I recently started volunteering at a farmer’s market here in Jacksonville, and not only is it a great opportunity to get more practice with community nutrition outreach and education, but it’s a great way to really get to know some local organic farmers and other vendors, and include their hard work in my daily meals. I’m so looking forward to being part of this market on a weekly basis!

Anyway, in addition to a plethora of zucchini and a fresh cinnamon bun for the husband, I also came home with some beautiful fresh, local, organic kale the size of my torso. See, I’m not kidding:

(please excuse my I’ve-been-up-for-fifteen hours-working-and-volunteering-nonstop face) 

I was also given a beautiful, large red Rome apple. This is the kind of apple that enticed Snow White people. It was gorgeous, and had that perfect taste and texture inside.

So, I combined the two. I massaged the kale with some avocado and, inspired by the season around me, added some apple, raw pumpkin seeds, and a little cinnamon. The result? So much better than I anticipated. 

Autumn Massaged Kale Salad (serves one)

• 1-2 large leaves of kale (this sucker was huge, so I used one)
• 1/2 small avocado
• 1/2 of a small apple or 1/4 of a large apple
• 1 tablespoon raw pumpkin seeds
• cinnamon

After you clean your kale, pull the leaves away from the long central stem. Tear the leaves into bite size pieces into your bowl. Add the avocado and – seriously – massage the kale. Get in there, and mush the avocado up into and around all of the torn kale leaves.

Dice the apple into tiny quarter-inch square pieces. Add to the salad, along with the raw pumpkin seeds (aka pepitas) and a couple generous shakes of cinnamon. Toss everything together a few times to disperse the cinnamon and the apple/ seed goods throughout, and enjoy!

P.S. This salad also works well for packing up and eating on the go. I’ll be doing that again today, too!

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(Although I am bummed that I have to come back to work after that. I was supposed to have all next week off, but now the other half of the development team and I have to go babysit volunteers and paint the interior of the school’s building that’s affilitiated with the non-profit I work with. Stink, stank, stunk!)

I’m going to divide the rest of this post up in three: morning/lunch/snacks, fitness, and dinner. On your marks, get set, GO!

MORNING/ LUNCH/ SNACKS

Well, this morning at work I actually got a mini-workout in! I had to return a bunch of (super heavy) table mirrors to a wedding vendor. Well, they were doing a bunch of road work downtown, so I had to park by the city hall and make FOUR TRIPS to bring everything back! All in a skirt and cute little sandals. And I’d like to give a little shout out to all the gentlemen who stopped to help me instead of just smile and stare as I passed. NOT!

All that to say, I had an earlier appetite! Here were my eats to last me the day:

I ate the gala apple around 11. Then I broke into the chicken, spinach, strawberry salad and cucumbers around 12. Then I was still hungry so I had the Z-bar early afternoon. I think I munched a couple almonds at some point (I was mucho hungry today!). Then, before my evening workout I had 1/3 of the super yummy Odwalla super protein bar. YUM!

FITNESS
Y’all, I have to say it – I’m proud of myself today! I officially jogged the furthest distance I have yet! I know for you bloggers who are serious runners out there, this is no big deal. But I have always struggled with doing much more than three miles. But today, as I was driving to meet my husband to go to a park, I knew I wanted to jog/ do jog intervals the whole 4.5 miles. So that’s’ what I did! For the most part I stuck with jog 5 minutes, walk 1. At the half way point I was super tight, so I stopped to stretch a bit more. Then finished up!! Then did a half mile cool down walk (it’s so beautiful out there, I kind of just kept going and going!). So in actuality, my total mileage (not counting the downtown mirror lugging “fun” trips this AM), was 5 miles.

DINNER
Dinner tonight was something we thought would be easier/ not as labor-intensive as it was. Since we got back a little later from our lakeside jog, Ross and I were both in the kitchen working on dinner. Hellloooo chicken pot pie!! We watched a Bobby Flay throwdown the other night which inspired it.

The sweet potato biscuit crust is the same as Bobby Flay’s. I pretty much used his exact recipe except cut down on salt and used whole wheat flour. And warning – you are going to need much more flour than it calls for!! And don’t freak out about the butter at first, like I did – we had WAY more than enough dough! There was plenty of dough to cover the pie dish, plus make a dozen biscuits, and that was only using half the dough! The other half is in the freezer!

The inside was 2 chicken breasts cubed and sauted with red pepper powder, ground black pepper, kosher salt, and paprika. For veggies I used half a white onion, 2 small white potatoes, 2 carrots, and some frozen peas.

For the sauce I made a rue. Start with 2 T. butter and 2 T. whole wheat flour. Whisk over heat until there’s a nutty flavor/ scent to it. Then slowly start whisking in skim milk until you reach desired thickness. Also add some garlic powder and paprika.

Combine it all, top with your rolled out dough, and cook in a 375 degree oven for about 20-25 minutes.

Yum! Although I maintain it was wayyy too much work for how late we got back. Oh well! We ate, we enjoyed, and now we chill.

Y’all have a GREAT end of the week now!!

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By the way – from my post this morning, I’m glad to see there are others who liked Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2. Yay girly chick flicks! If you missed that post, don’t forget to go check it out for my free sample links for Quaker mini rice cakes and Barbara’s Bakery cereal samples (hellooooo Puffins!)

Today was full of some fun stuff for job applications – I don’t want to give away too much info right now, but there’s a job I’m applying for (putting a ton of effort into it!) that I would absolutely love to have! Cross your fingers and say a prayer for me! My goal right now is to make it to the interview stage!

Lunch included a mixture of half an extra lean Jennie-O ground turkey sausage link, a handful of broccoli slaw, and a 1/4 c. instant brown rice. I also sprinkled a tiny bit of reduced fat cheese on top and had a clementine on the side. I love me some clementines!!

For dinner tonight I made an easy soup that is so healthy but SO nutritious! See this post for my Creamy Curried Red Lentil Soup (it’s in a separate post to make my recipe organization a little easier). It was really good, and really easy. We just had a couple tiny slices of sourdough bread on the side. Looking back, I needed more veggies today! But as you can see by my tiny portion of soup, I just wasn’t that hungry tonight. It happens!

(Like my new Vera Daisy Daisy apron in the background? hehe).

Anyway – Biggest Loser. What are your thoughts on the oldest couple, the 63-year-old white team? I’m not sure how I feel about it – I think more than anything, I’m nervous for them. When I first saw them I thought, “wow, they’re going to really have to be careful, that’s pretty old for this show,” and I’m not gonna lie – I really wasn’t that surprised when I saw him pass out so quickly. And wow, I can’t even fathom the orange kid, Daniel, who is 19 and 454 lbs (mad props on your 30 lb one week weight loss dude). I am SOOO glad they all made the choice to go on this show! I love this show because it really is a huge sense of motivation for me. If they can workout and change their lives, why can’t I? I love seeing their successes and how they overcome obstacles. (Although I hate seeing people go home!!! I want them all to succeed!)

Question for the night: If you could pick Bob or Jillian as your trainer, who would you pick? I asked Ross and he said Bob right away, because Bob is a runner and Ross has been running for years. I’m not sure who I would pick. Jillian definitely kicks everyone’s butts, but I’ve always liked Bob, too.

K, well I’m going to continue working on this stuff for my application process, and finish watching Biggest Loser, too. Good night y’all!

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Lunch was very orange!
2 clementines, 4 small squares of tofu (sauteed with a bit of Italian seasoning, kosher salt, and evoo), and a nuked sweet potato I mashed up with my fork. Yum yum!

I also polished off the last half of this iced tea I had purchased with my Whole Foods gift card. Tazo Plum Pomegranate Green Tea. LOVE this stuff! I really hope they sell this in tea bags so I can make my own!
I don’t have pictures from dinner last night because I was in a rush to eat since I was so hungry post-work out! But we had some leftover chicken cordon bleu my mom sent home with me, along with a spinach/ broccoli slaw salad, and some garlic toast I made.

I capped my night off with an easy 2.5 mile post-dinner walk with Ross, the rest of the laundry, and perusing some graduate programs I’ve been thinking about.

I have some blog plans for later this week! I’ll be featuring more original recipes, including a recipe for Apricot Almond Granola (my breakfast this morning), and I’ll also be featuring a long post with tips for frugal living! Have a great Tuesday!

Edit: FREEBIES!! And foodie freebies at that. How could I have forgotten?!

Quaker Rice Cakes (either the Chocolatey Drizzle Mini Delights or the Cheddar Quakes)

Barbara’s Bakery Organic Cereals – I know all you Puffin lovers out there will be all over this sample!

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Or maybe it was a secret message from hubs since this was leftover from the salad he made me last night??

Anyway, for lunch I obviously finished off the leftovers from my salad Ross made me last night. All of the spinach and black olives were left, probably 75-80% of the cucumber slices were left, and about 1/2 a chicken breast, maybe a little less was left. If you don’t remember the salad from the sweet guest post Ross made, here’s another picture of it:

I ate the bread shown in that picture last night, so to add a starch to my lunch I cooked 1/4 c. white jasmine rice with 1/2 c. water until the rice was tender. I was boring, it was bland (notice I have a trend for boringness…no salad dressing for me! I have to really be in the right mood for salad dressing). To give your white jasmine rice a little bit of flavor, try cooking it in part water and part stock (chicken, veggie, wine, etc.) and also adding some seasonings (kosher salt, freshly ground black pepper, ground ginger, dried basil, thyme, etc.). Be creative!

Alright, back to the books! I’ll probably snack on some pomegranate avrils later, and maybe a peach Chobani this afternoon.

If you haven’t already taken my poll, please do (there’s currently a three-way tie!)! I want to hear how you think Life According to Mrs. LC can improve!!

You can vote at:

What would you like to see more of on Life According to Mrs. LC?
( polls)

or go to the post I originally posted the poll in:

http://mrslc.blogspot.com/2008/12/i-need-your-help.html

Love,
LC

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