Jambalaya and Hurricanes

By Natalie

I haven't set foot in New Orleans since '03. I'm ready to go back, but I will NOT be trying a hand grenade. Those babies are lethal.

Dinner

I made Mel's Kitchen Chicken and Sausage Jambalaya. It was very tasty. Feel free to have a heavy hand with applying the Chachere's.  After it was done cooking, I added the rice and let it sit together for about 30 minutes. This made the the jambalaya pretty creamy. Like Mel says in her post there are many different types of jambalaya. This one isn't very tomato-ey. If you love tomatoes, I think it would be fine if you add another can of Rotel. 

I had to make a Hurricane to go with it. There are many, many recipes out there for hurricanes. I just searched until I found one that I had all the ingredients. This is more of a summer hurricane. Here's the recipe I used:

• 1 oz of Orange Liqeur 
• 1 oz of Bacardi Rum
• 1/2 cup of pineapple juice
• 1/2 cup of apple juice
• 1 tbsp of lime juice
• slice of pineapple for garnish

The whole time I was making this drink, "Here I am, Rock You Like a Hurricane" kept playing in my head. Too bad that's all the words I know......

Workout
I didn't wake up in time to go for a run. But, if you want to go for a run in these parts you'd have to wake up at 6 AM. That's for the birds. I decided to do Wii Fit yoga. The Wii was pretty dismayed that I hadn't been on in 177 days.

I'm not that keen about the Wii Fit yoga. I wish the program would suggest modifications.  That's what yoga is all about, doing poses at YOUR level. Also, it's pretty hard to have zen moments during this work out. I wish it had salutations or flows.

Lemon Chicken and Quinoa Salad

By Natalie

We arrived home from Maui at 5:00 AM on Wednesday morning on little sleep and extremely jet lagged.  Micah got some sleep on the plane, I felt like I slept for about 10 minutes. It's a loooong flight and my foot was as fat as a sausage.

Nonetheless we had a hard time going to sleep last night. We probably went to sleep around 2 AM. I woke up this morning at 8:20. Quickly changed into my yoga gear for my class that starts at 8:30. Luckily my gym is so close, and takes about a minute to get there.

After yoga I went to Target for some grocery shopping and then later I went to Sprouts to get produce and meat. I'm really making life hard by going to 2 grocery stores in one day.


Work Out
Two weeks ago my knee became very sore after my yoga class. I don't think it was my yoga class, but maybe the running that I did the days before.  I've been taking it easy for 2 weeks. So sad. I ran 2 miles on the beach and felt pretty good. This morning when I woke up I felt a little sore, which is probably due in part to the flight.  Yoga is so awesome for stretching! The instructor always asks if anyone is hurting before she starts the class. I told her about my knee, and she checked in frequently with me during class. It was great. I'm feeling good now!

Dinner

I made Lemon Chicken and Quinoa Salad. It was really flavorful. I doubled the lemon (on accident). I put 2 tbsp lemon juice in the pot to boil, and then added 2 more tbsp after the quinoa was cooked. It was pretty tasty this way! Quinoa didn't photograph well, it's tastier than it looks!

Since I'm still missing Maui I made a skinny pina colada, which is actually not that skinny. It is about 140 calories, but I made a double batch. It was a little strong to me, so I added more pineapple juice. I bought the coconut water at Sprouts. They have several different kinds. I've had coconut water out of a real coconut, and did not like it AT ALL.  But, this was actually tasty.