Hey guys! I just got back from a perfectly crazy-fun weekend in Nashville for my best friend's bachelorette party. I'm planning on posting a PG-13 recap of it on Thursday (although we were on very good behavior, so I don't even know if I could make it R-Rated). For now, I'm going to share a recipe I made last week. I'm very fond of chicken parmies (short for parmigiana) in Australia. They are pounded thin, breaded and deep-fried, coated with tomato-based sauce and cheese, and then served with fries and a small side salad. All facts considered, it's hard to not like. I had the parmy pictured below on December 26th of last year in Adelaide and devoured it. 

I don't own a deep-frying  device and the parmies posted above are not mainstream in America (please send me a note if you think I can find this in a pub in Chicago!), so I tried to recreate it at home. 

Thanks to my stove top and oven, I made some pretty good chicken parmy. I used an almond crusting instead of bread crumbs, but you don't have to use nuts. We also used frozen French fries (because we thought of the fries at the last minute and didn't have any potatoes). In addition to Things That Are Not Homemade, I used a store-bought pasta sauce. However, I'll add a link for instructions on how I made homemade pasta sauce! I promise that this is much healthier than what I ate on December 26th (and it still tastes good!). 

If your chicken breasts aren't already thin, you'll need to pound them. Al and I usually cover them in Glad Wrap and pound them with our fists to make them flatter. It's easy. 

You'll also want to make an egg wash. I usually make an "assembly line" on the way to the pan with the egg wash
first, then the coating. It creates less mess. 

Here's the recipe!

Homemade Chicken Parmy

Ingredients

• 1 chicken breast for each serving, skinless, boneless, and pounded thin
• 1 T olive oil
• For each chicken breast, you need:
  • 1/4 cup almonds
  • 1 tsp basil, dried
  • 1 tsp oregano, dried
  • 1/4 tsp garlic powder
  • Salt and pepper, to taste
  • 1 egg (although this might be excessive; 1 egg might cover 2 breasts
  • 1/4-1/2 cup pasta sauce, depending on how much you want (Classico is my favorite jarred pasta sauce, in the Roasted Garlic Flavor. Look here for how to make homemade pasta sauce.)
  • 1/4-1/2 cup shredded mozzarella cheese

​
Directions

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.
2. Place the almonds, basil, oregano, garlic powder, salt, and pepper into blender/food processor and blend/pulse until the almonds are finely ground. Place into shallow bowl.
3. Crack eggs into shallow bowl and whisk well. 
4. Meanwhile, heat olive oil on medium-high heat in pan. When ready, submerge each piece of chicken (one at a time) into egg wash and then, carefully shaking off excess drippings, drop into bowl with the almond coating and flip. Once the chicken is fully-coated on both side, place onto pan. 
5. Cook each piece for 1-2 minutes on each side, or until it starts to brown.
6. Place chicken breasts into 9x13 clear baking dish (you may want to use cooking spray or more oil to prevent sticking) and cover breasts with the sauce and cheese. Cover with foil and bake in oven for 25 minutes.
7. After 25 minutes, remove foil and bake uncovered for an additional 5 minutes or until chicken is fully cooked through. 

To make it  a true Australian parmy, eat with fries (aka hot chips!), a side salad, and a cold beer to drink. Sprinkle chicken salt on your chips. 

I like an easy meal, and a simple curry meets the mark. I've been making Thai curries a lot lately. I savor the idea of coming home from work, throwing some chopped veggies on the pan, pouring in spices and a few other goodies such as coconut milk, and then eating soon after. Lots of flavor, but not labor-intensive. I've learned to be more heavy-handed with my seasoning lately (I need to do it), and I think that the curries I've been cooking are tasty. Even Al likes them. 

I like my curries better when I cut my onions into long strips instead of dicing them. It changes the texture of the dish. 

I've also been using baby bok choy quite a bit. I'm not very experienced with this vegetable, but I like the crunch and the look of it. I rinse them and then break off the leaves (from the bottom) and add them to the pan. The slow heat breaks down the base, which is much tougher than the leaves. 

Colorful veggies = WIN!

I planned to make a tofu curry for this recipe, but my grocery store was out of firm tofu. I was irritated for a few seconds, and then I realized that I could still make a protein-packed dish with chickpeas and quinoa. To make this a fully-vegetarian dish, omit the fish sauce. 

It's funny how this title has two foods that are entirely different, but they share similar themes: I made them (separately) this week, and they were altered to be healthier! One of the best parts about making these foods from scratch is that you, as the Head Chef, get to pick exactly which oils and seasonings to use.

 The tortilla chips were incredibly simple to make. I already had the corn tortillas. I just needed oil and seasoning. ​If you own a tortilla press, you can go another step towards making things from scratch and whip up your own tortillas! I've made them in my cooking classes while I was studying nutrition, but I've never made them at home. I buy the El Milagro yellow corn tortillas (I'm pretty sure it's the first product on the top left). 

I made a simple vegetarian taco salad with black beans, quinoa, avocado, corn, and olive oil dressing earlier this week. The homemade tortilla chips completed the salad. 

The next night, I wanted something that I could throw together quickly. I already had so much leftover quinoa, and I decided at the last minute that I wanted to make a variation of tofu fried rice. Thai curry was on my menu that night, but I'll save the coconut milk and try it next week! I had to listen to my cravings.

The end result was delicious! 

Homemade Corn Tortilla Chips

Ingredients

• 1 10-oz packet corn tortillas (or you can make your own. See recipe I found here!)
• 1/4 cup coconut oil, melted
• Spices, seasonings of your choice (I used cumin, salt, pepper, garlic powder)

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 350.
2. Cut tortillas into wedges (see above picture). Arrange into single layer on baking sheet. You might need more than 1 baking sheet. 
3. Brush wedges on either side with melted oil. Sprinkle both sides evenly with spices or seasonings.
4. Bake for 7-10 minutes or until they are crispy. Let cool and enjoy!

Tofu Fried Quinoa (makes 2 servings)

Ingredients

• 1 cup quinoa, cooked (about 1/3 cup dried)
• 1 cup white onion, chopped
• 1/2 cup red pepper, chopped
• 1 garlic clove, minced
• 2 Tablespoons green onions
• 1/4 package firm tofu, patted dry and cut into cubes
• 2 eggs
• 1-2 Tablespoons soy sauce
• 1/4  teaspoon thyme
• 1/4 + 1/2 teaspoon cumin
• Salt to taste
• 2 teaspoons coconut or olive oil

Instructions

1. Heat 1 Tablespoon of oil in pan over medium heat. 
2. Add onions and pepper and saute for 5 minutes or until onion is soft. 
3. Add quinoa, thyme,  1/4 teaspoon cumin,  salt, and soy sauce to pan, mix, turn off heat, and put aside. 
4. Heat 1 Tablespoon of oil in second pan on medium-high heat. In large bowl, mix tofu, 1/2 teaspoon cumin, and salt. 
5. Add tofu to pan. Make sure pieces are flat. Cook for about 5 minutes (or until lightly browned) and then flip pieces and cook for another 5 minutes. For crisper tofu, cook for longer on each side. 
6. Scoop tofu into pan with the quinoa and veggies. Turn heat back on low and mix. Once heated, carefully crack both eggs into the pan. Use spatula to mix the egg into the food as it cooks. Continue stirring until egg is cooked through. This should take about 1 minute. 
7. Add extra soy sauce or seasonings if desired. Portion onto plates and top with green onion. 

Here's something about me I bet you never knew: I am an expert in making lasagna. When I was in graduate school, we had to take a food science class. Our final project was picking a recipe and altering the ingredients every week. My group's recipe, or "control" recipe, was a basic vegetarian lasagna. Our "experiment" was changing something about the lasagna every class. One week, we experimented with fillings. Instead of ricotta cheese, we tried tofu or butternut squash. Another week, we switched out the tomato sauce with pesto or a basic store-bought sauce. Another time, we played around with the noodles and tried no-boil, butternut squash (lower-carb), and whole wheat noodles. There were other options for each week, but I can't remember them all.

Anyway, we had classmates in other groups taste our food and rank their favorite combos each week. (Many of us agreed to be tasters for multiple groups and we basically had to be rolled out of class because we ate so much.) For the last week, we compiled everyone's rankings and made a dish with the most popular filling, sauce, and noodle. Our final lasagna had a pesto sauce, butternut squash filling, and the no-boil noodle. I also had frozen lasagna filling up my freezer for weeks after taking home leftovers. In conclusion, nutrition school is fun.

To my knowledge, there was also a type of "noodle" that we never used for our experiment: spaghetti squash. Being the lasagna expert, I decided to create this in my own home. I hope that you try this, because it's incredibly easy and makes a lot of food!

P.S. The shot above is a pre-oven photo. My post-oven pic didn't turn out well!

Easy Spaghetti Squash Lasagna

Ingredients

• 1 large spaghetti squash
• 1 24-oz jar pasta sauce (preferably no added sugar- Classico Roasted Garlic is one of my favorite store-bought jarred pasta sauces) OR homemade pasta sauce*
• 2 cups whole milk ricotta cheese
• 2 cups cheddar cheese, shredded
• 2 cups baby spinach, rinsed
• salt and pepper, to taste
• 1 Tablespoon (plus extra for greasing baking dish) of olive oil or coconut oil, melted

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 450 degrees F.
2. Carefully cut spaghetti squash in half and remove seeds. Line baking sheet with foil. Brush insides of squash with oil. Place halves face-down onto baking sheet and bake for 45 minutes. When done, remove from oven and let cool.
3. Decrease oven temperature to 375 degrees F.
4. Grease 9x13-inch baking dish. Take first half of spaghetti squash and, using a fork, scrape lengthwise across squash to make "spaghetti" strands. Let the strands fall into the baking dish and evenly line the bottom of the dish with the squash. Use the whole half. This is your bottom layer, just like the pasta of the lasagna.
5. In a large mixing bowl, combine 1 cup ricotta cheese and 1 cup baby spinach. Add salt and pepper. Mix well and carefully spread evenly over spaghetti squash with spoon.
6. Evenly spread half of the pasta sauce on top of the spinach-cheese mixture.
7. Add second half of squash on top of the sauce. Spread evenly and then repeat steps 4 and 5.
8. Sprinkle cheese on top of the sauce.
9. Cover with foil and bake for 20 minutes covered. Remove foil and bake an additional 15-20 minutes or until top is slightly browned.

*If you can't find a good store-bought sauce (which means no added sugar, soybean oil, canola oil, excessive sodium, or a long ingredients list that you can't pronounce), you can easily whisk one together at home. All you need is 1 28-oz can of diced tomatoes, 1 6-oz can of tomato paste, 1/2 red onion (chopped), 2 garlic cloves (chopped) or 2 tablespoons of minced garlic, 1 handful of fresh spinach, and any spices or herbs that you like (salt, pepper, basil, oregano, chili powder, etc). Heat 1 tablespoon of olive oil or coconut oil and saute onion and garlic until the onion is soft. Add the rest of the ingredients and stir. Reduce heat, cover, and simmer for about 15 minutes. You can simmer for longer to get the flavors to meld together better. That's it!

It's still soup weather here in Chicago, and I decided that I MUST make tomato soup. I want my soups to have a lot of texture and color, and I also need them to be dairy-free. For those of you who are still experiencing cold weather and are lactose-challenged, this soup is for you!

This soup is mostly easy to  make. Chop veggies, open cans, dump things into a pot, stir things, and that's pretty much it. However, you have to blend to get the desired creamy-ish consistency. Let me give you a word of warning: your kitchen will get messy if you have a regular blender. 

I've heard of this mythical thing called an immersion blender before, but I've never owned or used one. After making the soup this week, it's on my list of things to get. 

To blend the soup, I had to physically remove the soup from the pot, blend it (in two batches) and transfer it to another pot. As much as I tried to prevent my stove and counter tops from becoming covered in red-green liquid, I couldn't prevent it. Rest assured, though, it was an easy cleanup and was worth the effort. If you hate messes but like blending things in its own container (i.e. tomato soup in the pot without removing it first and then moving it to a new pot), I recommend getting an immersion blender!

I thought the cheese quesadilla was a fun touch, too. It's like a variation on tomato soup and grilled cheese. Tex-Mex and tomato soup go well together!

I was so pleased with the end product. Briefly blending the soup gave it a bit of creaminess, but it still maintained its heartiness. I enjoyed ripping the quesadilla apart and mixing it into the soup. 

This recipe also makes at least four servings. For me, this gave me two dinners and two lunches. I didn't get sick of it. I felt sad and empty when I finished my very last bite. I ate it with a quesadilla three times and mixed in leftover whole wheat mini shells the other time. If you're not planning to eat all of it within a few days, freeze the leftovers and eat in the coming weeks. 

I hope that you make this and enjoy it as much I did!

Dairy-Free Tomato Soup (adapted from Wellness Mama's Simple Tomato Soup recipe)

Ingredients

• 1/4 cup coconut oil
• 1 medium yellow onion, chopped
• 3 cloves of garlic, minced, or 1 teaspoon garlic powder
• 2 large carrots, chopped
• 2 cups baby spinach
• 28 oz canned tomatoes (no added sugar)  or 6 fresh tomatoes, diced
• 2 cups bone broth* (can sub chicken broth or vegetable broth)
• 1 cup coconut milk
• 6 oz tomato paste
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon pepper
• 1/2 cup fresh basil or 3 Tablespoons dried

Instructions

1. Heat coconut oil over medium heat in large pan.
2. Add onions, garlic, and carrots to pan. Stir together and saute until onions are softened. 
3. Add tomatoes, stir, and cook for another 2 minutes.
4. Add the rest of the ingredients, stir, and bring to a boil.
5. Reduce heat, cover, and simmer for 30 minutes. 
6. Using immersion blender or regular large blender, blend soup for 5-10 seconds. You may need to do this in batches. 
7. Let cool, ladle into bowl, and enjoy! Garnish with fresh basil, if desired. 

To make the quesadilla, melt butter in pan over medium heat, heat 1 small corn or whole wheat tortilla for 1-2 minutes, add a handful of shredded cheese of your choice, top with another small tortilla (to make a sandwich), flip quesadilla over, and heat for 1-2 minutes. 

* Bone broth is literally broth that is made from bones. This is most commonly done with beef and chicken. I make mine by cooking a whole chicken in a crock pot, removing whatever meat I want to eat, and then returning the rest of the chicken (carcass, pieces of chicken I won't eat) to the crock pot. I add water, vegetable scraps, and 1-2 tablespoons of apple cider vinegar and then cook on low for about 12-24 hours (my apartment smells amazing). When it's ready, I strain the broth and keep it for soups or other recipes. Believe me when I say that this is the best broth you will ever try. It is wholesome and full-flavored and contains the good fats and minerals that leach from the contents of the meat and bones. If you just want to have bone broth without going through the labor (although I promise it's easy), you can probably buy it at the grocery store. We have the Pacific brand, plus others at our Jewel. Here's more info on bone broth and how you can make it without a crock pot.  

This recipe requires very few ingredients. The honey will give it a hint of sweetness. You can omit it, and it will still taste good without it. Like most salmon recipes, you can make this in under 20 minutes. 

Instead of pasta last night, I recreated the dish with a side of cucumber salad (prepared while my salmon was in the oven). I'll post that simple recipe below, too. 

Walnut Basil-Crusted Salmon  
(serves 2 or serves 1 and  makes great leftovers for the next day)

Ingredients

• 2x 3-5 oz salmon fillets (with or without skin)
• 1 cup fresh basil leaves
• 1/2 cup chopped walnuts
• 1/4 cup graded Parmesan cheese
• 1 tsp honey (optional, for additional sweetness)
• salt and pepper, to taste

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 450 degrees F. Line baking sheet with aluminum foil and spray with cooking spray  or spread olive or coconut oil on foil to avoid fish from sticking.
2. Put basil, walnuts, cheese, and honey into food processor. Blend until ingredients are ground and well-mixed together (about 5-10 seconds). 
3. Lightly sprinkle salmon with salt and pepper on each side. Place salmon with skin side-down onto foil (if your salmon has skin). 
4. Using a spoon, equally spread the walnut mixture onto the tops of the salmon fillets (see picture). Form an even layer. 
5. Place salmon in the oven and bake for 12-15 minutes or until done. 

Cucumber and Tomato Salad

Ingredients

• 1 large cucumber, chopped
• 10 oz. (or about 1.5 cups) grape tomatoes, halved
• 1/2 cup chopped white onion
• 3 large fresh basil leaves, chopped
• 3 T olive oil (I used herb-infused olive oil with this recipe)
• salt and pepper, to taste

Combine all ingredients and enjoy!

Hi friends! Yesterday was National Registered Dietitian Day. Did you know that we can also call ourselves Registered Dietitian Nutritionists? After I passed my RD exam, I was able to choose whether I wanted to be an RD or RDN. Some people choose the latter, but it sounds like too much of a mouthful to me.  The RDN certification is relatively new, and it is completely interchangeable with the RD.  

I hope that all of my fellow RDs (and RDNs!) enjoyed and celebrated in style, whether that be a kale salad or a giant brownie topped with vanilla ice cream. Whatever floats your boat! I made my own "ice cream" yesterday, but I'll cover that later in this post. 

I didn't work as an RD on RD Day. I'm a registry/PRN/per diem employee at two hospitals, which means that I'm scheduled to work as needed.  I get 24 hours, or three days, guaranteed per week at one of my jobs, and I get one to two days per week at the other. This means that I occasionally have days off of work. It's good and bad. On one side, I get a day off to do what I want. On the other side, I don't get paid when I'm not working. The advantage to not working yesterday is that I was able to assemble a fun day-in-the-life post of an RD on National RD Day. Because who cares what I'm doing when I at work?

In all seriousness, though, I will do something similar to a day-in-the-life work post since people ask me all the time what I do in hospitals. Trust me, we do more than pick out diets for patients. 

Without further ado, here is my Day-in-the-Life (or photo vomit) from Wednesday, March 9th of 2016. 

7:45 am: I sleep in much later than I would on a typical weekday. Al gets up to get ready for work. I check my e-mail, Facebook, and the weather in bed. 

8:00 am: I roll out of bed, brush my teeth, and keep Al company while he gets ready for work. I open the door to let in fresh air. It's a beautiful March day. ​

8:45 am: I walk over to the Medical Office Center next to Illinois Masonic Medical Center. I had my annual check up last week, and I need to get my fasted blood test. Interestingly, I am looking forward to this. I look at patients' lab results every day at work, and I want to know how  mine compare since I know what all of these tests mean. The lab gets me in and out quickly. 

9:30 am: I'm hungry for breakfast. I whip up two scrambled eggs with coconut oil, a chopped yellow pepper, and a shredded basil leaf. I'm loving the natural light in the back yard. 

9:45 am: I multitask by eating breakfast and reviewing my friend's reactions to specific foods on her FODMAPS chart that she sent to me the previous night. I have more research that I need to do. 

10:15 am: I walk to my gym and go to my Pilates class. I mostly go to Pilates on Saturday mornings, but it's a treat to go on a weekday. The classes are much less crowded, and we get more individual attention. Like any other type of exercise, proper form is important for the best results and decreasing injuries. With smaller classes, our instructors can be more helpful with checking our form. 

Our class is just small enough today that we all get foam rollers. My instructor usually charges extra money for foam rolling classes, so we're a lucky group to get to do it for free. We don't roll on them as others do to massage sore muscles. We use them as a balancing tool. If you're familiar with Pilates, imagine doing the Pilates abs series while you're lying on top of this thing (parallel to your spine). Your core that's already working is engaging harder to balance. All of the exercises are modified since many of them are nearly impossible if done normally, but I think that it's a nice change from a regular Pilates mat class. 

11:00 am: I walk to Jan Dee Jewelry to pick up my bracelet that I dropped off months ago to get shortened (I kept forgetting to get it). 

This bracelet was given to me by one of my oldest friends who asked me to be a bridesmaid in her wedding. All of our bracelets have the same bow but are customized with our initials. 

12:15 pm: I arrive home and go through my physical and virtual mail.
​
12:45 pm: Lunch is served! I heat up a homemade mozzarella-stuffed broccoli turkey burger, spaghetti squash, and oven-baked french fries. I add tomato slices to my burger (doesn't it look like a heart?) and top my spaghetti squash with herb-infused olive oil, Parmesan cheese, and fresh basil. These are leftovers, so putting everything together only takes about five minutes. 

1:30 pm: I open my new shipment from Fabletics.  I get my workout clothes from many different places, but I've been ordering a lot from Fabletics lately. The Salar capri is one of my favorite workout pants. They're comfortable and are great for running, Pilates, and everything in between. I have the capris in pink and purple, and I wanted to try them in black. 

I decide to keep the Mosa tank. It's a fun and flowy top that is also great for running. I'm drawn to the detail in the back. I have to decide about the pants, though. They don't look as flattering on me as the colorful capris that I already own. 

2:00 pm: I make banana "ice cream". My cousin is a Beachbody coach and gave me this recipe from the Fixate 21 Day Fix book.  It's called Chunky Money Ice Cream in the book. To make a small, personalized version, blend 1 frozen banana (broken into chunks) and 1 Tbsp of natural peanut butter. You can top with chopped almonds or semi-sweet chocolate chips. That's all you have to do. It looks and tastes like ice cream. You must try it. 

2:30 pm-6:30 pm: I send e-mails back and forth for my friend's bachelorette party in Nashville in May, work on this blog post, and take a long shower. Al comes home. 

6:30 pm: I make dinner. I marinade wild cod in a bowl with lemon juice, 2 cloves of garlic, and olive oil. I bake it for 15 minutes at 350 degrees. While that's cooking, I use my spiralizer to turn one zucchini into "pasta". I chop up the last of a tomato in the fridge and add that, along with leftover spaghetti squash, fresh basil, Parmesan cheese, and olive oil to the zucchini and mix. Once the fish is done, I plate it on top of the zucchini. 

The end result is phenomenal. Together, it reminds me of clam linguine at an Italian restaurant. Forget about the fact that the pasta is actually a green vegetable and that the fish is not shellfish. It just tastes that good. 

​7:30 pm: My hair has naturally dried into an afro. I blow it dry and straighten it. 

8:00 pm: I work on my blog, play around on Instagram, do some more research on my Nashville trip and FODMAPS, and eat some frozen mango with Al. 

10:00 pm: Bed time! 

One of my favorite parts of being on a break from school is having the time to do things that I love doing. I'm finally getting to a point in my life where I realize that there's no value in sleeping until 10 am on my free days. By the time I'm done checking my e-mail, reading through my Facebook news feed, going through my USA Today news app, reading some blogs, and playing a few rounds of Candy Crush while still in bed, I'm famished and wanting to eat a late breakfast. This delays my workout, so I sit around and watch TV until I don't feel full anymore. Unfortunately, I'm hooked on a TV show on Netflix by this time and don't feel like doing anything except for watching more episodes. So I sit around and watch until I feel hungry again. And the cycle continues. By 4 pm, I'm in state of self-loathing for wasting an entire day, but I still can't get up from the couch and stop watching TV. Then Al comes home and wants dinner, and we watch more TV. Days like this of being a couch potato are fine once in a while if I'm sick or burned out, but doing them too often are just plain depressing. 

I was worried that I would do this on my break, but I've been waking up before the sun every morning and getting my workout out of the way so that I could start getting things done. Yesterday, I needed to bake cookies for a cookie exchange that one of my school friends was hosting. I also decided to make a warm spinach and artichoke dip to serve with chips. 

I saw a recipe on one of my favorite blogs (Peanut Butter Fingers) for chocolate crinkle cake mix cookies that I was dying to try. All you need is devil's food cake mix, canola oil, eggs, and powdered sugar. 

It was very easy to make. 

Unfortunately, I left the cookies in the oven for too long. They still looked raw to me after 12 minutes (the instructed baking time), and I let them bake for a few more minutes. I should have known better. I just finished a food science class that had labs and written exams on baking, so I should have realized that the cookies would harden as they cooled. They should have been moist and cake-like, but my finished product was dense and slightly bitter tasting. 

I tried heating one in the microwave for 10 seconds, and it tasted a lot better since it was sightly melted. At least I'll know for the next time to follow oven directions.

I didn't have time to buy more ingredients and bake new cookies, so I just hoped that mine were passable and put them in clear gift baggies with dark chocolate M&Ms and tied them closed with white ribbons. 

I also put together a quick spinach and artichoke dip using this recipe. I made the following changes: low-fat mayo, low-fat cream cheese (1/3 less fat), and non-fat Greek yogurt instead of sour cream. I served it at the party with tortilla chips, and it was a huge hit. It definitely made up for my hard cake cookies. 

I think that cookie exchanges are such a wonderful idea. Erica, the host, provided us with baggies so that we could go around the table and take whichever ones we wanted. It was fun to sample everybody's cookies and take them home with us. 

You come with one batch of cookies, and you leave with a variety of them!

The grapes and raspberries were the nutrition-friendly stars of the table. They didn't last very long. 

Everything was incredibly good. 

We also got to play with some adorable kids. I was never a "kid person", but I love being around them more and more as my friends are having babies. 

Soon after I got home with my bags full of cookies, my brother asked me if I could take Libby outside for a walk since he was tied up at work for a few more hours. We currently live a block and a half away from each other, so it's usually not a problem for me to take her outside. His girlfriend helps with Lib mostly, but I'll step in if she's busy. I don't usually mind going over there to see one of the most adorable dogs in the world. 

Anyway, Libby didn't greet me at the door when I walked inside his apartment. She'll usually be waiting at the door for me, or she'll come running over to me within a couple of seconds. I called her, and she didn't come. I walked to the back of his place and found her spread out on my brother's bed with her ears back, eyes closed, tail wagging, and the corners of her mouth curled up like she was trying to smile. Maybe she was acting guilty for being on his bed? Anyway, it was so ridiculously adorable. She actually does a doggie smile sometimes where she goes as far as scrunching up her snout and showing her teeth. Aren't dog smiles the cutest? 

I took her outside where she pranced around in the snow and then started eating it after she did her business. It was freezing outside, but I still took her to the dog park for about 10 minutes. There were a few dogs there, although she ate snow more than she played with other dogs. 

I'm in the suburbs at my parents' house until Sunday. I'm spending quality time with the pups there. Expect some more dog photos soon!

Alastair's brother's girlfriend Aysza (sounds just like "Asia") sent me the best birthday gift in June: a spiral cutter!

I decided to break it out and make zucchini "pasta" last week. I washed 2 large zucchini, and I had this in five minutes:

The spiral cutter is incredibly easy to use. I just stuck a zucchini into the hole and twisted. The spiral strips came out through the slits and fell right into the bowl. No chopping or cooking required. The only hard part was my sore arm. Maybe my arm will hurt less if I do this all the time. 

Since I was making "pasta", I needed some sauce. I chopped up a bunch of other veggies from the fridge (mushrooms, onions, jalapeno, celery, spinach) and made a sauce with ground turkey similar to this recipe. 

I poured the sauce over a large handful of "pasta" and sprinkled on some parmesan cheese. 

Ladies and gents, it was a hit! There was no tricking me into thinking that it was real pasta, but the crunchy and spiral texture of the zucchini made it a lot of fun to eat. Plus, I could twirl it around my fork like spaghetti! 

I'm definitely going to make zucchini pasta again. With my busy schedule, I like things that are easy and quick. 

Talk soon!

I walked into the grocery store the other day, and the first thing that I saw was a produce table with avocados next to roma tomatoes. I instantly got a craving for a tomato-feta-avocado salad. I bought one of each and made them into a simple salad when I got home. 

I diced the tomato and chopped the avocado into small pieces. I mixed in a handful of crumbled fat free feta cheese, a tablespoon of extra virgin olive oil, and a tablespoon of balsamic vinegar. The result was a fresh and flavorful salad that took only minutes to make. 

The next time that I make it, I want to add fresh cilantro and some black pepper. I've lived in my apartment for a month, and I still haven't bought pepper. I should add that to my to-do list. 

I'm now off to bed (with Libby- she's staying at my apartment for the night!) so that I can rest up for a very eventful day tomorrow. I'm going to the West Loop Craft Beer Fest with some friends, which is conveniently located within close walking distance to my apartment. I should remember to take pictures and share some of my favorite Chicago brews with all of you. I unfortunately can't sample everything, because we all know what happens to 5-foot girls who try every beer at the festival and have the tolerance of an average person on a 6-month juice cleanse.