Lovely lazy Sunday.....

What a lovely lazy Sunday.

The day started by sleeping in. Ah.... This long runs on Saturday thing is working out nicely for my Sunday mornings. Plus the weather was not so nice today. If you saw the Patriots football game today you will understand why I stayed inside most of today.

We decided on pancakes for breakfast.

I added some pumpkin pie mix and walnuts to mine. YUM!

On top I added a little almond butter & drizzle of syrup.

We carb loaded, as we have tons of potatoes from our crop share. Along with our pancakes we had some fried potatoes & onions. Of course with ketchup.

After making pancakes I seemed to gather motivation to do some cooking today. I hit the grocery store and got a few items for the day and for the week. I decided to make chocolate chip cookies and beef stew to be enjoyed later this week. My dad is visiting again, he's having some minor knee surgery and is staying with us. With the dreary weather I thought beef stew would be some nice comfort food to have in the house.

While the stew cooked I got to work on the cookies. Although once I started I realized we had no eggs. So I used 1T ground flax with 3T warm water. It seemed to do the trick as the cookies still looked and tasted great! See.....

The rest of the day was pretty much spent on the couch watching football or doing laundry. I snacked on some camera shy cheese & crackers and enjoyed a couple Shipyard Pumpkinhead beers. Mmm....

We headed to my in-laws for dinner.

I took the distance shot of my meal......

DINNER

-turkey w/ cranberries

-sweet potato w/ apple cinnamon butter.... OMG so good

-salad

-bread

-squash casserole

-couple of fried green tomatoes (not pictured)

It was almost like Thanksgiving. Yummy comfort food.

It was complete once I had a little Apple Crisp...... ahh.... food coma.

As you can tell, I took today as a rest day. ;-)

Need to head to bed so that I can be up bright and early for Kettlebell. Also have my follow up appointment with the podiatrist tomorrow, but considering my mileage my foot is feeling great!

What is your favorite fall dessert? Apple Crisp is up there, but I think my fav is Pumpkin Pie!

Hope you had a great weekend!

Britt

One thing leads to another....

On Wednesday we were informed by my father-in-law on a killer deal for a Whirlpool washer & dryer.  So we of course cannot pass up a great deal!

For most folks that would be the end of it, sell your old ones and wait for the delivery of the new ones. 

Not us. 

They are getting delivered next Friday.

In the meantime we are going to start working on turning this......

Into more of a laundry room. 

Wish us luck.  

So instead of enjoying the beautiful day out...... 

we moved everything out of the laundry storage area

went through everything, created a Goodwill pile

bought & hung drywall... well the hubby hung it... I was attempting to clean our disaster of a house!

The rest of the weekend will involve

mudding & taping

sanding

priming

painting

and if we have time sealing the floor with an epoxy paint

Don't you wish you were me??  ;)

At least earlier in the day I got to enjoy the weather, weeding & my bike ride to the natural food store.  Which the store wasn't really as great as I was hoping it would be... so sad.  The selection was kind of ho hum.  :(    Trader Joe's and Whole Foods why oh why can't you be closer!  (well its only really an hour but I hate to drive that far just for food)

Oh well.... 

So eventually I had a late lunch.

LUNCH

-spinach flat out, sundried tomato hummus, slice of provolone

-then I added some spinach after the fact as I felt it needed a little something more....

Dinner tonight was camera shy.... mainly I was exhausted.

 I think I was on my feet too much today and in crappy supporting shoes... so my arches are hurting.  :( 

We don't have much in the fridge, but I threw together a few things....

DINNER

-Henry & Lisa's Salmon Burgers on ww buns w/laughing cow garlic & herb cheese

-grilled onions, these are some from our CSA that are so sweet and yummy

-steamed asparagus

I'm debating hitting the grocery store, but I may wait till tomorrow.  I need to get the supplies I promised to bring to the party tomorrow.  I think I'll go tomorrow though and instead I might make some deadly, but oh so good King Arthur Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies for the party.   

Then I need to hit the hay, I want to be up and out early for my long run.  Since I'm going to the beach I want to get there before it gets too crowded and so I can find a FREE place to park.  Yes I'm cheap.  :)

Have a great night!!

Britt 

Black Beans & Brownie Mix? What?

Have you heard about these "healthy" brownies?  Stay tuned I made an attempt at them tonight.  First, recap of the day since breakfast.....

MORNING SNACK

-juicy plum & iced coffee  :)

The morning flew right along (yay for that) and soon it was time to venture home for lunch & to walk Reggie.  

LUNCH

I failed to blog about it last night, but the hubby called after his meeting and wanted to meet friends for drinks.... met them and we ended up at a restaurant where it was ladies night, 1/2 priced drinks & entrees.  So I figured I'd order a salad since I was low on greens at home. So today's lunch was.....

most of last nights mediterranean salad: field greens, feta, kalamata olives, artichokes

plus a few add-ins: left over sauteed onion & green peppers, slice of turkey, some walnuts and a couple of Wickles..... not bad

Trudged on through the work day and then hit the grocery store for appetizer fixings for tomorrow night.  I made THE most disorganized shopping list.... I felt like I was walking around in circles, it may have been one of my longest trips to the grocery store ever.  Oh and of course as I headed to my car I realized several things I forgot, but at that point I just had to get out of there!

I headed home, unloaded groceries, said hi to the hubby and had a snack. 

SNACK

The hubby surprised me with a request to go for a run!  He has been so busy with work lately he really hasn't been exercising much, so I was happy to go for a short run with him.  We did maybe 2 miles or so, which was a good start for him to ease back into running.  Put me down for a total of 7 miles today.  :)

After our run we were both HUNGRY, so we just heated up last night's leftovers..... dinner for me then was basically repeat of last night. 

DINNER

-flat out, chicken, cheese, greek yogurt and some salsa

And now the moment you have been waiting for......

Actually I may just have been in the dark on this one, I heard about it from a friend and then googled it and saw it was all over the place.......what rock have I been under?   

Can of black beans + brownie mix = moist chewy brownies?  what?

I had to try it out.  
Pureed the black beans, juice and all.... wasn't sure if I did them enough and then mixed them in with the brownie mix. 

End result.  I'm not 100% sold.  My brownie was still warm so I'll hold off judgement till they cool off...... and I get to try another.  ;)

Since I made some "healthy" brownies, I made some naughty cookies.....   My favorite recipe is from the King Arthur Flour cooking book.  They are the Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies.... and yes they involve corn syrup, bad bad bad.  But they test so good. 

See doesn't that look GOOD!

Meanwhile, I was also making a black been and tomato quinoa salad for tomorrow night.  Couldn't just have black beans in the brownies!   Unfortunately I realized the most recent plant I killed on the deck was my cilantro plant.... so I gotta pick up some fresh cilantro tomorrow with the other stuff I forgot at the grocery store. 

Its pretty though, huh?  Oh and even before I read the suggestions I opted not to do the butter & vegetable oil (what's up with that), instead I did 2 tablespoons of olive oil and that worked out well.

I am cookied & brownied out for the night....  gotta clean the kitchen and put everything away, then hit the hay.  I have kettlebell tomorrow, bright and early at 6 am.  

Have a great night!!

Britt