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Super Simple Tomato Sauce

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Hello there! I see that you’ve all survived the first week of school-congratulations! Today I’m sharing another freezer friendly lunch recipe: Super Simple Tomato Sauce. One batch of this makes seven or eight servings of sauce, which freezes really well and can be heated up on hectic mornings. I usually eat this over lentil pasta, which takes about six minutes to cook (making it great to make in the morning), but any other pasta works fine too. Here’s the recipe:

Super Simple Tomato Sauce

Makes 7-8 Servings

Cook Time: 45 minutes

Ingredients:

  • 1 tbs olive or avocado oil
  • 1 medium onion, finely diced
  • 2 cloves of garlic, minced
  • 3 cups spinach, optional
  • 1 small can of mushroom stems and pieces (optional)
  • 2 794ml cans of diced tomatoes
  • 1 6oz can of tomato paste
  • 5-6 fresh basil leaves or 1 1/2 tbs dry basil)
  • 2 tbs fresh oregano leaves (or 1 tbs dry oregano)
  • 1 tsp salt
  • 1/4 tsp pepper

Directions:

  1. Cook onions and garlic in the oil over medium heat, until the onions are translucent, about 5-6 minutes.
  2. Add in the tomatoes, tomato paste, basil, oregano, and spinach and mushrooms if using. Stir and bring to a boil, then reduce the heat and simmer for 45 minutes-1 hour.
  3. Once done simmering, season to taste with salt and pepper. Serve over lentil or whole wheat pasta.
  4. To freeze, wait until the sauce has cooled completely and spoon individual servings into ziplock bags. I recommend putting the frozen sauce in the fridge to defrost the night before you want to heat it up.

 

And there you have it! I apologize for the lack of pictures; as I was making this I didn’t think that I would post about it. If you have any questions, though, leave a comment down below and I’ll be happy to answer them. The spinach and mushrooms are listed as “optional”, but I really think that they enhance the sauce. Anyways, thanks for reading and I’ll see you next time!

 

Yours Truly, MyDayIsBooked;))

Black Bean Quinoa Burgers

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‘Sup everyone? School has started, and making lunches is a struggle once more. Fun times! In keeping with this theme, my next few posts will be simple lunch recipes that can easily be made and frozen so that you can defrost them during busy mornings. Today we’re making Black Bean Quinoa Burgers, which are delicious, easy, and freezable; important qualities for our purposes. You can whip up a big batch and have burgers for days while your friends glare at you enviously. Sounds great, right? Well, you have to make them first. Let’s do this.

Black Bean Quinoa Burgers

Makes 5-6 burgers

Cook Time: 35 minutes

Ingredients:

  • 1 can black beans, drained and rinsed
  • 1/2 cup cooked quinoa
  • About 3 cups fresh spinach that has been wilted (not 3 cup of wilted spinach), or 1/4 cup frozen corn, or both, or none
  • 2 tsp cumin
  • 1 1/2 tsp paprika
  • 1 tsp chile powder
  • 1 tsp garlic powder
  • 1/4 tsp cayenne powder (add more or less to taste)
  • 1/2 tsp oregano
  • 1 tsp salt
  • Couple cracks o’ pepper;))

Directions:

  1. Preheat your oven to 400 degrees F
  2. Pat the black beans dry and dump them into a medium sized bowl. Mash them with a fork (or with your hands) until you can form a bit of a ball with them, but there’s still some whole beans in there.img_9397
  3. Add all the spices, quinoa, wilted spinach or corn if using and mix with your hands until combined.img_9398
  4. Scoop 1/3 cup of the mixture at a time and form it into patties; they should look something like this:img_9400
  5. Bake for 10 minutes, then flip and bake for about another 25 minutes.
  6. Cool completely before eating or freezing. Freeze the burgers laying flat in a sealed freezer bag.

I love eating these between two pieces of sprouted grain bread with some sliced pickles, tomatoes, spinach, and a little bit of pesto, bet heck, they’d be great in a bun or a wrap with veggies and tzatziki. MMMMMMM! Hopefully these burgers help you out in a pinch, or just give you something great to munch on. Stay tuned for more freezable school lunch recipes coming soon!

Yours truly, MyDayIsBooked;))

September Bullet Journal Set-up

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Hi there! This month I can’t wait to show you my bullet journal spread! I’ve decided to go with an arrow theme, which was easy to do and turned out really nice! I feel like I organized this month way better than previous ones, and I’ll be able to plan more efficiently, which is good because I definitely need my journal more during the school year than I do during the summer. I also find it easier to keep up with my trackers during this time, because I get back into a bit of a routine. So I felt a bit of pressure to create something awesome this month!! Let’s get into my spreads:

This is legit my favourite title page. I did the same thing that I did in August, with the word September on one page and a quote on the other. The arrows took a little while to draw, but it was fun and worth it in the end! I think that it turned out great, and I’m happy with my colour scheme of brown and black. When you’re drawing things like this it really helps if you have lines to guide you, and this is why I like dotted journals.

Here’s my calendar, which is a bit different from my August one. Instead of drawing individual boxes, I drew one big box and split it up into 30 squares. Plus, I didn’t make any mistakes and actually started it on a Monday, which is nice! At the bottom there’s a space for my school schedule, which will come in handy in class;) I also included a quote and a spot for my monthly goals in this spread.

These pages changed a lot compared to last month. I got a little crazy with the amount of pages I used in August, so I had to cut down a little bit this month! So here I squeezed in a habit tracker, mood tracker, blog planner (or any kind of planner you want it to be;)) and my gratitude log. I actually switched to an individual habit tracker from the grid style one, so we’ll see how that goes. I just colour a number if I did a particular habit that day instead of colouring in a square. My mood tracker pretty much stayed the same, except I’ll outline an arrow in various colours referring to the little chart near the bottom, instead of watermelons. All in all, these are some of my favourite trackers that I’ve done!

And here we have my weekly spread, which I have fallen in love with. I feel like my calligraphy is improving, and it really shows in this spread. I kept these pages kind of simple, and included a quote, word of the week, and spots where I can write down school tasks and whatever is coming up next week. I continued my arrow theme and colour scheme throughout this month. I love this spread so much because it’s practical yet pretty, and also, I just love it.;)

So yeah. If you couldn’t tell, I’m obsessed with this month’s spreads. I hope you find some inspiration in this post and create a beautiful, efficient lay-out for September!

Yours Truly, MyDayIsBooked;)))

Nutty Apple Crumble

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Hey guys! I for one love a good apple crumble, and with fall coming up (ewww), I thought that this would be the perfect time for this post. This crumble turned out great, and I ended up using peanut butter instead of the recommended coconut oil (surprise surprise), which makes it unique. But you can totally use coconut oil if you prefer. Almonds give a nice crunch, and using oat flour instead of regular flour makes it healthier.  Scroll down for the recipe.;)

Serves 4-6

Ingredients:

  • 4 Gala Apples, peeled and sliced
  • 1 cup rolled oats
  • 1 cup oat flour (make by grinding oats in your blender)
  • 1 tsp cinnamon
  • 1/4 tsp allspice
  • 1/4 cup melted natural peanut butter (or sub melted coconut oil)
  • 1/4 tsp salt (omit if you’re using salted peanut butter)
  • 1/4 cup whole almonds
  • Drizzle of honey (optional)

 

Directions:

  1. Preheat the oven to 350F.
  2. Mix together the oats, oat flour, cinnamon, allspice, salt and almonds in a medium sized bowl.img_9245
  3. Add in the peanut butter (or coconut oil) and mix until combined. You may need to get in there with your hands to get rid of chunks of peanut butter or oil.
  4. Place the peeled and sliced apples in a parchment lined baking dish.img_9246
  5. Sprinkle the oat mixture over the apples evenly.
  6. Place the crisp in the oven for about 40 minutes, until the apples are soft.
  7. After 40 minutes in the oven, take out the crisp and drizzle a little but of honey on it. Place it back in the oven for another 5 minutes. (If you’re not using honey, just bake it for a full 45 minutes;)).
  8. Remove the crisp from the oven and enjoy with ice-cream, peanut butter, or more honey. Or all of the above!b50d553f-1135-4d82-b8c7-dd4d3cdd468c-1340-0000004593f2a867_file

Boom! Simple, easy, healthy and delicious! I hope that you enjoy my version of this classic fall dish!

 

Yours Truly, MyDayIsBooked;)))

 

Balsamic Roasted Veggie and Quinoa Salad

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‘Sup people! One of my favourite things to do is come up with new recipes; I just love being creative and experimenting with different ingredients. Today my experiments paid off, because this salad turned out great! Chickpeas, sweet potato and cauliflower are the main components, with a few fresh cucumbers in there as well. I’m usually not a huge fan of balsamic vinegar, but together with rosemary, quinoa and roasted veggies, it’s waaaay better. Plus, there’s no greens in this salad, which is a nice change! I kept my salad vegetarian, but you could totally add some grilled chicken on top to make it a heartier meal. Here’s the recipe for my Balsamic Roasted Veggie and Quinoa Salad:

Ingredients:

Makes 4 servings

For the Roasted Veggies:

  • 1 sweet potato, peeled and cubed
  • 1 can chickpeas, drained and rinsed
  • 1/4 cup cauliflower florets, washed
  • 1 tbsp avocado or olive oil
  • 1 tbsp balsamic vinegar
  • 1 tsp salt
  • A bit of pepper
  • 1/2 tbsp rosemary leaves

For the Quinoa:

  • 1 cup quinoa, cooked
  • 1 cup cucumber, diced
  • 2 sprigs of green onion, chopped

For the Vinaigrette:

  • 1/4 cup avocado or olive oil
  • 2 tbsp balsamic vinegar
  • 1/2 tsp Salt

Directions:

  1. Preheat your oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit
  2. Mix all of the roasted veggie ingredients in a large bowl, until the veggies are covered in oil and vinegar.
  3. Spread out the veggies on a sheet pan covered with parchment and bake for about 25-30 minutes, until the sweet potatoes are soft.
  4. While the veggies are baking, cook the quinoa and cut up the onion and cucumber. Mix it all in the bowl the you want to serve the salad in.
  5. Prepare the vinaigrette, mixing the oil and vinegar until combined.
  6. Once the veggies are ready, mix them in with the quinoa mixture. Pour in the vinaigrette and toss the salad.
  7. Enjoy!!

 

I hope that you like this quick recipe. the sweet potato and balsamic work really well together, and the fresh cucumber sort of brightens everything up. Thanks for checking out this post, and stay tuned for a crafty tutorial coming soon!!

Yours Truly, MyDayIsBooked;))