The weather has finally turned cold, then warm, then cold again.

Oh the perks of living in Georgia.

Thankfully, I joined a gym back in December, complete with whirlpools, steam rooms, sauna and spa. Not to mention the complete yoga and Pilates studios. Who am I kidding? I joined a resort.

In spite of all of this, some days it’s tough to get myself out and to the gym. Winter workouts that have been inspiring me to get my booty to the gym lately.

1. Kickboxing – There is no better way for me to workout my stress (and burn some major calories) than with kickboxing. With my current tendonitis (aggravated by our recent car accident), not having pressure on my hands has been great. Not to mention the great music and always energetic instructors.

Note to self: I need to figure out how these ladies constantly have this much energy.

PSA: If you don’t look where you are kicking when doing a back kick, you look like an ass donkey.

2. Swimming – A good swim does wonders for my cardio and stress level. I am a total water baby and just love being in the water. Plus, swimming is really great for cross training, and my favorite way to work on strengthening muscles.

3. Cycling – Have really only been to one spinning class… because I can’t hoist myself up on a hurt wrist. But working out on the stationary bikes has been great for me, especially if I do a swim first and then head into the fitness area for a 30-40 min session of stationary cycling.

4. Yoga – For the Type A part of my personality, making myself go to a yoga class, calm down and center myself is a challenge. I would much rather be in a martial arts class, swimming in the pool or riding away on the bike. However, balance is important in fitness, as well as flexibility, so off to yoga classes I go.

Replenishing your body after a workout with nutrients and protein is just as important as the workout itself. A great smoothie usually hits the spot.

And this particular one may be my new favorite post workout smoothie. It contains clementines, bananas and ginger – a wonderful winter combination that also reminds me of the beach.

Citrus Ginger Smoothie (1 serving)
2 clementines, peeled and divided into sections
1 banana
1/4″ piece of fresh ginger, skin removed
1/3 cup nonfat Greek yogurt
1 tsp agave nectar
4-5 ice cubes

Instructions:
Blend all ingredients in a blender, pour into a glass and enjoy immediately.

O, heirloom tomato.
How I love you so.

It look me a years to learn of you.
To discover your beauty,
your different and flavorful tastes and varieties.

From Cherokee Purple,
To Brandy Wine,
To Oxacan Jewel.

The thought of you brings
The sights, sounds and tastes of summer,
rushing into my mind.

I love the rich, varied colors
when I look for my perfect tomato
at the local market.

While I look through the baskets and bins,
looking for which one of you
to bring home with me.

Visions of sandwiches,
Salads…
Pastas…
Tarts…
and Pies…fill my head.

I happily fill my shopping bag
And bring you home with me.

On the way home,
I dream up all the ways
I will be able to use you
To create marvelous dishes.

Oh, heirloom tomato.
Thank you for coming into my life.

That was my attempt at a poem. Laughing yet? I think that was the first poem that I have written since grade school. But I felt that the heirloom tomato was worthy of an attempt at poetry from me.

The end of summer is drawing near and I’m sad to see my new found friends go. But until next summer, I will savor the delicious memories that we made over the past couple months. My favorite thing about heirloom tomatoes is that they are just so delicious on their own, you don’t have to do much to create amazing meals.

And one really fantastic sandwich, a caprese salad on top of freshly baked focaccia bread. For this particular sandwich, I baked a basil garlic focacca, just substituting basil and garlic in the place of rosemary and onions in this recipe.

Do you love heirloom tomatoes as much as I do? What food is worthy of poetry to you?

Heirloom Tomato & Grilled Corn Salad

Ingredients (serves 2):
2-3 heirloom tomatoes (depending on size; I also like to mix up the variety) sliced into thin slices
2 ears yellow corn
3 basil leaves, chiffonade
extra virgin olive oil
salt and pepper, to taste

Let’s Cook!
1. Grill the corn in its husks, I like to just pop them in the oven at 350˚F for about 25 minutes.
2. Arrange tomato slices on a plate.
3. Remove husks from grilled corn, cut corn kernels off of the cob and sprinkle on top of the tomato slices.
4. Sprinkle on about 1 teaspoon of extra virgin olive oil, basil, then salt and pepper to taste.
5. Serve and enjoy!

Caprese Salad Sandwich

Ingredients:
foccacia bread
heirloom tomatoes
mozzarella cheese
fresh basil leaves
balsamic vinaigrette

Instructions:
To make the sandwich, simply layer a slice of tomato, slice of mozzarella, basil leaf alternately on top of a slice of foccacia. Drizzle balsamic vinaigrette on top of the layers, then top with another slice of foccacia.

Coming to you from Colorado today!

The view out of our hotel room in Colorado Springs.

Paul and I are out here in the Denver/Boulder area for the week. Boulder has been on my must-visit list for a while now, and when I saw that Jen Yu (use real butter) was putting together another Food & Light photography workshop, I jumped at the chance of not only getting to finally visit this beautiful part of the country, but also learn food photography & styling from some amazing photographers.

The workshop doesn’t start until Tuesday morning, so we’re going to be enjoying being tourists in Colorado for a few days. Yesterday we had a few hours to kill before checking into the hotel so we found a cute little paint your own ceramic shop. At Paul’s (fantastic) suggestion, I chose to paint a teacup and saucer.

Check it out! A Dash of East tea cup – for real!

The teacup and saucer still needed to be glazed and fired so I’ll be posting photos of the finished product (hopefully) in a week or so when it’s ready.
Update: the teacup and saucer arrived, check out the final product!

We’re about to head out this morning for some white water rafting and ziplining. Bring on the Class 4 and 5 rapids! I’m ready!

Before we  jetted off to Colorado, I made a lemonade from this recipe by Todd and Diane of White on Rice (with a few of my changes – minus the corn syrup in making the simple syrup and then I added fresh blueberries in the lemonade prior to serving), who will be teaching at the Food & Light photography workshop.

Have you taken any fun trips this summer? Paul and I will be traveling around the Denver area for the next week, starting off in Colorado Springs, then driving up to Rocky Mountain National Park, down to Boulder and then back to Denver. I’m practically giddy with joy!

As happy as I am to be on vacation, I prefer being near the ocean than being in the mountains.

This might have something to do with living in the Appalachian mountains for the first 18 years of my life and only visiting the beach once in those 18 years. Seriously.

Which do you prefer? Mountains or Oceans?

But, I’m not going to complain too much, it is beautiful out here! Have a wonderful weekend! I know I will!

Quinoa. I had heard about this super food for a while now, and I finally decided to make the leap and try it out. Since it was a completely new food to me, I did a little bit of research, and wow, quinoa really is amazing. Quinoa is high in protein, complete protein, which means that it contains all nine essential amino acids. For a complete list of all health benefits, take a look at Whole Food’s blog.

Although quinoa at first appears to be a grain, it is actually the seeds of a plant that is related to spinach, beets and chard. When cooked quinoa seeds become fluffy and slightly crunchy with a bit of nutty flavor.

For my first quinoa dish, I made the mango blueberry quinoa salad recipe by Veggie Belly, with a few slight changes. The original recipe is by Marks and Spencer, a grocery store in the UK. This really was a great, light and refreshing summer salad. And it was so easy to make!

In my opinion, you can not go wrong when mangoes are in the recipe.

Cube the mangoes so that they are approximately the same size as the blueberries. Mine were slightly larger, maybe I need to work on my cutting skills.

Ingredients (Serves 2):

Quinoa
1/2 cup quinoa (washed)
1 cup water

Salad ingredients (minus the quinoa)
1 mango cut into cubes
1/2 cup blueberries
1 medium cucumber cut into cubes
1/4 cup dried cranberries

Dressing
1 1/2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
Juice from 1 lemon
1 teaspoon orange marmalade
10 Basil leaves chopped finely
Salt and pepper to taste

Let’s Cook!
Boil the water in a medium skillet, then add the quinoa. Turn heat down to medium, cover the skillet and let simmer for about 10-12 minutes or until the quinoa is cooked. Remove from heat and let the quinoa cool to room temperature.

While the quinoa is cooking, prepare the other ingredients. Combine the fruits and cucumber in a medium bowl. And whisk together all of the dressing ingredients, except the basil.

When the quinoa has cooled, combine the basil with the dressing and mix half of the dressing into the quinoa. Combine the quinoa with the fruits and cucumber mixture and serve immediately with the rest of the dressing.