Sweet Orange Chicken

Well this weekend just like every other weekend, flew by very quickly, but it was packed with a lot of productivity and relaxation too!

A few scenes and tidbits from the weekend

A little change-up to my standard pb and banana breakfast. I made bananas with strawberries with a spoonful of homemade almond butter. This batch of almond butter turned out perfectly and I am so diggin’ it.

fruit and almond butter

Throughout the course of the weekend I munched on a couple of these ALT bars by LARABAR which they so kindly sent me last week. This is their new protein bar made from pea protein that has 10 grams of protein. These bars are absolutely delicious and satisfying. So far I’ve had the peanut butter cookie (obviously I chose that one first) and the lemon pound cake. I let Dana taste test too and we both gave them two thumbs up.

 

larabar alt

 

Oh the joy of finding a package of these bars on your front step when you aren’t expecting it! I don’t think I could ever get tired of it.

larabar ALT

Dana and I actually sat down and watched a movie on Friday night. We have been wanting to see Silver Linings Playbook for quite some time, and by chance I checked out our local RedBox and it was actually there!

Holy cow, have you seen this movie? If you haven’t seen it, please do. It was a little dark but there was humor throughout the entire movie which lightened it, and the ending made me happy. I seriously loved it. And I love Bradley Cooper and Jennifer Lawrence.

bradley

 

This weekend we worked on the yard: we pulled weeds, cut the grass, planted flowers in the window boxes, mulched around one of our front trees, painted the exterior trim that needed touching up, planted herbs in pots, and hung up a decorative piece above our garage door. It felt great to be so productive and the house is really shaping up!

This weekend we celebrated my father-in-law’s birthday. The weather was beautiful that evening. We grilled burgers and sat outside for a while and soaked up the sun. It felt like a summer evening finally! We finished off the birthday celebration with Dairy Queen ice cream cake which I thoroughly enjoyed.

 

 

burger dinner

To end the weekend, I threw together a sweet and tasty dinner in the wok…

Sweet Orange Chicken!

In the wok I cooked one large chicken breast in a touch of sesame oil. I then added the veggies, some orange juice, coconut aminos, ground ginger, garlic, rice wine vinegar, honey, and salt and pepper. I let it all cook through for a while (more detailed recipe below) and then served it up!

I was going to chop up some iceberg lettuce and have that as a base under the orange chicken but I completely forgot. You could serve this just as I did, or with cooked quinoa or  brown rice.

orange chicken orange chicken orange chicken orange chicken orange chicken

It was sweet with a little hint of salty which is a flavor combination I adore.

Sweet Orange Chicken
Print

Serves: 2
Ingredients
  • 1 tsp sesame oil
  • 1 large boneless skinless chicken breast, or 2 small, cut into chunks
  • 1 cup onion, diced
  • 2 garlic cloves, minced
  • ¾ cup carrot, diced
  • 1 cup sugar snap peas, chopped
  • 1½ cups broccoli
  • ½ cup red bell pepper, chopped
  • sprinkle of dried ground ginger
  • 2 Tbsp coconut aminos (or soy sauce)
  • 1-2 Tbsp rice wine vinegar
  • ½ cup orange juice
  • 2 Tbsp honey
  • salt and pepper
  • 1 Tbsp orange zest
Instructions
  1. In a wok or large sauce pan, heat sesame oil. Add chicken and cook for about 6-7 minutes until almost completely cooked through.
  2. Add vegetables and cook for 2-3 minutes, stirring occasionally.
  3. Add in remaining ingredients; let cook and boil for 4-5 minutes.
  4. Turn off heat, use microplane to grate 1 tablespoon of orange zest over the chicken and veggies. Serve warm with brown rice, quinoa, or enjoy by itself!

 

You can use up whatever veggies you have on hand for this recipe. It is truly so easy (like the majority of my recipes) and it was something fun and different from your standard stir-fry!

Did you cook up anything nummy this weekend?

The New Kitchen

Hoowddddy, howdy, howdy, how. I just finished my morning cup of joe and I am feeling fantastic! I would feel fantastic either way but it really gives me that extra little boost some days.

How was everybody’s weekend? Mine was full of family time so in my book that means it was a great weekend. We celebrated Dana’s grandma’s birthday, my dad’s birthday, and had an early Mother’s Day celebration with Dana’s family. So many wonderful people to celebrate and celebrate with. The fun continues over the next couple of weeks with Mother’s Day and a few more birthdays to come! Wooo!! I love it.

I’m starting to adapt to this whole giving the camera a rest on the weekend bit, so again, I didn’t snap too many photos. Here’s a few that I did get…

My favorite salmon dinner on Friday.

 

salmon

A smoothie to-go as we ran errands on Saturday: strawberries, blueberries, kale, coconut milk, Jay Robb chocolate egg white protein powder.

smoothie

Sunday’s birthday meal.

 

burger

 

I realize I say this all of the time but I feel like the luckiest gal in the world to have such amazing families. My love for them is endless.

****************

Kitchen Countertops

Changing gears. I have some revealing to do! No more anticipating, the time has finally arrived. It is time to reveal our new kitchen countertops!

I forgot to do an official “before” photo, but I was able to dig up a few to give you a reminder of what it used to look like. So, without further ado…

Before

melanie in the kitchen

kitchen food prep

 

After!

new kitchen 2013 new kitchen 2013 new kitchen 2013   new kitchen 2013

kitchen 2013

 

new kitchen 2013

new kitchen 2013

 

Isn’t it beautiful?! I really don’t think it would be possible for me to be more excited about these countertops. They are exactly what I was hoping for. We were able to pick our the exact slab of granite that would go into our home. It’s hard to imagine what it will look like in your kitchen until it is actually in your kitchen and then there is no turning back. I was thrilled at the outcome. I feel like we have a brand new kitchen. It motivates me to do more baking and cooking too!

So there you have it. You can finally sleep tonight now that you have seen the official reveal. :wink:

I’m off to tackle my Monday. I hope you have a BEAUTIFUL day.

What was/were the highlight/s or your weekend?!

A Weekend Full of Great Company

Well, hello hello! It’s Monday and it’s gloomy BUT I am going to stay positive for all of us and say it is going to be a GREAT day.

I “disconnected” myself yesterday from the phone and blog. I say that in “quotations” because I still had my phone on me at all times and browsed Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, etc., but I gave the photo snapping a rest for the most part. By the way are you following me on:

I would love if you did!

Anyway, I do have some catching up to do from Saturday! It was a super fun day!

Saturday Morning

The rain held off and Dana, Moose, and I were able to hit the pavement for our Saturday run. We mapped out five miles around the neighborhood and they were five hilly miles. We live in a very hilly neighborhood which is both a blessing and a curse at the same time. It’s great for training but sometimes you just want an easy flat run, and we can’t get that around here.

Moose’s paws held up just fine this time around. Last week they got a little scraped up and were bleeding. He is toughening up quickly again now that spring is here. Yay!

Saturday Afternoon

In the afternoon I headed out to Minneapolis to meet up with a handful of other Minnesota bloggers for our first ever MN blogger meet up. Katie from Running4Cupcakes and Becky from Olives’n'Wine (remember that awesome cupcake guest post she wrote for me in March?!) organized this get together and I am SO happy they did.

Here was our crew:

MN-Bloggers

From left to right:

Katie from Running4cupcakes
Diana from DianaPantz
Melanie from Beautifully Nutty (me, duh)
Kendra from Kenny Gump

 

We met at Sebastian Joe’s (the one off of Franklin) which I must say has some spectacular sorbet. As you know I adore ice cream but I had plans to go out to dinner that evening so I didn’t want to risk an upset stomach, which is why I stuck with the dairy-free sorbet. Any other day, you know I would choose ice cream, let’s be real.

I went with the Strawberry-Basil Sorbet and it did not fail. It was incredible; so fresh, with huge hunks of strawberries, and a hint of basil. It was very refreshing.

sorbet sebastian loes

sorbet sebastian loes

Your mouth watered didn’t it?

I surprisingly wasn’t too nervous to meet up with these girls. In the blog world you kind of feel like you know each other from reading each other’s blogs and commenting back and forth.

We all said it was kind of weird at first only because we already “knew” the little tidbits about each other that most people would use to start-up conversation, so our conversations hedged a little further right away.

We chatted about our lives, blogging, social media, etc. We all got along very well and the hour and a half we were there seriously flew by so fast. The conversation was great! We are planning another meet up in the next month or two so if there are any other MN bloggers out there who are interested in meeting up, throw an email my way! We are hoping to make the next meet-up a bit more active—like a walk around the lakes or something.

Such a great group of ladies! I’m so happy I had the chance to meet you all! Thanks again Katie and Becky for organizing this, you rockstars.

Saturday Evening

In the evening we had a dinner date with my parents and Dana’s parents. We met at Axel’s Bonfire which is a cozy and warm restaurant that specializes in wood fire cooking.

axel's bonfire

I ordered the Barbacoa Tacos which had seasoned beef with pineapple relish and chipotle cream. I asked if they could prepare them in lettuce cups instead of flour tortillas and they said of course. Never hesitate to ask for modifications to your meal. Remember you are paying for it, you may as well get it how you want it and 9 times out of 10 they will be able to make the modification for you.

axel's bonfire menu

Check out these beauts! I had to pick off some of the peppers on there because they were  making my mouth feel like fire, but this dish was very tasty.

beef tacos axel's bonfire

It came with beans and rice so I ended up scooping the beans onto my taco as well as the pico de gallo on top of the rice.

rice and beans axel's bonfire

Besides the food being great, the company was even better. I adore my families and always enjoy spending time with them!

Talk about a fun day, right?

Sunday

Sunday was our usual gig; breakfast, paper, coupons, hanging out with the pup, grocery shopping, lunch.

moose and melanie

In the afternoon we headed over to my mom and dad’s house because my brother Scotty and his girlfriend Nicole were in town!

We spent the afternoon and evening hanging out, eating a totally nummy dinner (rotisserie pork loin, brussels sprouts, broccoli, salad, and potatoes), and catching up on life. I was so happy to be with my family again! Ahhh I just love them so much.

We made it home just in time before the sun went down to take Moose for a little stroll around the neighborhood. We watched the Academy of Country Music Awards when we got home and then called it a night. This weekend FLEW by. What the heck?! Haha, it always does though.

Okey dokey, I am off to take on the day. Make it a great one and be thankful for the day. Catch up with you soon!

xoxo

Easter Celebration #1

I am really enjoying myself this relaxing Sunday. I’m going to keep this short and sweet because I want to continue this day of relaxation, but I wanted to give you a quick update from last night.

We had plans over at Dana’s parent’s house to celebrate belated birthdays for both Dana and his mom, Sue, and also to celebrate Easter a little early.

As always, there was LOTS of delicious food! We started with some appetizers: veggies, almond crackers, and an avocado/edamame/pesto dip which was excellent!

veggie app

For our main course we had a chicken, shrimp, and artichoke sauté alongside tabouli and homemade almond biscuits (I brought the biscuits). Holy moly everything was so good!

chicken shrimp artichoke chicken shrimp artichoke easter 2013

Next up, dessert of course. We were celebrating two birthdays AND Easter afterall. Sue picked up a cake from Wuolett’s Bakery in Edina. To those of you who have never experienced this cake, let me tell you, it is fantastic!

birthday cake

 

The one she bought was called Princess Torte and it was raspberry and Bavarian cream layered with genoise (egg-rich golden cake) and wrapped in pastel almond marzipan.

 

dana and sue birthday

It was very refreshing and light tasting.

birthday cake

It was such a nice evening and now we can say Dana’s birthday celebrations are officially over and Easter celebration #1 was a success!

I hope you are all enjoying your Sunday. Catch up with you later!

 

Fajita Salad and a Fun Surprise at Mall of America

There’s nothing like starting your day off with a veggie and fruit packed smoothie. Yesterday I whipped together a smoothie made with frozen banana, kale, kefir, aloe vera juice, peanut butter, and chocolate egg white protein powder and it was delicious.

smoothie

I hit the living room for an arm workout, and then ended with a 30 minute incline walk on the treadmill. I’m slowly but surely getting back into more of a routine with the workouts again.

Then I was off to run a few errands and spend some quality girl time with my Betsy.

betsy and melanie

We both had the day off of work and we haven’t hung out since our lobster feast a month ago which is WAY too long if you ask me, so we planned a little get together. We were cozy and warm at my aunt and uncle’s house and we chatted away as Despicable Me played on the TV in the background. It was such a relaxing afternoon and I loved every second of it.

In the afternoon Dana and I did some shopping—we are looking for new countertops for our kitchen! Once dinner time rolled around, I was not in any mood to do any cooking and it just so happened that we had a gift card for Baja Sol that we needed to use. You may remember a couple of months ago when we tried to use this gift card but ended up going out for Thai food instead. Yup, it’s that same card, but we actually used it this time!

We went to the Baja Sol located in the food court at Mall of America. We made it up to the third floor and started walking towards the food court. Inevitably we parked on the opposite side of where we needed to be, but I was happy because it felt good to move my legs. Anyway, as we approached the rotunda we started hearing some music playing. When we got close I saw the sign (…and it opened up my eyes…), I got SUPER excited. Gloriana was playing at MOA! Maurices was sponsoring their performance. How cool, right? We didn’t stick around for long because there were so many people and I really couldn’t see them too well, but I was happy to even get the one glimpse that I did.

gloriana moa

At Baja Sol I ordered the veggie fajita salad. This monster was piled high with lettuce, sautéed onions and bell peppers, tomatoes, fresh onions, cheese, black beans, and a heaping spoonful of guacamole (I shared some of the gauc with Dana because I am a very sweet wife).

baja sol baja sol baja sol

 

I didn’t touch the shell because I’m still trying to stick to gluten-free and it was a flour tortilla, but I managed to chow down a good majority of the salad! It tasted really good and probably even more so since I didn’t have to put it together myself. It was a perfect Friday night treat.

Now I am off to run with Dana and the pooch around the neighborhood before heading out for a day full of friends and family. It should be a good one! Catch up with you all later gators.