Ever since my CSA ended back in December, I have been a little depressed about the fact that I a) actually have to go to the store and buy my produce instead of being surprised and b) I don’t have my plethora of vegetables growing in my garden at the moment.

Earlier this week, I received a box of organic produce courtesy of Door to Door Organics. They gave me a gift certificate to use for one of their “Itty Bitty Boxes” a while ago, but due to my CSA this fall, holidays, and traveling, I didn’t have the opportunity to use it until this past week.

Door to Door Organics is an awesome set up – it runs out of a few different cities/states: Colorado, Chicago, Kansas City, and Michigan. Door to Door Organics partners up with organic farmers so fresh produce can be delivered to their customers.  When signing up, you choose your city and then decide what kind of box you want – a fruit, a veggie, or a mixed. Then, you also choose your size – a Bitty, a Small or a Medium. For the sake of my gift certificate, I was given a Bitty Box – however, for a two person family with one being a vegetarian, I would definitely choose a larger share to receive on a regular basis.

After choosing your share, there is an option of receiving produce weekly or bi-weekly, which I think is a really great option – some people plow through veggies, while others take a while longer to eat through it. The last step is to type in your zip code, and they tell you exactly what day of the week your box will be delivered! That is one really big “pro” to Door to Door Organics. Although I love my CSA, it was such a pain to go and pick up the box each week. I also didn’t have the option of picking and choosing what kind of produce I wanted with my CSA, which is something Door to Door Organics offers.

A Bitty Box, which retails at $26.99 included all of the following produce.

Not the best deal in my opinion (since I go through so many fruits and vegetables), but if you’re looking for convenience, Door to Door definitely brings that!

I’ve already plowed my way through the bananas, the apples, both the yams and half the pepper in a matter of two days. I will say one thing though – the produce is really great. I am always worried that when I don’t pick my own produce it will end up being bad. However, the apples are crisp, the yams were delicious, and I have not had a sweeter red pepper in a long time.

If you would like to try out Door to Door Organics, they have set up the code “cleaneating” for all my readers to get $10 off your first order!

1. Right now I’m reading this book. It is a crazy entwined love story that travels back and forth in time to WWII Prague. I’m in love.

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2. Never ever try to convince your meat lovin’ husband that turkey burgers made with flax are “real burgers”. I think I got the stink eye for like four days. That’ll teach him for not celebrating my half birthday.

3. I nixed the apple cider vinegar and coconut oil for my nighttime routine on my face that I talked about last week. Seriously, nothing is loving my face lately. I’m a hot mess – and by hot mess, I mean I’m a mess because my face is breaking out like craaaazzzyyyyyy. For the first week, my skin totally loved it. Then this week, it broke out like an 11 year old’s. I don’t know what to do. Ugh.

4. Just so you know, I just typed out this entire post and then my computer died. Now I have to remember everything I wrote. I am so not amused.

5. Have you entered my Chobani giveaway yet? You can win all three new flavors. As an update, I just tried Blood Orange yesterday. Oh my gosh, so good – I can’t wait to try Passion Fruit today at lunch!

6. A bunch of you asked me yesterday if I make my own gluten free bread. Most of the time, yes. When I make sandwich bread, I use this recipe (with flax eggs). The bread that was in my Spinach and Artichoke White Bean Chili recipe photos yesterday was Oatmeal Scones made from Jenna’s recipe using gluten free flour. So good!

7. I reeeallly want to go to the Lululemon Warehouse Sale today after school, but I heard it will have 4+ hour long waits. Uh, I don’t think getting home at like 8 tonight will be so good for the pup. I really want to go though, so I’m looking forward to waiting in line with people and fighting over a pair of wunder unders on Saturday. Namaste.

8. I got some really cute new slippers in the mail this week! I won a giveaway on Lindsay’s blog about a month ago for some house slippers made by her talented friend Susanna. She has her own Etsy shop and I am in love – purple corduroy!!!!

9. I read an article yesterday discussing how Pat Sajak and Vanna White used to get drunk before taping Wheel of Fortune – that just cracks me up.

10. Speaking of articles, I found a good one the other day that talks about the difference between cardio and strength training calories – it was really interesting!

11. On Tuesday night, Brittany had a dream about me. Wednesday night, I had a dream we both had babies. Mine looked like her, and hers looked like me. I don’t even know what that’s about, but I vividly remember freaking out because I couldn’t remember my “top” name, so I had to look through an app on my phone to figure it out.

12. Happy Friday everyone! I hope your weekends are filled with pancakes, snuggles, and Starbuck’s!

I think you thought you would never hear me say this, but I am so over winter.

For real – the snow and cold was fun for about oh, two seconds (since we have had a very mild winter), but it’s definitely out of my system. After our large snow last Friday, a few of you figured out why I love the snow so much. When it snows, the Husband works. When the Husband works, I get the house to myself. Ha! Totally just joking (kind of… I have to say that because he reads) – when the Husband works, we make a million dollars and roll in hundreds all over the bed and throw money into the air and talk about what we’re going to do with our zillion dollars. I bet you didn’t know snow plowing made that money. Now you know.

In all seriousness though, I want to go on a warm winter vacation. Do you think the girls on The Bachelor would freak out too much if I crashed their vacation to Puerto Rico? I don’t want to pull a Shawntel on them or anything, but I really need a tan. Plus, the girl from my high school who is on this season is still there, and we could catch up on life. You know, because we have probably said like two words to each other in our entire lives. I bet she’s going to have more friends than all the money I rolled around in earlier after the show is over.

Yes, I know they went to Puerto Rico like a month ago. I’m not that deranged.

So back to this winter – the only good thing about it anymore is the fact that I am still making soup or chili once a week. Much to the Husband’s dismay, it hasn’t been my veggie soup (his favorite). This week I took chili where no chili has gone before.

I know this because I Googled (I love when you type “google” spell check wants it to be “goggled” – ha!) it and no recipes came up. I am finally the first to do something!

Or at least the first to publish it on the internet. I’ll take what I can get.

Get this.

White Beans.

Artichokes.

Spinach.

It’s like a freaking spinach and artichoke dip in a bowl and you get to eat as much as you want without complaining that you ate too much of the cheesy goodness – because there is no cheese. The white beans kind of mush a little bit, which makes this incredibly creamy and delicious.

Even the Husband liked it!***

***after he complained that it was green

       print this recipe!    

I think I’m going to eat this on my plane to somewhere warm. Will someone buy me a plane ticket please? I like Mexico.

Just sayin’.

Special delivery from the CHO factory!

Unless you live under a rock, you probably know that Chobani has recently come up out with three new flavors of Greek yogurt for all of us enthusiasts to enjoy – Apple Cinnamon, Blood Orange, and Passion Fruit.

I was about to put some of these new flavors on my grocery list when Chobani emailed me to let me know they were sending some new flavors my way – score one for the team!

I have only already tried the Apple Cinnamon flavor – and I am in love. I add cinnamon to just about everything and chopped apples are one of my (and Charlie’s!) favorite snacks.

I was going to wait until I tried all three flavors to share these with you, but I just couldn’t wait – I’m too excited!

Since Chobani loves YOU (yes, you!) they want to send one of you a 12 pack of their new flavors. You will receive 4 Apple Cinnamon, 4 Blood Orange, and 4 Passion Fruit Greek yogurts. Then we can Skype and eat Greek yogurt together and discuss which one we love the best. Mmmhm, that’s what’s going to happen.

To enter this awesome giveaway, you can do one (or all!) of the following:

1. Tell me what new CHO flavor you want to try the most (mandatory).
2. Tweet about this giveaway and/or post about it on your Facebook wall with a link to the post. “I want to win the new @chobani flavors from @cleaneatingchel – enter here http://bit.ly/zxIio7”

For an extra entry, tell me a funny story about your day – like so funny that I might fall off my chair.

This giveaway is open until Saturday, January 28 @ midnight. A winner will be announced on Sunday, January 29. Happy entering!

I don’t know about you all, but I have been tired with a capital “T” this week! Yesterday more than anything, it took me a while to get myself peeled out of bed. Once I was up, I was fine – it was just the fact that I had to get my butt out of bed so early that I was not okay with!

Now that I’m devoting my workouts to LiveFit Trainer, I really am making an effort to get them all done before school – mainly because my gym is a madhouse in the afternoon! I am not about to fight someone for the 20 pound dumbbells at 4:30 in the afternoon – nope, not me! Thankfully, the person who opens has compromised and is coming in at 4:45 instead of 5:00 now which means more workout time for me! Yesterday was day 9 of LiveFit and the muscles targeted were back/biceps. It wasn’t as difficult as last week, which is good news for me!

A few people told me they couldn’t wait to see what I was eating now that I am doing LiveFit. However, to be honest, I’m not eating too much differently! I’m adding in a few more snacks, making a more conscious effort for protein, but since I already ate pretty “clean” to begin with, there isn’t much more to do!

Breakfast – 6:00 AM

Another Wednesday (okay, it was Tuesday), another delicious breakfast! This was a good one – full of great mix-ins!

• 1/3 cups oats
• almond milk
• 1 egg white (whisked in)
• 1/2 banana (whisked in)
• 1 tbsp. chocolate Sun Warrior
• cinnamon
• blueberries
• peanut butter

I could have eaten this for every meal yesterday and been happy – it was way too good for words!

On the side, I had a very large cup of Joe with soy milk. I wanted an IV drip of caffeine yesterday!

Snack – 9:30 AM

During my plan time, I ate a small snack to tide me over until lunch. I fried an egg this morning, topped it with some nutritional yeast and the good stuff (ketchup). I also brought a few carrots for some munching action!

Lunch – 11:30 AM

Okay this picture looks semi gross, but I swear it was good. I had a bowl of leftover chili (new recipe coming tomorrow!).

I also had a banana on the side but I was too lazy to get the camera back out again. #fail.

Snack – 3:30 PM

Raisins and almonds – the usual!

Dinner – 6:15 PM

Dinner was definitely not protein packed, but was very veggie packed! I was craving a lot of veggies like nobody’s business, so who am I to resist the cravings?

A veggie salad – which I topped with hummus and balsamic vinegar…

and roasted broccoli and sweet potatoes!

This is honestly one of my favorite meals – I don’t even care if it’s not very balanced!

I spy my sous chef!

Snack – 8:30 PM

My protein-less dinner was made up for at my snack though! I had a crumbled protein muffin on top of Greek yogurt and half of a chopped apple. There may or may not have been a nut butter spoon there as well. Let’s be honest – when is there not?

I think I did pretty well in the food department yesterday – I definitely went to bed satisfied, but not “stuffed” or like I ate too much throughout the day. Perfect feeling!

Question: How many times do you eat throughout the day? Which meal is your favorite and why?

I feel like beans get a really bad rep. While growing up, kids (and adults alike) have so many nasty jokes about beans which really makes people develop a negative connotation associated with them. I, for one, love beans – and always have! As a vegetarian, beans are incredibly essential to a balanced diet. They are full of vitamins and nutrients many people lose once going vegetarian.

The great thing about beans is if you don’t like one variety, that doesn’t mean you won’t like them all. They are sort of like the “meat” of a vegetarian diet. Just as an example, if you are a meat eater and don’t enjoy pork, that doesn’t mean you won’t like chicken! In the same way, if you don’t enjoy kidney beans, that doesn’t mean you won’t enjoy chickpeas (also known as garbanzo beans).

The thing I love about beans i how nutritionally dense they are – so full of protein and fiber! You can’t beat that. I put together a quick chart with some of my favorite beans showing you just how awesome the stats are!

**Cannellini or any kind of white bean variety is awesome for making any sort of vegan “cream” sauces!

I tend to buy canned beans, which when I actually type that, it makes no sense – dry beans are SO cost effective! Cooking dry beans is insanely easy; it just requires a little planning on your part! The directions are mainly the same for all types of beans, once you get the method down, you’ll be a bean makin’ machine!

When cooking dry beans, they tend to double and sometimes triple in size! For example, if you are cooking 1 cup of dry beans, you’ll end up with roughly 2-3 cups of cooked beans.

1. Soak desired amount of beans in a bowl with enough water to allow the beans to double in size. Make sure you give your beans enough room to grow! Beans should be soaked for 8-12 * hours (or overnight).
2. Rinse beans off and place in a pot of new water (again covering the beans with enough water to allow the beans to plump up even more while cooking).
3. Bring water to a boil, reduce heat, and cover.
4. Cook for 1 to 1-1/2 hours**, checking for tenderness.

*Lentils do not require soaking, but you can soak if desired.
**Soybeans require more cook time – around 3-4 hours.

Canned beans are far easier – and quicker too! Open, drain, rinse, and voila! You’re ready for business!

I had the hardest time choosing recipes to feature that include beans – I use them for everything! Side dishes, pasta dishes, veggie burger, in a cold salad – the possibilities are endless! Here are a few of my favorite bean recipes I have made:

Asparagus and White Bean Pasta

Campfire Baked Beans

Roasted Butternut Squash and Chickpea Pasta

Chickpea Curry Burgers

Green and White Bean Salad

For more on the back to the basics series, feel free to visit these links:

• Back to the basics: Roasting Vegetables
• Back to the Basics: Cooking with Grains

Question: What is your favorite type of bean or recipe that uses beans?

I’d like to introduce you to the best meal I ate all weekend.

This lunch was a long time coming since I had a lot of time to think this past weekend.

It all started on Friday after school. We were getting slammed with snow – as much as one inch per hour. And of course, much to my dismay, it started pouring out of the sky at a heavy pace right about the time I was leaving from school. Great for my time for thinking, not so great for making it home at a reasonable time. At one point, I was driving four miles per hour down the interstate for approximately 4 miles. In case you have yet to do the math, that’s about one hour of my life. In fact, I probably could have ran home faster than that. Which reminds me, if you’re in the middle of a huge snow storm on the highway, do not – I repeat DO NOT – exit your vehicle for any reason. Common sense, right? Not in Chicago apparently.

For this very reason, I had a lot of time to think – to ponder – to concoct – while I was on my 30 minutes turned 2.5 hours commute on Friday night. Mainly I thought about how I wished I could teleport myself back to my living room. Then I thought about how I was glad I wasn’t having to travel 65 miles an hour in the two inches of snow that were already layering up on the interstate. Then I wondered where in the heck all the snow plows were.

In the middle of all of that though, I thought of this lunch – deliciously simple, packed with nutrients, and oh so satisfying. And then I promptly counted down the hours until I could make it with natural lighting on my side.

The funnest (yup, I’m a teacher) part about this meal is that you can make it for breakfast, lunch, or dinner (or all three), and it would be completely acceptable. Don’t you love meals where you feel like you’re being a rebel? No? Just me?

 
And for all of my single ladies (or men) out there, this is a single lady (or man) meal – sometimes having a husband who works when it snows worked out to my benefit this weekend – cooking for one!

       print this recipe!    

 
Did I forget to mention we got 9’ish inches of the white powdery stuff? That right there is reason to celebrate with kale.

As mentioned in an earlier post last week, I started with Jamie Eason’s LiveFit Trainer last Monday. I plan on giving updates every few weeks on how I am feeling, how my body is changing, and what I have been doing with my workouts. Since it’s only been a week, I don’t want to take any more measurements yet – I figure I will take measurements every two weeks to see changes. I did get a few questions the other day and also came up with a few I thought you might still be having for this week’s update.

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How much does it cost?

It is absolutely 100% free!

How does LiveFit Trainer work?

LiveFit is a 12 week program that Jamie Eason, a trainer over at Bodybuilding.com has put together. The program is split into three phases, each phase being 4 weeks long. The first phase is all about getting acclimated with weight lifting – each week ranges from four to five days of strength training (at 65% of your maximum effort) using free weights with no cardio. The second phase ups the game a little bit more – six days of strength training working at 85% of your maximum effort. Cardio is also brought back in at four 30 minute sessions. In the last and final stage, weight lifting is again a big focus, but Eason adds HIIT (High Intensity Interval Training) and plyometrics.

Not only is there a very detailed day by day workout schedule to follow, but there is also a meal plan that is recommended, which I will talk about in the next question.

Are you following the meal plan?

To put it bluntly, no.

I’m not opposed to following loose guidelines for eating – heck, I already do that now by making sure I live a healthy lifestyle, but this one just seemed like waaay too much with far too many rules for me. I looked it over, and what the meal plan does is follow a 5-6 mini meal program with a high protein focus. I didn’t see a lot of carbohydrates (in the second and third phase, you are supposed to carb cycle which I have no idea what that means) – and if I know anything about myself, it’s that I know I do not do well on a low carb or low fat lifestyle.

While I have not been following the meal plan, I have made a few changes so far. I cleaned things up a little bit – it gave me that swift kick in the behind after the holidays were over and I realized I needed to lay off the sugar big time. I’m still eating as I did before, but am making a conscious effort to add in more protein since I am weight lifting. I noticed last week I was hungrier than I normally am, so I’m guessing it might be because of all that iron I’ve been pumping!

I guess I’m going to be a guinea pig – I would love to track my results next to someone who has been following the meal program.

How are you liking the workouts so far?

I really like them. It’s been weird to go to the gym and not leave looking like a sweaty beast. I actually have enjoyed getting up in the morning and heading to the gym. With weight training, the time flies by since you are constantly switching up the exercises. This week I did four days of lifting. Each day focused on a different muscle group. This week’s workouts focused on:

• chest and triceps
• back and biceps
• legs and calves
• shoulders and abs

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The workouts took anywhere from 25-35 minutes – they were definitely doable!

Oh, and I cannot even believe how sore I was. It was unbelievable.

Do you miss cardio?

Surprisingly, no. I think the first week of no cardio really got to me because I was taking a full week off from working out in general. I really missed not working out at all. Last week was fun for me to get involved in something I have a lot more to learn about (strength). Like I explained the other day, running was starting to feel like a chore to me and it really wasn’t as much fun as it always had been. It was more out of habit than anything. It just feels weird not to do any cardio. In fact, I think this is the longest time in five years that I haven’t done any cardio.

Have you been supplementing any of the workouts?

A little bit. I have been doing ab work on all of the days – nothing much, but about five minutes worth at the end of every workout. On two of the days, I also did 10 minutes walking on an incline on the treadmill because the strength workout was pretty short and I wanted to fill some more time before I went home. On Saturday, I went to my favorite hot yoga class – finally some sweat! It felt good to stretch out all my tight muscles from a week of lifting and to get my body ready for week 2!

Question: Do you have any other questions about the program or my philosophy on following it? Please note – all of this is based on my experience and opinion on the program. I am in no way being asked to endorse this program.

1) What is one of your favorite ways to spend a Saturday?

• a leisurely breakfast in my pajamas
• hot yoga
• grocery shopping (nerd alert!)
• spending some time with the Husband

2) List your top three favorite TV shows.

• Modern Family
• The Middle
• Glee

and Grey’s Anatomy because I can’t choose three and I don’t follow rules

3) Would you rather be in pictures or take them?

Take them! Although I am hardly ever in pictures – that gets old.

4) Why do you blog?

I blog because I love it. I love having a creative outlet where I can write, create recipes, and develop relationships with others!

5) Share five websites that you visit regularly…

• Facebook
• Twitter
• Pinterest
• Weather.com
• Gmail & Google Reader

6) If you could have lunch with one person from your Twitter list who would it be?

Don’t make me pick one! How about one (or 2) for every day of the week?

Tina on Sunday
Colleen on Monday
Courtney on Tuesday
Julie on Wednesday
Katie and Katie on Thursday
Alyssa on Friday (she’ll bring the wine)
Lauren on Saturday

7) List a few of your favorite snacks.

• raisins and almonds
• apple and nut butter
• granola with almond milk
• Greek yogurt with a pumpkin protein muffin
• nut butter spoon (don’t even think about trying to tell me you don’t do this)

8 ) Do you have a pet? If so, what kind?

Charlie!!!!! He is a year and a half old pit bull terrier mix. I love him.

9) Which three material possessions would you struggle to live without?

• my laptop
• my canon rebel
• lululemon wunder unders (life changing)

10) What’s your favorite drink?

• coffee with vanilla soy milk
• water

11) Do you enjoy cooking?

I love it! Welcome to my food blog.

12) Do you have children?

Does the Husband count? I can seriously say that without him getting mad at me since we just had a conversation on Thursday – and he was the one who brought it up.

13) What are your favorite hobbies?

• blogging (obviously)
• reading (does that even count?)
• photography
• cooking

14) Would you consider yourself to be shy or outgoing?

That’s a hard question. I’m going to go with outgoing, but I definitely need my time alone.

15) If you could change one thing about yourself, what would you change?

My quick to anger attitude over stupid small things. Lucky for me, that’s something I can change!

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16) Who is your favorite actor/actress?

I absolutely adore Rachel McAdams. I cannot wait until The Vow comes out in a few weeks!

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17) What’s the coolest thing you’ve done this week?

Uhh… my week wasn’t too exciting. Perhaps actually making it home in one piece during the snow storm? I think that counts.

18) Do you live near your family or far from them?

Near! My sister and brother in law live about a mile down the road from us (easy baby access!) and our parents live about 15 minutes away. The rest of our family is scattered within a half hour radius. I love it.

19) List three of your talents.

• Being able to think on my feet (this helps in the classroom!)
• Snuggling with my dog (it counts.)
• Eating peanut butter (not the most serious of talents)

20) What is your greatest attribute?

Above all else, having faith that everything happens for a reason and I am exactly where I should be in my life right now.

Question: Answer one of the above for yourself!

1. We’re getting snow today – SNOW!!!! I bet you feel like every time I talk about snow you want to jack me in the face. I understand. I’ll be wanting to jack myself in the face when the brunt of it will be on my commute home. #fail

Can you tell I wrote this last night?

2. In case you’re wondering, Braeburn apples are the best things ever right now. Go get some. Seriously.

3. Shortened weeks feel like the longest weeks everrrrrrrrr. So ironic, doncha think? A little toooooo ironic. (end Alanis Morissette song)

4. I’ll be answering some more questions in my next post about doing Live Fit Trainer, but for those of you who asked, I am not following her eating plan. I’ll be embarking on something a little bit different! I guess I’m going to be the guinea pig.

5. Wonderful reader Amanda and my co-worker Trish (who takes amazingly beautiful pictures by the way) encouraged me into figuring out how to take drool spots out of those baby pictures. I am in love with Lightroom (which you can download for free right now for a trial basis by the way).

Now you see it…

Now you don’t!

6. My body is S-O-R-E!! I didn’t realize how much I was skimping on the weights until this week. I am craving a hot yoga session like you would not believe.

7. Have you heard about the SOPA and PIPA bills? I’m horrible at explaining things, but Lindsay posted a great video about what would happen if those bills were passed. Let’s just say the internet as you know would be over. If I were you, I’d be emailing my congressmen/women super fast to tell them how much I oppose these bills. I actually did just that yesterday and have already gotten an email back from one of them (automated I’m sure) about how he opposes the bill. Rock on! Here’s that video – you really need to watch it. 

On January 18, Wikipedia also did something amazing – they shut down their site for 24 hours to protest the bills. When you went to their site, you saw the picture below. If these bills pass, that is exactly what is going to happen.You could also just go here and learn more about the bills.

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8. Did you hear? Jennifer Anniston is supposedly pregnant! If that’s actually true, good for her!

9. I wish I were more creative in the kitchen in the last few weeks than I actually have been. I blame winter.

10. Speaking of winter, there are only like 10 more weeks left! That is, unless the groundhog doesn’t see his shadow in a few weeks.

11. I have been wanting to do nothing else but eat this week. Seriously. Once breakfast is over, I want lunch. Once lunch is over, I want my snack. Once my snack is over… you get the picture. This happens every once in a while, but I just can’t get food off my mind.

12. Happy Friday!!!!