"This is the Healthiest Meal I Have Ever Eaten!"- Moydie

 

Spicy Quinoa Stuffed Avacados

 

Well, we did it again!! A Pinterest success!! This meal looked good and thankfully it tasted delicious because it was a little pricey. 

After Moydie took his first bite, he said, "This is probably the healthiest meal I have ever had!"

He's right, quinoa is chock full of protein and avacados are amazing!! Maybe that's why those ingredients are so expensive . . .

Anyways, here's the recipe and the original website.

 

Ingredients:



Avocados (1 small avocado per person)

½ cup quinoa

1 can black beans (rinsed)

½ chopped red pepper

½ cup corn

½ chopped red onion

¼ cup chopped cilantro + some for garnish

1 tbsp taco seasoning

Cilantro ‘sour cream’

1 cup cashews soaked for at least two hours

2 tbsp cilantro

1 tsp apple cider vinegar

1 tsp agave (if you want it sweeter)

dash of salt

Directions:
Start by rinsing your quinoa well and then place it in a sauce pan and toast for about two minutes until the quinoa starts to smell ‘toasty.’ Add one cup of water or vegetable broth and bring to boil. Once boiling, reduce heat to simmer and cover. (To get fluffy quinoa, it’s really important to not stir it, just let it be, keeping a close eye on it)

1. Chop the red onion and red pepper and add all the ingredients, minus the quinoa, in a bowl and mix well with the taco seasoning. Once the quinoa is finished and has cooled, add it to the vegetable mixture.
2. Put the mixture in the refrigerator to cool.
3. Drain the cashews and place them in a blender. Add ¼ cup water, apple cider vinegar, agave, and salt and blend. You may want to add more water until the mixture is silky and smooth but I recommend doing so a little at a time. Once the consistency you want, pour into a bowl and place in the refrigerator to cool
4. To assemble the avocados, begin by cutting them in half, removing the skin and the pit. I also scooped out part of the avocado to make a little room for more stuffing.
5. Scoop about ½ a cup of the quinoa mixture into each avocado, more if you can fit it.
6. Finish with a little cilantro ‘sour cream’ and some chopped cilantro and serve.

http://essentiallivingfoods.com/blogs/articles/7756437-spicy-quinoa-stuffed-avocados

 

Doesn't it look amazing?!

No Pinterest Failing in this House!!

 

Brown Sugar Baked Peaches

 

I found this recipe the other day on Pinterest and we just happened to have some peaches that were ready to eat! So last night, Moydie and I made these! It was so quick and easy, it might have to become a tradition every night!! Ok, maybe not every night, but we'll for sure do this again. 

Here's the recipe and the link to where it's originally from. 

 

Ingredients:

1 fresh peach
1 tsp. unsalted butter, divided
2 to 4 tsp. brown sugar, divided
Sprinkling of ground cinnamon, to taste

1.  Halve peaches and remove pit.  Place in baking dish, skin side down.

2.  Place 1/2 teaspoon butter in the hollow of each peach, top each peach half with 1 or 2 teaspoons brown sugar, and sprinkle with cinnamon.

3.  Bake at 375 degrees until peaches are tender, about 30 minutes.  Serve warm.

http://www.thekitchenismyplayground.com/2012/07/brown-sugar-baked-peaches-healthier.html

Hope you all enjoy it!

"The Olympian"

Funny story . . .

The girls on my team and I were cleaning out one of our friend's locker for her and we came across this book . . .

I read the first page and was hooked!

This book is about a runner who grows from being a good 400 meter runner into an incredible world-renowned athlete because of people who believed in him. 

The book is completely fictional, but the thoughts of the runner are completely real.  I think that's what got me hooked . . .  his thoughts mirror mine in training and racing.  It's incredible! It makes me think that the author has got to be a runner to match our thoughts that accurately. 

This book was published in the 60's, but the principles in there are the same as they are today.  I even gained a little bit of knowledge that I had not been aware of. 

I loved this book, but there were things that turned me away from it at times. 

1. In this book, there are some swear words.  This didn't bother me too much, because I sometimes am thinking a bad word in the middle of bad races and so I knew what pain he was going through when I came across those words. 

2. I think Mr. Glanville should have focused more on the training and races than on the social/immorality issues.  I understand he was writing a real book and he wanted it to be real, but sometimes I thought it was unnecessary and it made me sick.

But at the end of reading it, I wanted to keep it and read it again a few days before cross country started up again because it definitely pumped you up and kept you interested throughout the entire 276 page book. 

I would recommend this book if you are a runner looking for someone who feels your pain during intervals and competition.  It's amazingly written so you are right there on the track taking his splits.  

Relay for Life Band Gig

My husband is the lead guitarist for the band The Compilations.  (Look them up on facebook!)  The band has been together for over two years and we are finally super busy with gigs! 

This Relay for Life gig was on the 21st of this month and it was a blast! Mainly because I got to sing a song! Both of our female musicians are on maternity leave and on Tuesday before the gig, the boys asked me to sing Taylor Swift's "You Belong With Me" and it was awesome! They decided to have me sing it at the show! 

I was stoked! Moydie and I practiced it a lot before the gig because I had no desire to make the band look bad. 

Before the show, Moydie and I went to the car show!! He is in love with Jeeps and we will get one someday . . .

 

The gig went great!! I slipped up a tiny bit in the song, but Moydie didn't notice so I consider it not a mistake.  Our male singer had a friend come with her nieces and one of them is madly in love with Taylor Swift.  She screamed a high-pitched scream when she found out I would be singing that song.  She was part of the reason I was hardly nervous . . .How could you be with a little spunky girl dancing and singing in the front row giving you the biggest smile?!

Here's a sweet video of my husband rocking out on the guitar that night . . .



Isn't he handsome?! 

I love to sing, but since high school I haven't done that much instructional singing.  Because of my love for music and my obsession with Glee and wanting to be like Rachel, I signed up for private voice lessons for next Fall Semester at BYU hoping to come out of my singing shell and improve one of my talents.  

Greek Ribs? What's that?

Here is my lovely husband chowing down on some tasty Greek ribs!!  He absolutely loved this dinner!!
I've been going through our gluten-free recipes and I was feeling like ribs tonight to go with our potato salad that I made a few days ago.  So, the Greek ribs recipe won today! Here it is . . .

 

Ingredients:
3 lbs.spareribs or short ribs
1 onion (chopped)
8 garlic clove, crushed
salt and pepper
2 tbsp oregano
Gluten Free Greek Seasoning (basil, thyme, cinnamon, nutmeg)
1 fresh lemon

Directions:
Preheat oven to 300°F.
Line a cookie sheet with foil. Combine ribs with onions, garlic, pepper, salt and the oregano. Spread out on the cookie sheet and sprinkle Greek seasoning on the ribs. Bake for 2 hours until tender.
Finish baking by broiling for approx. 10 mins on each side. Squeeze fresh lemon juice on when ready to serve.

It turned out wonderful!! The spices and seasonings and the lemon juice made this ribs my favorite so far!!!

Here's the creamy potato salad recipe, too! These two recipes went very well together.  My husband called our meal very Mediterranean. 

 

 Ingredients:
3 lbs baby red potatoes, quartered
1/4 cup Italian dressing (any GF flavor you like)
8 oz. creamy/cream cheese chip dip (any GF flavor you like-although stick with the same type as the dressing you choose)
1/4 cup Parmesan cheese, shredded
1 1/2 cups cherry or grape tomatoes, halved
2 stalks celery, sliced
2 Tbsp fresh basil, finely chopped

Directions:
Boil potatoes until soft, then drain and put in a bowl with dressing. Refrigerate for an hour to allow the potatoes to soak up the flavor of the dressing.
Once potatoes are cool, gently toss all remaining ingredients together and serve.

Enjoy!

 

 

 

Yummy Surprise for Moydie

My husband, Moydie, is gluten-free and he loves baked goods.  Hmm . . . see the problem?

It has become my life mission to find him great gluten-free recipes for his favorite desserts.  I've baked him gluten-free Dutch apple pie, pumpkin pie, doughnuts, and cinnamon rolls!  And they have all turned out great!! I guess you can't go wrong with a recipe with sugar in it lol. 

Today is our 1 year 10 month anniversary and I've been wanting to make him these cinnamon rolls again so today was the most perfect day to do it! And it only took 40 min!! (I remembered these being really hard to make so I was surprised and happy that this time it went smoothly). I had dinner already made and before Moydie walked through the door, I had the rolls ready to go in the oven!! I actually had him turn around to let me put them in the oven so he couldn't see what it was!  When they started cooking however, he knew what was in the oven. 

He was so excited!! And . . . they tasted delicious!!   

Here's the recipe . . .

Ingredients:
¾ cup rice flour
¾ cup potato starch
2 tsp baking powder
½ tsp xantham gum
½ tsp salt
1 Tbsp sugar
2 eggs
1/3 cup vegetable oil
½ cup milk mixed with 3 tablespoons melted margarine or butter
2 tsp cinnamon
½ cup sugar
¾ cup raisins
TOPPING
1 cup icing sugar
¼ tsp vanilla extract
1 Tbsp milk

Directions:
Preheat oven to 400°F.
Sift together the rice flour, potato starch, baking powder, xantham gum, salt and sugar.
Whisk together the eggs, vegetable oil and milk in a separate bowl, then pour into the dry sifted mixture and blend well.
Grease paper (waxed) with a little a spray or oil, place the dough mixture on the paper, flatten then lightly butter the dough.
Blend the sugar, cinnamon and raisins in another bowl  then sprinkle the mixture on top of the dough.
Lightly grease your cupcake or muffin pan. Start with one edge and roll the dough to form a long tube shape.  Slice the roll every 2 inches and place each roll with swirl facing up in a greased muffin pan.  Bake for 15-20 minutes.
While your dough is cooking, mix together your icing mixture of milk, icing sugar and vanilla to make the topping for the dough. Remove the rolls from the oven when cooked and spread icing onto hot rolls and enjoy!

I got this recipe from Angie from the online Gluten-Free Club.  Feel free to use it!!

 

This was one of the perfect cinnamon rolls, close-up.  Yep, they tasted just as good as they look.  I love using my Mom's old pans by the way.  They definitely bring back memories from baking with Mom. 

P.S.  Right as I was writing this blog, our power went out for 2 hours!!! It was kind of creepy.  

 

Impulse Buy . . . Something I Never Do

This is the first and only fashion post I will have. 

Today was a shopping day with my sister and I absolutely loved it. 

We went to my favorite store, Victoria's Secret, and then we went to Forever 21. 

At Forever 21, my eyes beheld these shoes.  At first glance, they are like . . .uh . . .ok those can be cute.  Then, I put them on . . .

Cuteness, right?! And they are actually comfortable and fit perfectly with a three inch heel.  Then when I thought about it, I was like, "Oh my gosh, these are the perfect teacher shoes!!" I'm aspiring to be a high school Spanish teacher and right now I am tutoring some students and so I pictured wearing these while teaching/tutoring and I was sold! They were only $26.  Ok, that's a little bit more expensive than I would have wanted to spend, but I absolutely fell in love with them and I hardly ever fall in love with clothes. 

I wore them to tutoring today and I felt just the part. 

Oh and when Moydie came home, he loved them. 

To fit the outfit, I was wearing black gaucho pants with a black. lacey shirt with pearl earrings and a pearl necklace. 



I am very excited to find more outfits to match these cutey shoes!



Emily is My Sister and She is Awesome!!!

My little sister Emily is a freshman in high school this year and she is the coolest!!

She was able to place 33rd at State XC and she played varsity in basketball this year, too! 

She qualified for State Track, too, of course!

She's the key member of two relays.  The sprint medley and the epic 4X400. 

Since I wasn't busy this weekend, I decided to go because quite frankly, I needed to be there for her!  It was a huge surprise! I arrived about an hour before they were going to run the prelims for the medley and so we went to go find her to say hi and good luck before they raced and holy cow, she was so surprised! She kept saying, "What are you doing here?!" Lol :) Here's a pic my mom snuck of the surprise . . . sadly, you can only see my hair, but it's the thought and memory that counts right?



They performed well in the sprint medley, but sadly they didn't qualify for the finals.  Here's some of her teammates in the tent ready to run. . .

It was so cool to watch my sister run! She was the anchor on the medley and she was a fighter! She passed two girls before the finish line and she was flying!

The next day they had the prelims for the 4X400. 

It was the most perfect race I have ever seen!

Karlee started and she got us into fifth place!  Then she handed it off to Emily who took off like a jackrabbit and passed three girls!! Before any of us knew it, they were in 2nd place and Emily was going after that first place girl.  Emily handed it off to Taylor and that girl ran tough and kept us in second.  Taylor handed it off to Miranda and she held all the girls off until right at the finish line when a girl came up on her.  They placed 3rd in the prelims with a 9 second pr!!!  They were qualified for the finals on Saturday which meant they would be able to get a medal, stand on the podium, and get the only State points for the girls side of the team!! 

Here's Emily getting ready to run her leg on the 4X400! I was so nervous!!! Lol :)

Here they are after the race; so excited that they qualified!!!!

 Oh the crazies lol :)

Gotta love 'em! :)

The next day, the girls ran another tough 4X400 and they got 7th at State!! They all got medals!!! Wahoo!!! I'm so proud of them!!













The Yogurt Experiment

Ever since I can remember, I have loved yogurt.  My mom bought us Yoplait while we were growing up and so when I came to college, I bought Yoplait yogurt.  My favorite was the Strawberry custard style. 

When Moydie and I got married almost two years ago, I kept buying Yoplait. 

One day, when we were shopping, Moydie stopped me at the dairy section and pointed out that he loved Mountain High Yogurt.  He told me it has less sugar than Yoplait.  Cool!  We tried Mountain High and I immediately was hooked on it.  That stuff was like candy to me, but healthier!  Since Moydie and I work out a lot, having protein after a workout is crucial and Mountain High yogurt has 10 grams of protein per serving!! Wahoo!! Score!!  We have been faithful customers of Mountain High yogurt ever since. 

This last weekend, I went to Princeton to race in the ECAC Conference and we bought some food there for breakfast since the hotel didn't provide one.  At the grocery store, everyone kept saying, "Get Greek yogurt; Greek yogurt's the best!"  So I did, I bought five flavors of Oikos Greek yogurt. 

And guess what?  I loved it!  Out of the Vanilla, Key Lime, Raspberry, and Strawberry flavors, my favorite was Vanilla.  As soon as I started loving this yogurt, I had to look at the sugar and protein content.  It looked good, but I wanted to compare it with other Greek yogurts and our beloved Mountain High. 

When I went to the store yesterday, I thought it would be fun if we tested and experimented with all these yogurts to see which was the tastiest, best form of protein, least amount of sugar, and the cheapest.  Moydie was very excited when I told him my idea.

We experimented with Mountain High, Chobani, and Oikos.  

This is what we found out . . .

Mountain High yogurt has .0885 grams of protein per 1 gram of yogurt, .221 grams of sugar per gram of yogurt, and costs .32 cents per gram.  

Oikos has .16 grams of protein per gram of yogurt, .24 grams of sugar per gram of yogurt, and costs .6 cents per gram.   

Chobani has .188 grams of protein per gram of yogurt, .2 grams of sugar per gram, and costs .58 cents per gram. 

With this study, in order from best to worst we have found that for protein it goes Chobani, Oikos, Mountain High; for sugar it goes Chobani, Mountain High, Oikos; and for cost it goes Mountain High, Chobani, Oikos. 

The results of the taste test were:  I loved Oikos rich, creamy, custard texture and yeah, I guess I loved the sugar.  Moydie still loved the taste of Mountain High. 

From this study, we are still going to buy Mountain High, but we will buy some Oikos too because it has more protein than Mountain High and since it comes in little packages, it's perfect for after work out snacks, lunches, and trips.   



There Are Miracles!!!

 

I don't want to be romantically obsessive or anything, but Moydie and I are close . . . real close.  So close in fact that when I go on trips with the BYU XC and Track team without him, I miss him real bad and I love to call, text, and send him pictures of our trip.

On the morning of May 8th, Moydie was taking me down to the Smith field house to drop me off for our trip to Princeton University for the ECAC Conference Championships.  We were talking in the car about calling each other as much as we need to and we had agreed to always have our phones with us, turned up loud.  (Sometimes Moydie can't hear or feel his phone, so I had gone through it and turned everything up the day before lol).  He dropped me off and we kissed (a lot) and said goodbye.  Then I'm off to the locker room to pack. 

After 10 min, I'm all packed and I'm making sure I have everything I need when I reach in the bottom of the bag I brought from home and I find Moydie's phone.  Oh crap. 

The night before, we had been at band practice and during practice he always gives me his phone to hold onto so it's not bulging in his pocket getting in the way of his guitar playing. 

I had forgotten to take it out and give it to him. 

Uh oh . . .

I frantically started thinking of ways to get it to him.  I figured it would be safe in our track secretary's office and that I'd just email and facebook Moydie to tell him where it was.  I didn't even know when he would realize he didn't have his phone . . . he's not real connected to it.  I ran and put my stuff on the bus and then ran to Ann's office to put Moydie's phone safely there and then I ran onto the bus to jump on my computer to send Moydie all these frantic messages. 

Right after I had sent the first message, I heard one of the girls on the bus with me yell, "There's Moydie!" I looked out the window and what did I see? My Handsome Husband looking for me!! I ran off the bus into his arms and then I dragged him into the office to get his phone and the earth started spinning again lol.  I was so happy! I asked him how he knew and he said that when he first went home he tried to find his phone and he couldn't and then he remembered that I had put it in my bag and that I still had it!! Dang, my husband's good! He was so worried about me, thinking that if he couldn't find his phone, that I would have a miserable trip.  Well thank goodness there is someone looking out for us.  I really believe that Heavenly Father helped Moydie think to look for his phone immediately and then realize it was with me and come screaming back right before we took off.  There was a reason Coach Shane was late for the bus that day.     

May Fun!!!

It's only the 5th of May and I've already done tons of stuff!! I've gone to Women's Conference, gotten deathly sick, gone to a rock concert, and I've had a beautifully fun date day with the hubby!

On Thursday, the 2nd, was the first day of Women's Conference! I love going to Women's Conference with my mom, sister, aunts, grandma, and cousins! It's such a blast to hang out with them!
My favorite part of going to Women's Conference is the Spanish session I go to.  One of my professor's wives presented and she is amazing! She talked about how to stay fiercely loyal to your spouse.  It was inspiring.
Sadly, I had gotten sick Monday night and Thursday was the worst of it.  I had fun on Thursday, but I was seriously miserable at some times because of my cold/allergies.  Thursday night, Moydie was able to give me a blessing and through the Lord's power I started feeling better.  I woke up Friday almost perfectly normal! I only had to blow my nose once that whole day!! (From Monday to Thursday I had used up two toilet paper rolls from blowing my nose).  So Friday was a lot of fun!

Friday night, we went to watch my husband play with his band at a Dillard's party!  This was my Mom's first time hearing them and she loved it!! They did really well, too!  They are called The Compilations! Look them up on facebook and like their page!

Saturday was a fantastic day!  Moydie and I decided not to go canyoneering this weekend since I was still recuperating and so we decided to work out twice and go to the Salt Lake City Temple! This was our first time going to this temple and it was amazing!! One of my new favorite temples! You think it's magnificent on the outside?! You should see the inside!! Incredible! Moydie and I were blown away!! It is definitely the Lord's House. 

Birch Hollow Rollercoaster

This last weekend, Moydie and I canyoneered a canyon with our friend Steve!!  Moydie had been dying to do Birch Hollow down by Zions National Park and so we totally scheduled this trip 3 weeks in advance!!
Birch Hollow is a canyon run with 8-9 repels!! Dang, that's a lot!! The most we had done in a canyon previously was like 3 repels, so this canyon was really great practice!
I love to repel! It's so much fun and I consider myself pretty good at it. 
The first repel had me in for a spin, though. 
When we got to the first repel, we decided that Steve would go first, me second, and Moydie would come down last.  As soon as Steve went down, we heard him shout, "Whoah!! Guys it's a free repel!" A free repel is where you don't have the cliff to put your feet on; you're repelling off an overhang.  When I heard that, I started to get nervous.  I had never done a free repel before.  Moydie comforted me by saying it's really not that different. 
After Steve was safely on the ground, it was my turn.  I was pretty nervous.  Everything was going smoothly until I got to the part where the cliff disappeared.  I was going slow and as I came down the overhang, my hand got caught between the overhang lip and the rope! Ouchy whawha!!  I yelled to the guys that my hand was caught and they directed me to swing out, so the rope would move off my hand.  Now that I had my hand free, I felt more relaxed until I realized one of my braids was stuck into the repel device!! Ugh, my dang long beautiful hair!! I yanked out that braid and kept descending when all of a sudden, the other braid got caught!! Oh my heck, seriously?! I yanked that one out and finally got my two feet off the ground.  Not only was this scary, but we had just heard about a girl who had got her hair caught while repelling and with a series of unfortunate events, she ended up in the hospital, almost paralyzed.  So yeah, I was freaking out thinking I was going to die.  Thankfully, Heavenly Father protected me, but I was upset, frustrated, and scared.  I did not want to do any more repels. 
I tied my braids back behind my neck and I was not a happy camper when we came to the next repel.  It took me 10 minutes to figure out how to do it.  Not to mention that there was a group behind us, staring at me.  Ugh, if there is anything more frustrating when canyoneering, it's when there are lots of people in the canyon and they are staring at you as you are having a freak out moment.  I finally got down that repel, with Moydie coaxing me along. 
The third repel was fine.  I was still frustrated though with my level of confidence.  (I've been having issues with this lately).
When we got to the fourth and longest repel, I was feeling a lot better and thank goodness! This one was huge and awesome!!

This repel was 90 feet!  It was so much fun!!

After this one, we had 4 more repels and they were so cool!

After the last repel, we were basically out of the canyon and we were headed back to the car . . . except between us and the car was a canyon we had to ascend now and lots of trees and poky bushes.  Yep, that's right, we went bushwacking all the way to the car for about two hours!!!

 

Here's a video that shows how crazy this was . . .



As weird as it sounds, I loved the bushwacking part!! There is something satisfying about making your own trail through branches and trees that want to eat your hair.  Yes, there were times where I got frustrated because of the forever abyss of trees in our way, but it was quite fun!

Here's a pic of our hands after the adventure . . .

Yep, no big deal, we're hard core.