Thanks for your patience y’all. This week has been busy and throw some dental work and a weird virus on top of it and I’m feeling all over the place. Lucky for you, I haven’t been cooking anything too fantastic. Instead, I’m ever thankful for the batch of roasted chickpeas and veggie rice I whipped up on Monday. They’ve been morphed into various meals saving me time and money on take out! Sadly, Chanukah came to an end as well but I loved my celebrations of it this year.
Last night I did some shopping and then threw together a bowl of leftovers when I got home. I had a bowl of veggie rice, the last half serving of chickpeas tossed in BBQ sauce, and a serving of split peas I cooked up on Wednesday sprinkled with paprika.
This morning I woke up to another cold morning and a craving for hot cereal. My go to bowl this week has been blueberry maple:
- 1/4c Bob’s Red Mill GF hot cereal and roasted buckwheat
- 3/8c almond milk
- 1/2c water
- 1/2T chia seeds
- ~1/2T maple syrup
- cinnamon
- 1/4c frozen blueberries
- drizzle of fig jam
- 1/2T almond butter
- pinch of crushed almond slices
The morning flew by and around 11:15 I snacked on an egg white on a slice of Udi’s whole grain bread.
I had planned to attend a “Fitness Yoga” class that was supposed to be like power yoga. The class was fine. There were a lot of flows which I was able to do but with modified footing so I wouldn’t strain the ball of my foot.Overall think my body appreciated the stretch but I’m out of practice with yoga for certain! I was able to do bird in paradise (with a bent lifted leg) though
Lunch at my desk was a small salad with mixed greens, beets, and roasted veggies plus Au Bon Pain vegetarian chili which is gluten free!
I was pretty full for the rest of the day but nibbled on some black grapes before leaving work for the evening. On the way home I stopped by Trader Joe’s for what is my most random grocery haul yet.
- stalk of brussel sprouts
- Red Pepper Eggplant spread
- vanilla extract
- baked beans
- Riesling wine
I changed into my new yoga pants, turned on some Billy Joel on Grooveshark, and spent the next 2 hours baking for the DC Cookie Swap on Sunday. I chose to make gluten free versions of snickerdoodle dough balls and peanut butter chocolate chip dough balls, which I tested last week!
I followed both recipes exactly, subbing in a gluten free baking mix for the flours and used only semi-sweet chocolate chips. My snickerdoodles fell flat which I think is due to the heat in my kitchen and next time I’ll try refrigerating the dough for a bit before baking.
At 8pm I finally took a dinner break while my PB chocolate chip dough chilled. I wilted fresh spinach that was on its last leg with a few spoonfuls of minestrone soup and had a serving of baked beans with some rice. Believe it or not at this point I had not tasted any of the goodies I had prepared!
After dinner I finished baking dough balls and finally had to taste the fruits of my labor. I had a PB chocolate chip ball that had crumbled plus about 3/4 of this snickerdoodle for quality control
They are amazing and I’m excited to get them out of my apartmen share them with new friends on Sunday.
So, I have to admit how excited I am for this weekend. Tomorrow and Sunday I’ve picked out some fun gym classes to attend, tomorrow night is a big going away party for friends that’s sure to be an amazing time, and of course, the DC Cookie Swap on Sunday. I can hardly wait for all of the festivities!!
What are you looking forward to this weekend? Are you attending the Cookie Swap? If so, please say hi! I can be a little shy at first but am really looking forward to seeing you

































