Weekend recap: It’s August?

With temperatures in the 70s all weekend and a tan that is starting to fade, it’s hard to believe that it is August. Aren’t we supposed to be in the dog days of summer?

Knowing that we had back to back to back activities lined up for Saturday, I took advantage of Friday night by doing some grocery shopping and spending time at the garden. I picked a bunch of kale, fennel, carrots and cherry tomatoes. My cherry tomatoes are growing like crazy. They are all over the plant in giant clusters like I am growing grapes.

The fennel smells wonderful. I can’t wait to cook it up and possibly use the fronds in a savory bread.

Saturday started bright and early with a double yolk egg(those are good luck, right?) then off to help a friend with a yard sale.

The weather was  perfect and it nice to sit outside for a few hours. When the yard sale wrapped up, we high-tailed it across the city to do the cake tasting for our wedding.

So many design options.

We felt the presentation of the cake flavor options was a little odd, but that didn’t stop us from eating cake. In the end, we decided on a non-traditional flavor combination that we are both very excited about.

We needed a mid-afternoon boost and stopped at Starbucks before heading to try on wedding bands for Brian. He tried the new Valencia Orange refresher. I thought it tasted just like Tang!(gross)

After that we headed to a party at Challenger’s Comics to celebrate it winning an Eisner award. We had a ton of fun.

Sunday morning came far too quickly after Saturday’s busy day and late night. Despite the chilly 70 degree weather, I headed to water aerobics with a friend for some much-needed exercise. The water felt frigid at first but we forgot all about it once we started moving and chatting. I continued the outdoor theme for the day as I walked to the grocery store to pick up the last few things I needed to get food ready for the week. The weather was just too gorgeous to be inside. Then I piddled around in the back yard trimming my potted plants. I had a red bell pepper and a tiny San Marzano tomato ready for picking!

After putting away the groceries, I used up some zucchini to make a batch of delicious chocolate zucchini muffins.

It was a lazy Sunday dinner of salad, fruit and a take and bake pizza.

Splurge Saturday

Today started off with a breakfast of banana, almond butter and flax waffles with some 5 minute espresso brownie crumbled on top. With two mugs of coffee.

So I had a healthy lunch of yellow squash, spinach, chicken breast and marinara on low calorie yam flour noodles. It looked nice and summery with the green and yellow. See previous post about being cranky due to crappy weather and wanting sunshine.

Then there was another afternoon splurge of Dairy Queen. The blizzard of the month is a chocolate covered pretzel with peanut butter blizzard. Could there be a better combination in the world? Especially when you have a buy one get one free coupon? So, we indulged in a blizzard in honor of Brian’s birthday this week.

After our treat, we took a long walk to Target. There, I saw this month’s Food Network magazine where they gave cover space and two pages on 50 things to put a fried egg on top of. Brian makes fun of me all the time because he claims my motto is that any food becomes breakfast food if you just “put an egg on it.” Has the Food Network been stalking me?

After all those rich indulgences today I had a light supper of zucchini and egg whites. But man, I’ll be dreaming about that blizzard tonight.

Lazy Saturday

At the last minute last night I met a few of my old co-workers out for drinks. As you know, I rarely go out anymore, especially on Friday nights, but was really glad I did. We had a blast and tons of laughs. Being up later than usually has made me a little tired today, coupled with some congestion, I’ve felt like an all out bum.

I was mildly productive in the kitchen, but I just can’t seem to tackle that ever growing pile of laundry.

I made a half dozen hard boiled eggs to have as snacks throughout the week.

A batch of slightly disappointing healthy chocolate and peanut butter granola. Oh, and I severely burnt the other tray of it. Meh granola + burnt granola= granola fail.

And now I’m working on some beet veggie burgers.

While I was being lazy today, Brian did the grocery shopping. Now I can make pork tinga tomorrow! That makes me very happy. Thank goodness for Brian!

Chocolate and peanut butter green smoothie

Tonight’s winner was the evening smoothie.

Put in blender: one cup of vanilla almond milk, 1/2 cup plain Greek yogurt, 2 huge handfuls of spinach, 3 tablespoons chocolate PB2, 8 ice cubes and a half cup of water. Blend well.
Makes 2 smoothies.

Brian could see the spinach but not taste it. An easy and healthy way to get in about a cup of spinach each and lots of protein, all for about 100 calories a piece.