Hey all,
I hope your Friday has been fabulous so far. The weather here was beautiful today! I don’t know what it is about the Spring sunshine, but it makes me super motivated to get things done!
This morning I woke up and had a green smoothie:
Nothing like a healthy, green smoothie in a Guinness glass to start off your Friday! I don’t know if y’all have noticed, but I have quite a few Guinness glasses… The reason for this is because I traveled abroad a lot in college and shortly after. Because I was off in foreign lands for the first 4 summers KC and I were together, I would always bring him back a souvenir. The first time I was out of the country, I brought back two Guinness glasses for KC; and after that, it became a sort of tradition (especially the year I actually traveled to Dublin and toured the Guinness Storehouse). Anyway, because of this, we have a nice collection of Guinness pints.
Back to the smoothie though: I made this one with 5 frozen strawberries, some frozen blueberries (1/4 cup?), a banana, 2 tbsp. flaxseeds, 1/4ish cup lowfat plain yogurt, 1 serving of tofu, 1 cup vanilla soy, and half a bag of spinach. Yes, a lot of stuff. And it made a lot of smoothie. I didn’t finish that whole glass in the picture — I probably drank about half of the total amount made (the rest is in the fridge for later).
After my nutritious breakfast, I got to work cleaning the apartment. Seuss, as usual, was no help. She spent most of the time stalking/running away from the broom.
Once the apartment was spic and span, I hopped in the shower (baking soda and apple cider vinegar!) and got ready to head out to meet Alexis.
Alexis and I decided to walk to Holy Land for lunch. We each ordered their special lemonade:
It’s basically slushy lemonade and mint. It was good, but a little sweet for me. Truth be told, I’m not that into sweet drinks. Juice? Cocktails? No thanks.
For lunch I ordered the chicken schwarma:
It was good, but Alexis’ falafel looked much better. The little sauce that came on the side was super spicy and delicious though!
After lunch, Alexis and I headed to Target where we spent way too much time and money (as usual). How is it that I go to Target for trash bags and cotton balls and I walk out with 40 other things I “didn’t know I needed?” Ugghhh… My bank account definitely did not need that! Oh well.
After Target it was time for Berkeley Bowl. If you ever need anything grocery-related, Berkeley Bowl probably carries it. The place is huge and has a TON of stuff! We spent a lot of time in the bulk bin section…:
I accidentally put my red quinoa and bulgar in some other guy’s cart… Woops! (Me to Alexis: “Where did you get those potatoes? Alexis: “Those aren’t mine.” Me: “Oh shooot…”) The guy was nice about it luckily.
I stocked up on organic produce and found the Madras Curry Powder and Chipotle Chili Powder I’d been looking for. Score!
After Berkeley Bowl we headed to Trader Joe’s. Yes, two grocery stores in one day! I used to do all my shopping at TJ’s, but I’ve recently expanded my shopping to include Whole Foods or Berkeley Bowl, as TJ’s doesn’t always have everything I need for my recipes.
Alexis and I jammed through TJ’s. I grabbed more produce, yogurt, almond milk, some canned tomatoes, a few other things, and we were outta there. It was a lot of shopping, but now my grocery shopping for next week is DONE! I’m sure KC is even more excited about that than I am.
KC and I are back at our place now. KC’s watching the Shark’s playoff game (he yells at the TV which makes pretty much anything more interesting in my book). I was hungry after the shopping marathon, so I had an orange before starting dinner:
The oranges have been to die for this season! I could eat them til I was sick, pretty much.
I made a different kind of French salad for dinner tonight:
This is based off a salad I had at Cafe de la Presse in San Francisco. (Lunch with Savilla before she moved down to LA — come back! SF misses you!)
For the salad I sliced a yellow onion and cubed 3 slices of bread. I tossed all that in olive oil, salt and pepper, then baked it + 3 slices of prosciutto at 400° for 10 minutes. Once done, this went on top of a chopped and washed a head of frisee (I crumbled the prosciutto). This was all tossed with a white wine vinaigrette (1/2 tbsp. dijon + 1 tbsp. white wine vinegar + 2 tbsp olive oil + salt and pepper). I then topped that with what was supposed to be a soft boiled egg (I forgot about the eggs so they ended up more hard-boiled than soft-boiled… Oh well). There you go, French salad take two.
KC is hinting that we might be heading to Fenton’s tonight! Could there be a milkshake in my future? Ahhh ice cream! YUM!
Just like the Italian-style chopped salad, this starts with some chopped romaine, chopped cucumber, 1 chopped bell pepper, 1/4 chopped red onion, a big handful of grape or cherry tomatoes, and some grated cheddar cheese. To make this salad have “flair,” I add a diced avocado, black beans (pinto beans would also work well), and a chopped chicken breast (I cooked that the usual way: olive oil, salt and pepper, 350° for 30-35 minutes).
A creamy dressing?! Blasphemy! I thought you said this salad was healthy!
And by slaving, I mean stirring things together in a bowl for about 5 seconds, because that’s literally how long it takes to make this dressing.
