Laid Back

Happy Monday and I hope most of you had it off to recover from your 4th celebrations also. I think my poor pup needed more recovery than me, our neighbors were lighting up the court with fireworks pretty late last night and while I was taking a relaxing bath, my dog got so scared she climbed over the edge of the bath tub and into the bath with me! Thank goodness she only weighs 7 lbs. I spent the rest of the bath with her sitting dripping wet on the bathtub edge and shaking like a leaf and not wanting to budge. Poor thing, luckily she seems fully recovered today.

I finally tried a Bora Bora Bar for snack today.

Paradise Walnut Pistachio and it was a sweet, gooey treat with less calories than a Larabar while being bigger thanks to the crisp rice throughout the bar. I really appreciated the variety of visible ingredients in the bar – raisins, walnuts and pistachios with the crisp rice sweetly blended with honey. It was kind of a cross between a nut bar and rice crispy treat. I’m guessing my young nieces would love this as much as I did and not know it was healthy for them. :-)

Hubby and I packed the dog for a little sun, relaxing and swimming at Folsom Lake this afternoon and, as we expected, a lot of other people had the same idea.

Fortunately it wasn’t too packed or too hot and we had a relaxing few hours reading and swimming as well as taking in a little people watching. But after swimming and spending time in the sun, I was starved when we got home and raided the fridge to create a masterpiece dinner.

I created another marinara variation in the Vita-Mix with tomatoes, garlic, carrots, red pepper, fresh purple basil leaves and dried oregano.

Then sliced and sauteed the Trader Joe’s tempeh with a little olive oil, added the artichoke hearts, fresh clipped broccoli from our garden and Wildwood PastaSlim and poured the marinara over the top and simmered for about 10 minutes. Then served and topped with Daiya Mozzarella Shreds.

Yum, a wonderful vegan spin on a marinara pasta dish! I’m not a huge fan of vegan cheese alternatives, but still had some of the mozzarella shreds left from last week. Truthfully the shreds really do not taste too much like mozzarella, but had a nice, unique flavor and texture that worked with this dish.

The PastaSlim noodles are a great alternative to traditional pasta because they’re much lower calorie than traditional pasta, gluten free and easier to prepare only requiring rinsing and heating – which I usually do in a skillet with the rest of the dish. No waiting for water to boil. Most traditional supermarkets have these style tofu noodles in the chilled health food sections, usually with the tofu. At Whole Foods, they’re located near the dairy section with tofu, miso and tempeh. I probably have them once a month for occasional cooked noodle dish cravings.