Goodbye to football

After a busy week away for Kyle, he was all about staying home this weekend and I was totally on board.  The weather was AMAZING, too.  It felt like Spring (or early Summer!!?) and I was loving it.  So much time in the backyard getting my Vitamin D doses.  Happy happy hippie.

Happy happy kids.

I had chocolate buckwheat waffles for breakfast while Kyle took the kids to Home Depot for the monthly craft.  I’ve talked about that program on the blog before.  Having Saturday mornings to myself has become an unspoken thing that Kyle tries to gift me with.  I get everyone fed and then they go off to farmer’s market or the park or wherever and I get an hour or two to myself – to eat breakfast slowly and then do whatever I want.  I try to force myself to sit for at least a good chunk of time before my type A behavior takes over with meal prep, cleaning, and whatever else.

I knew I was going to want my standard vegan salad for lunch again, so I had to roast butternut squash.  And that segued into some other kitchen tasks as well.  I listened to some podcasts while I zipped around and really enjoyed every minute of it.

Lunch time!

We didn’t have any ripe avocado on hand but I knew I needed some more oomph to the salad, so I added some soy bacon and the tiny portion of smoked salmon leftover from the day before.

It was the perfect amount of food to fill me up but leave my hungry before dinner, which was my main priority since we had a date night out planned.

The babysitter trials continue!  This time it was a success!  V seems to have finally turned a corner with child care.  Over the past two weeks she has had no issues at church and she was not even phased when we left her with the babysitter this time either.  I fed them dinner before she arrived so that I could give P his peanut dose, but the rest of the baths, stories, and bedtime routine was totally done by the sitter.  Woo hoo!  V knows her from other activities around town, so it wasn’t like it was a new person, but that hasn’t even mattered in the past.  Needless to say, we were thrilled and cannot WAIT to make these night’s out more regular.

We went to Iron Horse Tavern in Sac with another couple.  We started with a huge soft pretzel but it wasn’t salty so I only had one bite.  Not worth the wheat fodmaps.

For dinner I got the steak and eggs and cakes, which was a skillet of cornbread topped in steak and eggs with a chimichurri sauce and fried onions rings. Like, what the what?!  I saw it on the menu and couldn’t stop thinking about it.  In the end, it was good, but not as over the top amazing as it sounds.  The steak was a little chewy.  I haven’t over eaten like I did on this night in a really long time and yet there were STILL a ton of leftovers to take home.   The cornbread was probably the best part.

Kyle got a couple of “small” plates which were not small at all.  That insanely massive pile of wontons was an Asian poke nachos type thing.  And then he got mac n cheese as well.   Wow.

Nothing like a ramp up to the Super Bowl!

The next morning went by in a blur.  We all slept in a bit so I didn’t think we’d make it to church, but somehow it happened without any extra effort or rushing.  [Ok that’s not entirely true, I did shower in under 4 minutes and brought a heel of bread with me in the car, but it didn’t feel chaotic]

I ran to Nugget after church to get the bare minimum groceries to get us by that week.  Shopping hours before the Super Bowl is never a good idea, so I wanted to be speedy.  Also, we have so many odds and ends in the fridge I want to finish all that this week rather than buy more.

I did make it a priority to find a ripe avocado though.  Because I needed this salad done right.  And also, it’s not a real Super Bowl unless you have chips with a dip that includes avo.  AMIRIGHT!?

I had started soaking raw cashews earlier that morning, so by the afternoon they were soft and ready to get cheese-ified.

I used the vegan cashew cheese recipe from Gena’s new cookbook, Power Plates, but added 2 tbsp of sun dried tomatoes and their oil to give it a more tomato-nacho flavor.

And then I made personal layered dips, with beans, ground beef, nacho cheese, avo, and green onions.

Daaaaang.

Served with heaps of chips right as Justin Timberlake took the stage.

Divine.

The food was better than the performance, and I’m saying that as a HUGE *nsync and JT fan.  It just didn’t do it for me, for all the reasons covered in the media this week (mainly that he wasn’t actually doing much singing).  I’m also annoyed that Janet got so much heat, but Justin gets a second chance.  I know they both denied she’d join on stage, but a part of me was still holding out hope.  Anyway, I’m glad the Eagles won, obviously (I lived in Philly during the McNabb era and was sad they didn’t get a ring back then).

And now we have to wait another 300 or something days until the return of football.