Tasty Tidbits & a New Shower

This week flew by! It seemed like we had something happening every evening. Even on Tuesday, the only evening we were plan-free, I had laundry & cleaning to catch up on from the weekend! I loved seeing Alex again. We walked, shopped, ate, cooked, canned tomato sauce, took crazy pictures, biked 21 miles, & laughed a lot.

We have a super exciting project lined up for the weekend: replacing the shower in the bathroom! When we moved into our house, there was a bathfitter in there. The ceiling was so low that we kept bumping into it, so the Bup & his brother removed it. There was a pretty archway underneath it, so we were really happy to have opened up the space. He sealed the top & caulked it, so it still looked pretty much finished. Since then, we had "new shower" at the bottom of our list of projects, knowing it would need to be replaced, but we didn't think it was urgent. In the last month or so, we've noticed it deteriorating - mold was growing around the tub/wall connection & as much as we cleaned it, we couldn't keep it under control. Then last weekend, we started hearing/feeling a big squish of water underneath the tub liner everytime we stepped into the shower. Not good. So now we're forced to replace it sooner than we thought. I hope it goes well & there's no long-lasting damage! I'll keep you posted.

Here's what we've been eating in the last week:

Breakfasts

• Canteloupe smoothies
• Yogurt with a variation on my Millet & Oat Granola
• Cereal: Puffed Millet, Puffed rice & Kashi Cinnamon Harvest Whole Wheat Biscuits with vanilla almond milk on it.
• Overnight oats: 1/2 c rolled oats, 2 T yogurt, 1/3 c almond milk, 1 tsp. chia seeds, 1/2 tsp. cinnamon
• Ashley's Apple Breakfast Scramble - Mine didn't look anything like her picture, but it was still really good, especially with coconut almond butter on it!
• Fresh fruit: peaches, blueberries, bananas

Lunches

• Kale salad
• Leftovers
• Sandwiches
• Sweet Potato rounds w/ Mama Pea's Peanut Mmmm Sauce
• Jessica's Sweet Corn & Roasted Jalapeno Hummus with carrot sticks & spelt pretzels
• Apples, pears, peaches

Dinners

Sunday:

• Black bean burgers on whole wheat potato rolls
• Grilled Corn on the Cob with Cajun Seasoning

Monday:

• Highlands Grill date night!

Tuesday:

• Zucchini & onions sauteed with spinach ravioli - This is so simple & one of our quick go-to meals during zucchini season. I'll share a recipe for it soon!

Wednesday:

• Valentina's Summer Corn Chowder  - We really liked this summery & fresh soup. We were worried about having soup with all this heat, but it was great!
• I made a few adjustments to the recipe:
• more onions
• no poblano peppers - we didn't have these, so I used a can of diced green chiles
• added about 1/2 tsp. smoked paprika & 2 tsp. Old Bay Seasoning
• did not use the basil, tomato & avocado garnishes
• Joy's Whole Wheat Flatbreads - This is a keeper recipe. The dough came together quickly & rose in an hour. I divided it in 4 & cooked them on my cast iron skillet. It did cause some smoking (and the smoke detector went off!) but that was only because it took me 2 flatbreads to get the heat level right. The flatbreads were perfect for with the soup. I can imagine them making delicious pizza crusts, too.

Thursday:

• Dinner at Mom & Pops' house. Mom made sauce with all of her tomatoes from the garden & we had it with rigatoni. On the side, we had a zucchini & mushroom salad.

Friday:

• Vegan Tomato Soup
• If you were wondering what we decided on last week, we ended up having sauteed zucchini & onions with black beans to go with the broiled new potatoes.

Desserts

• Angela's Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough "Blizzards"
• Mom's blueberry buckle, adapted & healthified from Betty Crocker