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Hi Friends!

Can you believe it’s the end of March already? This week we’re trading Fitness Friday for our monthly reveal for Foodie Penpals!!

This month, I received my box from Halley @ Blunder Construction! Halley is one of my favorite blends. Her blog is amazing and hilarious, especially when she writes about her cat, the escape artist. I knew she’d hook me up with a good box!

Let’s take a look at what she sent!

Ok, first of all…wrapped in tissue paper?! She puts my boxes to shame. They’re not nearly this pretty!

That couscous is my all-time fav! How did she know?! I found it on clearance one time and now i’m hooked! I’ve never tried that PB but i’ve yet to make a PB I don’t like 🙂 And as for steel cut oats, never had those…but lucky for me, literally the day after my box showed up, Janeetha posted Slow Cooker Steel Cut Oats! Perfection!

See those peanut butter crackers? The girl is allergic to them but still sent them to be because she knew I would love them! And I do! Taste just like the pb sandwich girl scout cookies! The coffee candy is pretty cool. It REALLY tastes like coffe so if you like coffee, you’ll love these little gems. The coffee taste is a little strong for me by itself. But I’m thinking if I smashed them up and used them as a topping on some bars, with some toffee, it would be phenomenal! As for the seaweed snacks…I’m saving those for a day when I’m feeling my bravest 🙂

HUGE thanks to Halley for an amazing Foodie Penpals box! It was the highlight of my week for sure!

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And now it’s time for some details about Foodie Penpals.  In case you’re a new reader, here’s a reminder of what the program is all about:

-On the 5th of every month, you will receive your penpal pairing via email. It will be your responsibility to contact your penpal and get their mailing address and any other information you might need like allergies or dietary restrictions.
-You will have until the 15th of the month to put your box of goodies in the mail. On the last day of the month, you will post about the goodies you received from your penpal! 
-The boxes are to be filled with fun foodie things, local food items or even homemade treats! The spending limit is $15. The box must also include something written. This can be anything from a note explaining what’s in the box, to a fun recipe…use your imagination!
-You are responsible for figuring out the best way to ship your items depending on their size and how fragile they are. (Don’t forget about flat rate boxes!)
–Foodie Penpals is open to blog readers as well as bloggers. If you’re a reader and you get paired with a blogger, you are to write a short guest post for your penpal to post on their blog about what you received. If two readers are paired together, neither needs to worry about writing a post for that month.
-Foodie Penplas is open to US & Canadian residents.  Please note, Canadian Residents will be paired with other Canadians only. We’ve determined things might get too slow and backed up if we’re trying to send foods through customs across the border from US to Canada and vice versa. So, I’m going to keep two separate lists and match US w/ US and Canada w/ Canada!

If you’re interested in participating for April, please CLICK HERE to fill out the participation form and read the terms and conditions. You will also find contact information on that page for the UK branch of Foodie Penpals if you’re a blogger across the pond!

You must submit your information by April 4th as pairings will be emailed on April 5th!

**Sidenote: My birthday is April 15th so whoever gets me this month better send me a kick-ass package 😉 KIDDING!!!!!!!!

–Lindsay–

Hi Friends!

Another Monday, another day spent wishing the weekend comes quickly! I have a delicious recipe to share with you today!

Let’s talk about quinoa for a minute. I have kind of a love-hate relationship with quinoa. I WANT to love it. I love the nutrition side of it. I’m just not 100% crazy about the taste of it. Lately, however, I’ve been working on incorporating it into my diet more frequently and I threw together these cakes in hopes that they would taste mostly like tuna, with the added bonus of quinoa. Mission accomplished!

These are super simple to make, packed with protein and they taste great!

These could be drizzled with sriracha and enjoyed on top of a salad to take it from bland to  amazing.

The first night we ate these, we grilled up some veggie kabobs and some sweet potatoes and ate the cakes topped with goat cheese. AMAZING.

The next night, I ate the leftovers in a whole wheat tortilla topped with avocado and a little bit of cheese. Equally as good!

Whatever way you choose to enjoy them, I hope you make them soon 🙂

So tell me: quinoa- love it or hate it?

Enjoy!
–Lindsay–

Hi Friends!

Confession time. Prior to this week, I’m not totally certain when the last time I had a salad was.

I know, I know. Bad healthy living blogger right? Well don’t judge me too harshly. I’ve still been getting my veggies:

See? But as far as salads go…not so much. Until this week. Over the weekend, the hubby and I went to our favorite restaurant and I noticed this on the menu:

I really wanted that salad, but I wasn’t in the mood to pay $10 for it, especially when I had all the ingredients at home!

So I’ll give you one guess what we had for dinner the next night?!

Baby Spinach
Roasted Sweet Potatoes
Sliced Pears
Diced Red Peppers
Sliced Strawberries
Pecans
Fresh Goat Cheese

And I guarantee this didn’t cost $10.

So don’t be like me and go 2 months without…

Have a salad 🙂

–Lindsay–

PS: Today’s Workout: All Abs. 4 kinds of ab workouts, 3 exercises of each kind

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It’s that time again! Time to recap all of the goodies I got in this month’s Foodie Penpals box!!!

This month I received my box from Brittany @ Go The Xtra Mile! She is totally adorable and just ran her first half marathon this past weekend!

She hooked me up with a delicious box of treats!

The spread (cat not included):

Let me just say that I tried pretty much everything
within 5 min of opening the box!

I send Justin’s nut butter a lot but had never actually tried it! It was fantastic. And that jam is my new favorite. Strawberry rhubarb? Yes please.

I tried this with my lunch and absolutely fell in love. Not something I would have bought on my own, but the flavor was SO GOOD! I love green tea.

I also munched on some of these veggie chips. They were better than I expected and the hubby actually ended up eating most of the bag. He’s already requested that we buy more.

And finally, I requested that she send me some homemade cookies and she did not disappoint!!! These were SO GOOD!

I love her 🙂

———————————————-

And now it’s time for some details about Foodie Penpals.  In case you’re a new reader, here’s a reminder of what the program is all about:

-On the 5th of every month, you will receive your penpal pairing via email. It will be your responsibility to contact your penpal and get their mailing address and any other information you might need like allergies or dietary restrictions.
-You will have until the 15th of the month to put your box of goodies in the mail. On the last day of the month, you will post about the goodies you received from your penpal! 
-The boxes are to be filled with fun foodie things, local food items or even homemade treats! The spending limit is $15. The box must also include something written. This can be anything from a note explaining what’s in the box, to a fun recipe…use your imagination!
-You are responsible for figuring out the best way to ship your items depending on their size and how fragile they are. (Don’t forget about flat rate boxes!)
–Foodie Penpals is open to blog readers as well as bloggers. If you’re a reader and you get paired with a blogger, you are to write a short guest post for your penpal to post on their blog about what you received. If two readers are paired together, neither needs to worry about writing a post for that month.
-Foodie Penplas is open to US & Canadian residents.  Please note, Canadian Residents will be paired with other Canadians only. We’ve determined things might get too slow and backed up if we’re trying to send foods through customs across the border from US to Canada and vice versa. So, I’m going to keep two separate lists and match US w/ US and Canada w/ Canada!

If you’re interested in participating for March, please send  an email to me at [email protected] and include the following information:
-Your full name
-Your email address
-Your blog name/address
-Your twitter handle (if applicable)
–WHETHER YOU ARE A US RESIDENT OR CANADIAN RESIDENT. – this is SUPER important so you get on the right list!

You must submit your information by March 4th as pairings will be emailed on March 5th!

***PLEASE NOTE: if you send an email, you WILL GET A RESPONSE within 48 hours. If you don”t….please re-send your email or contact me via Twitter (@LeanGrnBeanBlog). Last month we had a few emails get lost as spam so we’re trying to avoid that!

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Enjoy!
–Lindsay–

On Friday the hubby & I took a little roadtrip. He took the day off work and I skipped class and after taking the dogs to get their nails trimmed, we hit the road! We’d been talking about going to Ikea for months and we finally decided to make it happen! We didn’t have any huge plans to buy anything. In hindsight-this was a mistake. If you’ve never been, Ikea is HUGE and we basically wandered around like lost puppies but it was fun! We picked up a few things but for the most part just went for the experience.

After Ikea, we headed down the road to Jungle Jim’s. It’s pretty much a foodie paradise 🙂

There was mind-blowing amounts of some stuff, like beer & wine, honey, Bob’s Red Mill, and nuts!

Hubby really wanted a keg of draft beer! They’re also known for their restrooms. They’ve disguised the hallway to the restroom as the entrance to a port-a-potty!

We loaded up, mostly on beer and wine, plus a few foodie treats, and headed home.

It was a good day!

What was the last road trip you took?

A workout for you: Do 1, 2 or all 3 for a total body workout. Go hard! it’s only 10 min!

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–Lindsay–

Hi Friends!

Today I wanted to have a little chat with you about something I feel is super important- volunteering.

When was the last time you volunteered? When was the last time you took some time out of your day to help someone else? To really stop and think about just how lucky you are to have everything that you do?

Thanks to my parents, I started volunteering at a very young age. Every Christmas, my mom would bundle my sister and I up to go ring the bell for The Salvation Army. And every year we would adopt a family to buy Christmas presents for through the red bag program. On the day they were due, we would go help sort them and load them into semi-trucks to be delivered. I’ll never forget the first time we showed up to help sort and I saw 6 semi-trucks lined up in the street. I remember thinking that there couldn’t possibly be that many people that needed help over the holidays.

As I got older, I continued to volunteer at festivals, events and soup kitchens. In high school, I did all sorts of volunteer work for National Honor Society. I won’t say I enjoyed every single minute. Most high schoolers don’t enjoy getting up early on Saturday morning to go pick up trash…but am I glad I did it? Absolutely. Am I glad I formed a group of friends who knew the importance of volunteering and did it with me? For sure.

In college I was part of the Big Brothers, Big Sisters program. After we graduated from college, the hubby and I spent several years volunteering weekly at a local animal shelter.

When I went back to school, I started volunteering at places that were more specifically geared towards my interest in food and nutrition. I volunteered at a WIC clinic and I spent time at LifeCare Alliance working with their Senior Farmer’s Market and Meals on Wheels programs. I volunteer with Local Matters and will soon begin teaching Cooking Matters classes. I also volunteer weekly at a choice food pantry.

Although it may seem like it so far, this post is not about me touting what an awesome person I am, or searching for compliments. I just wanted to show you that it’s an important part of my life, and that it can be done, even if you have a busy schedule like I do.  The purpose of this post is to encourage each and every one of you to spend some time volunteering this year.

And here’s why:

Five Reasons to Volunteer

1. It shows you care about others.
   When you’re applying for college or for a job, people are going to look to see whether you give back to your community. It shows that you understand there are people out there that need your help, and more importantly than just understanding, it shows that you’re willing to get out there and do something about it- to try to make a difference in someone’s life.
2. There’s a huge need.
   There are SO MANY amazing organizations out there that are working tirelessly to help those in need. But they can’t do it without the help of volunteers. The food pantry I volunteer at is open 3 days a week for 8 hours each day. It takes at least 20 volunteers each day in order for them to be able to stay open for the full amount of time, have things run smoothly and even come close to meeting the demand of the community. That’s 60 volunteers a week that are needed for just one of the many volunteer opportunities in Columbus.
3. You can do what you love while helping others.
   There are literally thousands of different ways you can volunteer. If you’re not lucky enough to work at a job that embodies your true passions, volunteering is the perfect chance to do what you love for the benefit of others! If you like kids, become a Big Brother/Big Sister or a Court Appointed Service Advocate. If you like the elderly, volunteer to help senior citizens do their grocery shopping or go spend some time at a retirement home. If you like to build things, help build a house with Habitat for Humanity…. If you’re not a people person, find an agency that needs help with data entry or stuffing envelopes. And remember that sometimes the tasks that seem the most mundane are the most important. I’ve spent many hours filing papers or pulling charts, not because I especially love filing, but because I love the organizations and the work that they’re doing and I know that sometimes, those areas are the ones where they need the most help, in order for them to keep helping people. Think about where you passions lie, and then find an organization that needs your time and assistance.
4. Someone will always be grateful for your time.
   There’s no amount of time too small when it comes to volunteering. If you only have 2 hours a month, they’ll take it. If you can only commit to one event a year? They’ll say “yes please!” Never, ever think that just because you can’t make a weekly, or even a monthly, commitment that your time isn’t valuable or that volunteering won’t be worth it. JUST GO DO IT!
5. If you let it, it can change your life.
   Go into each experience with a positive attitude, an open mind and an open heart. Sometimes you might feel overwhelmed by your busy schedule or question whether you’re really making a difference, but when you get a hug from someone at the food pantry and they tell you they wouldn’t have had anything to feed their kids that night without your help, or you get smothered in puppy kisses from a dog who is so grateful for a walk because he spends 23 hours a day in a cage at the shelter, or you wake up Christmas morning knowing that somewhere out there, a couple of kids are have present under the tree because of you,  IT’S ALL WORTH IT. Volunteering will humble you. It will teach you compassion. It will make you so, so grateful for everything you have in your life.  But beyond that, it’s a way to give back. It’s a way to help others and pay it forward…because you just never know when you might need a little help of your own.

The Mid-Ohio Food Bank, which does incredible work here in Central Ohio, recently opened their very own Choice Food Pantry and it is AMAZING. It’s by far the nicest one I’ve ever volunteered at and it’s paving the way for providing healthy, fresh and even local food to the community.

The first time I volunteered at this pantry I was literally blown away by the number of healthy options this pantry has for its clients. I am so happy to see food pantries evolving to provide people with healthy options instead of just canned peas and corn- the traditional food pantry stereotype.

I went a little picture crazy but I really wanted to show you guys some of the things I was impressed by!

I loved all the healthy cereals I saw. The heart-healthy kinds definitely outnumbered the sugary kinds. There were whole wheat pasta options, canned fruit that was unsweetened or in lite syrup and tons of bread- oatnut bread, whole wheat bread, high fiber bread….

One of my favorite parts about the pantry is that they have a “take what you can use” policy for fresh fruits and vegetables and bread. Clients take basically take as many fresh fruits and veggies as they want, as long as they think they can use them. Also, clients can only make a full trip to the pantry 2x per month, but they can come back as many times as they want for fresh produce and bread! How cool is that?! Each week they have different produce but so far i’ve seen things like oranges, apples, pears, kiwis, bananas, spinach, lettuce, cabbage, collard greens, sweet potatoes, tomatoes, potatoes, onions…

The refrigerated cases also impressed me! I saw Greek yogurt, which I never would have expected, locally produced milk and even hummus! I love being able to tell clients how awesome greek yogurt and hummus are and then being able to give them some to try for themselves!

They have a few other cool things too, including recipe suggestions placed around the pantry that clients can take home, My Plate signs to help people learn what food groups they are choosing and they even have reusable shopping bags that were donated!

I look forward to going to volunteer at the pantry every week. Seeing how grateful the clients are at the amount of food we’re able to provide for them is so awesome!

So my challenge to you is to spend a little time this weekend looking at volunteer opportunities in your community. Grab your family, grab some friends, even some co-workers and head out to do a little good for others! Then come back and tell me all about it!

Tell me…do you volunteer? If so, where’s your favorite place to volunteer? If not, have I inspired you??

–Lindsay–