I feel like I’ve been away from my blog forever! I got back from Hawaii on Friday evening, but unfortunately, I’m still more than a little out of it.

The jet lag has been rough! I went to sleep around 3 am the past two nights and woke up at 1 pm on Saturday and noon today. Anyone who knows me at all knows that this is absolutely ridiculous for me. Let’s just say that I amnot looking forward to getting up at 7 am for work tomorrow.

Anyway, I’m really late on this one! But I still wanted to make sure I wrote this post because it’s my first month participating in Foodie Penpals and I loved it! Thank you, Lindsay, for coordinating this every month.

My foodie penpal for July was Nicole of Fitful Focus. She actually lives just one town away from me and it was her first month doing foodie penpals too!

I mentioned to Nicole that I love nut butters, granola, and anything with dried fruit, coconut, and dark chocolate. She definitely took all of that into consideration and totally delivered! Here’s what I found in my box:

Homemade granola, dark chocolate peanut butter, a chocolate-dipped coconut LunaBar, and two bags of Trader Joe’s Organic Ginger Pear White Tea. While I absolutely loved every single thing she put in my box, the absolute highlight for me was the homemade granola!

And yes, I’d already had a good chunk of it when I took this picture. Nicole was even nice enough to let me post the recipe on Sleep and Repeat! So here it is. Enjoy!

Here they are written out!

The goods:

• 4 cups old fashioned oats
• 1/2 cup unsweetened coconut flakes
• 2/3 cup slivered almonds
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1/4 cup olive oil
• 1/4 cup honey
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 1/2 cup chopped dried fruit

The prep:

1. Preheat oven to 300°
2. Combine oats through cinnamon
3. Heat oil and honey in a small saucepan over low heat until just combined
4. Pour oil/honey mix over dry ingredients, add vanilla, and stir
5. Spread in 9×13 pan and bake for 35 minutes – stir every 10 minutes
6. Add fruit and let cool
7. Eat like a madwoman! (I added this step myself. )

I will definitely be participating in foodie penpals again in August. Thanks for being my first foodie penpal, Nicole! I loved everything.

Fingers crossed that I’ll be back in my groove tomorrow. I’ll be back with some photos from Hawaii!

Every year, I find myself getting stuck when it comes to food at the start of the summer.

Don’t worry, I don’t restrict what I eat just to look good in a swimsuit. I just don’t like eating soups, stews, or other particularly hot foods in the summer, which puts me in a bit of a rut.

One thing I always do turn to even more in the summer is salad! Nothing like a delicious, fresh summer salad.

Here’s one of my go-to salads in the summer!

Strawberry Spinach Summer Salad

• Spinach
• Strawberries
• Half an avocado
• Chopped walnuts
• Goat cheese
• Lemon honey vinaigrette (olive oil, lemon, and honey)

Easily one of my favorite salad combinations of all time!

Lately, I’ve found myself drinking more smoothies than usual since I picked up a giant bag of vanilla whey protein powder at Costco.

To give you some background on my smoothie history, I originally learned how to make Green Monster smoothies from Oh She Glows. Since then, my own Green Monster recipe has gradually changed. I’m a creature of habit so I almost always throw the same exact things into the blender.

Luckily, I was feeling spontaneous on Wednesday and decided to mix it up. Let’s just say that I’ll definitely be mixing it up more if the results are always this good!

Strawberry Banana Green Monster Protein Smoothie

• 1/2 frozen banana, sliced
• Four frozen strawberries
• 1/3 cup of Greek yogurt
• 1 cup of unsweetened vanilla almond milk
• 1/2 scoop of vanilla whey protein powder
• A few handfuls of spinach (About two cups worth. I like frozen spinach to add some ice to the smoothie, but unfrozen is fine too.)
• 1 tbsp of nut butter (optional)

Makes one big serving.

I find that order doesn’t matter too much, but I tend to put my ingredients into the blender in this order:
Banana, strawberries, protein powder, nut butter, Greek yogurt, almond milk, spinach.

Blend until smooth and enjoy!