Dinners this week have pretty much consisted of one of two things – Mama Pea’s noodle salad or BALT (bacon avocado lettuce and tomato) wraps. .

I could use leftovers to whip up a slightly different twist on the meal so we don’t have to eat the same thing more than once during the week. Yet some meals are simply so perfect they are worth repeating.

Besides fresh salads, I always think of sandwiches or wraps as a perfect summer dinner. A honking (that’s for you Brittany!) piece of grilled corn on the side adds that special touch so you feel like you cooked a masterpiece, when really you just tossed some things in a round piece of bread and called it good. Tomato? Good. Lettuce? Good. Bacon? Good! Avocado? Goooood! And, no it does not taste like feet. <---- Name that reference! 😉

Sadly, this meal has had to retire as we are now out of bacon. Sadly, Peter took the last little serving of Mama Pea noodles to lunch with him. Sadly, I will now need to cook again. Time to hunt for another meal worth repeating!

*insert the smoothest of smooth topic transitions here* 😉

Last week I received a particular question from Victoria @ District Chocoholic. She asked how I believe my 20 minutes of daily prayer time affects my health and overall well-being. Where can I even begin? Let’s see if I can express this adequately. And never fear – preaching is not my style. I hope you won’t skip to the end of this post or close your browser. Can you listen to why? Please. Thank you and big hugs!

If you’re here, I assume you enjoy blogs. Reading blogs. Writing blogs. Connecting with bloggers. I also assume you find an interest in healthy living and possibly fitness goals. You have these goals for a healthy lifestyle and you want support, accountability, encouragement, and new relationships revolving around this interest. In order to achieve those things, you check in with blogs through either writing your own posts, reading others’ posts, messaging on Twitter, posting stats to Daily Mile, etc, etc, etc. You dig?

My prayer time is pretty much the exact same thing, but for my faith, how I live my life, and the way I view my life. It’s a time to check-in and receive encouragement, love, and support from the most inspirational dude out there. Yea, I called God “dude”. We’re tight like that.

Before allowing faith into my life, I was a prisoner to myself. I constantly worried about every little thing. I hated my existence and saw no worth or value in my being. I could not find joy because I couldn’t see the bigger picture of life. My faith freed me. Not religion – faith! (Big difference in my opinion!) It gave me the freedom of peace because I have a God I can trust. It gave me the freedom of love because I could finally see my worth and the worth in others. It gave me the freedom of dreams because I could finally recognize my passions as having a purpose. Faith is not about commandments and rules. It’s about freedom. Freedom to lead a life of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, gentleness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control (aka the fruits of the Spirit).

I don’t ever want to forget the night and day difference between my life before faith and after that relationship. Just as you would always want to stay in touch with a dear friend or loved one, I make my time every day to stay in touch with the dearest of loves in my life. Because without Him I seriously fear where I would be right now. Or if I would even be.

My prayer time brings overall well-being because it keeps me grounded, humble, honest, and thankful. It keeps me centered on the important things in life. It keeps me moving forward with that zest for life I hope to reflect. All of those things which undeniably make life worthwhile. That make life worth living. That inspire a healthy lifestyle so I can live that life out to the absolute fullest. I want to suck out every drop…and hanging out with my dude man gives me just what I need to make that happen.

• Are you a fan of leftovers? Do you doctor them up or eat them the same way?
• Does a time of prayer/meditation/reflection/etc improve your health?
• Of Possible Interest: I shared a post on Abs: Function Over Appearance at Fitblogger this week! Check it out.

Wednesday morning has arrived again! Funny how quickly it comes up with a short week. Note = not a complaint by any means.

I devoured some pretty tasty eats yesterday. I could even say my meals yesterday rivaled the ice cream, cheesecake bars, and healthified /proteinified twice baked potatoes from this weekend. I know I had quite the full, satisfied belly all day long. Also not a complaint by any means. Time to share the delectable feasting with you all for another edition of What I Ate Wednesday!

I warned you that my meals this week would inevitably include two things – berries and watermelon. So it should come as no surprise that my breakfast looked the exact same. And that I don’t feel the need to take a picture of said exact same breakfast two days in a row…so behold the recycled photo!

I have no shame in recycling blog photos when necessary. Besides…it’s so pretty. Plus, I can only have so much creative energy when it comes to food. And I had creative juices going for lunch.

A plate chock full of color! We have quite the load of produce to work through this week so I piled up the watermelon, grapes, carrots, and cucumber, then got to work on the star of the show. English muffin pizza!

We had some fire roasted diced tomatoes for another recipe that I needed to use. What better way than to make pizza sauce for English muffin pizzas, right? Maybe not super original, but definitely super delicious!

I blended up about 1/4 cup of the fire roasted diced tomatoes with an immersion blender while my English muffins got started toasting in a toaster oven. I then topped both muffin halves with the sauce, oregano, red pepper flakes, and shredded cheese. I toasted them a few minutes more until the cheese got nice and melted. Pizza for lunch = win!

When snack time rolled around I wasn’t as hungry as normal and only wanted more fruit. I shall seriously miss the plethora of fruit when summer comes to pass. But let’s just pretend that will never happen, mmmkay?

I crafted together a yogurt bowl to reflect my love of summer. Pineapple Chobani yogurt. Fresh mango chunks. Bites of banana. A splash of light coconut milk. A sprinkling of Cheerios. 

The tropics in a bowl with such a perfect blend of textures and flavors.

After so much delicious food I probably could have stopped there for the day, had dry toast for dinner, and still gone to bed with a happy belly. But where’s the fun in that?

Instead, I went big with one of the best recipes I have stumbled across in blog land recently. “Best” namely because its so easy. And Mama Pea only has her own cookbook and all. I kind of adore her. Big hugs, Sarah! The peanut noodle bowl was a huge hit! 

I adapted it only the slightest bit – zucchini instead of bell pepper, no cilantro, udon instead of rice noodles – so please give her recipe a look and get in on the tasty action!

And that’s where we end – with me fully intending to eat the exact same things all day today. Delicious, filling, nutritious, and fun? If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it!

• How often do you use blogs for recipe inspiration? 
• What is a food combo that never fails to leave your belly super satisfied?