A few weeks ago I was in a food rut and needed something to pull me out of my funk. Enter this mussel recipe! I had never attempted to make mussels at home, but knew they were relatively cheap and easy so I thought I would give it a shot! I was tempted to do a classic butter and white wine sauce, but I saw this recipe on Cooking Light and thought it sounded great, and it isn’t as bad for the waist line! Chris and I were not let down!
Happy Monday everyone! It’s a very weird Monday for me, my last day of work was Friday so I’m spending today running errands and doing my usual weekend tasks. I don’t think the fact that I am finished working and about to be a student again has really hit me yet! I’m sure it will as soon as I’m up to my neck in law school reading. Anyway, since Friday was my last day, my boss surprised my team and I with cupcakes to celebrate and say goodbye! I had a chocolate cupcake at work, and let Chris enjoy the red velvet beauty in the photo above when I got home. They were HUGE cupcakes from a store called Edibles Incredible in the Reston Town Center. It was such a treat and I was very thankful. Sad to say goodbye and move on to the next phase of my life, but I’m excited at the same time!
Filed under Life, restaurant, summer, Weekend Shapshots
One of the reasons I love summer is because all my favorite vegetables are in season. I love to roast squash and zucchini year round, but sometimes you just need to switch things up! I was inspired by a gratin on Kath’s blog, but didn’t want to add a ton of cheese to my vegetable side. Luckily, my experiment worked! This is definitely my new favorite way to enjoy summer veggies!
Filed under cooking, food, healthy, quick, side, summer, summer squash, tomato, vegetable, vegetarian, yellow onion
Chicken fajitas are delicious and easy to make. I love making fajitas for dinner because they’re filling and chock full of veggies. However, I’m usually content to just dice up the chicken and cook it in the skillet right along with the vegetables and a packet of taco seasoning. There is nothing wrong with that method, but these chicken fajitas kick my taco packet fajitas in the behind.
Monday, Monday, Monday! I hope everyone had a nice weekend! I had a pretty quiet weekend myself, Chris has been preparing for the Virginia Bar Exam which is coming up this week, so I laid low with him for most of the weekend. On Friday night, we decided to order dinner in from Piola. While we waited for our pizza to arrive, I threw together a salad for each of us using up some ingredients which were leftover from the week in my refrigerator. Spinach, carrots, cucumbers, hard boil eggs, fresh mozzarella from last weekend’s caprese salad, and grilled chicken from chicken fajitas that I made earlier this week. Fajita recipe coming this week!
Our pizza arrived shortly after we finished our salads. We decided on the Chieti which is topped with chicken, arugula, tomatoes, and mozzarella. We have ordered this pizza before and really enjoyed it, however the one we received on Friday wasn’t very warm so I wasn’t a huge fan. Chris enjoyed it though! I’m not very keen on cold pizza, I know, I’m weird!
I was supposed to meet my friend Lauren for outdoor yoga on Saturday morning, but we decided to nix the idea since it was raining. I ended up sleeping in pretty late, guess the week before had worn me out! When I finally got out of bed, I threw together a quick breakfast/lunch. Orange slices, turkey bacon, home fries, and scrambled eggs. Don’t those scrambled eggs look nice and fluffy? I don’t usually get such a good result, I must have been on my egg game! 
Couldn’t help myself, sorry! The eggs were great though, I squeezed in a little sriracha before I scrambled them which added a welcome kick of heat to spice up the early afternoon.
Since it continued to rain all day Saturday I decided to knock out some laundry, and poured over some cookbooks and magazines for blog inspiration. I ventured out to the grocery store a little later in the afternoon to put some of that inspiration into action!
I returned home with lots of goodies for Chris to take with him when he takes the bar (since it’s a two-day exam) and ingredients for what I hoped would be a delicious dinner. I decided to make an Israeli Couscous and Grape Tomato Salad along with Instant Seduction Pork Chops. The editors of 100 Recipes Every Woman Should Know coined these as Instant Seduction, not me!
I’m not sure about Instant Seduction, but these were some wonderful chops! Chris was asking me to make them again before we had even cleaned up dinner! I’ll be posting the recipes for the pork chops and the couscous salad soon, don’t worry! Both were pretty simple to throw together, which is the mood I’ve been in lately when it comes to recipes.
I woke up on Sunday to gray skies again, so I cooked up some more turkey bacon and home fries. I switched out the scrambled eggs and orange though for a half of an apple with a bell pepper and cheddar cheese omelet. I could barely eat half of my plate! Fun fact– I’m not a huge breakfast fan, I understand how important it is though and eat it everyday. However, I very much prefer lunch and dinner!
Seeing that I didn’t finish my breakfast, lunch came a few short hours later! Chris and I were in the mood for something warm and comforting, so we split a can of soup with grilled cheese and tomato sandwiches. We used a loaf of Italian bread and American cheese because that was all the market in my building had, and I was too lazy to run out to the grocery store. I couldn’t tell you the last time I had a white bread and American grilled cheese, but boy was it good! Definitely a special treat!
I spent the rest of the afternoon helping Chris get ready to head down to Roanoke for the bar. In the early evening I got started on dinner, and some more new blog posts!! The first was a summer vegetable pie, which I had made before on a whim. After our first try we knew it definitely needed to be made again and photographed for the blog. Here’s a preview:
Looks pretty wonderful right?! For our main course I made a lighter version of Shrimp and Grits, I figured Chris needed one more comforting meal before he lives out of a hotel room for the new few days.
Shrimp and Grits are really not that difficult to make, and are so sinfully delicious. Luckily, I was able to make a few modifications here and there so they weren’t quite as high in fat and calories. Recipe for the Shrimp and Grits will be posted pretty soon too!
That was about it for me folks! Not too crazy of a weekend, but it was relaxing and a good weekend for the blog to say the least! I hope you had a nice relaxing weekend as well!
Filed under Life, restaurant, Weekend Shapshots
I decided to make Chicken Piccata for dinner the other night because I had a few lemons near the end of their lives in my crisper drawer. I was originally going to make it sans breading, but a short text conversation with Chris confirmed that breadcrumbs would be involved. I managed to keep things on the lighter side though by using a minimal amount of butter, no wine, and just a little olive oil spray. We were very satisfied with the results!
Filed under chicken, cooking, easy, food, Italian, lightened up, main course, quick
I have a simple and quick recipe for you all today! Easy dinners are the best, especially after a long hot summer day! I made this Spicy Lemon and Garlic Shrimp on a whim when I was feeling too lazy for an involved dinner, and it has become a fast favorite! I’ve made this twice using precooked shrimp, but you could use raw as well.
