I have a serious, deep-down, get-in-mah-bellie, love-affair with pasta. Blame it on my Italian roots, or the fact that most Hispanics love Olive Garden. Seriously, it was a childhood staple. When I got to college however, the OG was a luxury I couldn’t afford, so I learned how to make my own dishes inspired by Tuscany via FoodNetwork and The Travel Channel. Those late night study session would have been far less memorable with plain old pizza.
Enter: My Crafty Creations Meet – Spinach & Chicken with Bowties
Mean Green Delicious!
A little parmesan alfredo sauce, some frozen spinach, broccoli and cauliflower…VOILA! You’ve got yourself a scrumptious dinner. I recommend using large spinach leaves or wilting fresh spinach on your own (it’s easy, don’t flip) so that your pasta doesn’t come out looking quite so bacterial-y. Go for fierce!
Learning experiences, friends. Don’t judge.
The beau and I both share a love for pasta. However, we also realize that we cannot be stuffing our gobs with this delectable goodness all the time, so we’ve really taken to other scrumptious grainy goods.
Here we have some couscous!
Toss in some steamable couscous (Central Market – $2), sliced bella mushrooms, onions, peppers and sirloin. What a COMBO!
The couscous is a current FAVE!
Use a table-spoon of EVOO or Butter to sauté your veggies. I used a spray or two of PAM Olive Oil to cook my sirloin. Season the steak with salt, cracked pepper and a two tablespoons of Teriyaki sauce.
This meal takes less than 20 minutes to throw together and plate. It’s also wondermous! Mmmm!
I’m a foodie. If you’re reading this, you’re a foodie. I’ve found that the main problem with being a foodie is constantly battling your jeans, or worse…your bras! Honestly, I gain weight in odd places.
See: The Cooch Pooch But truthfully…I loathe battling the bulge. It’s exhausting. I think I’m getting ahead and under control – then, seemingly out of nowhere – the pounds I’ve lost come creeping back. Is anyone else being fat-haunted this holiday season?
I worked out three times a week. I was happy with my progress. I was finally feeling like I was getting somewhere. Then I wasn’t. I was frustrated and annoyed with my own body. After a couple of weeks with no change, I finally realized what my problem was. Me. I was my own problem. I’d gotten complacent, working out a few times a week and maintaining my eating habits. Though healthy, I was simply maintaining. I wasn’t working out hard, pushing myself or even running anymore. That’s the bigger problem. I’d gotten so busy with my teaching role that I stopped working on myself. I put everything I have into my students and classroom, leaving little effort to work out and bring myself body peace. It took a bit, but I finally realized I was at fault.
Making Progress.
Are you a victim by your own hand? If so, here’s what you do.
1. Smack that negative weak-sauce outta here. 2. Throw on some sweats and a sports bra (gentlemen – some exercise shorts and a sleeveless shirt to show off your sexy biceps) 3. Work out. HARD!
Trust me, you’ll feel tons better. Then get home, take a cold shower and do it all over again, tomorrow. Personally, I like to run at least two miles on the days when I’m not climbing. Sure, you need rest every few days, but the point is to not get complacent. Throw in an extra mile here and there. Bust your ass, baby!
There’s no reason to fall out of fit. Keep up your own fitspiration. Remind yourself daily to bust that cheeky derrière and get a move on. Here’s one for you to remember for this week:
[From http://prestonfitness.com/2013/06/14/fitspiration-6/%5D I love running and climbing, but I tend to balance these two with a really good Krispy Kreme Donut, now and again. Don’t deny yourself fun and goodies. Get some! But remember to keep healthy by busting that ass in a gym or in another similarly awesome fat-burning space.
Write it on your bathroom mirror so you can see it every day. You’ll thank me later.
This post has been a long time coming. So long, in fact – that we’re still total chubsters in these snaps. Goodness.
Well, you guessed it – I’m going to talk to ya about making a pallet!
Here’s what you’ll need:
1. A Reclaimed Pallet – make sure it’s HEAT TREATED (marked HT on the slats). You might be able to snag one of these for FREE by heading out to your local hardware store. Sometimes these guys and gals are pretty awesome and they recycle their pallets, so be sure to head out early on a weekend or speak with a manager in advance.
If you can’t find a reclaimed pallet, you can always make one. Just note – it can get pricey.
This is a used pallet, but not heat treated – so you wouldn’t want to plant food stuffs in here. Regular plants are completely fine though!
What’s heat treated? It means the wood has not been treated by chemicals, resulting in the awesome ability to plant fruits and veggies within the pallet slats. If you were to use a chemically treated pallet, you might get sick. We definitely don’t want that!
Cerebellum MOM came with us on this adventure. Hilarity ensued.
Now, we were only able to find chemically treated pallets or really beat-up heat treated ones. Being the enginerds we are, the beau and I chose to build a pallet. That’s right, we got down and dirty with a sexy power drill and made sure not to split our wood with extra-long screws. More on that later…
He looks bored, but I promise – he wasn’t! We were on the hunt for the right size wood…and it was a bit of a process.
We chose to purchase standard 2X4s, heat treated – which we found, all the pre-cut wood at Home Depot was in such a condition. When you pick out your wood pieces, be sure to avoid anything with notches, or “pretty” grain imperfections. You want your pallet to be even and not bowed. It’ll be more difficult to work with and screw together.
OH! Don’t forget to let the awesome peeps at HD cut your wood for ya! Just one less thing you need to do.
This is Bob. He’s a measure twice, cut once kind of man.See what I mean?
We made a few friends while running around the home de’pot…and everyone was so nice! It was great to have so many wonderful conversations about food, eating healthy and the best way to cut down wood. You know, the normal DIY convos.
Everything you need to start your pallet garden! Wood Screws Garden Fabric Staples + Staple gun Seeds! [Or saplings…you choose!] Water Pail Paint and brushes, to decorate – of course!
We got everything together and then went to work!
Remember what I said about the wrong screws?Well, such tiny machine bits are key to the whole building process! You’ll need to get coarse thread drywall screws, with good threads. Not too big, if you’re going to use the same size wood that we did – otherwise, you’ll split the wood and screw the pooch on this project. Trust me. we bought 1-1/4″ X 8GA screws. They worked like a charm!
Close up of the veggies and fruits we chose
This is the fabric you’ll need to purchase. It retains the water and soil in the pallet so you don’t have a huge mess everywhere!
Here’s the setup. We made sure to place everything the way we wanted before screwing the boards in place.
I did say not to choose “pretty” wood…but if you’re aiming for an au naturale look – then do try to get the best un-bowed wood you can find.
And so the drilling began!
The beau enjoyed this part so much, that he didn’t even want to let me use the power drill. Plus…I may have gotten a wee-bit out of hand when he finally did let me use it and got so caught up in the crazy-powerness of it all and almost split the wood. It’s sooooo much fun building these DIY projects! Bwahahaha!
Almost done!
He made quick work of it and the entire pallet was put together lickety-split!
FINITO!Garden fabric is super cool and really helpful! It keeps the soil in and is really quite nifty!
This fabric can be found in the garden section. They had a few kinds, but make sure not to purchase the meshy kind. You see in the picture above that there are no holes within the fabric. If you were planting the pallet in the ground, which you can, then you’d want the meshy type so the water may seep into the soil. Since we live in an apartment with no yard, the holey kind was a no-go.
We used nearly 250 staples to keep this fabric in place!
Super close and nearly straight…I got a bit lazy with the staple gun.
Fully set upOf course we painted our pallet Baylor Green! In yellow paint, he says “Lettuce turnip the beet!” Because I’m nerdy like that. ;]
Next we set the pallet flat on the ground, fabric down, and filled the pallet with 4 full size bags of moisture control soil. Honestly, we think another full bag may have been helpful to keep the seeds in place once we stood the pallet upright.
Be careful though!
You need to give the seeds (or saplings) time to grow roots. They have to latch onto the soil and then (in about 3 weeks if you planted seeds, 1.5 weeks for saplings) you can turn the pallet 90 degrees upright and stand it up. Make sure these little guys get plenty of sunlight and water.
One recommendation I’d make is for you to ADD Casters! They’d be helpful to move the pallet around because it is deceptively heavy. Seriously, oomph!
Happy building for the upcoming spring fruits and veggies! You should start planting in mid-February!
Here’s a funny thing about weight loss – you, quite literally, shed inches in places you didn’t even know could gain them.
Enter – the cooch pooch. [our friends at urban dictionary have some differing ideas on what this means]
Seriously.
What kind of pooch?
Ladies…check yourselves. You’ve got one. Trust. Guys, well – I have no idea. someone check, then tell me.
One of my besties brought up her cooch pooch [not the bestie photo’d above, btw] and hilarity ensued.
How exactly does one gain weight there?
Is it bad for it to go away?
Let me tell you this:
1. We gain weight everywhere, our arms – feet – thighs – cooch too, when we eat too much, stress too much and obvi, don’t exercise enough. It’s unfortunate, but hey – we can cure this!
2. Of course not. I mean…we’re not shooting for dangerously low weight here; we aim to be fit. Losing some of the pooch is a good thing. Storing copious amounts of cortisol is not a good thing, so losing some of this fat is good for your body. That and…stop stressing, yo!
How to do this?
EXERCISE!
Did you expect anything less? This is CerebellumChef, queen of all things yummy and 5 mile runs. Come on! Exercise works for losing weight and cutting that stress level. Don’t believe moi? TRY IT!
Now, let me ask you – what are you doing to keep that pooch in check?
One of the besties and I have been rock climbing lately, plus running [since I’m a total sweat junkie]. She hates to run outside, so we’ve met in the middle and pump up the beat in our gym…at least until FALL weather hits good ol’ TEXAS! Few things compare to endorphin highs on runs outside when the leaves are crunchy and all-shades of pumpkiny goodness – all while the 70-degree winds blow your ponytail around in a hot sexy-fit mess.
Totes gorge!
Or, maybe my delusional running state really looks more like this… [Copyright – The Muppets]On top of workouts, the beau has me slaving away concocting nummy foodles in our wondermous kitchen! We’ve lost three lbs. this week and are MEGA-proud of our shrinking arses.
I want to see your progress!
Here’s ours:
Beau – 28 lbs down Me – 23 lbs down
Pretty great, huh?
How is your sexy-healthy-fit journey going? Message me!
My bestie’s birthday was yesterday. Even though we’re far apart, she means the world to me. We’ve been there for each other, through ups and downs, great laughs and awful cries. She’s the reason I blog and the all-natural jam to my sun-butter. My world wouldn’t spin quite the same if she weren’t in it. I love you bundles, bunny-boo and truly hope that your day was nothing less-than spectacular.
All my lurve,
CC
Unfortunately, I cannot declare a winner for the Zumba-Fitness challenge. There were many questions and such high interest, but no one followed the entry rules. Since it would be unfair of me to give it away to a reader, I’m going to donate it.
The next contest will be in about a month. Be sure to keep reading. It’s going to be a great one!
Until then, ask yourself – What excuse is next? Stop dragging those feet and get to a gym or go for a walk. It starts with a single step, then another. Before you know it, a habit is formed and your jiggles are turning into rock-solid muscles. Go after your sexy!
I’ve been horrible to you. I got caught up in my own adventure with school (busted my [toning quite nicely] derriere for that A), work (to earn moolah for my new climbing habit), climbing (yeah, the beau and I are somewhat fit-addicts to this new sport) and cooking (what? No baking? That’s right…it’s been a weird month).
All that aside….I’m BACK!
With some fun news –
As an apology and a fun experience, I am giving away a ZUMBA dvd set! All you’ve got to do is SUBSCRIBE to Cerebellumchef.com + Tweet (you have to tag me @CerebellumChef) about the contest! Say something (awesome or fitspirational please, no need for poopy behavior) about the FREE contest and let your friends know how to join. I’ll pick a random fan to win the goods. Who knows, maybe you’ll get an extra goodie or two!
I’ll be sure to post a follow-up tonight, blabbing alllll about the nummy recipes we’ve tried recently, the pallet garden (our plant babies are so presh!) and I’ll add the climbing pics from our visit with the mini-munchkin cousins (sadly, I’m the shortest in the bunch).
The weather got pretty snarky in the DFW area. It drizzled on and off most of the day – then WHABAM!
Tornadoes.
Copyright Pixar
I just made my dinner (a scrumptious breakfast plate) and sat down to eat when the sirens started wailing.
My immediate thought was: “Don’t Panic.” For some reason, all I could visualize was Mike, running around – panicking.
The beau, always good for it, broke the tension by opening the patio door to take a step outside. Him: “I don’t know what the big deal is. It’s not even windy. It’s calm.” Me: “Yes, babe. That’s where the phrase ‘the calm before the storm’ comes from. Please get inside. “
[Our life. Seriously.]
We shuttled into the bathroom with a candle, lighter, flashlight and our phones/laptop. Our apartment rumbled a bit – mega creepy – and then, my tummy spoke up. I left my avocado sandwich behind!
Hindsight: Shouldn’t have made the beau go out and save my sammich. But…
Life over limb situations should never go up against food. That’s just plain un-fair! Besides, I’m a foodie. Food wins – Every. Single. Time.
Here we are, in the middle of a twister’s playland, when all I can think of is Helen Hunt handing out steaks. [I must have been hungrier than I thought]
Helen Hunt [Twister Movie Still]
Thinking about steaks…well, I started an image search and found this juicy piece of meat. RAWR!
Jack Astor’s Sherway Gardens
::drool::
I’m hitting up this place in Ontario, as soon as I can! 😀 For now, I’ll roll up my tongue and move on to making healthier meals. I started with cupcakes. Tomorrow, my pretties. Tomorrow.
Tonight – it’s late and time for bed. Be ready and excited for my next post!
I’ve got a step-by-step tutorial for Making Your Own Pallet Garden! [we made ours last weekend]!
Also…molten chocolate cupcakes. Smack those lips! Mmm!
I’ve got one final left, folks. Just one.
Naturally, I’m up blogging instead of studying – because, well…I’m a foodie. It’s quite amazing to me that I didn’t attend culinary school. I’m thinking that would have killed my passion for outlandish veggies and all the ways to grill/sauteé/glorify such delectable treats.
Instead of a trained Chef, I am a scientist and kind of kookie with my kitchen liberties. Sometimes I stumble [pinterest/google/foodiefind/food network…or any other awesome food hub] across a scrumptious idea. Occasionally, those brilliant flashes of creme-bruleéd greatness are in-fact wicked flops of lumpy sadness.
More often than not however, my kitchen genius shines through.
Seriously, I’m getting better at this fit-foodie cooking [and getting cozy with the spices].
Tonight, this evening before my last final of the semester – I opted for a steak challenge.
For those of you who don’t know, steak has been a challenge for me. I love mine medium-rare, a little more rare than medium actually. You can imagine the difficulty of cooking a medium-rare steak and a charred hunk of meat well-done briquette, that the Beau seems to love choke down. How he does it…eh, who the hell knows.
Getting the cooking times right for this has been difficult for me. Not anymore though! I’ve slayed this challenge.
How do you keep the meat juicy? Never pierce your meat! That’s right. Let it cook and then let it rest! You should always rest a steak for about half the time you cook it. This lets the juices settle in the tissue and then when you cut into it, that beautiful chunk of yumminess is waiting to take you to higher places. If you dare to use a meat thermometer, you may as well be popping the bubble on your steakity dreams, because honey – those juices are gonna run and you’ll have yourself a dry slab of meat.
So, no matter how you like your cow, it should always be juicy. [At least, I think so.]
Now, behold the fruits of my kitchen labor.
Smashed poh-tay-TOES and Sexy Sirloin
I chose to season our steaks with salt, pepper and Weber Garlic and Herb seasoning. Can you say…delish?
My steak – medium-rare. Cooked at medium heat for 3 minutes on each side.
Jordan (my aunt got to nosh with us) – Medium-Well, cooked at 4 minutes on each side.
For the Beau – Well done, cooked at medium heat for 5 minutes on each side.
Here’s a cooking chart for ya! I liked it, and it’s the most accurate one I’ve seen. I may make my own and add it here, with pictures of the various steaks. I guess the Beau will just have to deal with all this kitchen meatatarianism. I doubt he’ll mind.
The Finger Test for Meat Done-ness
Now, I dare-say chaps – this steak experience was a roaring success!
The cow turned out just right, though we didn’t take any snapshots of a sliced portion. Drat!
Lesson learned. Take a second to admire before digging in!
I cheated a bit with the sides, well – the mixed veggies. I really love steamable veggie bags. Green Giant and Bird’s Eye Steamfresh are our personal faves.
As for the taters…here’s the scoop on their tastiness:
4 medium-sized potatoes 1.5 teaspoons of finely chopped Rosemary2 teaspoons of Extra Virgin Olive Oil 3 cloves of Garlic 1 teaspoon of unsalted butter (sub plain yogurt, for a healthier option) 1/4 (plus a teaspoon or two) cup of milk (I used 2%, but skim works great too!) Salt and Pepper to taste
Boil the potatoes until they are soften enough to puncture easily with a fork (about 25 minutes)
Sauteé the 3 cloves of peeled garlic in the 2 teaspoons of olive oil for 1-2 minutes. Don’t brown them too much, you don’t want to burn the garlic. Remove the garlic from the pan and allow it to cool.
Sauteé the chopped rosemary in the olive oil for about 2 minutes. It’ll be fragrant. Add the rosemary and oil mixture to a medium-sized mixing bowl (once capable of holding all your potatoes comfortably).
Mince the garlic and add it to the mixing bowl.
Add the butter to the bowl.
Check your potatoes, if they’re done – remove them and add them to the mixing bowl.
Using a fork or a masher (great for stress-relieving), break up the potatoes and start smashing them.
Add the milk, salt and pepper.
Mix the potatoes to your desired creaminess.
Taste them! Be sure to add any salt and pepper, if necessary.
Viola! You’ve made your very own Rosemary-Garlic Smashed Potatoes.
And you rocked it, because they’re delicious!
OHmygooodness! I almost forgot about the Bacon-Wrapped Cream-Cheese Stuffed Jalapeños!
They’re sneaky, hiding at the back of the plate in the picture above. Why? Well, they’re not too healthy. We’ve been jogging a few miles a day though, so I figured What the hell, let’s splurge! And, by splurge, I mean eat one piece, which is half a jalapeno and a quarter strip of bacon. So…not too shabby, my dear.
What you’ll need to bake great Bacon-Wrapped Cream-Cheese Stuffed Jalapeños:
6 jalapeños
3 Tablespoons of fat-free cream cheese (you might want to try Neufchâtel cheese, instead)
2 strips of bacon (or turkey bacon), sliced into thirds
1 skewer
Slice Jalapeños in half, lengthwise
Fill each jalapeño half with cream cheese
Wrap a piece of bacon around the jalapeño and pierce it (sideways) with the skewer
Repeat the process until all the jalapeños have been stuffed, wrapped and skewered.
Place the skewer on a baking sheet (use non-stick foil paper for quick clean-up) at 425 degrees for about 22 minutes.
NOTE – Using turkey bacon will cut the cooking time to about 16 minutes. Keep an eye on the bacon though, you don’t want to burn it!
Ta-dah! You’ve got an awesome finger-food! [Or a quick way to break your diet…so employ some self control, my peeps.]
Tomorrow – you and I will talk molten-chocolate cupcakes. And next week…we’re going to dabble in some dealings with a sweet leg of lamb. Mmm!
You’re drooling already!
