Happy Mother’s Day to all the moms out there!
My mom is my best friend; we talk about everything together.. life, funny stories, relationships. We laugh, cry, run, and eat together, I love you mom!
Showin’ off our butts:
Breakfast this morning involved something new..
Crofter’s jelly! I picked this up at Wegman’s the other day and nearly screamed when I saw it!! I have been wanting a jar for awhile now since I’ve read that it’s a great jelly, and I have to agree, it is. I love jelly’s so I’m all for an organic jelly with fair trade cane sugar in it.
I had some in my oats.
- 1/3 cup oats
- 1 cup almond milk
- 1 tbsp chia seeds
- splash of vanilla extract
- toppings: 1/2 banana, ~1 tbsp White Chocolate Wonderful PB, ~1 tbsp jelly, drizzle of pure maple syrup
I love the classic PB&J combo but I’m not a super big fan of it in oats. Every once and a while I can stand it but they just seem so thick and heavy to me! VOO > hot oats.
Mmm.. melty peanut butter!
And because I love flowers. A lot.:
Lalalalalalaaaaaaa..
Obsessed.
With.
Flowers.
What’s your favorite flower? Am I the only one who’s obsessed with how pretty Spring flowers are!?
After stalking every flower within a 30 foot vicinity, I lounged out by the pool with some new Amazing Grass.
This one was gluten free and raw so I was very excited to try it. However, it tasted veeery earthy. Maybe I would have liked it more if it were blended into a smoothie with other flavors?
In it went the whole packet + water + a “shot” of orange juice. The OJ actually helped tone done the earthiness a lot! I still only drank about half.. heh. The only two flavors I seem to like so far out of the samples I got are the creamsicle flavor and grape flavor. Grape is still at the top of my list below the Chocolate Infusion flavor though. 
Speaking of protein powders, check out what came in the mail yesterday:
YAY!!!!!
I have been eyeing this stuff up for a really long time now so when I saw a special deal on Open Sky I decided it was about time I buy some! I haven’t tried it yet but I am definitely blending some up in a smoothie today. I’ll let you know what I think!
After lounging around for a while I decided it’s about time to get my run on.
I really wanted to be doing this:
but I was doing this:
Silly face FTW.
I actually had a great run. I went out for a lunchtime 5 miler and it was supa hot out. Although I hate running in really sticky hot weather, I LOVE sweating so the hot weather doesn’t bother me too much.
The things I thought on my run..
- damn, I’m happy I brought my CamelBak *gulp*
- am I there yet?
- why did I decided to run 5 miles today?
- owww my legs
- must. run. 5. miles. suck it up!
- the quicker you run –> the quick you can eat lunch
- wow, I love this song, crank up volume and repeat
- my legs are so strong
- I love running
When I’m on a treadmill I do more thinking about the blog/school but when I’m outside I seem to really only focus on my run and how I feel!
My posture got a bit off around mile 2 and my lower back started to hurt but that might be because I was gardening the other day. My left shin also hurt too so I stopped a bunch of times to do mini-massages on it and take sips of my CamelBak + had to stop at lights to cross the street.
Otherwise, I had a great run! I just wanted to take it easy today and run at about a 10 min/mile pace but I often found myself in the 8’s and 9’s so I had to tell myself to slow down! On my longer runs I usually try not to focus on going fast, but maintaining endurance the whole time throughout my run and being on my feet for a longer time. So proud of myself for not skipping out on the extra mile because I was sooo tempted to turn around at mile 4 and call it a day.
Before I left for my run I had prepared my lunch in 10 minutes flat!
I had some mushrooms laying around and black beans in the pantry so I decided to make veggie burgers. I never made my own veggie burgers before without a recipe in front of me so I’m quite glad how these turned out; they’re delicious! They’re the perfect post run fuel because you get carbs + protein in. Just what I needed!
I prepared the veggies burgers ahead of time, threw them in the fridge, came back and preheated the oven and baked them for a 1/2 hour while I showered, had a banana, and gulped down some water.
Black Bean and Mushroom Burgers
Makes 7 patties
- 2 cups washed & chopped baby bella mushrooms
- 1 can (15 ounces) black beans, drained and rinsed
- 1 small sweet white onion, chopped
- 1/4 cup spelt flour
- 1/4 cup sunflower seeds
- 2 garlic cloves
- 1 tsp olive oil
- 1/2 tsp rosemary
- 1/2 tsp oregano
- 1/4 tsp cumin
Directions: Preheat oven to 375*. Sauté chopped sweet onion over medium-low heat in 1 tsp olive oil until soft and translucent. Add in the chopped mushrooms and sauté for about 2 minutes. Remove the mixture from heat and allow to cool a little. Combine the black beans, spelt flour, spices, and garlic in a food processor followed by the mushroom + onion mixture and process until smooth. You can leave it a bit chunky if you like some texture in your burgers. Remove mixture from processor and stir in sunflower seeds. Form into patties using an ice cream scoop for even size (optional) and bake in oven for 15 minutes on 375* then flip (be gentle when flipping burgers because they’re very moist) and bake for another 15 minutes. Take out of the oven and allow to firm up and cool for about 5 minutes. Serve!
They don’t look like anything spectacular but they taste amazing! They have a great mushroomy flavor to them from sautéing them before baking. If you’re short on time you can just add the onion + mushrooms raw to the food processor but sautéing them before processing them really brings out the onion + mushroom flavors.
I love the crunch that the sunflower seeds add!
You can serve these in a wrap, crumbled on top of a salad, or in a whole wheat bun. These would be great for when veggie guests come over and you don’t want to them feel left out. These veggie burgers will definitely make them feel special! They’ll think you slaved over a hot stove all day to prepare these. Even non-veggie guests would never guess these would be vegan.
I served mine on a whole wheat bun with organic ketchup + mustard and pickles!
Extra thick pickles on the side because I’m obsessed with pickles. 
Mmmmm..
I loved this burger! They taste so rich and indulgent because of the mushroom flavor. This is definitely a burger for you mushroom fans! I hope to experiment with lots and lots of other veggie burger flavors in the future. For my next ones I want to experiment with chickpeas or maybe even lentils + nuts.
I’ll happily be enjoying these for leftovers for days to come.
PS – Did anyone catch the Lady Gaga special on HBO last night?? Her concerts look like they’re c-r-a-z-y! She’s a great entertainer and a good influence to just be yourself and love who you are.
