Life's Tasty Adventures

Today was a pretty epic Monday!

No, I didn’t do anything ridiculously exciting but it was just one of those fabulous days that leaves you heading to bed with a smile on your face.

First thing, guess what came in the mail today?!

My prize from The Great Fundraising Act!!! I’ve been impatiently all month for this to arrive and today was the day (with a great big green sticker around the side saying that the border snooped through it…)! I won Paige‘s donation which was a “fitness on the go” kit containing all you need to keep fit and healthy on the road! I was like a kid at Christmas when the post woman knocked on the door and teared into that sucker with glee! Nike dri-fit socks are da bomb, by the way (yes, I said “da bomb”)! I own three pairs and love, love, LOVE them so I was pretty happy to get yet another pair!

Aside from that, Alan and I took a wee walk this morning and finally got our library cards!!! Both of us love to read but now that we’re trying to budget more, buying books is a luxury we can’t afford so we got our cards and split up to find something to read. I came home with The Tiger’s Wife by Tea Obreht!

I’ve seen this book around and have heard about it but never actually picked it up before. I think I was more intrigued by the fact that it was written by a girl six years younger than me but is winning all of these literary awards than for the content of the book itself! But I’m already 80 pages in and now completely understand! What a writer! It’s hard to believe she’s only 26 years old! Her writing style feels much more like she’s been around the block a few times. So glad I picked it up! *sigh* Libraries. Best invention EVER!

Finally, I actually have FOOD to share with you today! *gasp* I know. It’s been forever and for that I apologize but I just have not been up to cooking much at all this summer, not to mention our knives were getting dangerously dull (thankfully we bought a great sharpener last week and I feel better about preparing our veggies again). But now that the summer is winding down and both Alan and I are wanting to make more of an effort to shed some pounds, I started meal planning again.

This week’s meals are special though because at least one dish every night this week (except for Tuesday as Alan and I have a function), will be from a new e-cookbook called DinneRevolution by Chef Jeff! Chef Jeff contacted me last week to give me a preliminary copy of his e-cookbook and it couldn’t be more timely. He has structured this cookbook around families who want healthy meals, fast. Each meal takes less than 30 minutes to make and has only a few ingredients. He also includes the nutritional stats for each dish! Pretty cool, eh? I thought this was perfect to kick off our first week at slimming down together.

Tonight I made the Linguini with Sun-Dried Tomato Sauce! Yum!

This was a pretty great dish, I have to say! I know I put a bit more sun-dried tomatoes than called for but that’s because I adore sun-dried tomatoes. Regardless, this was a fast and simple dish that went down well! It’s actually slightly sweet but the saltiness from the sun-dried tomatoes evens it out (there’s no other added salt in this dish at all). I paired it with some big slices of grilled eggplant and the whole meal was gone in about five minutes flat!

I highly recommend trying this dish and to help you out, Chef Jeff is giving away copies of his cookbook to all of you! If click here all you have to do is sign up and you’ll get yourself a copy! How awesome is that?! This is not a strictly vegetarian cookbook, by the way, he has several categories that also feature all types of meat as well as seafood but I’ll be featuring his vegetarian options throughout the week and give you my honest opinion on them!

So can you tell why I’ve had a pretty great day today? Great prizes, great books and great food! Now I’m off to hopefully make it even better by watching Season 1, Episode 1 of Mad Men! Yes! I’m finally getting around to watching it! So excited!

What made your day great today?! Do you watch Mad Men? Do you love it?!