Recipe

Healthy Coconut Chocolate Chunk Oatmeal Cookies

~ atastytrip ~ Leave a comment

Happy Monday! I know most Mondays aren’t all that happy but a batch of cookies should improve it drastically. Cookies almost always improve things drastically right? Especially cookies that have the words healthy AND chocolate in their name.

 Finished Cookies

I first experimented with these cookies a few weeks ago when I had some leftover chocolate bars after some serious s’more making. I’m not typically a baker, but I was in the mood for something sweet and not terribly bad for you. I decided to try and make these as figure friendly as I could while still passing the Robert test. The Robert test means I can feed him a cookie (or a pancake) and he just says “yum, that’s really good” instead of “Yum that’s really good but I can tell it’s healthy because it’s not very sweet/got a weird texture/is really flat for a pancake/etc”. What can I say, health-ifying baked goods isn’t ALWAYS a great success. Luckily these passed the Robert test with flying colors and he immediately ate 4 of them.  I have since made them several times, including a batch to take to our dear friends and brand new parents Ben and Annie! We went to deliver casseroles and cookies and meet baby Cooper over the weekend once they were home from the hospital and my goodness, she was even tinier and more adorable than I ever could have imagined!

 Cooper

So sweet! Robert loves babies and it was pretty precious to watch him hold her, and even more precious to see how excited he was for our friends. SOMEDAY we will be ready for one of our own and I know he will be a fantastic father. For now he will have to settle for Renly… and cookies Smile

Renly 2
Robert and his big baby

So what exactly makes these cookies so healthy you may wonder? Well for starters, there is NO refined sugar, they are sweetened with just a little honey and whatever you choose to mix in. I chose chopped dark chocolate and coconut, but you could use nuts, raisins, dried cranberries, even M and M’s, whatever your heart desires! There is also no dairy in these cookies, no eggs or butter and no oil! I replaced all of the above with unsweetened applesauce and it worked! Hooray!

 Ingredients

Confession: Often Sometimes when I bake I don’t read the recipe all the way through. I know this is the cardinal sin of baking, hence why I am not the best baker and don’t do it often. Cooking is a lot more forgiving, baking, well, let’s just say that if I had a dollar for every time I have started mixing ingredients only to realize that whoops, should have separated the wet from the dry first…well, yeah, I’d have a lot of dollars.

Honey Honey drizzle

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Easy Summer Side Dish: Crispy Smashed Potatoes

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Happy Friday! Hope everyone is having a wonderful last weekday and has fun (or relaxing!) weekend plans. Lately, Robert and I have had weekends that seemed just as chock full of plans as did our weeks, and between weddings and travel, we have quite a few more busy ones on the horizon. This weekend is completely plan free (so far!) and I’m determined to keep it that way…well almost…we DO have a planned stop by the hospital right after work today. Before you get too worried, this is a HAPPY hospital stop! Remember when I threw this baby shower for our sweet friends Ben and Annie?!?

Well I am happy to announce that their darling baby girl was born yesterday afternoon! I know they will be the BEST parents and Robert and I can not wait to meet sweet baby Cooper later today! I have already let them know that we are on call to babysit for their first date night so we can check out this parenting thing for ourselves Smile

Annie and Cooper
Beautiful New Mama and Baby

Speaking of babies, I got a call from the opposite of one yesterday, my grandfather! Was that the weirdest segue ever or what? Sorry. Back to that phone call, I love talking to my grandparents and try to call them weekly to catch up. These phone calls typically take place during my commute which my grandma seems fine with but the second my grandpa gets on the phone and finds out I’m driving he ends the conversation as quickly as possible. Always worried about my safety, that one. So sweet. Anyway, I was excited and surprised to hear from him yesterday while I was preparing dinner. Even though I was safely in front of my stove rather than behind the wheel, he kept the conversation brief and let me know that he was only calling to let me know that it was time to dig up my potatoes.

Potato Plant Baby potato

My grandfather has the greenest thumb around and often shares plants and goodies from his garden with me. Last time he came to visit, he brought me a seed potato. To me, said “seed potato” looked exactly like every other small red potato I’ve ever seen in the grocery store, but what do I know. It must have been special because it proceeded to sprout into a lovely green plant….or at least I think it did….i could very well be seeing tall weeds growing in the pot with it, guess I’ll find out tonight when I dig it (them?) up!

Boiled Pot. Oiled Pan

This phone call couldn’t have come at a better time as I was literally in the process of marinating a flank steak for tonight’s dinner when the phone rang. By Friday, my fridge is looking a little bare and I was thinking I would probably have to make a trip to the grocery store after work today to find something to accompany our flank steak and broccoli. I mean really, what’s a steak dinner with no starchy side?

Potato Masher Smashed Potatoes

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Slow Saturday Breakfast: Sautéed Onion & Kale Breakfast Scramble

~ atastytrip ~ Leave a comment

Happy Monday! Hope everyone had a fantastic Mother’s Day yesterday. What a wonderful and so totally worthwhile holiday that one is…I mean really, does ANYONE work as hard and do as much for you as your mom?

 JM7A8312

Judging from the outpouring of social media love I saw yesterday I would say the answer is no. I am clearly one of millions who thinks my own mother hung the moon, and as I’ve found with many things, I appreciate her more and more with each passing year. What is that old adage? With age comes wisdom? Something like that. It’s true though, as I get closer to considering becoming a mom myself, I wonder how in the heck my mom ever did it! When my sister and I were growing up my mother  kept our house spotless, did most of the yard work, did all the grocery shopping and laundry, had a home cooked meal on the table every single night, made sure neither of us ever wanted for anything including homemade, hand sewn Halloween costumes that she would whip up in the blink of an eye, attended all of our school and non-school events and shuttled us back and forth to whatever extra curricular activities or play dates were happening at the moment….oh yeah, and she worked FULL TIME! Superwoman, right?

Halloween
Proof of homemade costumes…this must have been the year Aladdin came out

My dad traveled for work 4-5 days a week when I was growing up so my mom was essentially a single parent, but she never missed a beat. Robert and I absolutely want children of our own someday but we’re not quite there yet. When I say we I really mean me, because if I’m being honest I sometimes find it overwhelming just to work full time, keep up our home and take care of Renly. If I can’t always find the time to walk my dog, how in the world am I going to throw children into the mix someday?!? Am I the only not yet parent who wonders this? To every working mom out there, I salute you! You are all superwomen! And to non-working moms, I salute you too because I can only imagine that being on call 24/7 is the hardest job of them all! I guess when the time is right for Robert and I, I can turn to my own superhero mom (and amazing mother and sister in law!) to help show me the ropes!

_AKP9167

Since I wasn’t able to be with my own mom, I spent yesterday celebrating the new mothers in my life, my in-laws! We had a wonderful day treating my mother-in-law, sister-in-law and brother-in-law’s mother (Did you catch all that…I know that was a lot of “in laws” to keep up with) to brunch. We took the boat to ELA’s, a seafood restaurant with yummy food and even better water views. Since I am a notorious planner I had already checked the menu out online.

I know, it’s a problem, I’m never going to change sorry  I’m working on it.

 veggies

I was glad I  checked it out because while delicious sounding, most of the options were pretty darn caloric. For example, Blueberry Stuffed French Toast – triple stacked cinnamon texas toast dusted with powdered sugar, stuffed with blueberries, cream cheese and walnuts, finished with whipped cream, fresh berries and syrup served with applewood smoked bacon strips.  Holy yum and holy heart attack, right? I decided I should make myself a healthy breakfast that would keep me from being ravenous at our 1:00 reservations and devouring all the stuffed french toast I could get my hands on.

 Ingredients

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Creamy Chimi Churri & A Celebrity Encounter

~ atastytrip ~ Leave a comment

Happy Friday to all! We are completing state wide testing at work this week.… not typically part of my job description but one of my schools is currently short staffed so I am helping out and BOY is it ever stressful! I remember testing at the beginning and end of the school year only when I was this age, but times have changed and our poor kids seem to be testing 5-6 times a year! Helping this week has given me a new appreciation for how trying testing can be from the teachers perspective as well, I think it is harder on them than the students! I think treating myself to a pedicure this afternoon will be the perfect reward after this long week Smile

So remember a few weeks ago when I had Adult Spring Break 2015 (ASB2k15)? Oh how I miss it already in all it’s oat-y, egg-y, smoothie-y breakfast glory? On the final Saturday of my break I drove up to Nashville to retrieve Robert from the airport so that we could attend a wedding that evening. We stayed with our sweet friends Tyler and Meredith who graciously welcomed us into their adorable home. Living at the beach we tend to get a lot of visitors, and I like to think I’m a pretty good hostess but I think Meredith put me to shame. Check out the adorable bedside table set-up in their guest room:

 Nashville

Totally stealing this idea next time I have guests!

Tyler and Meredith were not attending the wedding so the four of us decided to catch up over lunch before it was time to get ready for the wedding. They took us to Burger Up, a trendy restaurant serving you guessed it! Burgers and beer! I have a feeling they chose this restaurant with Robert in mind since cheeseburgers are his absolute favorite. I’m not normally a burger girl but a kale salad didn’t seem like a substantial enough choice for a wedding that was sure to include drinking later that evening, so I went with the mushroom and swiss burger with truffle mayo. Wow. I haven’t yet mastered the art of photographing my food in public when anyone other than Robert is around, so there’s no photo, but I’m pretty sure this is the most delicious burger I’ve ever had in my entire life. EVER. If you are in Nashville I highly recommend this place (and the truffle mayo…nom). Not only was our food delicious, but Burger Up also supplied me with my first ever real life celebrity sighting!

 Vince

In case you can’t tell who that tall, blurry person is (don’t quit your day job to become a paparazzo Robert) it’s Vince Vaughn!

 Vince Close Up

We were seated right next to the hostess stand at Burger Up and I literally looked up from my delicious lunch to find he and his beautiful wife and friends standing 3 feet from our table, waiting to be seated. I have always wondered how I would react to meeting a celebrity and unfortunately, I now know just how uncool I will play it. I just stared at him with my mouth wide open, completely star struck and unable to even get a hello out…womp womp. He was extremely tall and much thinner than I would have thought, and when he saw us staring awkwardly at him notice him he walked the few feet over to our table and said hello and shook hands with Robert and Tyler. He  seemed very nice and took pictures with anyone who asked while he waited to be seated. Very gracious of him but man, can you imagine being hounded for pictures every time you step out your door, even just to get a burger? No thanks. We chose to play it cool (finally) and sneak our picture from across the restaurant as he was making his way to his seat.

fish salad 2
Mmmm… all the green things

The rest of our stay in Nashville, as well as the wedding we attended was absolutely lovely. We spent all of Sunday in the car and arrived back home semi ready to re-enter the real world. Since the end of ASB2k15 was a little indulgent, Robert and I both wanted to get back on track with lighter, healthier meals this week.  Since I promised to share my creamy chimi churri sauce recipe during Easter I decided to whip up a batch to go with our weekly meals.

 ingredients 2

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Slow Saturday Breakfast: Smoked Salmon & Sweet Potato Hash

~ atastytrip ~ Leave a comment

Happy Saturday! This might be the first time in a while that I’ve posted a “Slow Saturday Breakfast” on an actual Saturday. ASB2k15 allows you to be on the ball like that.

ASB2k15? Adult Spring Break 2015 (Hey-O)! You may be wondering how adult spring break differs from that experienced during your younger years. There is significantly less drinking, A LOT more sleeping and  since the weather has been positively terrible in Tennessee this week, a lot less sunburn. After a weekend in Hilton Head with my mom, we both packed up and headed back to Chattanooga on Monday. Since we’ve been back it has rained non-stop which means instead of playing outside with Renly, walking/shopping downtown and laying out like I planned to do, I have been napping, reading and playing lots of indoor tug-of-war with Mr. Ren and his favorite toys. I miss the sun but napping in my childhood bed like I used to do after a tough day of high school (hah) is not a bad alternative. File this spring break under ‘lazy’ ‘relaxing’.

Spring Break Renly
           Spring Break Renly

Another thing I have been doing a lot of this week is eating breakfast foods for as many meals as possible. It’s only fitting since I’ve spent the majority of this week in my pajamas (I know, I am SO fun and exciting, right?!?). If I didn’t have my darling husband to cook for, I could easily eat breakfast for all three meals a day. Robert doesn’t mind the occasional pancake dinner but he’s more of a traditionalist when it comes to mealtimes. Unfortunately for him, ASB2k15 is not one of the perks of his job. He’s been stuck home working all week while I’ve been binging on oatmeal and egg sandwiches. That of course means he’s probably been binging on all the unhealthy stuff I try to limit when I’m around, so he might actually be enjoying this ASB2k15 almost as much as me Smile

Hash 3

Before you start worrying about me actually turning into a pancake, I have made it out of the house a bit this week. On Wednesday my mother, sister and I drove down to Atlanta for some girl time. We shopped at some cute boutiques in the Virginia Highlands area and then made our way to the Westsides Provisions District for a little more shopping and some lunch. We ate at Star Provisions, which is more or less a deli counter/bakery in the front of Bacchanalia, one of Atlanta’s most beloved restaurants. We each ordered a sandwich, Reuben for mom, Muffaletta for my sister and I got the Banh Mi, my first. Holy wow, I wish I had stopped to take a picture of our lovely sandwiches but we were so hungry that they were gone before I even considered it. My mom declared her reuben the best she’s ever had and my banh mi was outstanding. We all liked the muffaletta the least and agreed it would have been better toasted. If you’re in Atlanta and into sandwiches (who isn’t into sandwiches?) I highly recommend Star Provisions. They also have some gorgeous kitchen wares and linens to peruse while you wait for your food, and last but not least, a Jeni’s Splendid Ice Creams across the street. Ice cream is my favorite indulgence and I have been itching to try Jeni’s. I took advantage after our meal and followed up my lunch with two scoops: brown butter toffee crumble and brambleberry crisp. Delicious. It was the perfect ending to a lovely mother daughter day. It also fueled us for our final stop, Ikea. If you’ve never visited an Ikea, I can best sum it up by saying that it’s an experience. A very large, somewhat overwhelming, maze like experience. I’ll leave it at that.

Egg Lid On

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