A VERY Belated and Classy Birthday Post

So I'm finally coming back on the blog posting wagon after dropping off it for a while. It's kinda hard to start doing something again after you don't do it for a while. But here we go. 

A week ago was my birthday! And half a week ago was Sydney's birthday! Happy belated birthday to us! And happy birthday to Trisha today! 

I went home for my birthday to celebrate with the family last weekend, and Sydney and I had a joint birthday dinner. It was at this fancy little French restaurant called Tapenade in La Jolla. Of course, our family pretty much took up half the restaurant because there's so many of us. We ate a bunch of fancy food, and had a bunch of yummy wine. Of course, there was a delicious looking birthday dessert (chocolate!!!) I also got the bonus of getting to see GG for like 30 minutes haha. It was fun being at home, even though it was literally for like 1.5 days. See you guys at Thanksgiving!

I got tons of amazing gifts from everybody. Definitely lots of elephant things (thank you Chelsea and my cuzzos and my amazing roomies!) and a polaroid camera (finally!) and other odds and ends and sweet things (we killed that chocolate SO FAST, Polina). THANK YOU EVERYONE!

Then the weekend after that we had some more classy celebrating (and also some not classy celebrating, but I don't have pictures of that haha). We had a little girls' night in SLO at Meze Wine Bar & Bistro. The bubbly was pink and delicious, and they had really good food too. We played some more when we got home. And I got a little carsick. Whoops. Avoid party regret please. And the next day, Maggie made us really really delicious fried eggs in tortilla baskets. YES. And then we all played again.

The End.

Super Simple Smoothie

This is the smoothie I made this morning. Anyone who knows me knows that I absolutely LOVE smoothies. Love love love love love them. They're sooo easy and quick to make. They taste delicious. You can put anything you want into them. In one smoothie, you can potentially put all your daily servings of fruits and/or veggies in case you don't have time to eat them that day.

The smoothie I made today only contained 3 ingredients. Raspberries, banana, and a touch of honey. It could have been a 2 ingredient all-fruit smoothie with just the raspberries and banana. But the raspberries were a little more tart today, so the honey cut down the tartness a little bit.

I'm a big big fan of fruit smoothies. Especially all-fruit ones. Vegetable smoothies, not so much. Blended up veggies?? No thank you. I can handle 98% fruit, 2% vegetable smoothies though. You know, the kind where you sneak just a little bit of spinach inside. Just a little bit though. But if you try adding beets or carrots, forget about it. I'm not on that level yet.

Also, I'm super loving this new little blender I got off Amazon. I didn't want to cart off my huge Ninja blender to SLO with me, so I got this little one. And it's perfect for helping me not make the perfect amount of smoothie, just about 1 tall glass, each time. Plus, it's also my favorite color :)

IT'S FINALLY HERE!!! Sunday FOOTBALL, Lots of Anxiety, & Breakfast of Champs

A yummy breakfast fitting for Sunday football. YESSS I AM SO HAPPY FOOTBALL IS BACK!!!

I've been waiting and waiting and waiting, and now it's finally here. What better way to celebrate having massive anxiety again than by eating pancakes? And not just any pancakes. Banana walnut pancakes drizzled with chocolate and syrup on the side. Plus some truffle oil eggs and freshly squeezed orange-grapefruit juice. 

Yup, this breakfast will definitely give me enough energy to watch football (the Saints!) and get massive anxiety over the game and fantasy football. I feel like I'm going to hyperventilate already.

Caramel Apples, But Not.

I love apples, but I'm not always a fan of eating them if that makes sense. It kinda gets tiring eating a plain apple after a while. 

For breakfast this morning, I really wanted to eat apples though. But not plain apples. Oh no. 

So I made these apples, drizzled with lots of melty peanut butter and sprinkled with cinnamon--two of my favorite things ever. And I ate the whole plate without getting tired of it. Success! 

They kinda remind me of caramel apples, but healthier. And I don't like caramel that much anyways. Side note: these would also make a really delicious and easy snack too. This takes like 2 minutes to make, tops.

Tea,Tea, Makes You Pee*

Gabby, Kirsten, and I had a lot of spots of tea today! Sooo much that it definitely made us all pee*. A LOT. We were down for the pound though.

We went to this really cute little place called Marlene's. It really made us miss London, with all the tea and scones and cute teacups. Nothing better than a reunion with tea! I should definitely do a throwback post (or two) to our time in London.

The scones at this place were so amazing that it should be illegal. I would have been happy just getting 100 of those scones and some tea. I'm definitely going back just for those scones! But honestly, everything else (besides the cucumber sandwiches) was SOO delicious too. The tomato soup, the mini beef wellingtons (and I don't even like beef that much!), the chocolate macarons OMG. SO GOOD. And there was so much more--we could barely finish. We tried some really good tea (like 3 pots! haha) and would have tried more but we were just so stuffed. But we probably won't be getting that blueberry tea again. Sorry GG, Kirsten and I aren't down for that pound.

It was a successful day of yum yums and reunion-ing and pretending to be classy. We're definitely going to go back there, and go back to London one day! Oh and have a picnic too. In London. xx

Smoothie With A Spoon

This morning I felt a little adventurous and decided to make a smoothie. I put in banana, apple, dates, a big spoonful of peanut butter, and some ice. I didn't have any yogurt or juice, so it was just an all-fruit smoothie. With peanut butter haha. It ended up being a thicker smoothie. A smoothie you eat with a spoon. A smoothie with a spoon.

Taste-wise, the flavors went really well together. Texture-wise, I think I put too much apple in it because it reminded me a little bit of applesauce--and I don't like applesauce. This recipe is obviously still a work in progress. Next time, definitely less apple, more peanut butter (because I just love peanut butter), maybe add in some yogurt. We'll see how it goes.

Lesson learned.

How To Eat Breakfast Even When You're Too Tired

Sleeping Morning Breakfasts: Easy Edition

Truth: When I wake up in the morning, I'm grumpy and still tired. I'm hungry, don't feel like cooking, but I need to eat breakfast. Breakfast is the most important meal of the day, so I always start my day off with some kind of breakfast.

 This week, I made a run to the grocery store for some breakfast essentials and used them to make different breakfasts everyday. Each one took no more than 5 minutes to make--they were soo easy! 

What I bought: acai smoothie packs, a variety of fruit, wheat germ, plain Greek yogurt, slivered almonds, cacao nibs, and coconut shavings. I also already had honey and eggs at home. All it takes is combining different breakfast essentials to make different combinations. Even though it make seem a little pricey to buy all of those items, I didn't use them all up in a week and still have plenty left to make more breakfast this week. 

1. Acai Bowl

This was the first breakfast I made, so I went all out. The acai packs come sweetened or unsweetened, but I like to buy things unsweetened so I sweeten everything to my taste. I added strawberries and a banana, then blended it all together. I topped it with some more banana (I love bananas!) sliced on top, slivered almonds, coconut shavings, and cacao nibs. The cacao nibs are really bitter so I didn't add that many.

It's really delicious especially on hot summer mornings, and is even better if you freeze the fruit before you blend it all up so it's icy cold. I like to eat them in mugs.

2. Yogurt with "Granola" and Fruit

I love yogurt, but yogurt doesn't fill me up for very long on its own. So, on this day, I paired some yogurt with a fresh banana and a giant peach.

For the yogurt, I started with ~3/4 cup of plain Greek yogurt and drizzled in honey. Then I stirred it together really well because I don't like honey clumps in the yogurt. Instead of topping it with granola, I made my own "granola" using a couple spoonfuls of wheat germ, almonds, coconut shavings, and a few cacao nibs. So easy!

3. Hard Boiled Egg & Lots of Fresh Fruit

Hard boiled eggs are a definite breakfast essential for me. Make them in advance for the week and store them in the fridge. Plus, it's always really weird to boil just a single egg when you want to eat one, so you might as well just boil a few at the same time.

But a single egg is definitely not a filling enough breakfast. I was particularly lazy on this morning, so all I did was pair a hard boiled egg with a big bowl of cherries and fresh mangos. YES. This was the easiest breakfast of all to make because I really didn't make anything. Who ever said breakfast cheaters never prosper??

4. Breakfast Smoothie!

I absolutely loveeee smoothies. SOOO MUCH. I literally get brain freeze just about every time I have a smoothie because I try to drink them so fast, but they're totally worth it. This week I made a strawberry/banana/peach smoothie. I think that all smoothies should have a little bit of banana in them, or they just don't taste right or don't have the right consistency. But then again, not everybody loves bananas as much as I do.

First, I blended together a whole banana, a whole peach, a couple of strawberries, and a few ice cubes. I like to blend all of the fruit together first--before adding in yogurt--so I can see how much yogurt I want to put in depending on how much fruit there is. Then I add in some yogurt (usually about a couple of spoonfuls),  re-blend it, and it's ready to drink! It's also good to add the yogurt last in case you put in too much fruit, or else you'll end up with a whole gallon of smoothie if you're not careful! I almost always end up making more smoothie than I thought I would.

5. Strawberry Yogurt 

Last but not least, I made a big bowl of strawberry yogurt. I started with about a cup of plain Greek yogurt and mixed in a little bit of honey. Then I cut up a cup of strawberries into small chunks and smooshed them into the yogurt using a spoon until the yogurt turned pink. Some chunks of strawberry remained, which is perfect. I added a lot of strawberries because I love them, plus it fills me up. Then I mixed in a couple spoons of wheat germ, and topped with almonds and cacao nibs. 

Yogurt with fresh fruit mixed in is always more filling than plain yogurt with granola topping, like I did on the 2nd day. So this was actually already a filling enough breakfast. 

So that was my week of experimenting with easy breakfasts. If you can't already tell, I really do love strawberries and bananas. So that's why I pretty much used strawberries and bananas in everything. 

The hardest part of the whole process was probably the cleaning up part, because I HATE CLEANING. But the breakfasts were all delicious and didn't take a lot of time or energy to make, so all in all, it was a successful week of eating breakfast :)