Wait. It’s Sunday night…already?? Where did the weekend go?? How is it already Oct 10th? It was JUST Oct 1st!!

The weekend started off with me in a slightly bummed out mood. Unfortunately, I didn’t make it to the next round for Project Food Blog. I’m totally fine about it now, but it was a little disappointing at the time. I just wanted to say THANKS again for your support during the contest. It’s a bit of a relief in a way because the schedule was a bit crazy! You didn’t find out until Friday afternoon if you were in the next round and then you had to create a monster of a post, with a super creative idea, by Sunday.

Before I knew if I was through to the next round, I had already planned out and started preparing my photographed step-by-step recipe post. We were going to be out of the house most of the weekend, so I had to get cracking.

Even though I didn’t make the cut, I can’t wait to share this recipe with you, along with the step-by-step photos.

After a long morning of baking, I got in a good 1.25 mile swim. Then, I met with a lovely blogger, that was in Ft. Collins visiting a friend.

It’s Caitlin, from The Twenty Fifth Year. Per usual, when meeting bloggers, our mouths never stopped moving. Caitlin is super sweet!! I just wish we could have had more time to hang out.

Chris + I laid low Friday night. We knew we were going to be up early Saturday, to drive to Pat + Natalie’s by 10am for the Ohio State game and Pat’s birthday celebration!

Had to start my day off right!

maple pumpkin goodness

1/4 cup rounded Scottish oats [ground at home from steel cut oats]
1 1/4 cup water
1/4 cup almond milk
3/4 cup pumpkin stirred in at the end
3 tablespoons ground flax meal

topped with:Love Grown Foods granola, maple syrup, roasted

topped with: Love Grown Foods granola, maple syrup, and roasted almond butter

EXCITED BIRTHDAY BOY!!! ;)

I don’t know where Pat finds things like this…

I brought my vegan double chocolate brownies. SO GOOD. They never disappoint!

When it comes to cheesecake, I don’t need chocolate swirled in, I don’t want a fruit topping, and I don’t want 1 slice to weigh 5lbs. [Okay..I mean, if there was pumpkin mixed in, you might get me to gag it down.]

A good cheesecake takes only a few ingredients and a homemade graham cracker crust. I may make the best cheesecake you’ve ever had. I may give you the recipe. I may revisit this soon. ;)

Pat likes chia seeds!

This is how you spike your juice. It only takes 48hrs. Watch out!

I’m not sure who looks happier…Chris?

or Dakota?

Total confusion.

party-pooper

sister love :)

Kurtz made the most delicious tofu I’ve ever had…it was breaded + baked, buffalo style.

Everyone chowed down on this! Totally impressed. There was a TON of other food too….there are always veg + meat friendly options when our friends get together. So much fun!

This party also included…..

J-E-L-L-O shots. Yikes!! The “lemon drops” were WAY too tasty.

Love these girls so much. It’s SO nice to have such a good group of girlfriends! I asked Chris to take a girl photo and it turned into a whole photo sesh.

Ali – Ann – Natalie – me – Michelle

I just love with this series of photos. It reminds me of a similar photo session on Thanksgiving!

After a fun morning/day at Pat + Nat’s we all headed to the 4-Mile Canyon Revival Concert. This was a HUGE, big deal concert. Tickets sold out in TWENTY minutes. The concert benefited the 4-mile Canyon fire, that raged in Boulder a few weeks ago. Acts included: String Cheese Incident, Big Head Todd + the Monsters, Yonder Mountain String Band, Leftover Salmon, and Phish.

The show was amazing and they raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for the relief fund! Such a great day + night!

We arrived back in Ft. Collins around 1pm on Sunday. I caught up on some computer things, took a long walk, stretched, and then made a delicious dinner.

I used a recipe from the Clean Food cookbook, which hasn’t been cracked open in quite some time. We both loved this lemony, bean + millet mixture.

I changed a few slight things from Terry’s recipe. I didn’t add the red onion, because it was supposed to be stirred in raw, and that flavor is too strong for my liking. I think it would have been really overpowering with the rest of the flavors. Also, I subbed out corn for peas, because that is what we had on hand.

I cooked 1c of millet in water, then stirred in 1 can of aduki beans + 1c peas when the millet was done cooking. Then added the lemony sauce, which consisted of the zest of 1 lemon, 2T lemon juice, 2T hemp oil, 1/4t salt, 1/4t cumin, 1/4t garlic powder, and pepper. It had such a nice light flavor and the textures were great. I topped mine with 1/2 of an avocado and kale chips on the side. This serving is quite large, although it’s really hard to tell!