I skipped my run on Wednesday because it was raining. I got home and I had a huge need to cook up a storm. I stopped by the market on my way home to pick up a few ingredients. I had to ask a person working at the store where the quinoa was. The guy I asked had never heard of quinoa. I definitely was not at Whole Foods, East Side Market or Trader Joe’s. This was quite a wake up call. At first he did not offer me much help so I decided to keep looking. Thankfully a few minutes later he found me in the produce aisle and said that quinoa was in aisle six. Thank goodness!

When I got home I chopped red pepper, scallions, garlic and defrosted some frozen spinach. I was so excited to make Jenna’s spinach and cheese quinoa casserole. [Click here for the original recipe.] I started sautéing the vegetables:

After a few minutes of sautéing things started looking very pretty:

Once the red pepper started to soften I added the quinoa, chicken broth and spices:

After all of the liquid was absorbed I added 1 cup of 2% milk and two cups of cheddar cheese. I put the quinoa in to the baking pan (9″ x 13″) and sprinkled the top with panko bread crumbs and mozzarella cheese. We baked the casserole for 30 minutes and the end result was pretty good. I added some nice hot sauce to the top:

The quinoa casserole was more of a hit the next day. I brought some to my injured running buddy, Nichole which she had at lunch. Thankfully she keeps hot sauce in her office (so awesome!!). I brought some casserole home for my mom and she loved it. So this is one of the dishes that sometimes tastes better the next day after all of the flavors meld together.

My day today was good. Breakfast was 0% Fage (blueberry & acai) with Kashi cereal:

This is a great combo and a really strong breakfast. I did not have or need a morning snack. At lunch I took a short 20 minute walk. Then I had a little bit of casserole and a peanut butter and jam sandwich.

As I was driving home from work I started to get so tired. I was chewing gum and drinking water – but it just was not enough. Thankfully I had a Promax snack bar. I tore into it and as I ate it I woke up and really enjoyed this bar:

It tasted and looked like a healthy rice crispy treat. I am going to look for these – apparently they are pretty hard to find. I owe my best friend for leaving this for me after our Saturday morning run. Yum!

After getting home from work I spent a few minutes at home and changed for my run. I quickly went off and ran 3.2 miles. After a couple of days off from running and increasing my calories I felt a lot stronger running tonight. I could have run a couple of more miles, but I was also in charge of dinner tonight – so I had to cut this run short.

Dinner tonight came out really well – thanks to Whole Foods! I picked up a simple piece of grilled salmon and some amazing garlic green beans. The meal was really satisfying:

OK, well I hope your work week is going well. I am off to finish up my Thursday night to do list. Good night!