Tasty Tidbits

We celebrated my parents' retirement last weekend. I'm so happy for them!

When we went shopping for celebratory champagne, this fancy bottle caught our eye. Knowing that Dad loves interesting bottles, we thought this was perfect.

Opening it was quite a challenge & required actual tools. 

The hammer was just for show. :-) It must have been just intimidating enough to the bottle, though, because right after Dad picked it up, they got it open.

Cheers to Mom & Dad retiring!

In other news, we were blessed with an abundance of produce this week. In the mix: turnips, Tuscan kale, sweet potatoes, butternut squash, celery & leeks. I used them throughout the week & still have some left for next week.

And just in case you thought I'd move on to the food without the weekly picture of Tink...here are two!

She's so snuggly! (Yes, I'm wearing purple yoga pants. All the cool people are.) :-)

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

Breakfasts

• Raspberry yogurt with cherry & honey lentil granola 
• Minimalist Baker's Chocolate Chip Oatmeal Cookie Pancakes
• Whole Food's Flax & Honey Banana Bread
• Apple Cinnamon Oatmeal
• Bananas & crunchy peanut butter

Lunches

• Leftovers
• Mama Pea's Kale Sunshine Salad
• Grapefruit & oranges

Dinners

Saturday:

• Ashley's Apple Sage Chickpea Burgers - These were delicious! The apple & sage flavors were subtle but really added to the burger.
• Baked Sweet Potato Fries
• Green Salad with Mama Pea's Orange Balsamic Vinaigrette

Sunday:

• Asian noodle bowls: bean thread noodles, Jenna's Crispy Tofu, steamed broccoli, & sweet potatoes, topped with a lime/ginger/soy sauce 

Monday:

• Root Vegetable Winter Warmer Soup from Everyday Gluten-Free Slow Cooking: More Than 140 Delicious Recipes - Our crockpot was about help about 2 cups too little for this soup, but I crammed it in there anyway. I was able to chop the veggies on Sunday, then just dump them & the broth into the crock pot Monday morning. It was so nice coming home to the smell of soup.
• Bon Appetit's Boston Brown Bread - I didn't have any cans, so I made regular loaves. This paired really well with the soup, plus it's good on its own.

Tuesday:
Friends over for dinner

• Comfy Belly's Cheese Bread Pizza Crust dipped in tomato sauce, pesto, & bbq sauce

Wednesday:

• EatingWell's Moo Shu Vegetables served over millet - We loved the flavor & crunch of this dish. It came together quickly, too, since it calls for a bag of pre-shredded veggies. We used broccoli slaw as the base. I didn't have mung bean sprouts on hand, so we threw in celery instead. I think this is a good base recipe that we could change up a bit for each season.

Thursday:  

• Tortilla Pizzas - Brown rice tortilla topped with bbq sauce, tomato sauce or pesto, onions, broccoli, pineapple, kalamata olive & feta

Friday:

• EatingWell's Parmesan Spinach Cakes
• Sauteed leeks
• Roasted beets & cauliflower

Treats

• Trader Joe's Sipping Chocolate
• Bon Appetit's Cherry Almond Granola Bars
• Deb's Chocolate Sorbet
• Lisa's Chocolate Avocado Pudding
• Mom's Nut Roll