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!
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!
This looks really good and like something my husband would actually eat! I’ll have to put it on the menu for next week.