Weekend Things

Sometimes it takes a few days away from home to fully appreciate your bed, your kitchen and your routine.

Sometimes it takes a few weeks of hail, rain and snow to fully appreciate sunshine and warm temperatures (even if it’s only in the 50’s).

Sometimes it takes a wild and indulgent Grub Street Diet to fully appreciate your comparably uneventful and healthy* weekend.

*Not even trying to define the word “healthy,” but reading everything Alan Yang ate in a week definitely made me feel extremely virtuous.  But also jealous 🙂

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Staying in on Friday night to cook a BOMB dinner & watch a movie is my love language.

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Walked to Black Eye Coffee for avocado toast beauty & Memorial Day BBQ planning.

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Joey had been dying to get in the backyard and clean up the mess from the hail storm and would you look at that pile of twigs?!  That was just one of the THREE piles we cleaned up.  P.S. Our garden just keeps on keeping on!

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Post grocery store, fridge restock lunch.

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We popped over to an open house (it was a bust!) then made a stop at Whole Foods and get this, they don’t even sell cheap club soda there!  Luckily, we had some at home and Moscow Mules + shrimp tacos + Y Tu Mamá También are the makings of a perfect Saturday night.

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Ran 5 miles on Sunday morning and totally ran into the Colfax Marathon!  I knew it was happening that day, but hey, I just kind of figured they actually ran on Colfax?  Afterwards, I got us iced coffee and came home to waffles.  Never been happier ♥

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Prep a salad, eat a salad.

But seriously, this weekend was a good one 🙂

Make This Now: Creamy Things are the Best Things

Before we begin, I need to tell you some important things.

  1. My energy level is VERY low today.  I know it’s Friday and I should have weekend energy but I’m just TIRED.
  2. Joey surprised me with coffee from Little Owl this morning and I love that man so much.
  3. I saw baby radish sprouts in our garden this morning and I should have just skipped my workout because those teensy green leaves got me more amped than any running endorphins did.
  4. It’s my little sister’s birthday today!  Though I refuse to believe EITHER of us are over 24 🙂

Okay, back to the subject at hand.

I was making quick mental note of which recipes I wanted to share next in this “Make This Now” series and they all happened to have the word “creamy” in the title.  Is that a coincidence or do my tastebuds just gravitate towards that word and I’ve never noticed until now?  I’ll ponder that on my own later, but you should make and eat these creamy things (maybe even this weekend!) and be the happiest version of yourself.

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Dijon-Herb Crusted Salmon with Creamy Dill Sauce + Warm Buttered Radish and Edamame Salad

Spring is all about fresh herbs, spicy radishes and bright flavors so this meal IS spring.  If you’ve never sautéed radishes before, they get almost potato-like in flavor and texture and you’ll probably want to drizzle that dill sauce over everything from now on.  So good!

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Creamy Thai Sweet Potato Curry

Joey and I have three well-loved curry recipes in our arsenal but if this was a Goldilocks story, Creamy Thai Sweet Potato Curry is “just right!”  More of a challenge than our 5-Ingredient Coconut Curry but easier than our Ginger Cashew Chicken Curry and most importantly, it’s crazy flavorful.  I keep a jar of this homemade Easy Thai Yellow Curry Paste in the freezer just for this meal.  It’s very worth making!

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Creamy Carrot and Herb Linguine

I thought I’d sworn against zoodles for life but then I saw this recipe which was only PART-zoodle and still had actual pasta and now that I’ve tasted zoodles, I’ll admit they’re good.  Still not going to forego pasta entirely for spiralized vegetables, but recipes like this seem like a good compromise.  And the sauce on this one is drinkably good.  Shoutout to my fellow tarragon lovers who will love that licorice-y garnish on top.

P.S. Yes, I know the recipe calls for carrot noodles (carroodles? coodles?) but I can’t ever find those, so zoodles it is!

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Cashew Ice Cream

I kind of want to try every recipe in this post Cassie wrote about cashew cream, but I started with the cashew ice cream recipe and was majorly impressed.  I don’t have an actual reason to not just eat real deal ice cream (THANK GOD!), but I volunteered to bring Easter dessert for my half-GF/DF family because I like a challenge?  Have a thing for vegan recipes?  Just want everyone to be able to eat/enjoy dessert together, even if it means the gluten/dairy lovers have to conform?  Who knows!  I just know this ice cream was just slightly icy but otherwise SO CREAMY, SO RICH AND SO DELICIOUS.  I’d totally make it again!

P.S. Totally wanted to tell you to make these Creamy Mushroom and Kale Quesadillas, but I apparently already told you that.