headed back!

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Another bright + early flight back to Colorado this morning!  I’m all set to go, just have to wake up and head out! 

I’m glad to be heading back to Chris, but the time always goes by SO fast with my family.  I was a busy bee today, while everyone was at work.  Got in a good workout and did a bunch of things for my parents.

Here are some of my eats and what from the past few days.

I think this is a Kabocha squash?  At Whole Foods it was called “buttercup.”  Whatever it is, it tasted delicious!!!

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I do NOT know how to cut this thing.  I totally mangled it!

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Although mangled, it was still delicious!  I roasted it with olive oil + salt, at 400*, for about 40min, flipping halfway through.  I did peel the squash away from the skin, because there is no way my stomach could handle squash skin! 

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Deeeelicious pour, poke + spread eggs, with a side a kale chips. 

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Random morning bowl of oats.  Every morning, while home, I made a bowl of Steel Cut oats with 3T flax mixed in.  Loved the flax addition!

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I definitely crumbled Jessica’s macaroons into my oats for the past two mornings. 

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I’ve also been obsessed with drizzling about 1-2t of maple syrup on top of my oats.  I don’t typically sweeten my oats, but a little maple syrup adds so much flavor.

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The other morning, I made my mom a 3-minute, oatmeal breakfast cookie.  She does not like bowls of hot oatmeal [texture thing] but loves these oatmeal cookies.  I added in pecans, apricots + cinnamon, for this variation.

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mixed greens + 1/2 of an avocado + sautéed bella

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Part of Monday’s lunch…

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…along with some leftover Mediterranean food! 

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I met up with Katie on Monday too!  This was our first meeting and it was great.  Katie is super sweet and we talked for 1.5hrs without taking a breath! :)

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Cafe au lait + 1 pump of pumpkin [almost too sweet, even with just 1 pump!]

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Then, the fam headed to Sarava [a Brazilian restaurant] for an early birthday celebration, for my brother.

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Birthday sangria for this 31 year old!  [p.s. he’s single ladies ;)]

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He was trying to help better light the photo, hehe.

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Dad + bro!  Do you think I look like my brother?

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I need want this bread basket.

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Fried plantain chips on a salad?  Yes please!  They had a huge menu, but not there weren’t too many vegetarian options.  I think there were only 2 entrees, which sounded pretty boring.  However, they had a large selection of “small plates” with quite a few veggie options.

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My mom and I both got the salad above, that had an awesome ginger-plum dressing and then we split 3 small plates.  My mom is always game for splitting ;)

These were quite large, although you can’t tell here.  Tamale corn cakes, topped with guac, sour cream, and salsa.  Deelish!

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A not so photogenic, butternut squash ravioli, with a sage-sherry cream sauce.  They were literally about 5” in diameter.  The flavors were amazing!

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Aaand, angle hair pasta quiche, with a roasted red pepper sauce.  I have never seen pasta incorporated into quiche!  The flavors were good and I loved the texture of the pasta.  Yum!

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My mom recently bought a food processor and wanted to make her own nut butters.  I roasted all of the nuts, while she was at work.  We stocked up on nuts at TJ’s the other day.

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After working out, I dove into this monstrous + amazing salad.

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I was trying to help clear leftovers out of the fridge!

  • tons of lettuce
  • 1.5 portabella shrooms, sauteed
  • handful of sun dried tomatoes
  • broken up falafel
  • carrots
  • hummus
  • yogurt tahini sauce
  • baba ganoush
  • pita

This was so so so very tasty. [about a 9” diam bowl…it’s always so hard to tell!]

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And was followed up by avocado banana chocolate pudding.  My mom wanted to try this, so I made a big batch with 2 avocados and polished off quite a bit with lunch.  Healthy fats, people!! :)

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Lots of spoon licking ensued! 

salt kissed cashew butter 

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peanut butter + cinnamon honey peanut butter [no official recipe yet, just add in until it tastes good!]

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cashew honey butter [same for this..I made the salt kissed cashew butter and then added honey until I liked how it tasted]

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maple cinnamon almond butter [I haven’t made this in SO long and forgot how good it is!!!]

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The stuffed squash recipe will be coming soon!  If you want it right away, you can always pick up the latest Vegetarian Times magazine.  It’s the recipe that is on the front cover.

Time to get a few quick hours of sleep.  See you back in Coloradooooooo!!

Ashley