This morning, my mom and I hit up a breakfast/lunch restaurant called Snooze. We scoped out a few breakfast menus to check for gluten free options and this one looked the best! Snooze has GF options for all of their pancakes and eggs benedict. We love ordering 2 meals and splitting, so my mom was all about heading here for breakfast. As was I!

My mom is such a good sport for splitting a plate of gluten free pancakes with me and ordering gluten free toast! Snooze is a Colorado based restaurant, with a handful of locations. The atmosphere inside is fun + vibrant, as is the menu. They even have a super unique mimosa + bloody mary menu. There is definitely something on the menu for everything. From breakfast burritos, to buttermilk pancakes, to vanilla almond oatmeal brulee! Red velvet pancakes topped with cream cheese frosting? YUP! Their pancake menu is extensive.

We definitely wanted to try out the GF pancakes, but they also feature local eggs, so I knew at omelet was a must!

My mom and I shared an omelet filled with portobella, spincah and fresh mozzarella. It was cooked to perfection and not at all watery from the veggies! The side of fruit was really fresh and the Udi’s GF toast was drenched in butter and deeelicious!

We had to get the “pancake flight,” which is a choice of 3 of their pancakes. Boy was that a tough decision! I love that option though and they can make all of their pancakes GF. The waitress told me they use rice flour. They were about 7” in diameter and 1/2” thick. SO super fluffy! You could definitely tell they weren’t typical buttermilk pancakes. The texture was cakey and slightly grainy, but not really in a bad way. I loved the taste, but you could definitely tell they were different. Obviously using GF flour is not going to be quite the same.

We both thought they were fabulous.

We tried a plain blueberry pancake.

The pancake of the day, which had banana, peanuts, and an insane cinnamon sugar sauce on top, and their blueberry lemon bar pancake.

The blueberry lemon bar was my FAVorite. That’s not a pile of butter, but a honey yogurt sauce, made with Noosa local yogurt. It was also topped with whipped lemon butter, which was outstanding!

This made up for last night’s dinner and then some!! I sipped on a mug of coffee, which was strong and flavorful. The mug and all of the plates are made specifically for their restaurant. I just loved the mug! You know I have a mug + bowl obsession. :) I love a nice beefy mug!

My mom said we’ll definitely be going back there when she + my dad visit in July!

After breakfast, it was another long day of errands. It’s always so much better when you have someone with you! We’re having so much fun, even though we’re running around like crazy. Typical for both of us.

Tonight for dinner, we headed to my Uncle’s house to eat with the family. [The Uncle that has been working wonders on our house! Also, my dad’s brother]

We picked up groceries while we were out and about, and I got to cooking when we returned home.

First up was Kath’s strawberry pesto pasta salad. My mom and I saw it on her post the other night and knew we had to make it.

Pesto and strawberries sounded like a really interesting combination. It’s amazing how well they go together!

This was an extremely simple recipe to throw together for a dinner party, or just chowing down by yourself at home. :) Thanks Kath! The family loved it! The crunchy cucumbers + creamy beans were great. I used a brown rice pasta noodles that were great.

The only thing I added was a bit of fresh lemon zest and a big squeeze from the lemon!

Perfect spring/summer recipe!

I also made veggie kabobs after finding a BBQ sauce recipe in my Clean Start cookbook, by Terry Walters.

The skewers were soaked in water for about an hour and then I got to veggie chopping. I had the idea to chop corn and stick them on too. They typically take about 3-4min per side [rotating about 3 times], so I figured they would be done in the same amount of time as the other veggies.

Totally worked! The corn was great. I love adding big cherry tomatoes because of the pop of juice! The BBQ sauce was really good too. I’ve never made BBQ sauce before, and besides the long simmer time, it was easy to make and I had every ingredient on hand.