Baby Veg + Bike

Good evening! Today was a pretty productive day! There was lots of this going on:

Iced Unsweetened Goji Berry Pomegranate Green Tea

As it starts to get hotter outside I like to keep pitchers of flavored unsweetened green teas in my fridge. There is nothing as refreshing as an antioxidant packed cool glass of tea!

Anyway, before I get to a little recipe I came up with this afternoon, check out the progress on my baby garden:

The (future) red bell pepper!

Little tomato on the plant I thought was almost dead.

And my cute baby strawberries!

Now as I was going through my fridge and doing some kitchen cleaning, I came across a few ingredients that I knew I needed to use or throw out. Thus began a baking project!

Up first was Tina‘s Chocolate Pumpkin Loaf. Quite a tasty recipe, although much more suited to winter holidays than the summertime. But it used up my pumpkin and I’m sure the staff at the school will still scarf it down.

Then I came up with what I’d like to call a Lemon Ricotta Cheesecake.

• 1 cup light, part-skim ricotta cheese
• 2 egg whites
• zest and juice of one lemon
• 1/2 cup unbleached all-purpose flour
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 4 additional egg whites, beaten stiff

Blend the ricotta, 2 egg whites, lemon juice and zest, flour and sugar until an even consistency. Set aside. Whip the 4 remaining egg whites until stiff peaks form. Fold into the ricotta mixture. Bake in a greased 9-inch cake pan at 325 degrees for 35 minutes.

This is actually a very light dessert! If you cut the cake into 8 slices each slice comes in at 125 calories. The lemon flavor is definitely apparent, it’s very light, and it almost has an angel food cake type taste from all the whipped egg whites.

As always, let me know if you try it and your thoughts! If you have a blog I’ll post a link back to it.

Our dinner was one of Ross’ favorites – enchiladas! Except I played around a bit with the recipe tonight and wasn’t a huge fan, so I won’t be posting tonight’s recipe. (And just to note, those are white tortillas – I hardly ever buy white tortillas but I was using some up that I’ve had on hand in a fajita box kit forever!).

Oh, and before I get back to DWTS I have to share a pretty momentous occasion with you guys. This is me on a bike:

Ok, ok I know that seems EXTREMELY lame but let me explain. December 30, 1998 I fell off my bike and broke my left elbow in half, ended up with carpal tunnel from the bone pinching a nerve, etc. No fun! With the exception of stationary bikes this past Sunday was the first time I got back up on a bike in over a decade!! I was kinda excited. I wanted to test out my sister’s bike because hubs and I are looking at getting bikes soon.

Speaking of hubs, check out hotty hubby! ow ow!

Hope everyone has a great night! Don’t forget to check out yogadownload.com and use the 50% off coupon code ThanksMrslc!