A couple Fit Mama Lunches, New Family Cereal Discovery, SUPER DELISH Black Bean Burgers!

It has been a crazy couple days since we've been home!  I have been working so hard to get us unpacked, laundry done, and refrigerator replenished.  I was SO tired Sunday night that I went to bed at 8:00 and slept for 11 hours!  I can't say enough about the healing properties of adequate sleep.  I felt GREAT yesterday.  So, after a delicious lunch, I decided to go to Whole Foods to replenish our fruit and veggie drawers.  My lunch was this:

Amy's Spanish Rice & Red Bean Soup with 1/2 chopped avocado on top!  One of my absolute FAVE soups.  I am a huge proponent of adding fresh ingredients to canned soup to make it your own and add some nutrition. 

So I trekked over to Whole Foods and picked up 3 bags of organic granny smith apples, organic strawberries, organic pears, organic veggies

organic cheeses and nitrate/nitrite/antibiotic free turkey& hotdogs

Whole wheat bread

And a new cereal for the kiddos!

This is Puffin cereal and it has 1/2 the sugar of even the Mom's Best Naturals cereal I buy.  Plus, it has 20% daily fiber, and no chemicals or artificial ingredients or colors. I found this huge 26 oz family size bag for $8.  The kids all tasted it and LOVE it.  We saw the puffins at the St Louis Zoo last week, so Eli thinks it's totally cool that he eats a cereal with a Puffin on the bag.

After I got home, I washed up the fruit and had some cut up ready for the kiddos after school.  The kids' after-school snack?  1/2 c dry puffins with an apple chopped up. 

Dinner last night was AWESOME!  I made black bean burgers with roasted brussel sprouts (for me & Mike) and chopped cucumbers (for the kiddos)

Here are some pics and the recipe

Black Bean Burgers (adapted from Super Healthy Kids)

2 cans organic black beans
1/2 c breadcrumbs (homemade= whole wheat toast, garlic powder, onion powder, shredded parmesan in a food processor)
2 eggs
1/2 c salsa

Put all ingredients in a food processor

Process until well blended

Pour 1/4 c of mixture on skillet to make each burger. 

Cook over med heat for 5 minutes on each side, or until crispy on the edges and until no longer mushy on the inside.  I found that it cooked better if I made them kinda thin and not too thick.  otherwise, the outsides would get burnt and the inside was still mushy.

I served the burgers traditionally with whole wheat hamburger buns, ketchup & mustard for the kiddos.  Mike liked his with ranch. 

The brussel sprouts were AMAZING as usual!  Here is the recipe:

Roasted Brussel Sprouts

1 lb brussel sprouts, rinsed & ends trimmed
1 T minced garlic
1 t lemon juice (about 1 wedge)
1.5 T olive oil
1/2 t sea salt
fresh cracked pepper
1/8 c shredded organic parmesan (optional but oh so good)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Place prepared brussel sprouts in baking pan.  Stir in garlic then squeeze lemon over top.  Toss with olive oil, salt & pepper.

Place in oven for 20 minutes on top rack.
Stir brussel sprouts & place back in oven for 10 minutes.
Add parmesan, if desired.
Put back in oven for 5 minutes, then kick the oven up to broil for 3 minutes.

They should look something like this

Just watch them closely to make sure they don't burn too much. 

I could literally eat the whole pan, these were so GOOD!!!

So, after everyone was done eating, I had quite a bit of the black bean burgers left over

so I decided to keep them to make the filling for my enchiladas for next night's dinner.  I usually use the frozen Morningstar or Amy's organic meat substitute (veggie crumbles), but figured this would be just as good! 

So, enough about food....now on to fitness real quick.  I did a 30 minute Nike Training workout on Saturday (a high intensity interval cardio workout) and my legs are STILL SORE...That was 3 days ago!  As a matter of fact, they hurt SO BAD that I couldn't do my scheduled run yesterday of 3 miles.  I decided to hold off on the Nike Training or bootcamp-style workouts until after my half-marathon.  When I do cross training, I'm going to keep it to pilates, yoga, or less intense cardio workouts.  It was a bit of a setback for me..  However, I have my 10 mile run scheduled for tomorrow morning (Wednesday) so I'm hoping that it goes well.  The weather has been AWESOME and it looks like it should be about 55-60 degrees tomorrow morning so that should be perfect!  I only have about 3 weeks left until the half-marathon and I've been staying on track with my training for the most part, other than taking a week off while I was on vacation.  I will let you know how it goes tomorrow...

Thanks for reading and have an awesome day!!!