That’s what today is, good food Thursday! My good food day started with a relatively new blog classic, that wasn’t new to me and I’m sure isn’t new to you – oats in a jar! I made the oats with 1/3 cup oats, water, plain almond milk, cinnamon, 1 T. ground flax, 1 T. raisins and the last of the almond butter from this small container. The almond butter was kind of old and hard so I probably got maybe a half tablespoon out of it.
I wasn’t too hungry for lunch, but I needed something because I knew there was no way I would last until 8:00 tonight without fuel. Enter: smoothie. Easy, portable and delicious! Not to mention nutritious. 
To add some emphasis on the nutritious factor I added a packet of another blog-world trend that I am just now trying for the first time – Amazing Grass. I picked up a couple packets of the chocolate green superfood powder. Wow – this stuff packs a powerful nutritional punch for only 30 calories! Wish I could afford a tub of this stuff!
To supplement my smoothie further, I added some vegan protein powder. 57 calories and 12 grams of protein – also not bad!
I finished out the rest of the smoothie with a cup of plain almond milk, TONS of spinach (the whole VitaMix was full!), 3/4 cup frozen mango, a cup of ice and a half tablespoon of ground flax seed.
The smoothie served its (delicious) purpose, and with the aid of ahandful of pretzels in the early evening, I was ready for dinner when I came home. And what a dinner it was! So simple – essentially four ingredients – and quite a wonderful result!
I cut a polenta log into slices, sprayed with PAM and sprinkled with chili powder, garlic powder and kosher salt and baked for 15 minutes at 450 degrees.
For the lentil mixture I cooked lentils in some water. When about 2/3 of the water appeared gone, I added in frozen spinach and salsa, as well as some more chili powder, garlic powder and kosher salt. Plate and done.
Wow, the flavor combinations were out of this world! I can’t get over how easy this was with such a great result! Please try it the next time you need an easy meal one night!
((P.S. Not sure what the big deal is with lentils? A quarter cup (dry) serving is only 80 calories with 10 grams of protein! Not too shabby! 
))
Time to go finish watching this Grey’s/ Private Practice crossover. Hmmm….bad decisions much? Oy, the drama! So glad my life is relatively drama-free!
Good night!
That polenta dish looks fantastic! I seriously think I could eat lentils everyday and not get tired of them.
What IS polenta? I am fascinated by that stuff.
Polenta is made of cornmeal – it can either be served soft (kind of like grits) or you can let it sit and refrigerate and it becomes hard. It’s actually quite simple! Here’s a link:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polenta
Also – to make soft polenta, you can easily just put a 2:1 ratio of water to cornmeal in a pot on the stove.
snap you make that polenta look awesome!
and i missed that episode…thank goodness abc puts it all online!
Love the green smoothie action going on
Keep it up!
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Yummy!!! You just inspired me to grab some polenta at the store, haven’t had that in ages. And with my huge bag of lentils I bought I’m always looking for a good recipe. Thanks!
Courtney
adventures in tri-ing
I love polenta. I’ll have to try it with lentils!
I haven’t seen the Grey’s/Private Practice crossover yet! I can’t wait until Andy gets home tonight so we can watch it.
Wow, that smoothie looks so thick and delicious! I’ve also got in the habit of mixing a ‘green’ powder with protein powder and love the combo. And omg, I had a total tv binge last night: Grey’s, Private Practice, Real Housewives of OC then Project Runway! I don’t feel too bad since it’s the first time I’ve watched tv this week :p
the polenta dish really does like amazeeeee. polenta is one of those things that i don’t eat often but when i do, it’s such a delicious treat!
de-lurking! I thought 1/4 cup dry lentils was 170 calories…what type of lentils do you use? Normally I don’t care about stuff like that but it seems like a big difference. Either way though that looks amazing! Polenta scares me for some reason, haha.
Hey Hallie, thanks for de-lurking!
I just did a bit of research online and there definitely is conflicting nutritional stats out there. I got my information from the package (it was just a package of basic green lentils from WalMart) and it says 1/4 cup dry is 80 calories with 10 grams of protein. I’ll see if I can do more research and find anything else out. 
P.S. Don’t let polenta scare you, it’s delicious!
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This looks really good and like something my husband would actually eat! I’ll have to put it on the menu for next week.