Southwestern Polenta

Hey guys! Happy Monday! I hope that you had a wonderful weekend and a great Valentine’s Day.  I’m really a believer in finding love (in every form) in everyday life, but I do enjoy a day dedicated to it.  Brian and I ended up taking a drive to Portsmouth NH and it did not disappoint, as usual.  Its such a cool little town.  There were a whole bunch of people out and walking around.

We wanted to go to the Portsmouth Brew Pub for lunch, but ended up at The Friendly Toast instead, which was a very happy coincidence. The restaurant is decorated with all sorts of amazing cast offs from the 50’s – tin figurines, signs selling levi’s jeans, strange pet paintings, an old cardboard box that belonged to 24 Baby Ruths (“the original salted nut bar with caramel”).  It was super cool. 

The menu was great – so many options and breakfast all day.  There were several vegetarian and vegan choices that all sounded amazing.  I ended up going with the Mediterranean salad with falafel and tahini dressing.  It was delicious! 

Brian got one of the specials which was a mash bowl (he subbed sweet potato fries for the mash) with black bean burger, bbq sauce, cheese, corn, and two huge slices of their homemade bread – he got jalapeno cheddar.  I tried some, and it was amazing! :)

Anywho, I just had to gush about the restaurant.  I can’t wait to go back.

To keep this from being a novel, I’ll get to today.  I started out with a plain TJ’s greek yogurt bowl with some pb puffins, peanut butter and nanner.   With snow-person coffee, of course. So good.

Lunch was a stir fry of sorts that I made last night – brown rice with broccoli slaw, snap peas, broccoli, carrots and cabbage topped with tempeh and some hot sauce.  Hit the spot.

I was super hungry today, I didn’t last long until I broke into some cottage cheese.  It was really cold and delicious – just plain.  Am I a weirdo?

 

Second snack was a Kashi bar.  One more left.  This one was even more dry.  I think this has the potential to be really good, but needs more work.  Kashi, are you listening?

I was super hungry before heading to the gym for Tabata Monday 3.0 and so I had a half scoop of chocolate protein powder mixed with some water and a splash of soy milk.  Did the trick!

Tabata Monday was great today – pretty tough, indeed! I normally do some walking or ellipticalling afterwards but my body was not going to have that today.  Brian and I just called it a day!

I was thinking about dinner all day – Brian picked up some polenta from Trader Joe’s and I decided to make a spicy southwestern dinner.  I sauteed some bell pepper and onion and added a can of black beans and a can of diced tomatoes with green chiles and cilantro lime sauce.

In a separate pan, I heated up the sliced polenta – about a half an inch thick – in some olive oil.  Once done, I plated the polenta, spooned the bean mixture over top, and then added some avocado and black pepper.  Not to toot my own horn or anything, but this was delicious! Yum.  I even have leftovers for lunch tomorrow. :)

Dessert tonight will probably be a few chocolates. I’ll have to pick them out from between the Larabars.  Such a tough life. :)

For making it this far, I want to share this song with you.  I may have listened to it at least five times today.

Have a great night guys!

Em