.8 grams of protein per bar. Not sure how I got more calories and less protein than the real thing, but oh well!

All you do is throw the ingredients into a blender and then smush it all into a baking pan. Easier said than done. I put mine into my blender and because of the large amount of dates, it struggled. I pulsed a few times and instead of blowing it’s little engine, I transitioned to my food processor. This worked a lot better for me. Afterwards, I let it sit and then cut it into 8 bars, wrapped them in plastic wrap and put them in a sealed plastic bag. As long as they’re in an airtight container, they’re good!

 

Since I made these bars at 7:00 this morning, I had plenty of time to have my second cup of coffee and catch up on my DVR watch list while researching potential recipes for the coming weeks.

Paul made this awesome Mediterranean plate for our lunch yesterday which inspired me to find a recipe for a chopped salad. I wanted something easy I could make ahead of time for my lunches this week.

I found an Italian chopped salad on Belly Full‘s website that I decided to try. I premade the dressing and put it in the fridge to set. I ended up using a can of chickpeas, marinated artichokes, kalamata olives instead of pimento stuffed, and added some chopped pepperoncini.

 

Once it’s ready to serve, I’ll toss it with some lettuce and add tomato, cheese and salami. Their recipe calls for summer sausage and cubed provolone cheese but I just have leftover salami and shredded Italian cheese. I also have decided not to use pasta like the recipe requests, just because. Next time I make this I’ll use it instead of lettuce and make a pasta salad for a future work potluck.

For lunch today, I was planning on making this bean, kale and egg stew from Food Network. As I went to pull out a can of pinto beans, I was saddened by the fact that I had none. Wahh! I had plenty of refried beans so I heated those up, topped it with some cooked green pepper and tomato, and put an egg on it. Improvisation at it’s finest 😉

Continuing on my magical bean journey, I soaked some all day for my 15 bean soup I’m making for our Meatless Monday dinner. We used to do M.M. a few years ago, but fell off the bandwagon and just recently got back on. This definitely helps my creative juices flow and makes finding recipes more fun! I found a recipe by Budget Bytes and as usual I didn’t follow the recipe to a T. I used olive oil instead of coconut oil, which also really depends on your preference, and I used fresh tomatoes. I also removed the celery from mine but did throw in some green pepper. Celery is usually a key ingredient in most soups, but I don’t like to buy a bunch of ingredients if I’m just going to use them once and then end up having to throw the rest away. 

Once I hit the 90 minute mark of cooking, I added the tomato and seasoning. I will wait until it’s almost ready to serve to add the apple cider vinegar. I’ll let you know how it tastes!

No baking for me today since I made some brownies yesterday. I took the easy way out and made them from a box. Don’t judge me.

It’s back to work for me tomorrow and should be a busy week. I have to work next Monday unfortunately so my post won’t be until my day off on Wednesday. Plenty of time to make some great recipes!

~Melody