Weekend Warrior

HI!

I hope everyone had a wonderful weekend :) Mine was definitely packed full of social activities, all of which were very fun! Today I'm draggin' a bit and frankly all I can think about is crawling into my freshly washed sheets with my doggy and my honey .

Yesterday, I kicked off the day with a yoga class and then headed into Queens for a friend's 30th birthday!  PJ couldn't come because he had to work an event in Jersey City. The poor guy has worked the past seven days in a row. Womp, Womp.

The beautiful birthday girl and I!

Katie and I (my bff and the birthday girl's sis)- Pardon my demon eyes.

The bar didn't have a kitchen, but they allowed Katie and Colleen to bring food in. They created a beautiful spread if I do say so myself.

nom.nom.nom

If I could live off only two foods they would be deviled eggs and macaroons.

You all know I love any excuse to substitute Chobani in my cooking. Here is a perfect example of how you can keep the flavor and texture of your fave rich foods without the fat and calories! Colleen made this veggie dip using Chobani and a premixed dip seasoning! Easy peasy lemon squeezie!  I will definitely be snagging this dip tip (hehe).

More yummies. The goat cheese stuffed dates were amazing.

A drink spilled in the shape of a heart! So strange, right?

Then we all got hungry again and moved the party to a great restaurant in Astoria called Vesta. I didn't take many pics, but this pizza was amazeballs.

Today was a pretty standard Sunday. I did my menu planning for the week and hit up the grocery store. Oh, and I just HAD to stop and grab a fresh,green juice from DOCO on my way home :)

A couple of things to discuss:

1. When and how do you plan out your meals for the week? I personally find that sitting down on Saturday or Sunday and picking out three or four recipes that are simple, healthful, and delish keeps me from A) stressing out daily about what to throw together for dinner, B) making frequent trips to the grocery store, and C) leaves me no excuse to rummage through the take out menus!

2. I did a little experiment today. For the past two and a half years I have been ordering my groceries from Fresh Direct.

I love the convenience of being able to grocery shop in my pjs with a cup of coffee next to me. It also has made the grocery shopping/menu planning process SO much quicker. I simply search whatever ingredient I need for a particular recipe and with the click of a button it is in my virtual shopping cart! They have AMAZING produce, great seafood, and any ingredient you could find at an actual grocery store. They also have foods for specific diets (kosher, vegan, vegetarian) and they even have an extensive wine/beer selection. You can search thousands of recipes on their site and all the ingredients will go directly into your cart! I am a big fan, can ya tell? Anyways, yesterday I got to busy to menu plan and order groceries, so today I went old school and headed to the market. I figured it would be a good way to measure if I would actually be saving myself a couple of bucks if I physically went to the store. WRONG. I spent more money at the store, had to go to two separate stores because certain products I can only find at small, organic markets (and on Fresh Direct!) , and I had to schlep all the bags up to my apartment. I'm being a tad dramatic about the schlepping as my building does have an elevator, but the process was still strenuous! I am going back to Fresh Direct!

Do any of you order your groceries? Thoughts?

Tonight, I made eggplant rollatini which I adapted from Giada De Laurentiis. PJ loves this dish, and I have never made it so I figured I would give it a go. I don't generally gravitate towards dishes like eggplant parm, chicken parm, or lasagna which is why I don't have experience cooking these staple Italian dishes. I will say that I thoroughly enjoyed the process of making the rollatini and "taste testing" as I went along. I think I may have over taste tested because by the time the dish came out of the oven I didn't even want to eat it. You know that feeling?  I couldn't stop thinking about veggies and chicken so that is what I had instead :) I will definitely be having the leftovers of my Italian masterpiece one night this week!

I also made these Detox Blonde Macaroons adapted from Oh She Glows. I have been wanting to make these for a while as I have never seen a recipe for macaroons that didn't include dairy. The recipe for these little bites intrigued me. The verdict: DELISH. The only issue I had was making the coconut butter. I processed the coconut exactly how the recipe recommended, but mine never turned into butter. I added a little almond milk to provide moisture, but it didn't really do anything. Despite the coconut butter snafu, the cookies still tasted fabulous. I had three just to make sure they were good:) I will definitely be making these again!

Ok, kids. Time to call it a night. I'm going to go hang with my little family. Sleep well! xo

Sarah