Tag: cooking

Weekending: October Sunshine

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Hi there! How are you? If you have today off, don’t tell me… not only do I have to work but I have to go INTO the office. Monday’s are usually my WFH day so it’s a very weird start to the week!

Did you guys have a good weekend? Mine was great- a good mix of celebrations, relaxing and productivity. I’m absolutely loving this warm October weather and after a gloomy day on Friday, I tried to soak up as much of the sunshine as possible throughout the weekend.

After work on Friday, I went to my sister’s apartment for vino and pizza. The traffic was TERRIBLE, so it was so nice to be able to relax with drinks and laughter and good convos!

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On Saturday, after kickboxing class, I was able to run some much-needed errands and decided to grab lunch at Panera since I was out. Have you tried their lentil-kale bowls? Pretty good!

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We decided to head into the city in the late afternoon and hit up the new Uniqlo in Faneuil Hall. While it was a big chaotic, I did score this vest for $39 instead of $59! I’ve been wanting a light down vest for a long time and I think I’ll get a lot of use out of this.

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After shopping we stopped in at Back Deck for cocktails and a snack.

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We also stopped at a coffee shop on the way home and they had the most AMAZING sweet potato pumpkin pie macaroons I’ve ever had. We stupidly split this, but I could’ve eaten 5 of them myself!

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The rest of the night was very low-key and looked a lot like this:

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Do any of you watch Ray Donovan? RM had gotten us both hooked on it, which is weird for me considering I hate violence and it’s a very violent show!

Sunday was a perfectly productive day! We had breakfast and then went to Target and Whole Foods before doing some major cleaning and food prep back at home. Also, Whole Foods has the prettiest bouquets- and sometimes you just need to buy yourself flowers 😉

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The weather was too gorgeous to be inside all day so I took a break from house work and cooking and went for a quickie 5K run. The weather was so perfect!

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I made some oat bars, soup and the most delicious stuffed acorn squash- I love going into the week with a whole bunch of good, healthy food!

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Oh, and the BEST part of the weekend? RM’s mother stopped by and gave us our engagement gift, which is something I have literally waited my whole life for:

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The funniest part was that I had been talking about Kitchen Aid mixers all weekend! I can’t wait to put this to good use- she said she loves using hers for her pizza dough, so that means I need to get the recipe AND give it a try 🙂

Questions for you: What was the best part of your weekend? Did you get out and enjoy the weather? Did you do anything festive? What’s your favorite kitchen appliance?

“Drool-Worthy” Recipes- II

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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.

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Eats as of Late {Part II}

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It’s been a hot minute since I shared my eats with you, huh? In case you missed part one, you can find it here.

I feel like RM and I have been eating out a bit more than we really want to be eating out, but now that the weather is warming up a bit (well, sometimes!), it’s just so much more fun to go out and get drinks, which usually leads to us grabbing dinner out. We leave for Italy in about 3 weeks, so I’m hoping to cut back on eating out until then. For now, here’s what we’ve been eating- enjoy!

Coconut Crusted Healthified Chicken Tenders {gluten free & dairy free}– RM came up with this recipe and he’s used it on chicken and fish and it’s quickly become a staple for us!

Coconut crusted chicken tenders

Italian Meatloaf– I came across this meatloaf from PaleOMG and I’ve probably made it 5 times at this point. Every part of it is so delicious and it’s been a great lunch meal.

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In January, RM was doing the Whole30, so we were more limited with our meal options. Insert lettuce tacos! So good and so healthy.

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Curry dishes have also frequented our meal rotations. We love this dish because it’s easy and healthy and just so darn tasty! We’ve made the dish with chicken and with shrimp and have decided we like shrimp the best.

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These Smashed Sweet Potato Guacamole Bites from Running to the Kitchen were a HUGE hit at the Super Bowl party I went to.

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Eats as of Late

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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: Taking time to relax

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As I’ve mentioned a number of times, this holiday season I promised myself that I would slow down, try to stress less and learn how to say “no”. So far, I’ve actually been much better at it than I thought I would be. As I was looking through my calendar earlier this season, I realized that this past weekend was seemingly clear. I had already decided not to run the Somerville Jingle Bell 5K I always run, and no other parties had been planned yet. As I was chatting with Athena, she suggested I mark the weekend as a “no plans weekend”. Sadly, as soon as I did that, two parties came up (sorry Mary and Steph!!)… obviously this would happen!

I have to say, I fully enjoyed this past weekend where I had no real plans. Sure, we had lots of things we ended up doing or wanted to do, but the beauty of it was we were able to do it on our own schedule and if we decided to change plans or stay in or do dinner, it was our choice. I highly suggest taking weekends like this if you’re feeling overwhelmed or just that you don’t have enough time for yourself. I went into this week feeling so refreshed and ready for a much busier week.

Here are some highlights from the weekend- enjoy!

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  • Treating myself to a Chai Tea Latte at Starbucks thanks to a gift card that a sweet member gave me

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  • A pleasant car shopping experience at Acura. My lease is up in February so I’m in the market for something new!
  • A late lunch at Legal C Bar in Lynnfield

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  • Shopping around the M Street shops, getting some gifts and food shopping at Whole Foods.
  • A quiet night in, consisting of Christmas movies, wine & this delicious baked stuffed acorn squash.

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  • A lazy Sunday morning- breakfast, blogging & cleaning
  • More car shopping, another pleasant experience!
  • Sunday dinner at RM’s mother’s house. I was totally craving an authentic Italian meal (aka, I really wanted meatballs), so it worked out perfectly! I’m so lucky that I love his family and enjoy spending time with them.
  • Sunday night at my place. It was nice to meal prep and watch tv and be surrounded by my Christmas decorations!

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Questions for you: When’s the last time you said “no” in favor of relaxing and doing nothing? Do you often over-book yourself? What was the best part of your weekend?