November is for eating

My initial thought when we planned Friendsgiving for this weekend was “NO. TOO SOON!” but it was the only weekend that worked for us all.  Or at least the majority of us.  So here we are with Friendsgiving 2017 in the books.

I made this mushroom, bacon, and cauliflower casserole and this sweet potato and pork stuffing.  Both are GF, DF, and paleo.  And tasty, if I do say so myself.

But let me first share Saturday’s eats.  Really quickly.

Kyle surprised me with a mini loaf of the Nourish Bread from Nugget a couple of days ago, but I only just now got to it.  I’m not sure how many servings it is intended to be, but for me it was one.

Shockingly I didn’t smear nut butter from end to end and instead ate it toasted with ghee.  Ghee has such a unique flavor.  I think I say that every time I have it?  Anyway, Kyle took the kids to Home Depot for the morning – they have (free) projects on the first Saturday of every month – to give me some time to myself since he’d been out of town for a few days.

Miss V also got to ride her bike.  Can you tell it had been raining earlier this morning? Finally Fall!  I worked out in the garage, barely pulling off a cardio T25 workout because I was SOOOOO sore from my Friday morning workout.  I did a Nike+ workout at my parents’ house but added challenges to every move to make it extra hard and as a result could barely move for the rest of the weekend.  Oops!  I don’t even understand how I killed myself so badly since I kept it to under 30 minutes, but I guess adding weights and plyometrics to every move really amps things up.  Not gonna lie, I love being sore.

How weird is the color difference between these two in the same package?  It seems like the inside part should maintain the green color while the outside part fades, but it’s actually the reverse.  Weird right?

I finished off the smoked salmon after the flat bread avo one was gone.

Since the kids were napping, I took the opportunity to do some prep.  I hadn’t gone shopping yet but found that I had a bunch of stuff to do anyway.

First I made yogurt.  Never thought I’d wind up using the instant pot for this, to be honest, but I had cashew milk that was rapidly going sour and thought it would be a perfect starter for some tangy greek yogurt.  It was also the first time I used collagen.  I combined two recipes but really winged it with the amounts of things so I don’t know how it will taste.  But after it chilled in the fridge it solidified quite nicely so at least I got the texture right!?  And I know exactly whats in it – cashews, water, maple syrup, collagen and probiotic capsules.  Nothing else at all.

I also roasted chickpeas, pressed tofu, diced sausage, cooked plain noodles, chopped veggies, and got my grocery list in order.

Cuteness intermission!  Kyle spent nap time learning Edelweiss on the guitar and surprised the kids with it when they woke up (oh yeah, the Sound of Music obsession is still going strong).  Swoon.  He’s the best.

I didn’t have the energy to tackle meal planning for the whole week, but I had to at least get the Friendsgiving stuff for the next day.  So it was a quick trip…after which I set to work on my first recipe.

I finished things up riiiight at 5, which was perfect because we had to get packed up for a dinner date with a friend in Sacramento.

Per recommendations, I chose Selland’s for us all.  It is super family friendly, has stuff for any and every dietary need, and I nearly wanted to order everything from the case.  They have stuff that is already ready as well as a full kitchen, so it’s awesome for take away as well as dining in.  I really fell in love with the place, in case you couldn’t tell, and could definitely see us going there often with the kids.  They inhaled all their food and begged for more salmon, so we ended up going back to order them both more salmon.

I am not joking when I said I wanted to order everything.  We got a bunch of items to share, including almond chicken, mushroom chicken, brussels sprouts, seasonal salmon, lemon garlic chicken, plus some unpictured teriyaki chicken and bread.  And more salmon.  And I could have done way more damage!  They have an entire GF menu with pizzas and sandwiches.  And a dessert case that will make you drool.

In the end, we came home for dessert.

And then we stayed up way too late thereby shooting ourselves in the foot for the daylight savings change.  D’oh!

The kids woke up at 5 something, but we ignored them until 6.  Silver lining?  Kyle and I each had plenty of daylight to get our workouts in.  I was still (!!) sore but wanted to get out so I went for a bike ride.  It was 40 degrees out and that was quite the wake up.  Holy bleeping season change.

After feeding the kids breakfast, I hemmed and hawed about what to do that morning.  I was feeling pretty lazy but knew we would all go stir crazy if we stayed cooped up in the house until Friendsgiving, so I decided to rally and go to church with P.  He was actually the one who swung the vote.  I was thinking of skipping but he really really wanted to go and said please very politely so many times I couldn’t say no.  He wanted to stay with me in the service and “hear the story” instead of go to Sunday school, but then half way through he fell asleep on me!  🙂 Such a sweetheart.  Daylight savings, man.  I waited as long as possible before waking him…just so we could get out before the next service started…but he was still in and out of sleep on the way home.

Oh!  I forgot to tell you about my breakfast!  I almost had something blah, but then stopped myself and made something special instead.  I had been craving waffles with butter…and we had a couple of spotted bananas…so I went hunting through my cookbooks for something that could merge them.

I found this recipe for pumpkin pancakes and decided to swap the banana puree in for the pumpkin and make them into waffles instead of pancakes, and what do you know, it worked!

Yum.  Plus another serving or two for the week days coming.

The rest of the day was spent cooking for the kids’ meals and/or Friendsgiving.

The kitchen was smelling goooooood.

All those colors!  And then the pecan crumble top…

I am totally making this for Thanksgiving, it was SO GOOD.

By the way, these salads are back on shelves for all concerned parties. 🙂

Party time!

I got this at WF and it is so good.  If you see it, get it, because it’s on sale right now and delicious.

My besties  <3

And the foooooood.

We managed to pull off a kids table this year, and my kids ate moderately well all things considered.  V was a little too free, but her love for food at least kept her coming back to the table on and off to finish her plate.  I was too tired to chase her down and get her to stay in her seat.  Plus I wanted to hang out with my friends.  We did assigned seating with the dads on one end of the table and the moms on the other.  In past years we have mingled, but then we always naturally segregate ourselves after the meal is done, so we figured we may as well sit how we want from the start.  😉

A little bit of this, a little bit of that…minus the dairy things.

V was the most ready for dessert, apparently.

She had four (!!!) and then I cut her off…don’t worry though, they were black bean brownies and chickpea blondies (and sliced very small)…soooo not exactly desserts at all.  Sneaky sneaky.  Like I said before, my best friends are like minded with their diets.  I took slices of cheesecake and pie home for Kyle, but both had dairy so I had some chocolate after the kiddos were bathed and in bed.

I finished off that dried fruit and nut bar from Belgium and opened the Green & Black toffee bar.  It’s the kind of bar that you can nibble at for a while because even the tiniest piece is super sweet.  Must be because it’s milk chocolate.

And now I feel like we can start Christmas music!  Hahaha.  Maybe not quite yet…