Weekending: Holiday Party, Registry Fun & Visits with Friends/Family

Good morning! Did you guys have a good weekend? We did! Even with weird, unseasonable weather and the constant feeling of fighting off a cold, we had a pretty great one.

Friday

My company’s party was on Friday night, which was actually a nice change from squeezing it in during the typical holiday season. It was at the Hyatt in Cambridge- a great location for us now living in Newton Corner! We were able to leave work early so I took advantage of some extra “free” hours and ran errands. I skipped the gym because my back was bothering me and I felt the onset of a cold, so I opted to walk my errands which was a nice way to still get some movement in. Nails were a must!

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I didn’t take many photos at the event, but I’ll say the cocktails were flowing, the food was good and dancing definitely happened 😉 It’s so fun getting to hang out with coworkers/friends outside of the office! these girls! ❤

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Saturday

We didn’t get home and in bed until nearly 2am, so needless to say, we definitely took our time getting up on Sunday morning! Lucky for me, RM opted to make us his “specialty” breakfast: all the veggies, his special beans, homemade turkey sausage & an egg. It was so delicious!

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After breakfast, I cleaned the house and then we headed into the city. We had late lunch plans with another couple but decided to head in early to start on our wedding registry. We went to Crate & Barrel and had a blast scanning all sorts of things that we wanted! We have a long way to go to complete our registry, but it felt good to start on it!

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It was my first time meeting Roberto’s friends, so I opted to not take photos but we had sushi at Douzo which was good- we love that sushi restaurant.

The rest of the night was very quiet and I was in bed by 9:30 🙂

Sunday

We got up early and I made some French toast- I took pictures so I’ll post the recipe this week!

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I still wasn’t feeling 100%, but after 2 consecutive rest days, I was REALLY itching to move so I headed to the gym for a workout. I’d love to say that it felt so good to workout, but I’d be lying if I said that. The whole thing was just a mental battle, but I made it through the workout and did feel better after I was done so it wasn’t a totally wasted trip.

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I whipped up a quesadilla for lunch since I had leftover ‘dilla veggies & chicken already cut up from making them on Thursday night. It hit the spot!

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Later in the afternoon, we headed over to Brookline to visit with my cousin who was in town for work. It’s always nice to see family when they come to Boston!

I dropped RM off at home and then went to Whole Foods, even though between not feeling great and the ridiculous rain it was the LAST thing I wanted to do. I always feel better once I just do it and I bought myself flowers and a cookie to reward myself for getting it done 😉

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For dinner, I decided that it was the perfect weather for a roast chicken meal. Is this anyone else’s favorite winter meal?! I can’t get enough of it. I chopped up sweet potatoes, Japanese sweet potatoes, onions & carrots and then also cooked some kale. I’m going to make a great wife 😉

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And that about does it! This is a pretty quiet week which is nice- I am ready for a week with no after-work plans (and yes, I know I sound like i’m 60 when I say that!).

Questions for you: Did your company have a holiday party this year? Married friends- what’s the one think you would suggest we register for (maybe that you didn’t originally think you needed) and what’s the one thing you would suggest NOT registering for? What’s your favorite winter meal? Do you have a busy week?

Crustless Veggie & Goat Cheese Quiche

Would you look at that- I’ve posted for FOUR days in a ROW this week! I know, I’m just as surprised as you. I’m so happy that I had time to post this recipe for you, though, because boy oh boy is it tasty! Not only that, but it was super easy to put together: chop & sautee some veggies, whisk some eggs, bake and voila! You don’t even have to deal with making or rolling out a crust, which not only saves you time, but saves you some calories, too! What you end up with is a healthy, nutritious and yummy dish to eat for breakfast, lunch and/or dinner.

Crustless Veggie & Goat Cheese Quiche

That’s the beauty of quiches, right? They’re so versatile since you can literally eat them for any meal of the day. And, if you add veggies you’re getting an even better bang for your buck. I don’t like to add TOO many veggies, though, because they get in the way of the egg consistency that I love about quiches. This one ended up coming out super fluffy, which I think may be due to how much I whisked the eggs and milk- my arm was burning by the time I finally stopped!

Crustless Veggie & Goat Cheese Quiche

Ingredients

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Sunday Morning “Pancakes”

While I’m en route to San Francisco, I thought I’d share a yummy, healthy breakfast idea for you! Hope you like it!

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I’ve never been a pancake lover. Sure, they look good and taste good, but they just never leave me full for more than an hour or so, which is crazy because they make me so full while I’m eating them! So, for that reason, you won’t really find me ordering pancakes when I’m out. However, when RM makes his “pancakes” (I put this in quotations because they are super healthy protein pancakes), they keep me full for at least a few hours because of all the healthy goodness he puts in them.

Since I’ve posted a number of “pancake” photo’s to Instagram, I thought it was only fair for me to finally share one of RM’s recipes with you. In all honesty, it only took this long because I never watch him make his pancakes and he never measures so they always come out differently. This past Sunday, though, I finally nailed him down and got a recipe for you 🙂

I will say that these are not light, fluffy, sweet pancakes. They are, however, chock full of good ingredients and can be modified to add some sweetness if you’d like. We didn’t have any maple syrup, so I got creative and put some of my mom’s homemade jam, almond butter and then I tried some of the blueberry reduction that RM made. I have to say, the blueberry reduction with a little honey was a winning combination 😉

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Eats as of Late

Hi there! I looked at my phone the other day and realized I have so many pictures of food… food we’ve cooked and food we’ve had at restaurants. In order to clean up my phone- and since the meals were clearly blog worthy if I photographed them 😉 – I thought I’d share them with you, today! I really enjoy Athena’s posts like this, so here we go!

Spaghetti Squash, Kale & Turkey Meatballs- This is one of my favorite healthy meals to make; it’s probably on the monthly rotation because it’s great for lunches, too.

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Weekending: Local Date Night, Wicked Wine Fest, Homemade Fish Tacos & Sunday Funday

I loved every part of this past weekend! I took Friday off from work so I could attend MANIA. The day, although long, was amazing! I was able to take so many awesome classes and meet some really great fitness professionals. I’ll do a full recap on that soon.

By the time I got home and showered, I was starvingggg, so RM and I headed to Jeveli’s, which is a local favorite of ours. The prices are cheap, service is good (and funny) and the food is absolutely delicious. It’s a no-frills type of place, but we love sitting at the bar and chatting with the locals. I always get the meatballs because they are so good, and after 4 hours of physical activity, a big bowl of carb-y, meat-y deliciousness was just what I needed!

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After class on Saturday, my sister, Kate and I headed to the South End for a wine tasting at Cyclorama. I went in March and loved it, so jumped on the chance to go to the one this past weekend. Some of my SMC friends were also there and we had a blast walking around, trying various wines… and taking silly pics 😉

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Post wine fest, we made the short walk over to Stephi’s on Tremont for lunch. We were lucky and had a whole room just to ourselves… but, the more I think about it, maybe the rest of the restaurant was lucky we had a whole room to ourselves. You try being reasonably quiet with 8 girls after a 2 hour wine tasting…

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I ended up getting a burger because I was still craving red meat- must have been all the working out!

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Once we finished up, I headed back to East Boston to hang out with RM. We had plans to make fish tacos and they did NOT disappoint! The best part was they were super easy- I’m going to share our “recipe” later the week. They were unbelievable, though!

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My movie snack was a half of a paleo pumpkin banana bread muffin that I made last week. Topped with crunchy almond butter and cinnamon, courtesy of RM, it hit the spot!

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Sunday morning started with some cleaning, some breakfast and then some serious shopping. RM made some zucchini fritters… topped with an over easy egg and it made for a delicious breakfast.

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He’s also taking a stab at making his own yogurt, so we worked on that a little.

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To shop, we headed to Assembly Row since we wanted to go to Bed, Bath and Beyond and figured we could have lunch at Legal on the Mystic. I was getting hangry, so a beer and fish sandwich did the trick to fill me up! I regretted the fried food later that day, though, as it gave me a bad stomach ache 😦 Could’ve also been due to the fact I ate a lot more junk this past weekend than I normally do, including greasy, fried food.

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After we finished up, we shopped around a few more stores before calling it a day. I food shopped then had fun being in the kitchen with my sister. She made a pasta bake and I made an amped up Shepherd’s pie. Both were delicious!

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And that’s about it… before I knew it, I was hopping into bed, utterly exhausted! I love weekends like this, I just wish they could last longer 😦

Questions for you: What was the best part of your weekend? Have you been to a wine tasting before?