Back Home and Zucchini Noodles

We're back home from a wonderful and long vacation to Siesta Key, Florida, and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania (my home). Bryce and I were away for 13 days and were eating and drinking all the while! There wasn't a bar, restaurant, coffee shop, ice cream store, etc., that we didn't visit.

We're just as happy to be home in Seattle as we were to embark on an adventure, although now we need to get our consumption in check! We're hitting the brakes on eating out, slowing down on the drinking, and getting back into the habit of cooking in our own kitchen.

Earlier this week I made overnight crockpot oatmeal for the second time! I have a few more tweaks to make to the recipe and will hopefully post it in the next few weeks. We've eaten it for breakfast each day to fuel the healthy train!

Dinner During Lent - Tomato Pesto Pizza

Do our plans get in the way of our lives? Or, do our lives get in the way of our plans? Either way you look at it, we humans get overly busy from time to time. That I'm sure we can all agree upon. Being busy makes me hungry! Less time to cook, less time to eat, increased likelihood of jamming 4 doughnuts/tacos/grande cappuccinos into my face in a hurried mess. Don't do that, though, it's not good for your sanity or your blood pressure.

My favorite bloggers are those who are most honest and transparent about life's ups and downs. It's easy to speak to the 'ups' although the 'downs' are where I'm able to truly relate to people as actual human beings, know what I mean?

That all being said, I vowed to make a different meat free meal every Friday, right? Sounds fun! Except when it's Friday and my colleagues want to go to happy hour and my husband is at the gym. Then, on the way home, we stop to pick something up from a friend. We run in the house, quickly, to retrieve the borrowed item. We get to meet her Mom, and her brother, and the dog! 45 minutes later we're on the way home to relax... NO, we need to make that meat-less meal! Luckily I'd planned something quite simple. Tomato Pesto Pizza is our 4th Dinner During Lent recipe and it's the easiest yet.

T Rex Cake - Happy 30th Bryce!

My husband, Bryce, turned 30 this weekend. We spent 3 glorious days in Whistler [British Columbia, Canada] with 8 of our friends. We ate, drank, skied and/or snowboarded, and enjoyed this delicious and hilarious cake!

Traditional Irish Breakfast

Last year we were able to visit Ireland. We spent the most of our time in the large city of Dublin, although we also adventured to the smaller towns of Bunratty, Doolin, and Galway. In the spirit of St. Patrick's Day please allow me to share with you my most favorite meal of the trip.

Dinner During Lent - Shrimp and Black Bean Enchiladas

It's part 3 of Dinner During Lent, where I'm cooking a different meat-free meal for every Friday during the 40 days leading up to Easter.

Part 1 was simple and quick - pierogies and asparagus
Part 2 was a recipe we brought all the way back from Sicily - pasta con le sarde

That brings us to the present, part 3, Shrimp and Black Bean Enchiladas. That's right, we're straying away from my staple of pasta. Polish pierogies then Italian spaghetti, it's time for a change.

The original recipe is from the 1998 Mayo-Clinic Williams-Sonoma Cookbook which I scored at a Goodwill Store in Hawaii for anywhere between 99 cents and $2.50. Humble beginnings, right? I've made this recipe more times than I can count and it's about time I share it with you!