Liz & Jake's Wedding in Stowe, Vermont

Hi guys!

I just got back from the most amazing wedding in Vermont.  My dear friend Liz got married at the beautiful Topnotch resort in Stowe.  I met Liz while working at Mass General Hospital 2 years ago, and we've stayed in touch.  She is an amazing person and I was so happy to get to share her special day with her.  She looked stunning, and I have never seen a couple more in love than her and Jake. 

I took a million pictures, but I tried to narrow it down to the best ones.  

 The flower girl was so cute, and the maid of Honor, Erika looked very pretty. 

Officially married!!

The ceremony was held at St. Andrew's in Warerbury, Vermont (home of Ben and Jerry's Ice cream!) and the reception was held back at the resort.

 The placecards were made by the bride's friend, Lisa.  They were really cute.

 There was an open bar (wahoo!) so I started cocktail hour with a Cape Codder (cranberry+vodka)

Cocktail hour was held in the courtyard outside the tent, and the view was amazing.  So picturesque.
For hors d'oeuvres, I had a chicken skewer, and some eggplant bruschetta.  Delish! It did a nice job of holding me over until the meal was served.

Jamie, Me, and Sarah

I love the idea of having a cupcake tower instead of a big cake.  There was red velvet, chocolate, vanilla, and I heard the best one was the chocolate peanut butter cup, but I didn't try that one!

 The lovely Bride And Groom!  Nice looking couple if you ask me!

The meal started with a salad.  The main course was either chicken, ravioli, or filet Mignon.  I chose the filet, and it was a good choice; cooked to perfection.

 After the meal, it was time for the dances. The couple's first dance:

Father daughter dance!

How cute are they?

Mother Son dance! 

After the dances, the rest of the guests were invited to the dance floor, and we did not stop dancing until the wedding ended!  I had so much fun!

Congratulations, Liz and Jake!  I wish you both so much happiness! Have fun on your honeymoon!

Crossfit Boston Trial Class & Slow Cooker GIVEAWAY!

Hi Guys!
I wanna tell you about my first ever Crossfit workout, and then I have an exciting giveaway for you!!
 
Everything I know about Crossfit, I've learned from reading Tina's blog  When Tina started going to Crossfit regularly and showing her impressive results on her blog (hello sixpack!), I was impressed and wanted to learn more about it.  Slowly and surely, Crossfit started popping up everywhere I turned, it became many bloggers workout of choice, and even some of my friends starting doing it. 

If you know anything about Crossfit, you know that it is expensive, effective, and wildly popular right now.  The workouts are short, intense, and challenging.
Tracy and I have been wanting to try it for a while, so we finally got the courage and went in for a trial.

Boston has a few "boxes" so we picked Crossfit Boston since it is the original "box" of Boston.

On Monday nights  they offer a free trial class, so we signed up and made the trek over there after work.  If you live in the area, you can sign up too, just go here.  They offer a free week's worth of workouts, which is three days.

The WOD (workout of the day) was:

Front Squat
15 minutes to work up to a heavy 5

Conditioning
42 Wall Ball 20/14
21 Hand Stand pushups
21 Clean highpull 135/95
30 Wall Ball 20/14
15 Hand Stand pushups
15 Clean highpull 135/95
18 Wall Ball 20/14
9 Hand Stand pushups
9 Clean highpull 135/95

 For us newbies, it was altered to:

21 regular Push-ups
21 Dead lifts (45 lbs)
21 Wallballs (10lb medicine ball)

15 Push-ups
15 dead lifts (45 lbs)
15 Wallballs (10 lb medicine ball)

9 Push-ups
9 Dead lifts (45 lbs)
9 Wallballs (10 lb medicine ball)

Tracy and I finished in ~10 minutes.  Afterwards, I felt nauseous, but I must say, it was super fun.  I could see myself getting really in shape if I started going there.  All the coaches were so supportive and I was impressed by all the attention they were giving potential members.  I would love to sign up, if I had the money, and that is a BIG if. Crossfit is expensive, but if you are looking for an intense workout, and a lot of personal attention, it's a great place to get in shape.

Giveaway Time!

I was contacted by SlimKicker about doing a giveaway for a slow cooker.  Slimkicker is a cool website that turns your diet and fitness goals into a game with points, rewards, and challenges.They offer recipe ideas for various diets and even have their own diet tracker app.  They are looking for some new challenge ideas, and thought you guys could help. 

The winner of the giveaway will win this lovely deluxe slow cooker/steamer.

Unfortunately, you have to put in a little effort to win this giveaway, but still, it's totally worth the chance to win (in my opinion)!

To enter, just leave a comment with an idea for a healthy challenge.

Some ideas I came up with:
"I would challenge myself to eat more veggies by having a side salad with my dinner as many nights a week as possible"
"I would challenge myself to take the stairs instead of the elevator as many times a week as I can"


Slimkicker will pick a winner and let me know in about a week!  I really wish I could win because my slow cooker looks like this:

Good Luck everyone!

Tips for commenting:

• If you choose anonymous, please put your name at the end of the comment box
• If you choose the Name/URL option, you can leave the URL part blank.
• You can log in and comment through your google account, your email address will not be public

WIAW: Time Flies....

Hi guys!
Today is the last WIAW of July! Eeek.  How has this month gone by already?  I hate that about summer, it goes by way too fast.  I know the rest of the summer is going to fly by wicked fast since I have a bunch of exciting things planned:  weddings, shows, beach days, barbeques, and of course the Healthy Living Summit.

As usual, I want to say a big thanks to Jenn, from Peas and Crayons for hosting this big food diary party.  






Here's a collage of what I ate (on Tuesday) in no particular order:

Breakfast: Oatmeal + PB
Morning Snack: Banana
Lunch:  Moroccan Cous Cous + Chicken from Busy Bee bakery
Snack #1:  Blueberries + Currants(so tart!)
Snack #2: Carrot sticks and hummus (not pictured)
Dinner: Trader Joe's Butternut Squash Ravioli, a side salad with baby spinach, chick peas, olives, & carrots, and a slice of TJ's tuscan pane bread + butter (not pictured)


My favorite part of the day was dinner; the butternut squash ravioli was amazing!

I recently started shopping at TJ's and I am in love.  It has awesome food at reasonable prices.  I only wish they had a deli counter where they slice the meat for you.  I don't know if this is every location, but at mine they only sell their deli meat in pre-sliced packs.  :(  That's my only TJ's complaint!


Workout:
I was thinking of either going for a run, or riding my bike to the gym, but the rain put a damper on both of those plans.  Instead I did an quick little workout in my living room. 

I did the sunset workout from the Tone it up girls.  Love them.  Try it out at home!

Have a great Wednesday everyone!

Peanut Butter Banana Smoothie

This is the yummiest and frothiest smoothie I've ever made.  I always make smoothies with an assortment of fruit, but tonight I decided to try something a little different.  I love peanut butter and banana together, so I knew I would like the combo in a smoothie.  I added the sprinkle of cinnamon on top for a little hint of flavor. Delish!

Ingredients:

 Cinnamon-Milk-Peanut Butter- Banana- Honey 

& Ice cubes

I didn't measure anything out, but I used 1 banana, 4 ice cubes, a splash of milk, a healthy scoop of pb, and a squeeze of honey.  It will turn out good no matter how much you use.

   First, turn this ^ into this --->

 Blend the ice cubes with milk, and then add in the peanut butter and bananas.

 Blend until smooth and frothy.

 Sprinkle with Cinnamon and enjoy!

This makes a great breakfast, dessert, or bedtime snack; amazing at any hour.

Maggiano's Giveaway Winners!

Hi Guys!

I used a random number generator to pick the two winners for the Maggiano's Giveaway. Yup that's right! Two winners! Maggiano's actually gave me two gift certificates, and since I'm trying not to be selfish, I'm giving them both away.  :)

Two lucky people will win a $20 voucher to Maggiano's to use on delicious food like this:

The winners are comment number 4 and comment number 6

Congratulations to:

4.

  -----and-----

6.

Number 6 please contact me so I can get you your prize!  Macncheesenpeas@gmail.com

The Recipe Redux: Summer Currant salad with Honey Balsamic Vinagrette

This month's Recipe Redux theme was "Beat the Summer Heat with No Cook Meals."  This is right up my alley because lately I just haven't wanted to use my oven.  In fact, I re-named our toaster oven the "roaster oven" because I've been using it to roast vegetables instead of using the big oven.
Using the big oven turns our apartment into more of a furnace than it already it. It's a pretty good compromise because it uses less energy to heat it up, and it doesn't affect the temperature in the kitchen as much as the oven does.

This recipe challenge takes it one step further, and doesn't require any cooking at all!  Just a few chops here, a few grates there, and a whisking at the end to make the dressing.  Simple as that!


Salad Ingredients:
Baby Spinach
Walnut nuggets
Red Currants
Cucumber
Carrots
Purple Bell Pepper

Dressing:
Olive Oil
Honey Dijon Mustard
Balsamic Vinegar

Directions:

Wash all veggies and spinach

Chop up the veggies into desired sizes
(I use a cheese grater for the carrot slices)
Remove red currants from stems and sprinkle over the salad

To make the dressing:
Combine 2 tbsp Honey Dijon with 2 tbsp Olive oil, and 2 tsp Balsamic Vinegar
Whisk together

Pour dressing over salad and enjoy!

This was a fun salad to make (and eat) because it's so colorful.  I love the purple bell peppers I got from my CSA, and the red currants are a flavorful addition to the salad.

Red Sox Game & Exciting News!

Yesterday I was having a little bit of a rough morning.  You know...just one of those days, and just when I thought things couldn't get worse, everything got better!  I had two awesome things happen to me in a span of 5 minutes.

1.  My friend Katie texted me that she had Red Sox tickets for the game that night and invited me to go!

--------and then---------

2.  I checked my email and found out I was a finalist in the Wild Harvest Breakfast recipe contest! My recipe was selected to be a top 5 finalist.

I was so happy!  It just reminded me that good things do happen, and to never let anything get you down too much, because you never know what awesome opportunity is waiting just around the corner!  :)  Your luck can turn around in an instant!  (p.s.  positive thoughts rock, and I know that was corny)

I quickly showered and went back into the city to meet my friend.  For me, Red Sox games mean Fenway franks and soft serve in a mini helmet.  No trip to Fenway is complete without them!  Although this is my favorite food option at the game, they recently added some healthier choices, which I think is awesome!  You can read about them here: http://www.boston.com/lifestyle/health/blog/dailydose/2011/04/healthier_eats.html

Since I'm just not a sports person, I rarely watch what's going on in the game and just go for the atmosphere and the food.  I still love going to games, and always have a good time, especially with friends!

Katie, Me, Melissa

This game happened to be really boring, and I'm not just saying that because I don't like watching sports! Only one run was scored.  I think we lost, but I can't be sure because I left halfway through the 9th inning to try and beat the rush to the t.

Such a fun night!  I love doing things on week nights just to make the week go by faster


Now on to the #2 exciting thing.  I can't believe my messy falling-apart omelette was selected!
Ahhhh!  I'm actually kinda embarrased that this picture is up on the website for everyone to see:

Can you even call that an omlette??  Oh well, I guess it's the taste that counts!
I've never come this close to winning a contest in my life, so this is a really big deal to me, especially since the prize is so sweet:

"The winning breakfast will be announced on August 18th, and served at HLS. The recipe creator will receive a $500 gift card to use at any SUPERVALU store, including Albertsons, JEWEL-OSCO, Shaw’s, ACME, Farm Fresh, Cub Foods, SHOPPERS, Shop ‘n Save and Hornbacher’s."

The other finalists are:

Black Bean Quiche with Mango Peach Salsa by Kristin of FoodFash

Cherry Vanilla Granola Muffins by Alicia of The Wannabe Foodie

Greek inspired Egg Scramble by Kelly of Cupcake Kelly

Trail Mix Pancakes with Peanut Butter Maple Sauce by Heather of Then Heather Said

I wanna say "Good Luck" to all the finalists!!!  I can't wait to see who wins!



P.S.  Don't forgot to enter my giveaway for the Maggiano's Gift Certificate, I'll pick a winner on Monday. :)