Good morning and happy Monday! I hope that your week is off to a great start and that Super Bowl Sunday was fun. My Monday started the way that they all have for the past two years…with a 5 a.m. wake-up call to teach BodyPump. Even though I sometimes arrive to teach class a bit disheveled (my socks didn’t match today/my hair was piled on top of my head…per usual) and sometimes ask myself, “Can I really lift weights right now and act excited about it?”, I am always happy once 7 a.m. rolls around to have already finished a tough strength training workout and feel so motivated by my class members who show up week after week to workout with me.
We are still teaching BodyPump 80 and I’m really enjoying it. It’s a hard release and I am loving the cardio focus and some of the new innovations – especially in lunges and shoulders.
I was starving when I got home from teaching and I was feeling like I needed a change from my typical oatmeal or Greek yogurt breakfasts. After a quick check of the fridge/freezer I ended up making French toast with Great Harvest Whole Wheat Cinnamon Raisin Walnut Bread. I topped it with Justin’s Maple Almond Butter and a drizzle of maple syrup and had blueberries and bananas on the side.
Let’s back up to last night’s dinner because it was too good not to blog about. For whatever reason I have been craving chicken tortilla soup for a few weeks now. I figured there was no better day to make it than Super Bowl Sunday, plus it was a rainy, chilly weekend in Charlotte so soup felt like a comforting thing to have for dinner.
It had been a few days since I had a salad so I started my meal off with mixed greens, goat cheese, carrots, toasted pecans and dried cranberries with honey dijon balsamic vinaigrette.
And then I got to the good stuff. I used a recipe that I posted on Bakin’ and Eggs last year. It’s super simple, healthy and delicious. You basically just sauté some onion, garlic, jalapeños and green chilies and then dump in a bunch of other ingredients and let it simmer until you’re ready to eat. It’s tomato-based with a mixture of shredded chicken, black beans and corns mixed in. My favorite part about soup/chili is getting creative with the toppings. I went with shredded white cheddar, sour cream, cilantro, avocado (always avocado…obsessed), a squeeze of lime juice and blue corn chips.
Speaking of cilantro…I used to hate it but over the past year I have developed quite a taste for it. So much so that when I was shopping for ingredients to make the soup, I made a trip to a second store because the first one was out of cilantro. There are not many foods that I dislike but when I do dislike something I keep trying it in hopes that I will acquire a taste for it. I guess it worked with cilantro. Now, let’s see if I can ever acquire a taste for dill or capers…unlikely! 😉
Cilantro – love or hate? Are there any foods that you used to dislike but enjoy now?
