Top O' The Morn

Good morning :) and Happy St. Patty's Day.

I am not wearing green, not baking anything green . . . so I thought I'd post a picture of my favorite salad these days (because at least that's green).

I can't stop making it. It has kale, roasted sweet potatoes, quinoa and craisins. You can find the recipe here. I also like to add sliced bosc pears for some extra awesome.

Today is off to a funny start. I had a rough time going to 5:45am cycle class last week due to the time change, but I went to my favorite class this morning and I feel OK. 

I called into a staff meeting at 7:30, but there was some technical difficulty going on. It just ended up being me and 3 other staff members chatting with one another for about 20 minutes, waiting for the problem to be fixed but it never got resolved. Oh well, what can you do. I am thankful that I like my co-workers, otherwise I wouldn't have found that entertaining :).

So here I am . . . finally writing a new post after a week (yikes!). My goal in blogging is to post 3-4 times a week, but clearly it didn't happen last week. It was just an insane, non-stop, stay at work late and then dream about work kind of week. I haven't had a week like that in a very, very long time. Here's to hoping that this week will be better.

Confession: I don't know how to slow down. Not only was the past week insane, the weekend was busy too. It was filled with good things - the gym, volunteering (but I volunteered so much that I didn't get to attend church), cooking, visiting old friends and family. 

This morning I remembered a sermon that my pastor did several weeks ago where he talked about how busyness can be a problem. We need balance, we need rest, we need time to process and hear from God and meditate on His Word. If we're too busy, we miss out on the most important thing - deepening our relationship with Him. Busyness can become dangerous.

I just need to block out some time this morning to spend with Him in quiet reflection, prayer and reading my Bible. Isn't it refreshing (and humbling) to know that we never get to a place in our lives where we don't need Him daily? The longer I walk with God, the more I am aware of how necessary that daily time is. We never get past needing His grace - and that is a comfort to me.

Here is a brief rundown of some adventures lately:

I saw this cake on a blog and I also remembered it from the Walter Mitty movie (super good, if you haven't already seen it!) . . . clementine cake. I decided to get started on the most time-consuming part of the recipe, boiling clementines for 2 hours (2 hours!). So strange, boiling citrus. I don't know when I will finish making the cake, but I suspect it's gonna be good.

I also decided to make chocolate mousse for a friend . . . for the first time from scratch. It didn't turn out so well on the first attempt. I was almost in tears after the chocolate seized up instead of melting smoothly.

Praise the Lord I had more chocolate and whipping cream on hand, so I started again - this time using a simpler recipe. It turned out really well - good thing, because I was out of chocolate at this point.

I have been wanting to read this book for a while, One Thousand Gifts by Ann Voskamp. It ties into what I posted last week - changing your perspective, cultivating contentment, having your eyes opened to the thousands of blessings you have even in the daily and mundane. 

However, I didn't realize that the first chapter would be suuuuper emotional because the author starts off, very descriptively, with tragedy that she's had in her life. You. Will. Need. Tissues. 

I am excited to read the book - I can tell it's going to be great. 

Happy Monday!!

a recipe from the weekend

 

I have a confession. 

Sometimes, as I'm falling asleep at night, I can't wait for the morning - because I get to drink coffee and have breakfast. I just love it.

Last week, Carly made these crazy good sweet potato waffles and I just had to make them once I was back home. The recipe is here.

They call for coconut flour, so they're actually gluten free if you follow the recipe.

I had never used coconut flour . . . but it is amazing and fragrant and adds a natural sweetness. 

These waffles have a fluffy and moist texture about them, and the sweet potato is paired nicely with some orange zest - which gives it a nice fresh citrus kick.

The only modifications I made were:

• instead of 1/4 cup butter, I used 1/8 cup butter + 1/8 cup applesauce.
• instead of coconut milk, I used cow's milk (but only because I didn't have coconut milk)
• I also didn't have sage, so I left it out - and they were still baller (or bomb, as you would say if you were in California).
• She doesn't specify when to add your whole eggs, so I folded them in with the sweet potato mixture.

The only catch is that they don't hold completely well together (perhaps because of the coconut flour?) . . . just make sure you spray/oil/butter your waffle iron enough so that those puppies can just slide right out.

Drizzle some pure maple syrup on top and you are on your way to breakfast heaven.

friday food find

This week, I made slow cooker butternut squash soup with maple roasted chickpeas.

I had a slight obsession with one of Panera's seasonal soups this fall. It was their Autumn Squash Soup. I capitalized that because it was SO GOOD. 

I needed an intervention . . . I was going to Panera at least once a week for that heavenly goodness. I decided that I needed to learn how to make it at home, so I went on an epic quest to do so. I tried at least 4 different recipes (and self-proclaimed "copycat" recipes) and even tried inventing one myself. They all fell short. None were worthy. So I just kept going to Panera.

Until one fateful day, I crossed the threshold of the store only to see my soup had been replaced (blurg!) by a new winter soup. I did a 360 and marched right out of the store, fighting back tears (not really, but it was pretty awful).

I may or may not have sent an email to Panera that was peppered with phrases like, "my life is over," "what happened to my beloved soup" and so on.

To which they so nonchalantly replied something to the effect of, "never fear, our seasonal soups may return."

*sigh*

Anyway, this soup was not autumn squash soup, BUT it was my favorite butternut squash recipe that I have tried, and I've tried at least six.

AND it's so low maintenance if you use the slow cooker. win. The maple roasted chickpeas have so much cinnamon and goodness, it will make your house smell like a cinnabon. I am not even joking.