French Toast & Fajitas

It’s been a fun day of eats, my friends!  It’s the first chance I get to sit down and blog all about it :).

I knew I would need a special breakfast to get me over the hump this week.  The week before a vacation is always super busy, but super slow at the same time.  French Toast helps!

To make a single serving of french toast, I used two slices of whole wheat bread dipped in the following batter:

• one egg, beaten
• 1/4 c. skim milk
• 1/2 tsp. pure vanilla extract
• a heavy sprinkle of cinnamon

I put the slices of bread onto a hot griddle and let them brown up on both sides. When done, I topped my french toast with a smear of Barney Butter, half a banana, and a drizzle of maple syrup.  It was divine!  It only took a few minutes to make and was so worth it!  I am definitely a breakfast person, so this was just the way I needed to start my day.

I continued on with an uneventful day at work.  I think the kids are handling pre-vacation jitters better than the teacher!  I feel just as silly and wiggly as them these days!  Lucky for me, the day ended with another fun meal.  We had a Fajita Frenzy! I never make fajitas at home, but there’s a first time for everything.  Tonight I made enough to feed a small army…great leftovers!  I started by chopping the vegetables.

• 1 1/2 onions
• 2 green bell peppers
• 1 red bell pepper
• 1 yellow bell pepper

I divided the veggies in half and made two batches of fajitas: chicken and beef.  I used boneless skinless chicken breast for the first batch.  It was easy to brown the chicken in the pan, add the veggies and seasonings, and stir.

For the second batch, I used fresh cuts of sirloin.  I grilled the steaks for 5 minutes on each side to give the meat a nice char. I let the meat rest for a bit before slicing it thinly into fajita-sized strips.  Because the steaks were grilled and I wanted the meat to remain tender, I sauteed the veggies first and added the meat and seasonings to the pan at the end.  It looked good…and was a crowd pleaser!

There was a bit of prep work involved with the chopping of vegetables, but otherwise this was a perfect meal to feed a crowd.  I didn’t get all fancy with seasonings or shells…store-bought was just fine for tonight.

I waited for everyone to get home for dinner and then it was time to dig in – YUM!

My tortilla contained a scoop of chicken fajitas, Mexican shredded cheese, and farmer’s market salsa.  Boy, was this good!  I need to schedule fajita night into the plans more often!  Everyone had fun making their own fajitas.  This pleased even the pickiest taste buds in my family!

***

I already set my alarm for tomorrow morning.  5 AM! That’s an early wake-up call, even for this morning girl!  My days usually begin closer to 6, but I made fun plans for tomorrow afternoon and decided it would be the perfect day to go on my first morning run. Yes, I run on Saturday mornings – but 5 AM and 9 AM are two different animals!  I rarely skip workouts, but I’ve never had great success with early morning plans.  Hope I do better tomorrow!

What is your favorite time of day to exercise? I usually workout after work or later in the evening, but I love weekends when I can exercise around 8 or 9 – that’s my ideal time.

How do you motivate yourself to workout before work? Yikes!  5 AM is early!