“Drool-Worthy” Recipes- II

July 10, 2015July 9, 20158 Comments

Good morning- TGIF 🙂 I can’t believe I’m posting FIVE TIMES this week- can you?! I guess I have a lot to share with all of you! Anything fun planned for the weekend? RM and I are supposed to go down to the Cape for a little getaway either tonight or early tomorrow morning- I’m so looking forward to it!

In the meantime, I wanted to share some recipes that I’ve been drooling over for the past few weeks. In case you missed my first batch of “drool-worthy recipes”, you can find them here. I hope you enjoy these, too. I’ve recently been reading lots of new-to-me food blogs and really enjoying all of the recipes I’m coming across, but I’ll be honest- If there’s a lot of prep work or a ton of ingredients I’m much less likely to actually MAKE the recipe. I’m all about simplicity in the kitchen these days!

Vegan Chocolate Caramel Thumbprints– I don’t think I really need to say much more to get you to go check out these cookies- they look ahhh-mazing!
Avocado Bean Burgers– It’s funny because I had received an email from RM asking me to find some good veggie burger recipes literally seconds before I was scrolling through Facebook and stumbling across this recipe. These look SO good and I definitely plan on making them soon.
Spicy Shrimp Sweet Potato Boats With Avocado Crema– I’ve been on a big shrimp kick this summer and these look really tasty. I met Lexi recently and am so happy to be hooked on her site now!
Coconut No Bake Cookies– Coconut AND no bake? Yes, please- these would be the perfect little treat during the dreaded 3pm hour.

Continue reading →

Weekending: 4th of July

July 7, 20156 Comments

Good morning! I am so excited to get back on track with normal eating, drinking and working out this week. Don’t get me wrong, I like to indulge and enjoy extra vinos, BBQ food and dessert, but it really doesn’t make me feel as good as I do when I eat my usual healthy way. With that said, this past weekend was filled with lots of good food, wine and company- hope you enjoy my recap!

Thursday-

I ended up not having to work on Thursday so I made good use of the day by cooking, blogging, working out and going to the beach. It was quite relaxing!

Thursday night some of my girlfriends were getting together to celebrate Jessi’s birthday, which was yesterday. We met up at Ducali’s and enjoyed vino, salad and pizza- oh, and a big ol’ side of girl talk 😉 RM made fun of me for my festive outfit, but I liked it!

We weren’t quite ready to end the night so we headed to Tavern in the Square across from the garden for one more drink.

(photo credit: Lauren)

On Friday, RM and I headed up to Maine… along with the rest of the friggen state of Massachusetts it seemed! It literally took us 2 hours to get to Portsmouth from Boston, which is more than the time it normally takes to get all the way to my parents house! Of course, it was the most beautiful day, too. We decided to pull off in Portsmouth for lunch on the deck at the Oar House to wait out some of the traffic and get some sun and drinks.

We ended up being there for almost 3 hours- oops!

Once we made it to Maine, we sat outside and chatted with my parents before having a dinner full of all sorts of random things including my dad’s fish chowder and pork pie, fresh trout from Lake Champlain, pizza on the grill using dad’s dough and sauce and my mom’s tomato and zucchini casserole. Although it was everything I wanted to eat, it may have been a little too many different things in one meal 😉

Saturday morning, I got up and went for a 3 mile run before heading into town for the parade.

Rm had never been to a parade, and was quite amused by the one we went to 😉

Our family friends had a BBQ later in the day, but unfortunately the weather did not cooperate and it ended up sprinkling for the majority of the party 😦 While annoying, it didn’t ruin the fun, though! All the food was fantastic.

We ended the night making s’mores back at my parents house- perfect ending to a great day!

On Sunday, we helped my dad in the garden. I’ll tell ya- manual labor is no joke! After, we headed up to the lake to go out on Sara and Tim’s boat… all of which I did not think to take a single picture of- #bloggerfail. But, it was a perfect afternoon- we’re so lucky to have friends who have boats and live on the lake!

All in all, it was a great couple of days and mini “vacation”. Just what I needed!

Questions for you: How was your 4^th of July? Do you have any traditions for the 4^th? Did you indulge on holiday eats and drinks?

Weekending: Decking it, #StreetSweat workout, Date night & SoulCycle

June 30, 2015June 29, 20154 Comments

Good morning! Lots of fun things to recap from the weekend, so let’s get right to it, shall we?

On Thursday night, RM and I met up to go for a walk after work. We hadn’t seen much of each other over the week so we figured that catching up and getting in some movement was a way to kill two birds with one stone! We love going for walks together and it was such a nice night! Piers Park is so pretty.

After work on Friday, I treated myself to a pedicure. I got a funky mint-green color (forget the name!) and wasn’t sure how I was going to like it but I actually love it!

Once I got home, I poured myself a glass of vino (rose- my fav these days!) and headed out to the back deck to enjoy my little urban oasis. My friend Jess got me this cookbook/entertainment book for my birthday and I’m loving it so far!

Have any of you read it? Not long after I settled in, RM stopped by and joined me for a drink before heading to his place to make fish tacos. We thought we had frozen some corn tortillas, but we were wrong so we enjoyed them sans tortilla. Still delicious!

Saturday I headed over to Chestnut Hill for the #streetsweat workout event lead by MOVE Fitness. In case you missed my initial blog post, check it out here. And don’t forget to enter the giveaway! I’ll pick the winner on Thursday morning. Back to the workout- it was really fun! At first I didn’t think it was going to be my type of challenging, but Ron and Sabrina did such a great job showing more advanced options as well as less advanced options so that everyone felt good during the workout. I ended up working really hard and felt it the next day. We did all sorts of fun things with the heavy sand balls, bands and our own bodyweight.

It was also great to workout with- and meet!- Lexi (Lexi’s Clean Kitchen), Rachel (Healthy-Chicks) and Michelle (Sunshine & Superfoods). Lexi had to leave the workout early to get set up for her table inside Lululemon, but here’s a post-workout pic of Rachel, Michelle and me!

We all headed into Lulu to try out some f the goodies that Lexi brought- 2 words: Holy.Yum! I can’t wait to check out her cookbook when it comes out next year!

(We were also given free samples of Juice Press juice and this one tasted just like a watermelon!)

After the event, I met my friend Jessi in the city for lunch at Granary Tavern and then we swung by our friend Amanda’s apartment in the North End. No pics, but it was such a fun little afternoon! Finally, my Saturday ended with a date night with RM- something we hadn’t done in Boston in forever!

We went to Island Creek Oyster Bar first and enjoyed some drinks and oysters, but ultimately decided we were in the mood for Eastern Standard. It was incredible- even at the prime time in Boston on a Saturday night we found seats at the bar right away at both places. It’s like they were waiting for us 😉 At ES we shared a salad, fried calamari and a lamb sausage pasta bake.

Sunday morning started with a fantastic bunch of healthy pancakes.

After, I met my sister at SoulCycle for the 11:45am class. It was a FULL room and the energy was amazing. It was our first time having a male instructor and I have to say that James L. was amazing!! He was so energetic and motivating and he had some really good dance moves at the front of the room- I would catch myself just watching him a few times!

To end out the weekend, I went to RM’s mom’s house for Sunday dinner and, per usual, it was delicious. I walked in and said it smelled delicious and asked what she cooked and she laughed saying it was sauce, duh. How silly of me!

All in all, despite the weather being less than perfect (ok New England, what’s with these rainy/cloudy weekends and perfect weather during the week?!), it was a really great weekend! Can’t wait to head up to Maine for the 4th this weekend!

Questions for you: What was the best part of your weekend? Do you have outdoor space to enjoy in the summer? What’s your ideal “date night”? Do you like male or female instructors better?

I ate a real cheeseburger… white bun and all…

June 23, 2015June 22, 201512 Comments

“I’ll have a ground turkey burger, no cheese and no bun, please”

Umm. No thank you. While that was something I maybe ordered once in my life years ago when I had some food issues, these days I’ll take a real beef burger, with cheese and with a bun, thankyouverymuch. A cheese burger isn’t something I eat on a weekly basis, so when I have the opportunity to eat one, I want it to be good. Real good. And to me, that’s accomplished when you use good, organic, grass fed beef, a nice strong cheese and a simple bun.

Over the weekend, RM and I grilled on my back deck and when I was going to the store to get the necessities, he specifically requested “those white buns, the cheap ones, with sesame seeds on top.” Granted, my first thought was “you’re kidding me, right?!”, because standard, basic, “cheap” white bread is not something we generally eat, but I have to say- it made for a pretty fantastic burger.

The thing is, when you get all fancy with a super big, bulky, non-white roll, it generally ends up taking over the lead role (I initially wrote ‘roll’… subconscious pun intended??) in the dish. No offense to all you bun lovers out there- I want the meat (and cheese!) to be the start of the show. That’s what I’m most looking forward to when I have a burger. And even though that’s the case, it doesn’t mean I am about to order a bunless burger because where is the fun in that?! I often pick off the extra bread/roll for my burger, but there’s something to wonderful about grabbing a bunned burger and taking that first bite. Summer perfection, in my eyes! Served with a side of corn, pasta salad and/or chips and I’m pretty darn happy 🙂

If you’re interested, here’s the “ingredients” list for the burgers we made over the weekend:

1lb. organic, grass fed beef (ours was Angus and delicious)
1/2 small onion, chopped very small
1/2 chopped red pepper, chopped very small
garlic powder, salt & pepper, oregano and/or any other herbs/seasoning you prefer- to your liking (a few shakes for each is what I did)
8 slices of block pepperjack cheese
4 hamburger buns (we used standard Shaw’s brand white sesame seeded buns, but feel free to go a healthier route if you want!)

Chop your pepper and onion and use your hands to mix the beef with the veggies and herbs/seasoning. If you want big burgers, create 4 equal size patties and grill ’em up! I ended up making 6 smaller size ones and we froze 2 so that we could have them on hand for the next time we wanted a spur of the moment burger.

Questions for you: Do you like cheeseburgers? Do you prefer fancy rolls, simple white rolls or no rolls? What’s your favorite thing to grill?

Weekending & Life Lately Catch-Up

June 22, 2015June 22, 20152 Comments

Good morning! I hope you all had a great weekend 🙂 Mine was really pretty great and I actually took pictures so I thought I’d spend today sharing those with you! But, before I get to that, let’s catch up over the past couple of weeks. I can’t believe we’ve been back from Italy for over 3 weeks- seems like just yesterday we were packing up to go there.

I’ve been working out outside a lot- whether in the form of running or bootcamp style workouts. With the nicer weather upon us, I just want to be outside as much as possible!

But, I’m also loving being back in the gym with weights and strength training! Feels so good to leave the gym with jello-feeling everything 🙂

I’m participating in Neghar Fonooni’s Bikini Rebellion challenge this month and am more than obsessed with it. If you follow me on Instagram, then you’ve probably seen some very personal, “leave it all on the table” types of posts, which has been hard, but also really refreshing.
We’ve been loving healthy, light meals. In the heat, it’s awesome to throw something together quickly!

My curly hair is back… BIG and back! I was afraid my curls were going away over the winter, but fear not… it was just the dry weather that made my hair less curly than usual!