Return of Kale Chips!

I had a bit of a late lunch of Fage yogurt and a banana with peanut butter. The yogurt was topped with sliced strawberries and a sprinkle of cheerios. I guess this looks more like a breakfast plate, but, it was a great lunch! 

The rest of my day was filled with a wonderful date with my best friend from home. We pretty much spent 5 hours on my porch just chatting away about life. She recently returned from a trip to China and she brought me back all sorts of neat things! I’m particularly excited to use the chop sticks.

As we chatted I munched on the bag of “Chinese” peanut M & Ms. By 7pm I was hunngrrryy and whipped up aquick dinner, including KALE CHIPS! It’s been quite a while since the last time I’d made ’em!  I used the Kale we got at the farmer’s market, it was the flat leaf kind, came out delicious!  I made two trays-full and devoured them both … 

The rest of dinner was composed of gyoza dumplings and a big beet! While cooking dinner I ate a few hunks of french baguette. 
A great filling dinner. Love how easy the gyozas are to steam up in a flash! Topped these with soy sauce. After dinner I was excited to see that my Amazon package had arrived – its contents are very exciting! After a few months of deliberating I finally took the plunge and bought a French Press coffee maker. I’m a huge coffee drinker and always use an automatic drip coffee. But after having Jeff’s french press coffee there’s just no denying how much better pressed coffee tastes. So, I’m excited to use this guy this year! I may test it out tomorrow morning – mom is eager to try it out.

I was then inspired by Tina of Carrots n Cake and her recent post on Kodiak Cakes. They sounded great and having to only add water to the mix sounded like a great camping trip item! I found a 3 pack on Amazon for just $11 so gave it a shot. 3 boxes though… that’s a lot of flapjacks .. better get eatin’!

Jazzy Friday

Today’s conference went by much quicker than yesterday. I think it was that the sessions were much more on-topic for me personally, the fact that I knew it was Friday (homestretch!) and also that it actually did end earlier! 3:30 rather than 5:30 like yesterday. Lunch involved this:Spinach salad mix, black beans, carrots, green beams, persian cucumbers, nutritional yeast, and a bunch of roasted veggies I added on at the conference from their lunch spread. Yumm.
Ok, the conference didn’t really “end” at 3:30… but a bunch of us interns realized that our note-taking and interviewing work was done, so, we took it upon ourselves to head home for the weekend! I was feeling a bit pooped after not sleeping great last night, but got energized on my walk home.

I rounded up Matt from his day-long museum excursions and we put together a fabulous, slow-carb diet-friendly picnic dinner to bring to Jazz in the Garden. It was my second time going and it was really fun the first time, basically a nice excuse to sit outside, sip wine, munch, and enjoy some live performances. It was really nice out today too, and thanks to getting out early we got a great spot on the lawn.

We ate … 

mmmm beans/salsa/avo combo mush :)

drank..

sat under the awesome tree scuplture..

and fell asleep! A perfect Friday evening :)

This is right after I woke up from a 40 minute pass-out in the middle of the giant crowd. Just making sure I didn’t look too cracked out … Matt was still asleep! Too much sun… too much work.. okay maybe too much wine ;)

We came back to my apt thinking we’d venture out again for drinks somewhere with some folks but once we chilled out we realized it would be just fabulous to stay put and have a relaxing night. I munched on some raw almonds and decided we needed a more fun snack for this Friday night – perfect night for kale chips!  

Time for some good sleep now. SO EXCITED for cheat day tomorrow!! I’ve got lots of goodies I’m looking forward to eating. Lots of ’em! Ones like this:

source: http://blisstree.com/eat/chocolate-croissant-bread-pudding-for-mothers-day/

G’night.