Artichoke Dip!

How pretty is that? Not our stuff, but I just thought it looked like a nice picture. How was everyone's weekend? Mine was pretty jam packed, as it usually is. To recap:


Saturday: Danny and I got up at 6:30 to run since we knew it was going to get real hot, real fast. We ran about 6 miles and walked almost 1. I didn't clock it, we just ran. I had a watch on, but we didn't figure out the distance.  We went to the beach Saturday, but I basically sat under an umbrella the entire day. It was just too hot and since I don't really go in the water, besides my feet, I planted under the umbrella. Then Saturday night before we left we played around with the kids and they wanted to use our camera to take pictures of each other.  They took all of these pictures except the last.

Sunday: I woke up and hung out with the TODAY show for awhile before I woke Danny up. We did a 75 minute Dave Farmar Power Yoga podcast on iTunes (released in early July). I turned the air conditioner up to 86 degrees so it got a bit toasty in our apartment. It was kind of like hot yoga. Very sweaty.

After we showered we went out to Long Island and stopped in on my Aunt Millie, took some grapes and grape leaves and then went to my mom's. We had dinner for my grandma's (mom's mom) 83rd birthday. She usually pretends she doesn't want people to make a fuss over her, but she was loving it today. She was pretty excited over her flowers, scratch off lotto tickets and ice cream cake. My grandma even was so excited for her ice cream cake she wouldn't share the leftovers with anyone and will continue to eat it even though she basically has a dairy intolerance, go figure. 

For dinner, as usually Uncle Tommy and I put together an amazing spread. We made so many appetizer's that we didn't end up barbecuing all the meat for the main course! This is a usual occurrence for us. I made hummus, guacamole and artichoke dip. The dip is based on Dreena Burton's artichoke dip.  I'm not going to rewrite the entire recipe, but the changes I did make were I used pecorino romano grated cheese instead of nutritional yeast, almond milk for the milk and I used lightly toasted ezekial bread broken up into pieces instead of breadcrumbs. The dip is a HUGE hit. You can eat it with or without crackers. I also used my immersion blender to blend it all together.

This is a perfect party food! 

And on another note, I was constantly complaining about all of the food I get on my clothes while I cook. I ruined a couple of tops by staining them with food, so my sister, Jess and Danny got me this apron. How cute is it???

I LOVE it, now I just need to remember to wear it! (How about my hitch hiker thumbs....)

Okay, I'm off to run then I have a facial appointment. Rough life! :)