Friday Randomness

This week started out crazy gorgeous – 60 and sunny on Monday was quite the treat! 

I had an al fresco lunch at Nectar in Del Ray; I love this cafe’s chicken salads because the chicken is really tender and flavorful (I feel like sometimes chicken on salad is super dry/blah)!

Plus a green iced tea and some unpictured bread (brought from home because I knew I’d need some carbs with this salad or I’d be hungry again in 5 seconds).

I had a peanut butter chocolate snack ball, too – these are so delicious! I’ve been buying them from Stomping Ground in Del Ray but want to try to recreate my own variation.

They taste like a hybrid of my 5 minute no bake PB granola bars and my no bake energy balls!

While I ate lunch, I listened to the rest of an episode on the Food Blogger Pro Podcast that I started right before lunch on a quick run – I decided I absolutely had to take advantage of that gorgeous weather, especially since the rest of the week called for rain! 

Here’s another yummy lunch from the week:

• leftover salmon (glad to hear you guys are liking my Orange Ginger Salmon Recipe!) + leftover brown rice + greens + dried tart cherries + salted pumpkin seeds + (unpictured – forgot to add it until after this photo) feta cheese. 

All topped with my standard easy homemade balsamic vinaigrette! 

Once the rain started on Tuesday, soup seemed like a good idea for dinner – this was a variation of my Instant Pot Chicken Tortilla Soup Recipe but made on the stove vs. in the Instant Pot. I also stirred in a couple handfuls of fresh baby spinach before serving!

I made enough that there were leftovers for lunch the next day – always a win to have lunch ready to go, especially when I have a hungry toddler hanging all over me. 

And speaking of leftovers/prep ahead, I’m still LOVING having so many make-ahead breakfast burritos in the freezer!

They really hit the spot, especially when I come home from an early workout class and Matt has to rush right out the door and I’m starving and so is Riese!

Speaking of food and Riese, she “helped” me test out a new savory granola bar recipe for the blog yesterday (which mostly involved her eating all the seeds and shredded cheese she was supposed to stir into the bowl…). 

Oh and yes, her hair is a mess and in her eyes but she was refusing any sort of hair tie/bow/etc. Toddlers!

I have a couple savory granola bar recipes on the blog already, but they are all no bake (check them out: No Bake Savory Curry Granola Bar Recipe + No Bake Savory Honey Mustard Granola Bar Recipe), and I wanted to try out a baked variation with eggs, cheese, sun dried tomatoes, etc.

They came out delicious and the kitchen smelled like pizza while they were cooking! Stay tuned for the recipe in a few weeks. 

Have a great weekend, my friends, and I’ll see you back here on Monday!

Are you a savory or sweet snack fan? I like to have a mix of both, but tend towards more savory!

I’ll leave you with some posts I found interesting from around the web!

• Low Mess Snacks for Kids – great ideas here!
• Why You Should Delete Your MyFitnessPal App – this x 1,000
• How to Take a Baby to a Restaurant and Have a Good Time – we follow almost all of these tips!
• Fitness in My 20’s vs. 30’s – this was an interesting read! For me, the big differences in my fitness routine now vs. in my 20’s are that I do wayyyyyy more yoga now… and I get all my cardio outside vs. on machines (I used to be the queen of the elliptical in college/early 20’s). I’m definitely taking more rest days and doing shorter workouts in general now, though, too – I can’t do as much intensity as I used to anymore or else I’m too exhausted to chase after Riese all day! 
• Speaking of fitness…: How to combine Peleton with other workouts – I don’t have a Peleton, but I know some of you guys do, so I thought this post would be useful!