Adventures: Cooking and Biking Edition

Today is a great day. Why, you ask? Because tomorrow is FRIDAY! That thought alone gets me through my eight-hours-on-campus Thursdays. However, this morning started off on a wonderful note because I woke up to an email from my Spanish teacher in Barcelona. I emailed her last night to tell her that I missed her and hoped her semester was going well with the new students, and she absolutely made my morning with her kind words. It's the little things, my friends!

Anyway, I have a few more recipes to share with you guys - I am really getting the hang of this cooking thing! Well, at least I think I am.

Wednesday's lunch was my take on a food that I normally can't enjoy: pizza. I honestly am not sure that I can even call this a recipe, but I enjoyed it, so I want to share it with my favorite followers. First, I sliced a whole wheat English muffin and spread some Mushroom Ragu on each slice. I popped some mushroom and broccoli on each slice and threw it in an oven heated to 350 degrees for about 20 minutes. And that's it. Like I said, I am not sure this qualifies as a recipe, but it was pretty darn good and I am looking forward to experimenting with some new toppings - turkey pepperoni, zucchini, olives - next time I whip this up (which will probably be soon).

Last night I wasn't feeling much like doing homework, so I whipped up a batch of oatmeal-raisin-cookie granola, recipe via Sally's Baking Addiction. I guess I didn't read the instructions very well and didn't know that I should have added the raisins and carob chips after putting it in the oven, but it still worked out and tasted pretty darn good with some milk and bananas for breakfast this morning.

Tonight's recipe is the star of the blog: spaghetti squash. I have recently come across so many recipes based on spaghetti squash, but I myself have never really had any experience with it. I purchased a spaghetti squash yesterday, unaware of the large size, and I was ready to take a stab at it tonight. Literally. It took me three different knives to cut this thing in half, and I wasn't quite sure what I was doing, but once it was cut, I put half of it in the oven, which was pre-heated to 375 degrees, for a little over 30 minutes. I scooped out the seeds and some of the covering pieces before getting to work scraping out the "spaghetti" strands. This squash produced quite a bit of spaghetti, let me tell you!

While the squash was cooking, I took the opportunity to cook up the rest of my ground turkey to enjoy with the spaghetti squash. I topped it with some Ragu, mixed it all up, and chowed down - spaghetti squash might be my new favorite meal. However, my dad pointed out that I say that about every new meal that I make. I guess I'm just easy to please!

After dinner, I knew that I wanted to take advantage of this beautiful night, and after my failed attempt at a swim this afternoon, I wanted to get some sort of physical activity. A bike ride sounded like the perfect idea! I didn't go far, probably no more than six miles in all, but it was the most beautiful night and I stood in awe of this beautiful sky. I just still can't believe that I get to live here!