Fake three day weekend

Sweet baby child this Saturday’s breakfast was nooooo joke.

How much did I spill on her head?

Only one bite actually but it happened to be the very center piece with the most ooey gooey sticky sugar section.  I still ate it of course.  And then cleaned her head with a wipe (not my tongue).

Since Pattycakes now has gymnastics classes on Saturday mornings it’s easy to just walk across the street after and hit up market for breakfast.  And entertainment in the form of music and parks…while Kyle and I treat ourselves to yummy pastries.

After we’d gotten enough sun, we retreated to the air conditioning where naps went down not as easily as you’d think (how do all the morning activities not tire him out more?).  Still he slept for a long time once he finally did fall asleep and I enjoyed a relaxing kale salad lunch with the last of my home-made crackers (crumbs) on top.  Time to make a new batch!

These days, if my lunch doesn’t include kale, it better have broccoli.  I’m so head over heels for those brassica foods at the moment.  This one had kale AND broccoli slaw.  Even better!

I prepped dinner during nap time and since I already shared that meal in the weekly menu post, here are other food photo highlights of the rest of Saturday…

Prepping carrots from the farm (which is just the garden at Kyle’s work, but we call it “the farm”).  It’s where we the fresh produce that I frequently show off here on the blog.

The most recent haul nearly killed me (dramatic much?) because as I was cleaning it all, a spider the size of my face appeared and we had a mega showdown.  He almost won too!  But shoes aren’t just made for walking.

Now that I have my own garden, and we get extra crops from the farm, I have a(n even more) massive appreciation for the time and energy that goes into gardening – especially organic gardening.  I see and experience the labor involved first hand – even on this small and local scale – and it is truly something else.  No wonder quality food costs $$$$$.  It’s hard work!

Once I trimmed and organized them, I set out to meal plan for the coming week so I could use them.

WF had a weekend sale (25% off all protein powders) that I had set in my calendar long ago.  So I finally re-stocked my protein powder supply.  And for such a good deal, I splurged and bought both vanilla and chocolate flavors.

I tried the WF brand (just bought one sample packet) to see if it would be similar enough (they basically copycat-ed Vega in the recipe), but it didn’t hold up in my opinion.  Too bad because it’s significantly cheaper.  It’s still good but Vega One is the best.

And about that Prop 65 warning?  I emailed the company last week and haven’t heard back yet, but the employee who works in the supplements aisle at the Davis WF (who I think is super awesome and knowledgeable) told me she guessed it was due to the brown rice protein (and that whole arsenic mumbo jumbo).  Meh.  I just went with what I know and love, even though it’s a little more expensive.  Vega for the win.

Look!!  Our purple bell peppers are almost ready!  We also have red ones and lots of tomatoes.  And then there’s the tomatoes, zucchini, and green beans in the raised beds.  I also planted a second round of green beans because both Kyle and P love them and they were all being eaten straight from the garden!

After P went to bed I baked another batch of crackers.  I’m still not ready to share a recipe because it’s not quite right yet.  I keep tweaking this (really yummy) BA recipe to include seeds and quinoa and while it tastes super good, it crumbles and falls apart more than a real cracker.  I don’t mind, but it’s not exactly blogworthy.

Here’s the final product in the light of day.

Sunday morning was luxurious because we had nothing to do.  Nothing!  So nice.  All four of us played outside together before the yard was flooded with sun.  My breakfast was shockingly NOT a smoothie, despite having all that recently purchased protein powder burning a hole in my pantry.

You see, I just discovered a new love.  It’s called “banola”.  The recipe is from The 21 Day Sugar Detox cookbook, which I let my friend borrow a while ago and just recently got back.  I’m not doing the program (I can’t cut carbs from my diet and the idea of a night without chocolate is not remotely tolerable), but I still like the recipes in it.

I baked this one a few nights ago and it’s been in the breakfast rotation since smoothies were on hold without my protein powder.  It’s basically a nut based granola, without grains, and using bananas as the sweetener.  I used super ripe bananas, even though the recipe calls for green tipped ones because (again) I’m not doing the actual detox thing.

I’ve been pairing it with different greek yogurts – usually mixing a noosa flavored one with plain 2% fage.  I am in a real plain yogurt phase right now, so sometimes I skip the sweetened flavored ones and just do plain.  Fage makes the best one although I haven’t tried too many.  We shop primarily at TJs for the staples, so my options for comparison aren’t plentiful.  I’ve tried the TJs 2% but it’s not as good.  And I don’t want nonfat yogurts because, uh, I want the fat (weird to say it that way, but I don’t know how else to put it).

My lunch was leftover cauli salad from the night before, which I bulked up with avocado and spinach.

Salads for lunch, all day every day.  Loving the combo of sweet and crunchy with apples, sunflower seeds, and veggies.

Kyle’s parents arrived in the afternoon and from there we basically hung out for the rest of the day.

I made this salad (using quinoa instead of brown rice) and marinated a TON of chicken with this rub and then my role in dinner was done.

Appetizers and wine while the man of the house did his thing on the grill.

Valley girl smiles all day long.

Dinner is served!  I cut into mine before realizing I never took a photo. Oops.

After both of the littles were down we enjoyed some of TJs finest in the backyard while the sun set.  There was finally a decent breeze and it wasn’t 100 degrees, so that was reason enough to soak up the time outdoors.

Once we came in, I set to work on a strata for the next day’s breakfast.

Tomatoes, bell peppers, green onions and basil from our garden and the farm.

I also used TJs new gluten free bread for the first time.  They stopped carrying Udi’s and I’m guessing this is basically their copycat version of the item.  Like Udi’s the slices are so small, but it seems a little softer and less crumbly.  It’s not very thick though, so as far as strata recipes go, it’s not like the adsorbent sourdough that I’d typically use.

But this one is allergy friendly, and so Pacman was able to have some for breakfast the next day too.

He didn’t really like it, but took down a few bites to appease me.  He doesn’t like tomatoes, so it’s not surprising that he wasn’t into this.  The tomatoes are absolutely outstanding and their flavor cannot be masked.  I hardly added anything besides fresh herbs to the strata because the veggies sing on their own.

Kyle’s mom wanted some produce to take home with her so we stopped by the farm after everyone had finished breakfast to do some picking.

Gorgeous colors.

P loved it so much and ate a carrot right there on the spot (dirt covered and all).

I’m looking forward to the melons…

Kyle’s mom can have all the cayenne and tabasco peppers to herself.  🙂

After we had more food than we could carry, we drove down the street to a park to play until nap time.

Swinging with my dude.

We hit up Nugget market for lunch, where I got smoked salmon and two tubs of broccoli slaw salad.  I guess I forgot to take a photo, but it was all super delicious.  Broccoli man.  I’m telling you…

Kyle’s parents left after lunch and I went to the grocery store while Kyle stayed home with the napping babes.  He took the day off work since his parents were in town so the weekend really felt like it was still going!  And lemme tell you – shopping without kids?!?!?  OMG.  SO.  AMAZING.

Dinner was my favorite melon and poppyseed salad with the leftover chicken from the night before.

P had everything but the dressing (haven’t tested poppy seeds on him yet).

I just love this salad so so much.

I polished off the TJs chocolate later that night as well as some more home-made bark.

And just like that it was already Tuesday!  So now with Friday off as a holiday it’s basically a 3 day work week!  Holler!