Life by Aileen // Be creative, live simply, chase your dreams

Chipotle Style Vegetarian Burrito Bowls

If you’ve ever been to a Chipotle, I don’t blame you for falling in love. Blaine and I used to eat there at least once a week when we worked near each other years ago. But now the nearest Chipotle is about 45 minutes away so we don’t get to indulge as much as we used to. My favorite is a Vegetarian burrito and Blaine’s is the tacos. At home, though, we love to do burrito bowls. Super fast, easy and healthy if you do it right.

Put the following in a bowl and enjoy:

cilantro lime quinoa (or rice) — add juice from 1/2 lime + chopped cilantro to cooked quinoa/rice
sauteed bell peppers & onions — heat olive oil in a pan, add minced garlic for 1 minute (optional), add chopped peppers and onions. cook to personal preference.
corn (frozen or cut off cob)
sour cream or greek yogurt
shredded cheese
black beans
guacamole
lettuce
salsa

I’m seriously in love with this easy meal, sometimes I even cut my regular serving size in half and add it to a lot of lettuce and eat it as a salad. So many ways you can play around with this recipe.

Filed Under: Food, Recipe, Vegetarian

Abundant Harvest Organics // Weekly Produce Box

06.17.13 by Aileen Leave a Comment

A few months ago I signed us up to get a weekly organic produce box from Abundant Harvest Organics. To be honest, I don’t buy a lot of organic just because it’s not in the budget right now. But I wanted to give this a try because you don’t get to pick what you get each week. Why? I tend to stick to what I know. I tend to cook similar meals several times a month and I stick to ingredients I’m familiar with. Over the last few months we’ve worked through all sorts of produce that I don’t use regularly or at all and I love that I need to go research produce and recipes we’ve never tried. I love that it encourages me to try new things and come to terms with the fact that it’s not the end of the world if I don’t love a recipe, which is a fear of mine when it comes to trying new recipes.

When we first started getting to box I was overwhelmed. I already buy a lot of produce, but it was just a lot to work through in one week before it went bad or we got another box and got overloaded with produce again. Over the last few weeks I’ve figured out a balance between skipping some boxes (putting it on “vacation” every other week) and researching how to store produce. Our first few boxes I was frustrated because everything was going bad so quickly. Then I learned a few tricks for storing things and the life of most of my produce more than doubled.

A few storage tips I learned:

Store lettuce heads in a large, airtight tupperware with a damp paper towel. I had several that lasted about 2 weeks!
Store carrots with the tops cut off, submerged in water, in a tupperware in the fridge. I kept mine in there for about 2 weeks and they were still perfectly fresh when I took them out to make a carrot cake
Tomatoes don’t need to be refrigerated (mind blown.)
Zucchini/squash wrapped in a dish towel and put in the vegetable drawer didn’t start going bad until 7-10 days after I put them in there
Greens like kale and collard greens can be stored like fresh cut flowers in water

I’m sure there’s more. I also found out that I needed to eat a lot of the fruit quickly (nectarines, plums, apricots, mostly) because they always included a lot and with it getting hot they’d go bad within a week. Fruits like apples stayed fresh longer.

I’ve actually put our subscription on pause for a few weeks while we catch up on all the food we have in the house. Do you subscribe to a produce or CSA box?

Filed Under: Food, Health, Life, Photos, Vegetarian

Summer Forever

06.16.13 by Aileen Leave a Comment

Dress: Kintage // Purse: Coach (no longer available) // Sandals (hidden): Tory Burch

Before I try to convince you that I’m making Sunday “Style Sunday” or my original idea, “Kintage Style Sunday”, take that with a grain of salt (what does that even mean?) and don’t believe me until I am able to do it a couple of weeks in a row. This is something I had been wanting to do for a couple of months now so I’m excited to get it started.

I’m not even kidding, the Summer Forever Maxi from Kintage is my new favorite dress. I was going to accessorize a bit, but basically the print in the dress is more than enough pretty detail. Since all of the Kintage inventory is in my house, I tend to try on everything the second it comes in. For some reason, the batch of new arrivals that this dress was part of, I didn’t try on. This morning I woke up needing something to wear to spend fathers day with Blaine’s family and I decided to try it on. I fell in love the second the skirt hit the floor. I’m sure you’ll be seeing a lot more of this, but I promise if you do I’ll try to fancify it a bit. Fancify is totally not a word, by the way.

P.S. I named this dress after this fun song that has been stuck in my head ever since this lovely lady introduced it to me on her blog.

Filed Under: Fashion, Kintage, What I Wore

Little Moments

06.15.13 by Aileen Leave a Comment

Our yard may not be pretty or even close to complete and I can hear the cars rush by on our busy street. But amongst the weeds and dead grass are a few silly dogs and the most amazing breeze. The sun is setting just over my right shoulder behind our new fence and I can hear Blaine fumbling around with the latch on the gate, making little adjustments. I’ve got my laptop on my lap and my butt in the most comfortable plastic chair. In the distance I can see our sad excuse for a garden and, behind it, the three sunflowers that are growing like crazy. It’s times like these I sit in the almost silence taking in the sound of the wind through the neighbors trees and the noises little paws make as they make their way around the dry grass, crunching beneath their feet. Sometimes it’s hard to remember that life continues on and will never have the same look, smell, taste or feeling as it does right now, at this very second. So, when I can remember, I try to capture every piece of this moment in a vivid memory because it’s these little moments that easily get lost in the past and if you ask me these seemingly insignificant moments are just as important as the big ones.