Seven-ingredient wonder

Hey everyone!

How's your night going? I had a ridiculously stressful day at work. It was a take-a-bath-after-work-because-I'm-too-exhausted-to-stand-in-the-shower kind of day. On the bright side, I'm over the hump and have only two more work days until the weekend. Since this Friday is the first day of the month, there will be free bagels in the lobby Friday morning! I'm (not?) ashamed to admit that I've been excited about this fact for...exactly a month. It makes no sense - I can go out and buy a bagel any time I want one. But that's just not the same as free bagels in my lobby. 

Dinner last night was a simple recipe that turned out to be delicious beyond belief. We finally grabbed the spaghetti squash out of the bowl (the one we bought over a week ago when we went apple picking), sliced it in half, and baked it in the oven until it was soft. That squash was a tough beast to slice in half, though. My husband wrestled with it for 10 minutes, threw it in the oven to "soften" for a while, and wrestled with it for 10 minutes more before it finally gave way. And my husband is strong, you guys.

He scooped the spaghetti out of the squash, and combined it in a big mixing bowl with sauteed red onion, garlic, and the last of a jar of diced tomatoes we bought at the farmers market weeks ago. We threw in some kalamata olives, capers, feta cheese and sea salt. That's it - 7 ingredients. So easy, and so good. Does anyone else get stressed out when they see a recipe with a zillion ingredients? 

See those pieces of red onion? I kept looking at them and thinking the dish would be even better if those were little pieces of prosciutto. But then I wouldn't eat it. If I were making it for company, though, I'd tweak the recipe and make it a 1 on the ham scale. 

Dinner was followed by mini pumpkin cheesecakes, which I might make again tonight, since I have an abundance of homemade goat cream cheese. 

We ordered pizza for dinner tonight, since I was in no mood to cook or even see cooking take place, and it just arrived. 

Have a great night!

xo

 

Suddenly it's winter

Good afternoon! Hope you're all enjoying this Saturday.

Yesterday was about as perfect a day off as I could imagine. We went to the gym in the morning, hit up Joe's and Whole Foods, and then came home and took a 2.5 hour long nap. It was amazing. I don't know if the sudden cold weather is 100% to blame, but I did not feel like being out and about. I spent the rest of the afternoon in sweats, baking/cooking/creating in the kitchen, ate dinner with the husband, and watched Modern Family on the couch for the rest of the night. It made me so happy.

My creations:

A batch of pumpkin chocolate chip protein balls, which were adapted from this recipe.

Some goat cream cheese:

Which I "made" by mixing a log of goat cheese with about a cup of goat's milk.

And two jars full of spicy salsa verde, which we ate with the chicken burritos my husband made:

For some inconceivable reason, my husband isn't as crazyobsessed with this salsa verde as I am. I guess he thinks he has some kind of refined salsa palate because he's from New Mexico? Whatever, I love this stuff. It's an El Salvadorean salsa recipe that I learned at work, and I've been eating it on as much as possible ever since I got up the nerve to try it. It's so spicy that when I rinse the blender out at work after making it, the air becomes spicy and I start coughing up a storm. A little dot goes a long way. 

The cat stared longingly at our plates from across the counter:

It was a lazy night, followed by a lazy morning. We bundled up in all the warm clothes we could find and walked down to the farmers market for some radishes, and then into DSW so I could get some warm shoes. My Uggs are on their last limb, and I realized I'm lacking in normal shoes.

I feel like I should be lazy on weekends more often. Ever since we got here our weekends have been packed full of errands, but relaxing allows me to recharge before the start of another work week.  

Have a great Saturday night!

xo

Things I'm Loving Thursday

Hey everyone!

I am so, so happy it's "Friday" (my days off are Friday and Saturday). This week was extra challenging for no particular reason - it was just one of those weeks that really dragged. I was at the Virginia location one day this week, and I'll be there for two days next week. While the commute sucks, it's nice to spend a few days a week out there. It breaks up my week and it's a change of scenery.

After work hubby and I went to Costco, then braved the cold (50*...I'm scared for winter) and walked downtown to Potbelly for a date.

As soon as we got there we saw a huge sign advertising their delivery services. Ugh. Guess I should have checked online first. 

In blog news, I'm starting a new segment: Things I'm Loving Thursday. I love reading other bloggers' Friday Faves, and thought I'd switch it up a tiny bit and post mine on Thursday.

In no particular order, here are some things I've been loving lately.

-The way my husband checks off ingredients in the cookbook as he adds them:

I just think it's really cute. 

-Tart cherry juice at night:

I'd been wanting to try tart cherry juice forever, but it's pricey and it never made the cut when I'd weigh potential impulse buys. A few weeks ago there were a couple bottles on the free-to-staff shelf at work, and I did the excitement dance all the way home. We ran out of the first bottle and bought a second one from Joe's for a better price, and we've both been drinking it almost every night. If you're interested, you can read about the alleged benefits of tart cherry juice here. I can't say I've noticed any effects from it (and if I did, I'd be more inclined to chalk it up to a placebo effect), but it's delicious nonetheless. 

-This awesome post about buying a home in your 20s. I think we're already failing at tip #1, but there's some great advice in here. (Thanks for the blog traffic, Miranda!)

-Good to Great. I grabbed this off the bookshelf at work, and I've been totally engrossed in it. I love it so far. I'm not a CEO (or anything even remotely close), but it's making me see my company, and every other company I've worked for, in a whole new way. I love books that make me smarter with every page. 

-Feeding my cat chicken.

I'm the worst for doing this, since I'm only encouraging begging, but she loves it and it's so cute. 

-Our wedding photos! They finallyyyy came, and I can't stop looking at them. Perfection. 

What are you loving lately?

Have a great night!

xo

Return of the baking itch

Hey guys!

First things first - I have to show you my breakfast this morning (and for the next two days, since I bulk-made three of them):

That hideous, leprechaun-esque thing is my breakfast cookie, which I mistakenly added way too much spirulina to. I tried to scoop some of it out before I added the wet ingredients, but the damage had been done. My family is used to seeing me eat disgusting-looking health food, but this particular monstrosity is a stretch, even for me. It was actually delicious, but I stuffed it in my face at top speed and prayed no one would walk into the break room and spot me eating it. Lest I be the laughing stock of the entire company. 

Now onto something a lot more appetizing - I've got a recipe for ya! My latest baking creation: the apple raspberry crumble. 

When I was in high school, I had a real thing for baking. I took a bunch of cake decorating classes and used to bake things at night and take them into my homeroom the next morning. I haven't been crazy about baking in a while, but last night I had the urge, and I rolled with it. 

This particular recipe is a little healthier than the stuff I used to make in high school. Don't get me wrong - I do not think desserts have to be healthy. That's kind of not the point of dessert (I don't ever need to see a whole wheat cannoli, for example). But since this was just a random Monday and no special occasion, I added almond meal and subbed coconut oil for butter - both excellent sources of healthy fats. 

I combined 2 cups oats, 1 cup almond meal and 1/2 cup brown sugar, plus cinnamon, sea salt and vanilla in a bowl,

mixed in about 1/2 cup coconut oil, and pressed half of it into the bottom of an 8x8 pan.

Then I washed, peeled, cored and chopped three of our apples, and layered them on top of the crumble. 

I remembered the raspberries we had also picked, and I wondered if they would be a good addition, or if it would seem like too much. I considered this for about one second before dumping the berries on top.

I wish I could say these were the berries we picked, but no. Those berries were eaten within a day. These berries are frozen from Joe's, and still delicious. I packed the remaining crumble on top and popped it in the oven at 350 for about 30 minutes.

The finished product:

As I'm sure you can imagine, 24 hours later and it's almost gone. Why did I use the 8x8 pan instead of the 9x13?! ("There are only two of us" - what a rookie baking mistake).

That's all for now. I'm already planning my next apple recipe. I'm thinking muffins. 

xo

Why is everything cable?

Hello world!

I've had an exciting day. After a week of deliberating, what-ifs and soul searching, we brought home our first fur-baby!

We went to the shelter last weekend for an open house event, and had no intentions of leaving that day with a cat. We weren't prepared for one yet, but we wanted to check out the shelter anyway and see if it was a place we'd want to adopt from when we were ready. We found this little girl, and I fell. in. love. She's super tiny, even though she's a year old and fully grown, and she's sweet and friendly. She was a stray, and she's already had a litter of kittens! Admittedly, I have a soft spot for black cats - my first fur-baby is a black cat. 

We wanted a week to think about it and prepare, and during that time we got some supplies from Petco, even though we weren't 100% sure we'd get her. We also did some budgeting and looked at how much this endeavor would cost us. We realized it would be about as much each month as we're paying for cable, so we made the choice to cancel the cable - a decision I was (shockingly) totally okay with. I love my T.V. time, but I've actually watched almost no T.V. since we got the cable. We didn't have it for the first couple weeks here, and I guess I learned how to self-sooth in other ways, because once we got it, I barely cared about it. I'm not saying we won't get it again sometime in the future, but for now, I can totally live without it. Rescuing a kitty > Bravo. Internet, on the other hand, I need. Good thing that's a lot cheaper. 

It's kind of funny - ever since we knew we'd be moving down here, every conversation we had about things we'd need to buy came back to cable. I'd mention an expense, and my husband would say "well, that's cable, right there". A gym membership? That's cable right there. Dinner out? That's cable. Regular eyebrow waxing? Cable. And so on and so on. 

When I looked at the cat expenses, I showed him the number, and he said "well, that's cable". This made me laugh. "Why is everything cable??" Somehow it became our own personal form of currency. 

Anyway....our kitty's name is Dolce, and she's currently busy exploring her "forever home" - as the women at the shelter call it. 

She won't stay still for a picture, so that's the best one I got. 

That's all for now - I'm about to run to the store and get her some food. I'll try not to photobomb you all in future posts...even though we all know the internet was made for pictures of cats. 

xo

Apple picking and WIWF 10/18

Happy Friday!

Our apple picking trip, which we had planned for last weekend, finally happened today. We woke up early and drove out to Gaithursburg, and after a long drive down a bumpy and hilly dirt road, we found the orchard:

I guess this is what the area looked like before they plopped D.C. down on top of it? 

My outfit today:

Jeans: 7 for all man kind

Shoes: Toms knock-offs from a random shoe store in NYC

Cornflower blue t-shirt: $10 on sale at Nordstrom

Sweater: Top Shop 

We grabbed some apples and followed the signs for raspberry picking. I didn't think October was raspberry season, but some of the raspberries on the bush weren't even ripe yet. 

I was pretty happy to find them, especially since raspberries are the only fruit I can eat "raw". I normally only like fruit in the form of smoothies, juices and baked goods. 

We stopped in the little barn/shop on our way out to pay, and picked up a few things in addition to our apples and berries. 

Sweet potato chips, radishes, a spaghetti squash, a raspberry cheesecake brownie, two honey sticks, and our fruit. I definitely want to make those mini apple crisps again, and we already found a recipe for the spaghetti squash.   

That's all for today - see ya tomorrow!

xo

Oktoberfest

Hi everyone! How's it going?

This week has been moving verrrry slowly for me, but some fun stuff was sprinkled in here and there. On Sunday (after work) I mustered up some energy and the hubby and I walked to the movie theater to see Captain Phillips. It was extremely intense, and completely awesome. We're hoping we can make it to Gravity soon, too. Two movies in one week might be a record for me, since my usual pace is more like two movies a year. My attention span is not my best quality, and movies are long.

We've been eating leftovers all week, which was pretty much the plan. My husband made soup on Sunday (mushroom lentil), and we finished the last of it last night:

It was delicious (much better than our eggplant fail whale) and surprisingly filling.

We just got back from a company event, hence the title of the post. My company throws various employee appreciation events throughout the year, and I thought I'd give this one a try since a) we have no food in the fridge for dinner, b) I wanted my husband to meet my coworker and c) I spent some serious time prepping food for this party and I wanted some of the end result.

These events are always held at the same park, which is lovely:

There were food trucks, several beer tables, games and live music. Unfortunately, I'm the furthest thing from a social butterfly, and this type of situation makes me supremely uncomfortable. So we ate some of everything, said hello to the few people I knew, and peaced out.

Bratwurst with braised cabbage and potatoes:

Hard cider (I had two):

And a plate with pumpkin and sage bread pudding, eggplant schnitzel with spicy mustard and mushroom orzo:

My husband wasn't feeling the vegetarian plate and opted for a hot dog with caramelized onions, jalapenos and pinto beans:

Not bad! Better food trucks than the ones we encountered last weekend, but everyone knows I have only one true food truck love. (word on the street is they're coming to DC!)

I'm going to prep breakfast for tomorrow, do a little yoga and fall asleep. Tomorrow is my Friday, and we have lots of fun things planned for the weekend. 

xo

Food truck crawl

After an insane-rain morning, it's finally almost sunny outside.

This morning we loaded up on groceries at Joe's and got ingredients for two dinners: soup and pasta salad. We should have enough leftovers from each to last us most of the week. On the days we don't have a dinner planned, we usually end up eating my husband's favorite go-to meal: "stuff in a tortilla". It's exactly what it sounds like.

We had some time to kill when we got back from Joe's, so I made three breakfast cookies for the next three days of work and a batch of vegan almond butter cookies, per the fitnessista's recipe.

At noon we walked down the street to the food truck fest - some sort of event our apartment building had going. It was drizzly and cold out, but I've braved far worse weather for the sake of food trucks.

First stop was the crepe truck. We got the ham, egg and cheese crepe:

Despite being a 1 on the ham scale, it wasn't very good. (a 0 on the ham scale = no ham, a 1 on the ham scale = ham, FYI)

Next we tried some fish tacos:

These were VERY good. The mahi mahi had a spicy rub and the cabbage slaw was tangy and crunchy. I ate all of one and most of the other. 

My hubby got an empanada, which I had just a tiny taste of, since it was also a 1 on the ham scale (I don't like to eat much meat):

It was excellent. 

And we had to try a cupcake, even though we were sure it wouldn't be as good as GT cupcakes:

It was a pretty good cupcake. We both agreed it was like a cousin of GT cupcakes. Not as good, not a sibling, but similar enough to be a cousin. 

I'm about to do some yogaglo, then put the Walt Disney station on Pandora and start dinner. Word to the wise: if you're not cleaning, cooking, baking and doing homework to Colors of the Wind and A Whole New World - try it. It's magical. 

Have an awesome Saturday night!

xo

WIWF 10/11

Happy Friday!

It's been a stellar day off, minus the crappy weather here (pouring all.day.every.day.) I got up early and lifted heavy weights downstairs in the workout room. Heavy for me = 12 lb dumbells. Heavy for my husband = twice his body weight. No shame.

In honor of my sister, I'm officially launching What I Wore Friday. Here's my outfit in all its glory. And since it's pretty monotone, I decided to hold a plant in a mixing bowl for added color:

Jeans: Joe's

Black t-shirt: Cariloha

Sweater: Joe's

Necklace: Kate Spade

Unfortunately, leaving the apartment looked like this:

Crocks with socks happened. It was pouring outside and I had no other shoe options that were even remotely waterproof. I can't decide if the pink socks make it worse, or if the situation is already so bad that nothing could make it worse. I'm sorry Charlotte!!

We wanted to go apple picking today, but we're saving that for nicer weather. So instead we went to two malls to run errands. First, Costco, where I ran through the aisles at top speed geeking out over all the healthy options. 

While we waited for Costco to open, we picked out our new car:

Leases start at just $299 a month! It's like money lying on the ground...

(Reality: we'll be driving the Toyota forever)

My husband is off to a job interview, and has requested no photos of him on the blog, since he may be on a fancy career track where pictures of him online are discouraged. 

See ya tomorrow!

xo

WIAW and soup #3

Hi everyone!

I decided I'd do another What I Ate Wednesday after reading Housewife Glamour's post on the benefits of WIAWs  - mainly that tracking your eating habits for a day keeps you accountable. Again, most of the snacks I sneak in throughout my workday aren't photographed, because I'm busybusybusy and cannot take my phone out to snap a pic of my muffin like a freak. Today it was a green juice (kale, apple, cucumber, lemon) and crackers with a cheese stick. Specifically, these cheese sticks:

What would I do without these things? I eat at least one every single day. They've revolutionized snacking for me. Have I mentioned that each one has as much protein as an egg? It amazes me. 

Breakfast #1 (before I left the apartment) was a whole wheat english muffin with PB:

Oh, and coffee of course. I drank it so fast I forgot to take a pic.

Real breakfast during my break:

Breakfast cookie. Nuff said. 

Lunch was a black bean burger with tons of guac. I wanted a salad, but honestly, what I really wanted was something I could eat fast. So I picked the burger.

I've pretty much gotten my workday fuel routine down. I have coffee + something small but substantial at about 5 am, before I leave for work. English muffins with PB have worked well these past few days. I eat my cheese stick with crackers at around 7, when my first task at work is done and I have a good opportunity to pause. My morning break happens at different times depending on a host of factors (which location I'm working at, who else I'm working with, how much I have to get done by a certain time, etc.). If I take my break at around 10 am, I usually don't need another snack before I eat lunch at 2. If I take my break earlier, like at 8:30 or 9, I typically need something at noon to get me through, like some pretzels and guac, a packet of almond butter or a cliff shotblok. I'm moving around constantly at work and it's pretty much impossible on an empty stomach, but I finally have a system that seems to work. 

Before dinner snack:

Bare Naked cereal with a swig of kefir poured on top and vanilla coconut milk. 

Dinner hasn't happened yet, but I'll probably eat leftovers from last night. My hubby made his third round of soup, and....it didn't turn out quite like we'd expected. The recipe was for eggplant parm soup, and it just did not look like the picture in the cookbook. Isn't that the worst? 

I pureed the stuff in an attempt to improve it, then dumped several huge scoops of freshly cooked quinoa in the bowl and covered it in a blanket of shredded parmesan. We've since been calling the soup "cheesy quinoa helper". So that's the plan for tonight: a repeat of cheesy quinoa helper. Just in case, I have a giant sweet potato baking in the oven so we have another option. 

That concludes this segment of What I Ate Wednesday. Tomorrow's my Friday (since I have Fridays and Saturdays off) and I'm excited to see a friend who's in town this week! She was one of my bridesmaids :)

xo