Weekend Wonderland

I feel as if I’ve been away from DC and the real world for a month. Funny how a five day weekend flies by but a three day work week feels like eternity. I guess that’s what President’s weekend  in Deer Valley, Utah with your girlfriends will do to you.

I’ll let my pictures speak for my time this past weekend.

 

Snow, mountains, and skiing. And lots of it. With some hot tubbing, vino, chefing, snuggling, board games, cereal and chili (preferably not together), and western living thrown in the mix.

 

 

 

 

Then there were eight girls, eight snowmobiles, and a plethora of jumps and windy mountain trails.

#reallifemariokart

  

 

Thanks for a great trip, biggies

 

 

How was your President’s Weekend?

Living on Lentils

Lentils: botanically-known as Lens culinaris esculenta, originated with our ancestors during the Neolithic period. The word’s Latin root is lens,  because the bean cousin is shaped like the double convex optic lens which took its name from the lentil.  There are hundreds of varieties of lentils, with as many as fifty cultivated for food.  They are rich sources of protein, folic acid, dietary fiber, vitamin C, B vitamins, essential amino acids and trace minerals.

This post’s title is not misleading. A girls gotta do what a girls gotta do. I have been nibbling my way through the lentil loaf leftovers from Sunday, in attempt to not be wasteful before I head home to this:

Pina coladas, warm weather, and….my laptop as I will be still working from home today.

 

Back to the lentils. Clearly, you all are on edge waiting to hear more. A week ago, prior to my lentil loaf, I concocted a red lentil soup in my Crockpot, surprise surprise.

Into the pot went:

• 3-4 cups lentils
• double the volume in vegetable broth
• garlic
• 1/2 a medium onion
• one large sliced leek
• mushrooms
• frozen peas (add at the end)
• curry, salt, pepper, chili sauce

I turned the Crockpot on high, set off to assist a yoga class at Flow, and when I returned my soup was fini e magnifique. Serve in a large preferably on sale Anthropologie bowl with fresh whole wheat bread and night. Bonus points that it was snowing all day and the boyfriend was a fan.

Lunch leftovers

 

I’m off to Florida to refresh with some Vitamin D  and detox from my lentils. Until next week with another lentil recipe (I kid), Au revoir.

From This to That

Last week’s cold temperatures brought mumblings of winter storms. The seven degree wind chill and falling snowflakes did not come until this morning. I was quite surprised to find DC a winter wonderland as I headed to spin class before work.

This:

Salted sidewalks in preparation

BUNDLED

That:

Fresh snow

Copenhagen style

 

I’ve brought back my morning juice. As of recent, I have been making a concerted effort to either leave time for prep, juicing, cleaning, and packing in the mornings or to make the concoction the night before. My new project team is all a bunch of health nut guys funnily enough, so they love my juices of the day. I tend to stick to a variance of kale, celery, carrot, parsley, lemon, apple or orange. But yesterday, (dun dun dun) I added a huge beet.  Don’t get me wrong, I love beets but the beet flavor was a little too predominant for my morning imbibing, though the color was nice.

This:

WSJ musings

That:

BEEETiful

From student to seat of the teacher, all in blue. Wonderful moment

This:

Class time

That:

Pardon the tears

 

Brace yourselves. Grocery stores are no longer selling canned pumpkin. This anguish is not to be taken lightly. Luckily enough, I had a spare can from my protein pancake addiction, and I got to baking for my Teacher Training graduation. Every celebration needs Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies right? Here’s my PRIZED recipe–you’ll make a lot of friends with this one, I promise

Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies (Recipe source Food Network)

Ingredients

• 1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
• 1 cup white sugar
• 1 cup light brown sugar
• 2 large eggs
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 cup canned pumpkin puree
• 3 cups all-purpose flour
• 2 teaspoons baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
• 1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
• 1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
• 2 cups (12-ounce bag) milk chocolate chips, not semisweet
• Nonstick cooking spray or parchment paper

Directions

Heat the oven to 350 degrees F. Spray cookie sheets with nonstick spray or line them with parchment paper. Using a mixer, beat the butter until smooth. Beat in the white and brown sugars, a little at a time, until the mixture is light and fluffy. Beat in the eggs 1 at a time, then mix in the vanilla and pumpkin puree. In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, and cloves. Slowly beat the flour mixture into the batter in thirds. Stir in the chips. Scoop the cookie dough by heaping tablespoons onto the prepared cookie sheets and bake for 15 to 20 minutes, or until the cookies are browned around the edges. Remove the cookie sheets from the oven and let them rest for 2 minutes. Take the cookies off with a spatula and cool them on wire racks.

This:

Oh, yes

That:

Pumpkin fest

 

A perfect complement to yoga certificates, food, and meditative states–the construction of our vision boards. For those of you who are reading this puzzled, it’s a photo collage to inspire, drive, and remind you of your goals.

This:

We like magazines

That:

Finished.

Tell me a this to that?