Hey friends!

I had an amazingly productive and refreshing weekend and I am more than ready to conquer this week ahead.  I hope you all had a fun, fantastic, amazing weekend too!

Yesterday, I read a very inspiring post from the fabulous Carla Birnberg:  Don’t Compare You to…YOU.  I totally had an “ah ha!” moment while reading.  For me, it was a very timely find and I honestly recommend anyone read it.  Good words to live by, Carla 🙂

Here are a few snapshots from my weekend.

Friday night, I got busy in the kitchen prepping food for the week because I knew I had things I needed/wanted to get done on Saturday and Sunday and I have several late nights this week.  For me, the prep is everything!

Saturday morning, I got up bright and early (actually it was still dark) and hit the pavement for a nice 6 mile run.  I was expecting to run at my normal 8:30 pace, but when I looked at my watch I saw that we were comfortably running around a 7:50 the entire time! Boy, was that a great start to my day!

I did a little experimenting in the kitchen with a plantain!  The Purely Twins ADORE plantains, and I have been so curious about cooking with this new-to-me fruit.   I popped over to their web site and gave Brian a couple of plantain recipe options, and he thought the Flourless Vegan Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Blondies sounded best.

Friends, the blondies are so good!! Brian literally couldn’t stop saying how moist and flavorful they were…and that he couldn’t believe they were made with a plantain 🙂

For dinner, I whipped up some of McKel’s dairy free cauliflower crust pizzas.

While cooking dinner, Brian and I snacked on a few pieces of this delicious cheese from Aldi.  Yum!

Can ya guess which one is mine?!

My toppings:  tomato sauce, olives, kale, basil, and sun dried tomatoes.

Brian’s toppings:  tomato sauce, pepperoni, and CHEESE! 🙂

Then, I decided to experiment with another new-to-me ingredient…Nutritional Yeast.  I used it in some of McKel’s Vegan Cashew Cheese Sauce…doesn’t quite taste like cheese, but I still think it is SO good!!

Sunday, I met up with a girlfriend for a jog and a cup of coffee.  She made sure to bring her cute little French bulldog puppy!  Isn’t he adorable?

I made my first-ever omelette for Brian to eat for a late breakfast.  While it looked great, for some reason the inside was still a bit runny.  Any omelette making tips out there?

Lunch snack plate (after I had already eaten most of it!)  leftover cauliflower pizza, vegan cheese and veggies…yum!

Then, for dinner I experimented with the newest addition to the Rochford kitchen.  My Zyliss Julienne Peeler!

I peeled up some zucchini and summer squash to make my first ever batch of “zoodles.”

I topped the zoodles with the cashew cheese and shrimp and served with with a side salad.

Hers:

Can ya tell Brian likes cheese?

His:

And that is our weekend in a nutshell…

Question of the Day:

• Have you ever used nutritional yeast?
• Have you ever made zoodles?
• Any omelette making tips?  The center of my omelette was a bit runny!
• What is something fun you did this weekend?