Celebrate National Toast Day!

For those of you who have been following with me for a long time, you know about my history with ulcerative colitis. When I was diagnosed at the age of 12, we (thanks, mama) began experimenting with diets to help with my symptoms, noting my trigger foods and also enlisting the help of naturopaths and other medical professionals. This, along with some other factors, swayed my decision to become a Registered Dietitian. I have been practicing as a RD since 2011.

Throughout the experimentation process, I learned a WHOLE LOT about myself and the foods/ingredients/etc. that triggered my symptoms to flare. When I was younger, it was harder for me to have the willpower or desire to manage these symptoms by eliminating certain foods from my diet, but now, it’s pretty much a no-brainer. I’ve learned that for me, my biggest trigger is gluten, followed by dairy and processed sugar. I know that if my gut is beginning to feel “off” that I need to really cut these foods back or out for a while until I get back on track. Sometimes I can eat these foods and feel perfectly fine, other times not so much.

I generally follow a low-gluten, low-dairy diet. My sweet tooth loves it’s chocolate but I am incredibly mindful when I am eating my sweet treats (which I do daily). I also work with a naturopath and take a variety of natural supplements.

I could go into this whole ordeal in full detail but this post would completely derail from the main intention of this post, so I’ll have to save it for another day.

Little Northern Bakehouse and National Toast Day

Recently, I was approached by Little Northern Bakehouse, a bakery that proudly uses non-GMO, whole-food, quality ingredients, to create delicious, certified gluten-free and vegan bread loaves. They asked me if I would want to help them celebrate National Toast Day on on February 23rd and offered me the chance to try their bread. Um….HECK YES!

I have fond memories of my mom making me toast with melty peanut butter and honey drizzled, or cinnamon sugar sprinkled over the top. MMMMMmmm. Even today I still love that snack and so do my kids.

Little Northern Bakehouse sent me two of their loaf varieties to try: Whole Grain and Cinnamon & Raisin.

Other products they offer: White Wide Slice Loaf, Millet & Chia Loaf, Seeds & Grain Loaf, Millet & Chia Hot Dog Buns, the Millet & Chia Buns and just recently added Sprouted Honey Oat Bread and Sprouted 7 Grain Bread (I REALLY want to try those ones). Learn more about their products on their website!

Cinnamon and Raisin Loaf

I jumped on the first chance I had to get that cinnamon raisin bread toasted up for myself and the kids. In about three minutes, I had the bread toasted up, and slathered with peanut butter. I gave the boys the option of banana slices as well, which Bode (now 4 years old) happily accepted. He adorned his with a single blueberry too, because why not?!

You could top this beauty with chia seeds, coconut flakes, nut butter of your choice, or vegan cream cheese and grapes (or full dairy cream cheese if you’re not vegan). My family is not vegan, so I am hoping to use some of this bread for French toast in the near future or a sweet and savory toasted egg sandwich?! YUM.

Whole Grain Wide Slice Loaf

Next, it was time to experiment with the whole grain bread. I gravitate towards the peanut butter always, but wanted to branch out and be more creative, so I grabbed myself a container of vegan cream cheese and got busy…

The delightful end-product included a heavy slather of cream cheese, English cucumber slices and everything but the bagel seasoning to finish it off. I cut it into four triangles before crunching into it because triangles are THE BEST way to eat bread. The creaminess of the cream cheese coupled with the crunch of the bread and the coolness of the cucumbers…absolutely perfect. I would love to use this toasted bread as a dunker for soup too. Tis’ the season for soup after all. Just kidding, any time of the year is soup season for me; my favorite!

I am always happy to find gluten-free products that I can enjoy without sacrificing flavor or texture. I am thankful that I was able to give these products a go and give my approval too!

Try it!

If you want to try some for yourself, you can use their handy “store locator” on their website to find out where to buy: Little Northern Bakehouse

Also, follow @BeautifullyNutty and @LittleNorthernBakehouse on Instagram to enter the sweepstakes for an opportunity to win a $1,000 gift card for “Brunch for a Year”!

Disclosure: I received free products from Little Northern Bakehouse for review. The review and opinions of the products are solely my own.

How are YOU going to celebrate National Toast Day?

Continue Reading Celebrate National Toast Day!

Carbolicious

Alright Becky, I’m linking up with you again today for Treat Yourself Tuesday!

This weekend I treated myself to LOTS of family time! I went dress shopping with my “second family,” had lunch with Dana’s parents on Saturday, and saw my parents and a bunch of family at my cousin’s wedding reception on Sunday! I loved every second of it. No wonder I was exhausted on Sunday night and yesterday! That, and it was 90 plus degrees and crazy humid.

I treated myself to a Shirley Temple (aka kiddie cocktail). I love that the bartender made it fancy for me and didn’t forget to put maraschino cherries in there. That is the best part!

shirley temple

We treated ourselves to some Indian food. We ordered chicken tikka masala and a cauliflower dish. It didn’t stand a chance to our Indian meal in London, but it was still good! Oh, and I love naan!

indinan food

 

We made a stop at Sebastian Joe’s for ice cream this weekend. The Nicollet pothole flavor is absolutely insane. I also got salted caramel which was really good. The last time I had Sebastian Joe’s was when I was meeting up with a bunch of bloggers in April 2013! That was the first time I met Katie and Becky!

sebastian joes

 

Yesterday I treated myself to all of the carbs. That is seriously all I wanted. I ate cereal, pb and j, a sandwich thin with laughing cow and cucumbers, watermelon, grapes….I couldn’t stop! I must have been tired if my body was craving such an abundance of carbs. Clearly I haven’t been following gluten-free too closely lately.

 

pb j

 

I treated myself to some couch time; some lazy time. I gotta soak up those moments while I have the chance right?!

I treat myself to (nearly) daily walks. Sometimes the walks are forced, but I am still doing it! I am finding it more comfortable to walk on my treadmill because I know I am closer to the bathroom (to be perfectly honest).

How did you treat yourself this week?

What does your body crave when it’s tired?

Continue Reading Carbolicious

Some Favs from the Week!

I don’t usually say this, but this week seemed to last forrrrever. Forevvvver (name that movie). I am thrilled that today is Friday and I have a super fun weekend planned!

Although this work week seemed slow, there was a lot of fun that was had. I am linking up with Katie’s Friday Favorites. Let’s get this rolling.

Speaking of rolls, I enjoyed a cinnamon roll and coffee while catching up with my dear friend Haley. She is now a mama and her and I had lots to discuss as I prepare for this baby’s arrival!

coffee and cinnamon roll

An omelette made by Dana definitely makes my Friday Fav’s. It was loaded with veggies and topped with homemade salsa.

omelette

Finding new ways to use essential oils. This makes me oh so happy. Here’s the link to my post on my oil blog for carpet freshener: Freshen and Purify Your Carpets

essential oils carpet purifier

Meatloaf and mashed potatoes made by mi mama in honor of my brother Kevin’s birthday. That was one heckuva birthday meal request that I am thankful for! SOOOO good! It’s everything baby wanted. Homemade mashed potatoes made me super excited for Thanksgiving too!

meatloaf

Happy Birthday, Kevi!!

kevin melanie kevin and melanie and dana

 

Building excitement for my state fair visit. This is one I really want to try!

state fair food

Dinner with old friends at Peoples Organic. I got the Peoples Best Veggie Burger and neglected to take a photo of the actual burger due to being overly hungry and absorbed in conversation, but it was pretty, and it was tasty!

people's organic

Another favorite this week is imagining baby smiling inside. Now (at 29 weeks) is the time that they start to smile!

I’ll have to update you with a bump photo soon. Baby and mama are growing like crazy!

Happy Friday my friends!

Friday Favorites

Continue Reading Some Favs from the Week!

A Friendly Weekend

It’s catch up time! How has everyone been?

My weekend was filled with so much fun that I just had to share.

Thursday: Katie and her cutie son Luke came over to my house with Panera and we enjoyed super good food and even better company. It was so good to see Katie (and Luke too!). I haven’t seen her since March! That’s not okay!

Friday:  Friday night was super chill. We got some stuff done around the house if I’m remembering correctly. Oh, and I made a delicious chicken teriyaki stir-fry.

stir fry

Saturday: We got to meet our friend’s new baby boy (!!), and then got together with a group of friends for a pool party! The sun was out for the first half and then went away. That was probably a good thing though since my since my skin is uber sensitive these days.

Once we got home I was completely wiped. I rested for an hour or so before getting ready for the night…

It was high school reunion time!

melanie 27 weeks

We met up with a group of friends at the Red Cow restaurant in Minneapolis.

red cow

We split an order of the caramel bacon puffcorn and OMG I would go back just for that stuff. I really do want to go back again some day because their burgers looked amazing. I didn’t get a burger because I had one for lunch and was trying to give baby some more variety and more veggies.

red cow caramel bacon puffcorn

So I opted for the Asian Chicken Salad.

red cow salad

It was good but not the best ever. Oh well you can’t win them all. I still want to go back.

Next up, the reunion at the Urban Eatery in Minneapolis. I was so excited to see my girls and my guys! This was one of the few photos I took the entire night. That’s a good sign I would say. 🙂

melanie amanda julie kate

It was a lot of fun minus the fact that it was really warm in the room we were in and Mrs. Preggo here was really sweating buckets. I was downing water like it was my job.

On Sunday, we celebrated an upcoming wedding with a couple’s shower for two of our friends who live in California. We ate insanely good food: quiche, monkey bread (which is my FAVORITE), yogurt parfaits, orange juice and ginger ale. Delicious.

It was a fabulous weekend full of friends! I loved it!

I am linking up with Becky‘s Treat Yourself Tuesday because I definitely treated myself to some tasty food and lots of friend time this weekend!

What is your favorite sweet breakfast treat?

I am torn between monkey bread and cinnamon rolls with lots of icing. I can go for a good doughnut from time to time too!

Continue Reading A Friendly Weekend

Baking, Shopping, and Good Food

I am most definitely linking up with Becky for Treat Yourself Tuesday today because I have been treating myself quite a bit lately.

This weekend I treated myself to time in the kitchen. I baked up a couple of loaves of gluten-free bread using brown rice flour and almond flour.

IMG_1335

And I made these amazing snack bars!

raw cocoa bars

I enjoyed a relaxing evening with two calming essential oils: gentle baby and lavender. I also treated myself to a couple new ones: ylang ylang which smells AMAZING and citronella to try diffusing when we are sitting out on the deck to help keep the skeeters away.

ylang ylang essential oil

On Saturday Dana and I treated ourselves to lunch at The Bulldog in Minneapolis. We were both in the mood for a good burger (typical these days) and Becky recommended this place for amazing burgers, so we thought we would go check it out.

the bulldog

Patty melt for me! So good!

the bulldog burger

I treated the babes to a new outfit from Target. It was on the clearance rack for $5 and I just couldn’t resist.

baby boy clothes

I also treated myself to some maternity clothes and some looser fitting regular clothes. Besides pants and shorts, I should be set for a while! I stocked up on dresses!

pinkblush

Last night I was treated by my brother as he cooked up an awesome stir-fry dinner for me and the fam! As much as I love to cook, I love it even more when someone else cooks for me!

stir fry

Thank you Becky for hosting the link-up!

How did YOU treat yourself this week?!

Continue Reading Baking, Shopping, and Good Food

What I’ve Been Noshing On Lately

Instead of my usual “what I’ve been eating lately” title, I thought I’d switch it up a bit. Just like my other WIAW posts, this one highlights some of my eats over the last week or so.

What I’ve Been Noshing On Lately…

I didn’t want an actual Olive Garden entrée, I just wanted the salad that comes with it, so that’s exactly what we ordered for pick up. Have you guys ever had Olive Garden’s house salad? It is seriously so good!

olive garden salad

Fruit and nut “cereal” bowl complete with blueberries, strawberries, banana, sliced almonds, raisins, and almond milk. So pretty!

fruit cereal

Grilled burger loaded with mushrooms and onions with steak fries!

burger

Croque monsieur, croque madames and French onion soup. We had our friends over on Friday who we went to Paris with (I know, I know I still need to do a recap Paris), and we had a reminiscent meal of our trip there complete with baguette, European beer and Perrier. A croque monsieur is basically a grilled ham and cheese  with extra cheese on top, and a croque madame is a grilled ham and cheese with a sunny-side egg on top. These were better than the ones we had in Paris! So was the soup!

croque madam and french onion

Taco salad made with ground turkey. Have I mentioned how completely obsessed I am with tacos?!

taco salad

I’ve been happily snacking on Blue Diamond almonds and crackers thanks to the wonderful folks at Blue Diamond!!

blue diamond almonds

Banana soft-serve (straight, no mix-ins) made by Dana. This stuff is so stinking amazing. Please, please make it if you haven’t. Grab your blender, throw in a bunch of frozen bananas, a splash of almond milk (or whatever kind of milk you have on hand) and let the blender mix it to a soft-serve consistency. You have to stop in the process and scrape the sides, so it takes a little bit of work, but it is completely and totally worth it so do it!

banana softserve

Homemade meatloaf made with grass-fed beef and LOTS of ketchup obviously.

meatloaf

Chicken and steak shish kabobs from the kitchen of Kathy and Tom (mom and dad). Kabobs scream summer to me and although it was only about 40°F when we ate these babies, I still got that summer feeling.

kabobs

Broccoli and cheese soup from Panera annnnnd I had $1 off because I use my Panera points card every time I go which made it taste even better. Um…yes!

panera broccoli cheese soup

Breakfasts are almost always still my go-to smoothie: frozen blueberries, frozen banana, kale, almond milk, peanut butter and raw cacao powder. When your breakfast tastes like a peanut butter chocolate shake, why would you want to break away from it?!

I think my body is trying to fight off a cold so I’m trying to feed it lots of good healthy and nutritious foods. Or maybe it’s just allergies? I’m not sure.

Questions:

What’s the best thing you have eaten lately?

Have you ever had Olive Garden’s salad? Do you love it as much as I do?

Continue Reading What I’ve Been Noshing On Lately

Weekend Recap: Blends Do Chicago

Oh boy. Let’s talk about this past weekend. It was epic. I flew out to Chicago to meet up with Katie, Caroline, and Becky for a highly anticipated girls’ weekend.

You’re about to get my weekend recap in one post so I hope you’re ready for it!

Katie and I flew out from Minneapolis and into Chicago around noon on Friday. We booked it over to meet Caroline as she exited her flight and we all went crazy when we reunited. The four of us haven’t been together since September at the Healthy Living Summit six months ago! But what’s great about our friendship and our relationship is that no matter how long we have been apart, we catch up right where we left off.

Becky lives in Chicago and was a fantastic host! We anxiously awaited her arrival at the airport. We repeated the whole greeting shenanigans and our faces were plastered with smiles the whole drive back to our hotel. Reunited and it feels so gooood!

You better believe there was a ridiculous amount of good food consumption that happened this weekend. It started in our hotel room. Katie broke out the Chex Mix and it tasted better than ever. I was SO hungry!

Next we walked to an Italian marketplace called Eataly. They sell every conceivable italian product I could think of (olive oil, pasta, chocolates, balsamic vinegar, etc.) but also have restaurants throughout, as well as sections dedicated solely to nutella and gelato. This brought me back to my honeymoon in Italy! We ate gelato everyday on our honeymoon!

We settled on the vegetarian restaurant and quickly devoured the complimentary bread. Oh yea, this weekend was not gluten-free.

#blendsdochicago blends do chicago

I ordered the vegetable soup. I wanted something light since it was 2:00 pm and our dinner reservations were at 7:30. I didn’t want to get so full that I couldn’t eat dinner plus I wanted to save room for dessert back at the hotel!

#blendsdochicago blends do chicago

Before heading back to the hotel, Caroline and I strolled down the street to a quiet cafe to catch up. I love love love these girls and made sure to express my feelings the entire weekend. I am lovey dovey and you guys know that.

#blendsdochicago blends do chicago

Back to the hotel room we went to relax for a few hours before dinner. Enter: Becky’s sinful brownies. Six pounds of brownie madness. That is 1.5 lbs per person if I did my math correctly. Good thing we didn’t eat the entire pan over the weekend. But seriously, these things were insane. I preferred not to know what was in them but she shared the recipe so I had to find out. I still enjoyed them just the same!

#blendsdochicago blends do chicago

Friday night was our romantic dinner at Nellcote to celebrate Caroline’s birthday. 🙂 Seriously the ambiance in this place was amazing. It was elegant with dim lighting, chandeliers, and candle light. So cozy and romantic!

After eating our weight in brownies, none of us were too hungry, so we decided to split a bunch of menu items. We split a margarita pizza, roasted brussels sprouts, creamy mashed potatoes, and potato gnocchi with lamb.

#blendsdochicago blends do chicago #blendsdochicago blends do chicago #blendsdochicago blends do chicago

The food, the conversation, the ambiance….everything was perfect. We retired to our hotel room where we were calling it a day at 10:30 pm. Flying wears a girl out!

The next morning we all got a workout in before heading out on the town. It was time to do some shopping. Becky took us to Shop900 which is off of Michigan Avenue but not nearly as crazy busy as the magnificent mile shops.

But first a pit stop or two.

Coffee…

#blendsdochicago blends do chicago

Duh. We had to see the bean!

#blendsdochicago blends do chicago

And take group selfies. #nerdsreunited

#blendsdochicago blends do chicago

Then it was time to shop. We hit up Banana Republic, Lululemon, J. Crew, and Nordstrom Rack.

#blendsdochicago blends do chicago

All of the shopping surely worked up our appetites. We waited an hour for a table at Giordano’s and it was so completely worth it! Authentic deep dish Chicago style pizza. Yes that is what we wanted and that is exactly what we got.

#blendsdochicago blends do chicago

After lunch we continued walking (we walked a lot on Saturday), shopped a bit more, and finally made it back to our hotel.

Katie helped me apply my first set of Jamberry nails!

jamberry nails

The first time applying them was pretty lengthy but I think that with practice I could make the process go much faster. How cute are they, right?! Katie is a jamberry nail distributor so if you’re interested in ordering any adorable wraps for yourself, send her an email!

We got prettied up and made a stop at Becky’s before going out to dinner. I swear it seems like all we did was eat this weekend but there was a lot of walking and relaxing involved too!

Before dinner I got to meet Becky’s sweet pup Mitchell. He’s famous over on her blog so I felt honored!

#blendsdochicago blends do chicago

Next up. Dinner at Mercadito, a fabulous Mexican restaurant.

#blendsdochicago blends do chicago

Again, none of us were feeling super hungry so we went with an order of guacamole and salsa and an order of the chicken tacos to share. Some of the best chicken tacos I have EVER had! The combination of flavors involved were so pleasing to the ol’ taste buds. Once again my tummy was happy.

IMG_0805

#blendsdochicago blends do chicago

#blendsdochicago blends do chicago

Unfortunately my energy level was failing. I called it a night after that—I slept terribly the night before and don’t do well on little sleep as you are all well aware. I went back to the hotel room, got cozy and hit the hay.

This brings us to Sunday. We woke ourselves up bright and early (again not enough sleep—theme of the weekend) and made our way to the Little Goat for breakfast. What’s great about traveling with foodie bloggers is you know you’re going to have a good meal since Becky picked all of them out.

My body still felt stuffed from all of the food consumed over the last 48 hours, so I decided to go on the lighter side. I split a cinnamon roll, split an order of bacon, and ordered myself a fruit parfait.

IMG_0814

Everything was delicious.

The weekend seriously was as amazing as it sounds. I miss these girls already. We’re already discussing our next meeting place!

 

Continue Reading Weekend Recap: Blends Do Chicago

Favorite Soup, Clean Things & Pups

TGIF!

I’m linking up with Katie once again for Friday favorites!

1. Getting goodies delivered to my door. Blue Diamond hooked me up with a fun little Olympic-inspired box of almonds.

blue diamond almonds

2. Lunch with two amazing and inspiring women at Panera. Can you believe I ordered the French Onion soup? I’m a creature of habit apparently. That, and French Onion soup is one of my all-time favs and since I don’t go to Panera too often, it’s one I like to order on repeat. And yes, I ate my whole loaf of bread with little repercussions (yay!) but I don’t plan on making that a habit.

panera french onion

3. As much as Moose is driving me crazy lately with his stir-craziness, he is so stinking cute still. I mean really, who can blame him. I would go stir-crazy too this winter. As you may have heard, we got bombarded with snow yesterday and Moose was in his dreamland. He just sat out in the snow and watched the world go by.

moose snow winter

moose snow winter  moose snow winter

4. Experimenting with my Young Living Essential Oils and finding new combos that work for different ailments/household messes/stinky gym shoes/sticker residue, etc. Being that I’m a science nerd, experimenting with oils gets me all happy.

lemon oil

5. These cleaning brushes from Collections Etc. The kind folks at CollectionsEtc.com sent me these cleaning brushes to review.

collections etc

I realize this is a bit of a random one for me, but the reason I agreed to review these is because I thought they would be perfect for cleaning the CamelBak water bottles which both Dana and I use on a daily basis. The downfall to the CamelBak is that there are a lot of nooks and crannies where bacteria can grow and it’s not always easy to clean out.

Well…I am happy to report that these little gadgets did a pretty fine job at disinfecting the water bottles. I used a lemon oil/vinegar/water blend to clean these along with the brushes.

The only issue I had was that not all of the straws on the water bottles are the same size, and so the cleaning tool got stuck in one of the straws. I had to unwind it out. So, technically it came out, just not easily so I guess I shouldn’t necessarily say it got “stuck.”

IMG_0413

It worked great for the mouthpiece.

collections etc

And inside of the straw insert hole.

collections etc

So far I have only used these brushes on the water bottle but I am definitely satisfied with the product! I have my eye on some cute tumblers on their website too!

Happy Friday to you all!

Disclaimer: Collections Etc. sent me these cleaning brushes to review on Beautifully Nutty. All opinions expressed on the product are solely my own.

Continue Reading Favorite Soup, Clean Things & Pups

An Impromptu Getaway: Orlando

After leaving you with a whole bunch of teasers on Monday, I was having a hard time deciding where to begin the recapping but have decided to start on the most recent and then work my way backwards in events. The most recent is the most fresh in my memory afterall.

Remember this “Where am I?” photo I posted in Monday’s post?

orlando universal studios

Although a couple of you guessed I was at the Mall of America (really good guess), I was actually in sunny ORLANDO!

It has been a really rough couple of months and Dana and I were both in need of a getaway to lift our spirits. He had to go to Orlando to work, and so last minute I decided to go too. It was a short trip, Sunday-Tuesday, but it was honestly just what I needed.

Sunday: Universal Studios

By the time we got to Orlando and to our hotel, it was about 3:30 pm. We quickly changed into shorts and tennis shoes and hit the pavement for a walk. It was sunny and WARM and I was not going to miss a second of it. Given that I was sleep deprived and hungry, the walk didn’t last too long, but it still felt good to stretch my legs after our day of flying.

In the evening we went to Universal Studios for dinner. There is an area where anyone can go to for free without paying to get into the actual park and there are a bunch of restaurants in the area.  orlando universal studios

Considering we just saw Jimmy Buffett in concert last August, we just had to go to the tourist gimmicky route and hit up Margaritaville for dinner. On the way, we discussed the Cirque Du Soleil show schedule and wondered if our weekend was too busy to make a trip to another concert.

What did I order? Cheeseburger in paradise of course! I hadn’t had much for lunch that day and pretty much slammed that burger. It tasted so good. It reminded me of summer. Ahhhhh….

margaritaville orlando

We walked around the park just long enough to get our free parking validated (the guy screwed us over by an hour accidentally or on purpose I am not sure). It got pretty chilly that evening and we were tired, so an early evening was just what the doctor had ordered anyway.

Monday: Poolside and Downtown Disney

On Monday, Dana had some work to do in the morning, so I headed down to the hotel gym for elliptical, running, and core work, followed by sitting by the pool.

orlando

The temperatures on Monday were glorious; 80’s with a breeze. It wasn’t so hot that I felt I needed to get in the pool, because the breeze kept me cool. It was just perfect. By the poolside is where you could find me most of the day.

At lunch time we headed to the local Publix grocery store for lunch. I grabbed a veggie-loaded salad, fresh fruit, and guess what I found…

Salt ‘n Vinegar Blue Diamond Almonds!! I have been on the search for these ever since my taste buds were tantalized by these babies back at the Healthy Living Summit in September. They are just as good as I remembered.

blue diamond salt n vinegar almonds

Dana and I got our share of sun by the pool before walking over to Downtown Disney; about a 15 minute walk from our hotel.

downtown disney

This is when I completely forgot I was a blogger and stopped snapping photos for the most part.

Downtown Disney has a large path to walk on surrounded by restaurants, shops, entertainment, and benches for people-watching. What a GREAT place to people watch!

We walked around for a while as we pondered our dinner options and took in the sights. There are an incredible amount of places to eat in Orlando, holy moly. Seriously anything you want you can find. We had our hearts set on Cuban and although there was a Cuban restaurant in Downtown Disney, I kind of wanted to get away from the gimmicky stuff for one night. There was another Cuban restaurant just a seven minute drive from us so we got back to our hotel, grabbed the car, and headed there.

We got to the restaurant and two ladies at the front told us that the entire restaurant was closed due to a private party. What?! We were definitely bummed because there were no other Cuban restaurants around the area.

We walked around scanning menus of other restaurants in this strip mall area and found Marlow’s Tavern. They had outdoor seating which was a plus and their menu looked great!

Marlow's Tavern Orlando

Dana and I started with some kettle chips topped with a gorgonzola cheese sauce, tomatoes, chives, and bacon. Definitely a calorie splurge and SO worth it! These things were insanely delicious.

kettle chips

For dinner, Dana and I both shared the filet mignon and the trout. The filet was so tender it melted in your mouth. The trout was good too but I was mostly impressed by the chips and they made up for most of my dinner that evening. Sometimes you just want chips! 😉

Marlow's Tavern Orlando

Again, my photo snapping finger was put on a hiatus for a lot of the day as I enjoyed it so thoroughly I guess I just forgot. After dinner we walked around the outdoor mall and then headed home to sleep.

Tuesday morning is when I had to head out. It was rainy on Tuesday morning. Someone was looking out for us while we were there to give us good weather I tell ya. The sunshine and Vitamin D were very much-needed. They gave me a boost of energy that I was so seriously missing.

This getaway was exactly what I needed. I feel so lucky I got to go and soak up the sun and enjoy some time away with my hubby for a day or two. It’s amazing what a quick little getaway can do for the spirit.

I hope you are all having a fantastic week and I hope to get the rest of my weekend recaps to you soon!

xoxo

Continue Reading An Impromptu Getaway: Orlando

Fried Avocados Make the World a Better Place

We are yet another day closer to Christmas! The time is flying by as it always does and I am doing my best to soak in all I can of the celebration of Christmas around me. That means Christmas music at every chance, Christmas lights on, Christmas-scented candles, cookie making, etc.!! 🙂

This weekend was productive yet low-key. It started with date night at Lago Tacos in Excelsior, MN. It is a fairly small establishment full of so much coziness. The lights were dim, the room was perfectly warm, and they had holiday decorations up to add even further to the warm ambiance.

lago taco

Dana and I started dinner with an order of fried avocados #allinmoderation #yolo. OH.MY. There is a reason they earned the title spot for this post. These babies were incredible. You start with a cool and creamy avocado (you can’t go wrong there), then you roll it in a light batter with just a hint of salt, fry it up until golden brown, and serve it with some type of cool sauce with just a hit of spice. They created a home run with this one that’s for sure.

fried avocado at lago taco fried avocado at lago taco

I actually practiced decent self-control and stopped after two slices; I had a huge platter of tacos still coming my way!

The tacos come in an order of three so I decided to mix and match so that I could try three different tacos. I chose the garden, the grilled chicken, and the carnitas taco.

tacos at lago taco

I honestly think these were the best tacos I’ve ever eaten. My favorite out of the three was surprisingly the carnitas one although I loved them all.

I thoroughly enjoyed date night with my man (and had to model my new sweater from my mom and dad). 😉

date night lago taco

On Saturday we ran what seemed like a kajillion errands including a trip to Caribou for a Northern Lite Turtle Mocha (my current favorite) and purchasing a new vehicle for Dana!

In the evening we made our way to Dana’s parents for dinner and some Christmas cookie baking! My first Christmas cookies of the season, followed by more cookie making this week with mom!

Sunday we cleaned the house, got some groceries, ran some more errands, and finally whipped together dinner.

I made a  Parmesan Broiled Tilapia recipe that I found on the one, the only, Pinterest.

parmesan tilapia parmesan tilapia

 

It turned out well, but I still had to have some cocktail sauce on the side. I love my ketchup!

I am hoping and praying for a great week. Enjoy the holiday cheer around you my friends!

Questions:

Have you ever tried fried avocados?

Have you tried any new recipes lately?

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