& This Little Foodie Went to the Market...

Happy Hump Day!! [It's Wednesday]

I know I'm all about finding the balance in life, but today the scales were definitely tipped in favor of my food side :) and there are absolutely no complaints here!  I started off my morning with a bowl of blueberry muffin over-sized oats (I promise I'll post the recipe asap) and then prepared some delicious leftovers (some of my I can't believe it's Vegan Shepherds' Pie!... recipe will be up shortly) and headed to work.  After food gawking/answering phone calls/placing the calls on hold so they would stop interrupting my food porn session [only kidding, I'm not that obsessed] ... it was time for lunch!  Today, my coworker and I headed to the Farmers' Market near our office and I went to town on all that fresh produce.  My coworker actually had to help me carry some bags - don't judge, pounds of squash and cherries can add up!

Happy Casey & her Swiss Chard

How gorgeous are all of these colors?  I ended up with some kale, baby bak choy, kabocha squash, ranier and red cherries, onions, mushrooms, and I scored some free radishes for being so friendly with the produce guy :) you gotta do what you gotta do, right?

Then we headed to our favorite hole-in-the-wall Vietnamese place and grabbed my favorite dessert: red bean tapioca with sweet coconut milk!  I need to find a recipe for that because the Vietnamese restaurant owners have started to recognize me and can match my order to my face.. oops.

Work work work.. then I headed home to go for a 5 mile run/walk/hike before getting started on dinner.  I used last night's Lavash technique to make a delicious tofu and bean barbeque calzone and some sugar-coated eggplant as a lovely side dish.  Guys, if you're not a fan of eggplant, that is about to change!!  I needed to use up some leftover eggplant and for some reason my sweet tooth has been out of control sooo that combination led to my newest love: Grilled Maple Syrup Eggplant.  Don't cringe, it was like eating dessert for dinner (which I know every adult secretly wishes they could do).


Candied Eggplant
Ingredients:
- Eggplant (I used half of one)
- 1/4 cup of No Sugar Added Maple Syrup (35 calories)
- Non-stick Cooking Spray

Instructions:
- Slice your eggplant into round patties, about 1/2 inch thick and coat with maple syrup.  Let that soak for about 5 minutes and then place on the grill OR - if you're using a George Foreman grill - coat the grill with non-stick spray and place the eggplant onto the griddle.  Cook for about 10-15 minutes and then enjoyyy.  It's like veggies and maple syrup pancakes had a love child.


After enjoying that hugeeely satisfying meal, my sweet tooth demanded something, um, sweet so I made a Nanner Smoothie with a fresh banana, tapioca pudding cup, almond milk, and ice cubes.  Check me out ! Including a post with the words oat AND nanner... maybe now it's a little obvious how I came up with my creative blog title.

Anyways, my tummy is full so that means I'm off to plan my next meal/snack on unnecessary assorted food items... I'll see you all manana !