In my kitchen, lately

Today I joined the frequent buyer club for a children's bookstore.  At age 29...for the purpose of buying books for...myself.  Thankfully I have a husband who loves me because I thought it would be a fun idea to re-read Madeline L'engle's Time Quintet, rather than in spite of it.  I am so damn lucky.

My book nerdiness has nothing to do with the rest of this blog.  I should tell you right up front that this entry is basically a bunch of food porn followed by a picture of my cat.  If you hate food and cats you might want to stop reading now.

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If you're still here it means you probably like food and cats.  Good for you! 

Despite appearances, I have actually been cooking recently.  There was a good period of um, several weeks after we moved where I pretty much subsited on eggs and toast, yogurt, and baked sweet potatoes with hummus.  Really anything you can cook in less than ten minutes was my bread and butter.

Finally last week I said screw that and broke out the Tagine my mother in law gave me for my birthday to make a spicy chicken tagine with apricots, rosemary and ginger.  The sweet potato and egg rut was officially broken.  Here's a little glimpse into what's been going on in my kitchen lately:

Mine did not look this pretty...

Turkish apricots and tomatoes - an unlikely, but tasty, combination

Eating on the porch...with wine ;)

I found these little siggi's bottles at Whole Foods last week - how cute!

The magic that is collard wraps and watermelon on a hot day

Collard wraps courtesy of Vegetarian Times website

 On Monday morning, I got up early and drove over to Minneapolis for a run around Lake Calhoun.  Sometimes I miss being so close to the lake, but it's really just a short drive and it is one of my favorite places to run.

After my run I checked the yoga schedule just to see what was going on, and saw that a class with one of my favorite teachers at the Uptown was starting in 20 minutes!  The fact that I had just run 3.5 miles was not going to stop me from...taking a 60 minute hot yoga class.  It was delightful. 



Chocloate Hazelnut Oat Bar - inhaled on my way home from yoga
Yes, I finally figured out how to use Instagram.  You may now applaud.



Unsurprisingly, the oat bar did not fill the void of hunger left by running + sweaty yoga.  Once I was showered and presentable, Ben and I zoomed over to Target Field for the Twins game, where I promptly inhaled a cuban sandwich and several forkfuls of Ben's buffalo mac and cheese.

Healthy?

Somehow, I even found time to get my bake on, and threw together a strawberry cake adapted from Eat, Live, Run (I basically just halved the recipe and put it in an 8x8 pan, and used coconut milk instead of regular milk for the cake portion because it was what I had on hand).  The original recipe comes from Back in the Day Bakery, one of my favorite places from my trip to Savannah.  Delicious!

...healthy?

And just because we all know who the real star of this blog is...

That's right.

Also, new car decision has been made... tomorrow I'm picking up my brand spaking new Honda Accord!  So excited...and also sad to say goodbye to my little VW :(  More on that later, hope you're all having a lovely week!