What I Ate This Week

My friends! Life lately is BIZAYYYY. The good news is that I finally got Alchemy's new website done, the second location is well on its way, and I have no shortage of menu, marketing, and managing projects to tackle. It's gonna be a wild couple months. Gotta fuel it with only the best!

Breakfast:

Steel-cut oatmeal is what I've been craving every darn morning. We make a big batch and then I reheat it in the morning. I usually stir in cinnamon and sometimes chia seeds then top with berries, banana, and almond butter. I'm addicted!

Leftover pancakes from the weekend (testing a new banana recipe) with all the usual fixings.

Northstar's poached eggs and garlicky parm focaccia with avocado and arugula salad.

The most beauteous new Pink Cookie Smoothie Bowl with Simple Mill's new ready to eat chocolate chip cookies plus cacao nibs, coming to Alchemy and the blog Monday!

Cereal! Been craving Kashi warm cinnamon like a mad woman lately.

Main Meals:

I've been really into fast dinners with lentil pasta (love this one and TJ's) or Banza chickpea pasta, arugula pesto and sometimes tuna. For the pesto, I blend together arugula, walnuts, olive oil, lemon juice, garlic, salt, and water to taste. I don't measure anything. It comes together really quickly and I make enough pesto to last us a couple nights so all I have to do when I get home is make the noodles. I've been serving it with local greens dressed in olive oil, red wine vinegar, oregano, garlic, salt and pepper.

I also randomly made my favorite cornbread so we had big slices of that on the side. I modify it by using whole wheat flour, avocado oil, and I stir the flax mixture rather than boiling it. Then I bake it in a well oiled + pre-heated cast iron skillet for 18 minutes.

The most incredible dinner at The Market Italian Village for Restaurant Week, including seared halloumi salad with grilled cabbage, walnuts, apples and pickled dates to start.

Braised chickpeas and lentils with roasted squash, shishito labneh, smoked shitake, peanit, allepo pepper, and pita for my main disgh. INCREDIBLE.

Flourless chocolate cake with eggnog ice cream, burnt orange Grand Marnier caramel, and cinnamon chestnut quinoa crumble. The other dessert was brown rice pudding with cacao nib pudding, clementine orange blossom jam, pistachios, pomegranate, and mint. Are you dying yet?

Leftover Vegetable Soup.

Kale & Quinoa Salad + Curried Chickpea Salad.

We made homemade whole wheat pizza crust on Saturday but I legit had to combine the warm water, yeast, and honey FOUR TIMES before it showed any signs of bubbling. And it was brand new yeast! I'm guessing I had the water temp wrong. I'm not sure if it even worked in the end because the crust wasn't amazing.

Anywho, I topped it with Rao's tomato sauce, organic shredded mozzarella, mushrooms, peppers, garlic, and post-oven arugula. Still very yummy with caesar salad on the side! P.S. I had two more pieces of pizza after this pic. For a quick caesar dressing, blend together ¼ cup tahini, ¼ cup water, 2 tbsp lemon juice, squirt of dijon, 2 tbsp nooch, 2 garlic cloves, salt, and tons of pepper. Thin with more water if needed.

Snacks/Desserts:

The yummiest hot cocoa.

Still addicted to my Salted Chocolate Covered Peanut Butter Oatmeal Bites. Have you made them yet? They've gotten rave reviews from so many of you!

OMG...this edible cookie dough. You need it.

I ate two of these Chewy Ginger Molasses Cookies pretty much every day last week till they were gone, which only took three days between the two of us.

Two more days till Friday!