Dinner party, zumba, hide and seek

I miss the weekend.  It wasn’t anything special, but it was still nice family time.

As soon as the days are behind me I completely blank on what we did!  My memory is pathetic. Per the photos, I had two muffins made from extra Against All Grain “blender bread”.  I pulled them from the freezer that morning and thawed them quickly in the microwave before adding heaps of almond butter to the mix.

I polished off the jar.  Who needs a muffin when you have a spoon?

Vegan Winter salad por supuesto.

With this month’s Bon Appetit mag on the side.

I spent all morning working on dinner.  I chose a recipe from Dinner in an Instant because we had friends coming over, but it took FAR longer than I thought it would to make.  The instant pot is supposed to be hands off, but I chose a pretty intricate recipe.  Oh well.  I love cooking so it was fine with me.  Kyle took the kids to Home Depot for their monthly craft where they made periscopes so it was all me and my podcasts chopping and sautéing.

The recipe was for coq au vin rosé, so I used this Tinto Rey, which someone gave us.  It’s from Matchbook, which is a local winery.

After browning and sautéing everything I put it all together to make magic.  Rather than use the pressure cooker setting, I used the slow cooker setting…that way I could forget about it and it would be done right before we were ready to eat.

I snuck out while the kids were napping to go to a Zumba class!!!  My mom’s group had a special class for just us, so I didn’t have to worry about looking like an a$$ dancing around with professionals.  It was a total blast.  Our instructor was a friend and she explained the steps to us before each new song and then made it pretty easy with a bunch of repetition so even I could do it.

I raced home to shower…and make rice…

I was greeted with a VERY good smelling house.  Mmmm.

Our friends were in charge of the vegetable portion of the meal and they brought they’re A game with these roasted beets and HOME-MADE PISTACHIO BUTTER!!

The pistachios were sautéed in garlic before being blended and I think we all agreed the beets were just there to get the nut butter into our mouths.  So.  Good.

My chicken dish was also really fantastic, if I do say so myself.  🙂  Their daughter (P’s friend) had three servings, so that’s gotta tell you something…  It’s nice having friends over for dinner because the kids are finally old enough to play independently off on their own so we get to hang out and talk while the littles destroy some other part of the house.  We have great friends too.  So that helps.

Later that night, I made the leftover broth, veggies, and rice into soup that Kyle had the next day (there wasn’t any chicken left).

Sunday started with a quickie brekkie.  And by quickie I mean, eaten out of the bag because I had a brain fart on the timing of church.  I was really craving a smoothie, but it was already 8:35 and I didn’t feel like getting a brain freeze just to make the 9 o’clock service.  And then as soon as I finished off the bag I realized church starts at 9:30 not 9!!  UGH.  I was soooo annoyed.  A smoothie would have been a way better option.  Fail.  I’m so trained to get us out of the house for pre-school at 9.  Anyway.  I managed to minimize my food wallowing to under 5 minutes.

The rest of the day was pretty low key.  We played around the house and I did some prep and then we played walkie talkie hide and seek at the park behind our house.  The kids LOVED IT.  Ok, so did I.  😛

The walkie talkies were from Kyle’s work…I’m unclear on how they became ours, but I think they were a “gift” from his coworkers for P.  Kyle brought them home on his birthday and said they were from the guys he started the business with, but it’s also entirely possible Kyle did it all on his own?  I could ask but…I’ll keep the mystery alive.

We took turns hiding and giving clues and saying warmer/colder.  It was seriously hilarious hearing them talk to each other over the frequencies.

To set myself up for the week, I candied walnuts because vegan Winter salads are my life.  I baked zucchini bread for my mom’s group meeting on Monday.  And I roasted chickpeas because I wanted to make the bread vegan (using aquafaba) and figured I may as well prep the chickpeas for the kids.

It wasn’t my turn to bring food but there are never any allergy friendly options so I took matters into my own hands with a gluten, dairy, soy, nut and egg free quick bread.  It was minimally sweetened with banana and maple syrup and had ground flax and TJs gluten free flour blend as the base.

These lunches are all starting to look the same…

I mean, they ARE the same lunch.  Every day I think I should try something different – like a Thai salad or Caesar – but then I really just want the freakin’ kale massaged with balsamic and avo and candied nuts and squash.  I can’t bring myself to do anything different.  Serious problems, I know.

Speaking of Caesars…

I did back to back kale salads on Sunday.  You’d think I’d OD on kale by this point in my life, but no.  That seems to be impossible.

I massaged the kale in Tessemae’s Caesar and then topped it with pecorino romano that I grated SUUUUPER FANCY with the micro-zester.  I don’t know why this never occurred to me before?!  I use it for ginger and citrus all the time, but look at those insanely fine curls of cheesy yum!!  Amazing!  You get way more bang for your buck this way because you can get cheese into every single bite and use way less cheese overall.  LOVE.  IT.

The kids had roasted chickpeas on their salads too.  Plus dates for dessert.

Dosing with Reese’s Pieces is still going rock solid btw.  I never commented on the details of the one month post OIT follow up appointment, but he’s doing well with his dosing and we are allowed to (encouraged to!?!?!) try random bites of peanut things going forward to test his body’s desensitization.  Talk about terrifying.  I’m thinking a peanut butter cookie may be in my future.  With one small bite for my man.  On a day that Kyle’s in town.  In the hospital parking lot (kidding!).

This rice krispy treat I had for dessert had peanuts in it!

I completely forgot about this.  I bought it at WF a month ago!!  This is the problem with skipping dessert for so long.  Thank goodness it was still good.  Better than good.  Awesome.

But duh, look at that!  I mean…drool.

Ready for Monday?