Sunday I posted about recipe inspiration and I’m trying to get back to cooking before this baby comes. I’ve been throwing together meals that are so random and while they taste good, it’s starting to get old. Plus, my main food groups now are bread, pasta and cheese…

I cannot wait to get back to actually wanting salads and veggies. Right now I’m stuffing them down my throat because I know I have to. Feels like I’m right back in the first tri I tell ya.

Sunday night I decided I wanted to make something good for dinner, so instead of consulting the list I had just blogged, I went to Giada’s Everyday Italian. I know most of the recipes are in the book are easy, fail proof and tasty. It’s my kind of no fuss cooking.

I went with her rice balls and veggie casserole.  The veggie casserole I made exactly, except I didn’t use any onions. It was easy to put together and very tasty. It doesn’t stay together super well, but it’s not meant to.

The rice balls, I made some changes to because I went based off of what I had in my pantry. (Use what you have!) These were delicious. Yes, they are lightly pan fried, but really every once in awhile, it’s fine. You probably could bake them too. If you try that let me know!

(I went to take a picture of the rice balls in the daylight only to find them missing.  My husband took them into work for lunch! So sorry for the stinky night time picture.)

       Print This!    

*Note: I used a different method with the cheese than Giada did, mostly because I felt it was easier to do it this way. Feel free to do it either way! 

And now this is where I take at least 3 days off from eating cheese after an overload and a lot of stomachaches last week. I ate about 4 of these. Maybe more.

Please make these.

On another, much bigger note: 11 years ago NY was forever changed. I feel like I never know what to say on this day, but certainly it’s not about me today. <3

Bless New York’s finest our angels in blue, giving us hope and helping us throughand bless New York’s bravest the FDNY giving their sweat and their tears and their lives, and bless all the medics and our troops over seas, bless the guys in the hard hats removing debris, bless the every day people who answered the call, bless those who gave some and those who gave all.

Hi all! Happy Monday! I hope the weekend treated you very nicely. It did over here. I got to take a nice break from doing some work and work on house things. We are really starting to get the front together, it’s about halfway done. Basically I’ve done nothing and Danny and my mom, step-dad and sister have done everything. Big family efforts…like everything else over here. My mom has really good landscaping vision…I’m still finding mine.

I’m really good at going to Home Depot though and getting what she tells me. And making food for everyone to eat to say thank you. I’m REALLY good at that.

Enter….eggplant dip.

       Print This!    

Enjoy with crackers, chips or spread on a good Italian bread!

This is not going to last long. I’ve made it twice this weekend and it was GONE both times!

Okay I’m off to get lotsa work done! Working out is first on the agenda. Have a great day!

What was the best part of your weekend?

Hello Monday!

How are you all doing today? I’m posting late today because of a swap in my day. I dropped my sister off at the train this morning, which got me out of the house and to the gym at 8:30. It was nice to get there on the early side and I may have scoped out a new exercise class to try. Just have to figure out what to do eventually when they lay on the bench and do chest exercises. Any suggestions or blog posts? I really need to read up on my exercise during pregnancy. So far it’s been: do what feels good and don’t push it too much, which has been working but I still need to read more.

I took full advantage of Danny being home and us not having scheduled plans (besides Bareburger with friends Friday…yum.) this weekend and we PLOWED through crazy amount of Pure Bliss work. I got more done this weekend than I do in 4 days by myself. An extra pair of hands helps TREMENDOUSLY.

While we had lots to do, we certainly needed fuel to keep us going. Chicken soup was going on for dinner, but we needed something to tide us over in the meantime. I whipped out some avocados and got to work on guacamole. I had some edamame in the freezer and I decided to throw some in for an extra punch of protein.

       Print This!    

I wish I had some Food Should Taste Good chips to go with this, but I settled for regular Trader Joe’s corn tortilla chips. I also enjoyed half a bag of baby carrots with this. So good.

Okay, off to finish up other work for the day! Have a great one!

I almost named this post taco cups Tuesday…and then I realized it was Wednesday. A whole day behind….but a day closer to the weekend…I’ll take it!

Food Should Taste Good was so kind and sent me a bunch of their chips to try a couple of weeks ago. Honestly between Danny, my sister and myself, they went so fast. I had to think of something to make with them QUICK before they were all gone. I did the mini layer dips...that I ate with sweet potato chips so I wanted to do something along the same lines but different (if that makes any sense).

Soooo this is what I came up with!

       Print This!    

And surprise! Since you know how much I love using Chobani, especially for healthy substitutions…. I have some for you!

Giveaway!

3 containers of Chobani 0% plain yogurt!

To enter:

Mandatory: Leave a comment on this post sharing your favorite way to eat Chobani!

Optional Entry: Tweet this giveaway:  ” Do you love @chobani ? @nicoleculver is giving 3 containers away! Enter here http://bit.ly/ywrf39 ”   (edited to add!) Don’t forget to leave a comment saying that you tweeted the giveaway!

Get those entries in! I will pick a winner on Monday Feb. 27th!

I’m off to do some work and head to my favorite Wednesday Koga workout!  Have a great day!