Getting Figgy with it!

October 28, 2009 by DanicasDaily · 11 Comments
Filed under: Daily Eats, Product Reviews, Restaurant Reviews

Happy Hump Day all! I hope you all are having as much fun with SpringPad as I am. I honestly think Springing Recipes might be my newest addiction.

You know your day is going to start off good when you have DESSERT for breakfast. It all started with a Chocolate Fig Vitatop.

Check out all the figginess going on in this Vitatop!

I LOVE adding frosting to my Vita-Tops so I broke out my FAVORITE Crunchy Almond Butter from the Nut Barn.

And layered it on! This was AMAZING and totally tasted like a chocolate covered fig newton ~ YUM! This might be one of my new favorite flavors.

I had some strawberries that my co-worker shared and a Tall FF Chai Tea Latte!

About 3 hours later I was ready for a snack. I had a Honey Crisp Apple with Almond Butter. Some things you can NEVER get enough of ~ ummm, like Almond Butter!

I had planned on having leftover Channa Masala for lunch until my two co-workers offered up going out to eat with a stop at the Halloween Store. Our office has a departmental decorating contest every year and we all participate to WIN the TROPHY plus prizes. We are on a quest for the perfect decorations ~ The Husband is being called in to build some stuff too Oh and I still need a costume! Why are ALL the women’s costumes so NOT work appropriate?! LOL…..

Before shopping we headed out to Fazerrati’s Pizza. I LOVE the name of this place ~ It honestly makes me think of Fonzie on Happy Days – like this is the name of the place he should’ve hung out vs Arnold’s.

I picked their One Slice, Salad Bar & Iced Tea. It’s pretty cool because they will make you ANY pizza you want for your one slice.

Lunch started here…..

I made up an AWESOME salad with pretty much everything on the salad bar.

Tons of Romaine

Cucumber

Red Bell Pepper

Egg slices

Mushroom Slices

Garbanzo Beans

Kidney Beans

LF Cottage Cheese

Sprinkle of Toasted Sunflower Seeds

Ranch dressing on the side with my fork for dipping!

For my slice I picked Vegetarian ~ I ate it ALL! The crust was AWESOME – so thick and chewy.

I wasn’t really hungry this afternoon but I wanted something sweet. So, I settled for some Trader Joe’s Hot Spiced Cider. Even the screaming witch was eyeing my CUP ~ it was DELISH! I saved on calories/points by using 1/2 water and 1/2 juice – it was just as sweet as drinking it straight up.

After work I headed off to my Weight Watcher meeting. Have I told you all that I just LOVE my new leader ~ she totally inspires me in everyway. I want to look as amazing as she does when I grow up I got TWO Bravo stars tonight ~ A for showing up when I didn’t want to after our Holiday Party tasting and B for being smart

When I walked in the door The Husband told me I had some FUN mail. First he showed me my new Health & Fitness Mags – fun! Then, he took me into the kitchen where I had a box from Nature’s Path!!!

* More Peanut Choco BARS ~ I LOVED the one I got at BlogHERFood09!

* Organic Sunflower Agave Plus Granola

* Organic Optimum Blueberry Cinnamon Cereal

Plus TWO Gluten-FREE versions

* Organic Whole O’s

* Crunchy Vanilla Sunrise

YUM! I LOVE everything of Nature’s Path I’ve had so far – I cannot wait to dig in and try these out. Thanks Nature’s Path – you can NEVER have too many cereals to mix and match!!! Reviews and A GIVEAWAY coming soon!

The Husband placed his order for dinner with me before I ran out this door this afternoon. He wanted tacos from Vasquez, our favorite local deli. This might just become a Wednesday tradition because these are the BEST tacos around. I had 2 Crunchy Chicken Tacos with Hot Sauce.

Plus a TJ’s Non-Pareils for dessert. These are eh, ok ~ I don’t think the chocolate is as good as some of their other chocolates. It’s pretty bitter and not creamy , but, they are not bad. I will not buy them again. There are too few calories in a day to waste them on eh, ok, foods.

You have one more day to WIN COOKIES! Off to read, relax and sleeeeeep!

Nite all!

Tags:

Ready or not ~ Spring It!

October 27, 2009 by DanicasDaily · 9 Comments
Filed under: Fun, Recipes, SpringPadIt

Happy Biggest Loser Day all!! Tonight’s show is seriously rockin’ my socks off ~ LOVE that Portabello Turkey Burger with Mushroom Buns!!! MUST, RECREATE ASAP! Then, there is the story of Abby that I swear makes me bawl my eyes out anytime I watch/hear it. *sigh* LOVE, LOVE, LOVE the show!

I am FINALLY ready to make my BIG Announcement that I’ve been telling you all about now for a month.

SpringPad It ~ Recipe Organizer!!

You all may have noticed a pretty cool looking new button on my recipe post for Channa Masala with a Coconut Kick. I had the opportunity to meet up with the fantastic folks of SpringPad at BlogHERFood09 during breakfast. We were discussing recipes, blogging and how to organize it all in a reader friendly way.

I was so excited when I realized they had a solution to solve my on-going challenge of recipe organization! They explained to me how SpringIt works and I was completely sold on the idea ~ I LOVE organizing tools and when you add that as a way to ~~feed my recipe addiction~~ organize all the recipes I collect I am impressed..

HOW IT WORKS:

SPRINGIT! Each time you see this fancy button on my posts , simply click it to add it to your own Spring Pad Collection. This will not only allow you to save and print recipes, but, you can save them by categories/tags, use them for meal planning, shopping lists and more!

SAVE IT! There is another section on their site that allows you to use a special clipper button that you drag to your bookmarks bar of your browser, highlight a recipe and "Spring It. Springpad will capture the text, images and original URL to your Springpad site so you can access the recipe for later – or print it out.

The recipe pages look like this!

Here’s a link to my profile page, where I think you can see all of the recipes I’ve done already and can save them yourself: Danica’s Daily.

I will be adding this button to every new recipe I post and will slowly be making my way adding the SpringIt Button to all the recipes on my recipe page. I’ve started on a few that you can check out

Healthy Pumpkin Butter

Channa Masala with a Coconut Kick

BBQ Chicken Pita Pizza

Here is a SpringPadIt Video that explains it all:

Be sure to sign up for your FREE SpringPad account so you can start saving and organizing recipes from all your favorite bloggers! You can SpringIt or SaveIt ~ a total win, win!

GIVEAWAY ALERT!!!

Eating Bird Food is hosting a eggcellent giveaway from Cookware.com for Rachael Ray Cookware! Giveaway ends 10/30

You know you LOVE and want some Mother’s Cookies~ Giveaway ends 10/29!

That’s all I have for tonight all ~ I am off to finish the show! Go Team Jillian!!!

Tags:

Channa Masala Recipe with a Coconut Kick

October 27, 2009 by DanicasDaily · 3 Comments
Filed under: Recipes

I LOVE spicy foods especially when they involve coconut! This VEGAN recipe uses chickpeas, a.k.a., garbanzo beans, however, I imagine you could use any protein of choice (tofu, chicken, beef, shrimp). If coconut isn’t your thing, feel free to use ALL vegetable broth and it is just as AMAZING.

My inspiration for this recipe is going to sound funny, but, as you read yesterday it was inspired by a Trader Joe’s Channa Masala Frozen Dinner that I tried awhile back. I am not an Indian food person really, but, I LOVED these spicy chickpeas so much that I recreated my own version with a coconut kick!

CHANNA MASALA WITH A COCONUT KICK

INGREDIENTS:

1 tsp Extra Virgin Olive Oil

1 tsp butter

1 medium red onion, chopped

3 garlic cloves, minced

1 tsp fresh ginger, minced

1/2 jalapeño, minced (fresh or canned)

1 tsp yellow curry powder

1/2 tsp cumin

1 large red tomato, chopped

1/2 c Lite Coconut Milk (can substitute with vegetable broth)

1/4 c Vegetable Broth

1 15 oz can chickpeas, drained and rinsed

1 tsp sea salt

1/8 tsp freshly ground pepper

1/8 tsp garam masala

1/4 tsp paprika

2 Tbsp fresh cilantro, chopped

INSTRUCTIONS:

1. Heat olive oil and butter over medium heat until melted and add onion. Cook until softened, about 5 minutes.

2. Stir in garlic, ginger, jalapeño, curry, and cumin. Cook one minute. Add tomato and cook one minute.

3. Add coconut milk, broth, chickpeas, salt and pepper. Cook for 5 minutes or until liquid is almost evaporated.

4. Remove from heat; stir in garam masala, paprika, and cilantro.

Enjoy as is, served over brown rice, with a pita bread, wrapped up or pour over a big batch of stir fried vegetables.

Makes 4 – 1/2 cup servings.

Nutritional information per serving:

Calories 195.7, Total Fat 5.5 g, Saturated Fat 2.4 g, Cholesterol 2.5 mg, Sodium 974.2 mg, Potassium 362.4 mg, Total Carbohydrate 31.3 g, Dietary Fiber 6.1 g, Sugars .4 g, Protein 7.5 g

This recipe is VEGAN!

The STAR of this recipe is Trader Joe’s Light Coconut Milk. Despite the bad rap that Coconut gets, I have to say the nutritionals are not too shabby. Oh and being only $0.99 a can is pretty awesome too!