Up before Olivia today…I can’t decide if that means I’m rested…or just delirious. A little sleep update: She’s been sleeping MUCH better, however, she’s boycotting her crib. She would much rather sleep in her rock n’play. We’ve been starting her out in her crib and then by 12:30-1, she’s totally had enough of it and will NOT stay asleep. I’m NOT giving up on her crib..obviously and soon I’m taking the rock n’play out of her room so it’s not an option. She slept through the night for the first time Sunday night from about 11-5:30.

This weekend I spent time doing some cooking and baking. My sister and cousin came over and hung out with Liv, while Danny and I made a bunch of food and snacks. I will ALWAYS find something to eat because I’m at home…but if Danny doesn’t have snacks then he’ll just go all day without eating (besides lunch).

I made a twist on these granola crusted nuts from Smitten Kitchen. Maybe I’ll share my recipe one day. Thanks to Kristan for sharing that recipe with me!

Then there was these doughnuts…(OMG SO GOOD). My aunt made these for Thanksgiving and they were amazing. I didn’t put any glaze on top though.  They are GF and grain free, but I really just made them for the delicious factor.

I made the following adjustments:

• I doubled the recipe. (Yielded 8 mini muffin loaves)
• Substituted 1/3 cup turbinado sugar for stevia.
• Added 1/3 cup almond meal.
• Used a mini muffin loaf pan because I didn’t have a doughnut pan.
• Added mini chocolate chips (just sprinkled some on top before they went in the oven)
• Baked for 22 minutes.

Next on the agenda was whole wheat naan.  I haven’t made this in FOREVER. It was worth the work. We kneaded it by hand (well Danny did). They came out perfect and paired so well with our soup and salad for dinner….and lots of butter.

I also made (again) Jessica’s warm winter chickpeas salad. (It’s the top of the plate!) I adjusted the recipe mainly because I made it from memory because I was too lazy to look it up.

I made the following changes:

• Used shaved brussel sprouts from Trader Joe’s
• 2 cans chickpeas (15 oz.)
• Used turkey bacon
• omitted the mushrooms
• omitted the pecans
• 1 tbsp butter instead of 2 tbsp

I WISH I didn’t forget the mushrooms, but it was still delicious.

Also on the menu was this Italian Wedding Soup. I used a little less than 2 cups (frozen) kale instead of spinach this time. I made a lot of this and it fed 5 people with leftovers enough for 3 dinners. LOVE leftovers even more these days.

So that’s a wrap for what I made on Sunday. I used to be a big food prepper on the weekends and I’ve fell off the bus a bit because I eat lunch and snacks at home. It felt good to get back in the kitchen and make food I can just grab during the week AND so Danny could have snacks too. I hope at least one of these recipes inspires you to do a little weekend prep to make the week healthier AND easier!

What’s your favorite meal or snack to prep on the weekends?

How was everyone’s weekend? Ours was great. Saturday we did NOTHING besides cleaned up some things around the house. Sunday we went food shopping, cleaned up some more and I made a couple things for the Superbowl. When I say “for the Superbowl” I mean we ate at 5 and everyone was gone by 6:30.

Danny watched the Superbowl while I watched The Shield (anyone else watch this show?!) on the computer. I did pause it to watch Beyonce’s half time show and to hear about the blackout. I was happily asleep by 9 o’clock and slept through the night besides a couple short wake ups. (Danny did the 11:30 wake up and she slept till 6 besides that!!)

I wanted to share the recipes I made because they were SO good!

Jessica’s Whole Wheat Fontina Portobella Pizza (I ended up only using 1 piece of turkey bacon and swapped provolone for fresh mozzarella and left out the parmesan all together.) This was delicious. I usually only make traditional pizza or salad pizza so this was a nice change!

Healthy Chicken Fingers  This is my recipe. I’ve made these guys a whole bunch of times and they are so perfect with some ketchup! (Or honey mustard!)

A green salad. No recipe linking here – I did made a romaine salad with some cucumbers and black olivies. Simple.

And lastly,

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We topped this chili with the leftover grated fontina cheese, but feel free to use any cheese to your liking..or to leave out! I served this without any grains because we were having pizza, but for leftovers I’ll be eating this with brown rice or farro! I LOVE the dutch oven because you just throw everything in and don’t worry about it, besides checking on it occasionally and stirring. ( I have this Rachael Ray one, which was a tad small for this. I ended up removing some of the liquid and dumping it, so if you have this one just use a little less chicken broth.)

Hope you all had a wonderful weekend and a great start to the week! See you soon!

Happy Friday! I’m pretty happy to see the weekend here and growth spurt basically over! Growth spurts are one of those things that no one tells you about before…but they are a VERY real thing. Just ask my baby who wouldn’t nap ALL day Wednesday.

Just like probably um..all of you..by the end of the day I’m SO tired and the last thing I want to do is prepare a time intensive dinner. I tried to snap a lot of my meals this week to show you how I put together super easy, healthy and QUICK meals.

My breakfast is basically always the same. MAYBE one day a week I’ll have pancakes as a change. I have 2 eggs with 2 pieces buttered ezekial bread. (The sesame one.) I am SUCH a creature of habit with breakfast. I’ve been having this breakfast close to umm… hah almost a year? It’s also super easy and I can’t imagine making a breakfast that takes anything longer than 5 minutes.

Lunch this week was usually vanilla Chobani, almond butter, blueberries, hemp and Blissful Eats Honey Blueberry granola. I don’t know if you could call this lunch because I usually eat it between 10-11. Then I’ll have a snack around 2 or 3. Usually Applegate farms turkey (2-3 slices) wraped in avocado and some veggies on the side. That is this week..next week will probably be different.

Dinners:

Warm you up turkey chili with homemade whole wheat rolls.

chicken sausage quiche with socca crust (possibly will post recipe next week!)

eggs, turkey bacon & steamed kale and mushrooms

sauteed kale over brown rice and white beans (rice & beans made in rice maker) and turkey bacon

(unpictured) one night we also had rice & steamed chicken & veggies all made in rice maker.

You can see I’m basically obsessed with my rice maker…and eating in the dark… Throughout the week I’ll also steam random vegetables to snack on, like carrots, kale, and brussel sprouts.

I’m all about the ease right now, so I may not be super creative, but we are eating well every night. I also make enough to get leftovers for Danny to take for lunch.

Happy Happy Friday!

What are your favorite go-to meals right now? What’s your favorite appliance?

Want a laugh? Check out my sister’s blog. She makes me LOL on a daily basis…now she can make you laugh too. (IMO)

Want to eat? You have until 1/31 to use coupon code NEWYEAR at checkout to save 10% on organic, GF, kosher granola!

Good morning! and Happy Martin Luther King Jr day!

It doesn’t feel like a holiday because Danny is at work today. Boo. We did have a good morning so far, so it’s okay. We did our typical routine of getting up around 6 and hanging out with a cup of coffee until Liv decided she wanted to eat. Then we did all that, went downstairs, I ate my typical breakfast of eggs & buttered toast. When she went down for a nap I did Week 3, day 1 of Tina’s Best Body Bootcamp. It kicked my butt, as per usual.

Last night I decided I would make some chili. I typically make a good Sunday dinner that will gives us each 1-2 lunches during the week. I basically had everything. The only difference is I used my Rachael Ray stoneware and put it in the oven. It was so easy and definitely no fuss. I also made some fresh rolls to go with this. Perfection. I’m not one for too many spices, or for it being too hot, so this was a very simple chili!

(one day I’ll have time to take nicer pictures again…)

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You can even eat this with some brown rice, farro or whole wheat pasta but I decided to go for the rolls this time!

Off to go to the food store and get some work done.

Enjoy the day!  Hopefully tomorrow I’ll be back with Liv’s 3 month update!