Memorial Day Weekend Part I- Picnic at the Falls

This Memorial Day weekend, I decided lots of mountain exploration was going to be on my agenda.  The destination for Saturday: Brevard, NC, self-proclaimed Land of Waterfalls.  I've also been getting into the Farmer's Market scene more and more, so I had the idea in mind that we should get up early, hit up the local market, and scrounge up a locally-sourced picnic.  The Boyfriend had a better idea though- why not check out the markets in Asheville on our way up through the mountains?  So, we blindly chose two that sounded like the most interesting and ventured forth!

First stop was the Asheville Tailgate Market, which was in a lovely little shaded area of the UNCA campus (and for that reason, it will be the one I'm most likely to return to).

"Eat No Evil!
....I've slowly become mostly vegetarian, but I do eat a little evil still, sorry.

We scarfed down all the free samples we could manage (becoming quite a weekend trend for us), picked up some divine rosemary fig goat cheese, and I actually tried some sausage.  Vegan sausage.  And loved it! (note: I'm not vegan, and sausage is one of my most-hated "foods.")  Too bad we had no way of cooking it or a way of getting it home safely before it might go bad.  Next time perhaps.

We headed over to check out the Asheville City Market next, which had many of the same vendors, but there I was lucky enough to find the Turkish Delight goat cheese that was sold out at the tailgate market.  We found some suitable bread, a dessert, then stopped by the local Whole Foods market for things we were still missing and hit the trail, adorable picnic basket and all.

Triple Falls was our first destination.  The day was a bit more overcast and cool than we had expected, but those are ideal conditions for pasty ginger people, so we weren't complaining.  Boyfriend still put sunscreen on.

Mmm, what could be in this little basket?

TONS of goodies! (Sammich meat not pictured)

We picked up this lovely rye bread from The Simple Bread booth at the Asheville City Market, and the guy running the booth was kind enough to toss in a tiny loaf of sourdough for us, since my boyfriend was so enthusiastic about it.  It made for pretty awesome sandwiches!

I was a bigger fan of the rye and Turkish delight goat cheese though....

....even better topped with some Strawberry Basil Sally's Greatest Jam.  Sally herself was at Greenlife (Asheville's Whole Foods market) when we stopped in, and I was freakishly excited to see that she was setting up a tasting booth with all of her jams!!  I circled the store a billion times until she had it all ready to go, and she was kind enough to allow me to sample all of it, which completely made my day.  I HIGHLY recommend all of them! She has so many unusual combinations, all of the loveliest things, like Blueberry Lemon Thyme, Peach Mint, and Fig Sweet Onion Rosemary.  I told her I know I'll have all of them eventually, and I'm definitely trying out the recipes on her website.  Stay tuned...

The grand finale: Vegan Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Muffin by the The Herban Baker.  Completely delicious.

"Where is mine, Mommy and Daddy?" Char asks.  She got some turkey; don't worry.

 After our little lunch, it was time to explore/carry Charlotte up the waterfall to reenact a certain Disney movie scene.

Charlotte was totally thrilled about this, as you can see.

We wore our swimming stuff, but, uh, that water was just a touch too cold.

Next was a short trek down the hill to check out Hooker Falls, which was pretty meh compared to the other waterfalls, but the water was calmer and easier to wade into.

It took quite a bit of coaxing to get Char to go in...

"Nope, nope!  No thank you, Daddy!  Let me out of this stuff!"

Char is not much of a water dog, disappointingly.  I'll blame it on all the time she spends with the cats.

The second part of our plan was to wander around the White Squirrel Festival in Downtown Brevard until one of my favorite bands, Scythian, was to go on stage around 9 pm.  Our plans were ruined upon getting there and seeing "no pets allowed" signs barring the festival streets, however (boo-HISS-really?? It's an outdoor festival!).  So, not wanting to leave Charlotte in the car for hours, we just flitted through the festival quickly and made our way home.  Maybe I'll catch you next time, Scythian....

We did get to see one of the festival namesakes at least- a real white squirrel!

Dungeon Dinner Date Night- Cajun Sweet Potato Zucchini Fritters + Chocolate Mousse Cake

Tuesdays in my life have been known as Dungeon Dinner Date night for a while now.  Why?  Well, because on Tuesdays I cook dinner and tote it over to my boyfriend's office....which is decked out to look like a dungeon.  I've never been quite clear on why.  But it has been this way since before his or his boss' time there, I am told.

It's, uh, well....I'm sure there are people who would find it romantic....

I mean, there's rusty shackles on the wall and everything....

Yesterday I decided I was going to rush home and whip up this recipe for sweet potato zucchini fritters with the stuff I picked up at the local farmer's market last week, and my new favorite recipe for single-serve (67 calorie!) brownies, adding a dollop of cookie butter in the middle as a special surprise treat.

And let me tell you, I hated making these things at first.  My spiralizer wasn't cooperating to slice up the veggies as I had planned, so I begrudgingly used a small hand-held grater to grate the majority of the veggies. I also added a special Domestically Impaired ingredient in the form of my thumb nail, which got sliced off by the spiralizer and lost in the zucchini.  At least it wasn't my finger!  

So, nothing was going terribly well.  I thought about quitting and throwing it all out in rage before driving to Panera, but I decided I really wanted to see if these were worth it.

And oh boy, they WERE.

They were smelling pretty amazing by the time I got to this point.  Startlingly so for globs of veggies and spices.

The original recipe calls for chipotle seasoning, but the Ms. Dash Cajun seasoning I used was on sale, and I have no regrets.  They may not look like anything amazing, but these were mind-bogglingly delicious!!!

All crispy and cooling off while I whip up the chocolate cakes!

I mixed up some zesty sour cream to top them with using a package of Old El Paso zesty seasoning mix and light sour cream, but they were so moist on the inside that they really would have been great just plain, I believe.

Loading everything up to head to the Dungeon!

The Boyfriend was very quiet as he took his first bites, so I was nervous that perhaps he wasn't thrilled with them, but I am learning that this is indicative of just the opposite with him.  He later announced that I need to spread the word about these fritters like gospel to people in every land.  They are just that freaking amazing.

Loaded up with sour cream!

The absolute glory of these fritters was further evidenced by the fact that neither of us discussed the molten chocolate cookie butter cakes much.  We were still in awe of the fritters.  And people, let me tell you, Boyfriend and I love us some cookie butter real hard.  

Delicious cookie butter goo!

I'll be making more again very, very soon.  Hopefully minus the thumbnail this time.

-Dungeon Fritters-

What You Need:

1 large zucchini

2 medium sweet potatoes

1/4 cup unsalted butter

2 tbsp all-purpose flour

1 tbsp Egg Beaters egg replacer

2 tsp Ms. Dash Cajun seasoning

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 pepper

makes 6 big ole' average burger patty sized fritters

What to do:

Preheat your oven to 375 degrees and line a baking sheet with greased parchment paper.  Grate/chop/spiralize/somehow dissect the zucchini and sweet potatoes and add them to a big bowl.  Melt the butter and add this along with the remaining ingredients to the bowl.  Goosh it around then scoop out handfuls and make them burger patty shaped.  Plop them on your parchment paper and bake for 10 minutes.

After 10 minutes, lower the heat to 350 degrees and pop them back in on the same side for 15 minutes.  Flip them carefully (they may still be goopy on the underside at this point) and bake for another 15 minutes on the opposite side.  Remove and let them cool and set for about 10 minutes before removing them from the parchment paper.

Nutrition Facts:

Calories- 113

Fat- 8g

Carbs- 8g

Fiber- 1g

Sugar- 2g

Protein- 2g

-Zesty Sour Cream-

1 package Old El Paso zesty sour cream seasoning

8 oz light sour cream

Just mix it together! Per 2 tbsp serving- 46 calories, 4 carbs, 2 g fat, 2 g protein, 2g sugar.

Since I really made no changes to the single serve gooey brownie, other than using a no-calorie sweetener and dolloping some cookie butter in the middle for this version, I'll just let the link to it above suffice :)  I have a feeling a post about microwave mug cakes will be happening soon though...it's a growing addiction for me....

There and Back Again- A 10 Mile Challenge

Overlook from the edge of Bluff's Mountain

Recently I made the decision to focus more on bumping up my fitness regime and less on losing pounds.  I set a goal for myself of walking/running/doing something for 3-5 miles per day, or 20 miles per week, and the first week of this went pretty well!  I logged 32.62 miles, 10 of which happened yesterday.  Mostly uphill.  I have some regrets.

The Boyfriend and I decided to spend our weekend at my mom's new house, way up in the nowhere-land of Laurel Springs, NC.  On our way up, we stopped at the Watauga County Farmer's Market intent on picking up a smorgasbord of bread, cheese, and jam to go with our wine.  And organic chicken and carrots.  And flourless chocolate cake.  It was rather indulgent, to say the least, so I was feeling pretty guilty the next day and announced that I had the goal of hiking 10 miles before we went home.

We started out with exploring the area beside my mom's home hitherto known as The Enchanted Forest.  It's a gentle woodland stroll along the river, which I'm told goes for 3 miles.  We went for 1.7 before things started getting too grown up for my comfort level/fear of slithery things in the tall grass.

The raging river right before the trail got seedy.

Char and Boyfriend choosing rocks for skipping.

I picked up a lovely hair accessory from one of the trees without my knowledge.

After walking home and grabbing lunch at the local biker hangout/only restaurant within 45 minutes, we decided to continue our day of hiking at a place very close-by and dear to my heart: Bluff's Lodge.

I have so many wonderful childhood memories of family vacations spent here, and it breaks my heart that the lodge is no longer open.  Apparently this was a result of budget cutbacks to the National Park Service in 2011, which made it difficult for the NPS to employee their regular seasonal workers.  They're seeking someone willing to take over operations of the lodge/restaurant, but so far there have been no takers.  At least we were still able to hike the beautiful trails surrounding the place.

At night, guests would gather around this fireplace to roast marshmallows.

We started our journey across the field up to the peak of Bluff's Mountain....which really doesn't appear to be much of a mountain until you get to the edge and see how high up you are.

A single tree growing out of the field stones.

The overlook before beginning our 0.8 mile descent, which I immediately realized we would have to ascend on the way back...uh-oh.

View of the mountain on our return journey.  The feeling of "Ohmygod what have I done?" really set in about here, as I realized we would have to scale that thing, then travel onwards another 2 miles to get back to the car.

It was definitely a challenge, but I'm proud that we got through it!  I think a lot of people who live in this area never stop to fully appreciate that we truly live in one of the most beautiful places on earth.  Just look at those colors!  It's like a lush, turquoise ocean of mountains.  Maybe doing a good bit of traveling and seeing the world has really made me realize how lucky I am to call this area home.  Very few places have this sort of natural beauty.

I'm even luckier to have these two companions to enjoying taking it all in with.

Cheesey Veggie Polenta Lasagna- a 272 calorie dinner

I wasn't even sure what polenta is until a week or so ago, but it kept cropping up as a main ingredient in healthy recipes I've come across, so I had to try it out.  If you don't know, it's a bland, corn-meal substance that can easily be transformed into a gluten-free substitute for pasta noodles, dough, and a variety of other things. Recently The Boyfriend has suspected he might be gluten intolerant, so we are trying out some recipes to work around this!  I was pretty thrilled with the results on this one, and it still boggles my mind that it is under 300 calories.  I've added everything up and run it through my recipe calculator serveral times just to make sure I'm not leaving something out.  It is so filling!  And you can have a HUGE slice, 1/4 of the whole dang lasagna, for 272 calories!

To avoid making it sound like an awful, scary "health food" meal, you could call it corn meal lasagna.  Or just present it as regular lasagna, and I bet people won't ask many questions after they taste it and figure out it's glorious.

I had seen a few different recipes out there for Polenta lasagna, but decided to kind of wing it and use up some things I had in my fridge to make my own.  To make the true Domestically Impaired version, be sure to entirely forget to include the garlic and balsamic vinegar you see here in my ingredients picture.  I'll toss those in next time, maybe.

Cut the polenta in half, then slice it into about 1/8" thick slices to completely line the bottom of a baking dish.  Add a layer of sliced zucchini.  

Then a layer of sliced tomato.  

Another layer of zucchini.  

Then spoon your pesto over the top.

Then add half of the vodka sauce.

 Next, slice up the other half of the polenta and layer it on top.

Spoon the remaining vodka sauce over this and pop it in the oven for 25 minutes at 375 degrees.

After 25 minutes, carefully remove the burbling vat of  lava that is your lasagna at this point and spread your mozarella cheese over the top.

Put it back in under the broiler and broil until the cheese starts bubbling and browning!

Enjoy and join me in the amazement over NOT missing pasta noodles at all!

What you need:

16 oz polenta

1 large zucchini

1 large tomato

1 cup Monte Bene Vodka Sauce

1 cup Kraft Fat-Free Shredded Mozarella

1/4 cup pesto

Makes 4 servings

What to do:

Heat your oven to 375. Place a layer of sliced polenta in the bottom of a large baking dish, then layer zucchini-tomato-zucchini over the polenta.  Spoon the pesto and half of the vodka sauce over these layers. Top with a second layer of sliced polenta and the remaining vodka sauce.

Bake for 25 minutes, remove to add the cup of mozarella shreds, place under your broiler, and broil until the cheese starts to brown.

Nutrition Facts:

Calories: 272

Fat: 8g

Carbs: 31g

Fiber: 3g

Sugar: 6g

Protein: 19g

Blueberry Basil Grilled Cheese- 110 calorie breakfast

A delicious, quick, and easy breakfast treat!

I don't normally do any cooking for breakfast on the weekdays, but after seeing a recipe for blueberry grilled cheese somewhere out there on the interwebs yesterday, I decided to get up a bit early and try making my own version!

What You Need:
- 1 tbsp blueberry preserves (I used some locally made blueberry-lemon-thyme preserves, but highly recommend Bonne Mamman Wild Blueberry spread as an easy-to-find alternative
- 2 slices Nature's Own Double Fiber Wheat Bread
- 1 slice Borden Gouda Cheese
- 3 big basil leaves
- Olive oil cooking spray

What to do:
Toast the bread slices and top with blueberry spread, cheese, and basil. Spray lightly with olive oil cooking spray and transfer to a panini grill.  Grill until the cheese is melted.  Enjoy!!

Nutrition facts:
Calories- 110
Fat- 3g
Carbs- 19.8
Fiber- 4.5g
Sugar- 6.5g
Protein- 5g

Liquid Cake!

50-90 calorie Liquid Devil's Food Cake

Today I’m not posting a recipe so much as a suggestion.  It’s probably obvious at this point that I have a bit of a sweet-tooth, and that’s been my biggest challenge to overcome so far as striving to maintain a healthy diet.  I’ve found a brilliant alternative to cakes, and cookies, and all that other sweet stuff though: TEA!

I’ve always been a tea lover, but a while back I started venturing into the world of loose leaf teas and varieties beyond what you’re going to find on the shelf at the local grocery store.  I’d tried a few supposed “chocolate” flavored teas and such in the past, but was pretty disappointed.  Now I know though that not all tea is created equal, and if you go for the right thing, brewed correctly, you’re going to be pretty amazed by how extravagant tea can taste.

Some of my favorites from Tattle Tea.
French Toast Chai, Honeybear Green Chai (salted caramel honey), Blueberry Lemon Cake Rooibos, and Forbidden Love Oolong Chai (devil's food cake).

My current favorite sources for tea are Tattle Tea and The Spice and Tea Exchange.  There are so many creamy tasting or right-out cake flavored teas to choose from!  On a whim a few months ago, I tried steeping the Black Chocolate tea from Spice and Tea Exchange purely in milk, and to my surprise wound up with the most decadent tasting hot chocolate I have ever had!

What you need:
Yummy tea of your choice
Milk or milk alternative of your choice
Sweetener of your choice...or no sweetener; whatevs.

To create my liquid cake, I heat the milk on high in a sauce pan just until it starts frothing, then pour it over tea leaves into my cast iron tea pot and steep it just as I would in water.

Using regular dairy milk and sugar still made for a fairly high-calorie treat for me though, so I started looking to alternatives that might make this a treat I could enjoy more often.  I love my raw sugar, but I’ve found Truvia to be an acceptable alternative, and I’ve found out I’m quite a fan of soy and almond milk, which have way fewer calories than dairy milk.  Yes, I know skim milk is also an option, but...yuck.  Go for it if you want some watery-bleh-icky tea, but I'm telling you there are better options.  Silk vanilla soy milk is my personal favorite!

Cookie Butter is NOT a part of a balanced breakfast...but a teaspoon of it can be on some double fiber wheat bread paired with low-cal almond milk tea.

Recently, I brewed up the Forbidden Love (devil's food cake flavored chai) tea from Tattle Tea in Silk Vanilla Almond Milk and added two teaspoons of Truvia baking blend sweetener.  The result: 90 calorie cake in a glass!

And last night?  Decaf French Toast Chai in Silk Unsweetened Almond Milk + 2 tsp Truvia baking blend = 50 calorie liquid French toast glory.  I mean, seriously.  You can have three cups of this and still come out healthier than a single tall chai latte at Starbucks (and having once been an addict of those, I can attest that this alternative is actually tastier).

The options for creating liquid cake are endless, and I'm having a pretty great time experimenting.  For anyone else with a disastrous sweet tooth, it's worth a try, and cheaper than a slice of cake, too!

Most importantly, liquid cake is Weebie-approved!