Recent Dinners + Rainbow Cookie Cupcakes

I figured out the image loading issue with my blog that I mentioned last week. What I haven’t figured out is why my blog emails stopped sending a few weeks ago! My initial approach of pretending there wasn’t a problem and that the issue would fix itself didn’t in fact fix it. I’m hopeful that whatever I managed to tweak in the system yesterday will have the emails start sending again after today’s post.

Recent Meals

I have a few dinners and an excellent dessert to discuss for this week! I wish I had a few lunches to share but I didn’t stop to take pictures of them — I will do a better job for next week.

Pizza!

It had been at least a month since I last had the whole wheat grandma pizza I discovered from La Focaccia.

The crust is so airy and light that it sits so nicely in my stomach. Not to mention, it’s quite delicious.

I’m also still enjoying the whole wheat margarita pizza with a salad for dinner at least one night a week. This has been a routine dinner staple of mine now for about five years!

I’m really trying to have wild salmon for dinner one to two times a week.

I had this salmon with a baked potato and roasted cauliflower.

And another night I made the wild salmon with a baked sweet potato and rainbow cauliflower.

If you follow me on Instagram, you may have noticed that I’m posting more to my stories again. I shared about these rainbow cookie cupcakes last week!

When I arrived at Small Cakes, there were two rainbow cookie cupcakes left so I bought them both – one for me and one for my son.

My son did not eat his cupcake the day I bought which, to me, means that it was now anyone’s cupcake the next day. He didn’t really agree with me but hello, eat it the day I buy it or it’s up for grabs.

I’ve also been eating an apple again every night as a snack. I bought organic honey crisp but also decided to go back to granny smith apples too. If you are a longtime reader, you may recall that I lived on big granny smith apples for years! Then I got tired of them. Well, now they are back in my life so I will share some new apple snack photos next week. In the meantime, I did a quick “apple” search in the blog media library which revealed tons of results from over the years.

Trader Joes + Whole Foods (a few recent meals)

The lines at Trader Joe’s over the weekend were beyond what I would consider normal weekend long lines. It was as if there was a blizzard coming and I wasn’t told about it. It did lightly snow yesterday and is snowing again this morning (for the first time really all winter) but shouldn’t be more than an inch.

I went to Whole Foods after Trader Joe’s rather than before because I know that Whole Foods will have what Trader Joe’s doesn’t. To my surprise, Trader Joe’s did have romaine lettuce but is still out of:

• Organic Chickpeas
• Organic Apples
• Organic Salted Crunchy Peanut Butter

I take a small basket when shopping at Whole Foods but it quickly fills up — I added a few more things after taking this picture such as the chickpeas, peanut butter, and the feta cheese that I forgot to buy at Trader Joe’s.

I bought a large pack of individually frozen wild salmon fillets. I feel like such a healthy person when I eat wild salmon for dinner. This totally sounds funny when I type it but it’s true! Wild salmon is just so healthy for us.

I made wild salmon the other night with a baked sweet potato and roasted cauliflower. This is really such a good, easy dinner! I’m still kinda new to making my own salmon regularly so I can’t share recipes — at least not yet.

I’m on a roasted cauliflower kick as of late. I roasted cauliflower another night for dinner along with chickpeas, with a side of the crinkle-cut french fries from Whole Foods. My son bought those individual organic guacamole packs from Costco so I used one to add to the mix – It was a good combination.

I’m also still on an egg with avocado on toast kick. I usually end up eating this for lunch after yoga. Sometimes I make two slices of toasted ezekial bread, sometimes just the one. Really depends on my appetite!

Oh, so I’ve been having some issues with uploading images into my blog — it’s always something! So that’s all I have for today. Hopefully I can sort out my image issue for Friday.

Different Meals + Wild Salmon + Latkes

I have so many meals to share that I’ve enjoyed recently and some of them are even different from what I usually eat!

It’s been quite a while since I made a copycat version of the barbeque ranch salad from The Cheesecake Factory.

The other day it just dawned on me that I had all of the ingredients in the house because my son bought a can of Whole Foods 365 fried onions. While they aren’t the same as the freshly fried onion strings at The Cheesecake Factory, they worked really well.

In the salad:

• Black Beans
• Corn
• Tomatoes
• Cucumbers
• Avocado
• Romaine
• Whole Foods 365 Organic Light Ranch Dressing
• Onion Strings

I didn’t think I would come back to the English muffin-avocado-egg combination so quickly but I did! This time, I had it with a salad too.

My plate X 2 of salad with Sicilian pizza from La Piazza. Usually, I go the grandma pizza route but the Sicilian looked so good that I couldn’t pass it up.

I had a bowl from Cava recently — it was just fine. I say that every time about Cava.

Look who made salmon!

I decided I should eat salmon more often (let’s see if it happens – I’m really not a fish eater but wild salmon is so HEALTHY) so I bought wild-caught sockeye salmon from Whole Foods.

Wild salmon is packed with:

• Omega 3 Fatty Acids
• Protein
• Vitamin D
• B Vitamins
• Potassium
• Selenium
• Astaxanthin

For this vegetarian eater who rarely eats fish, this salmon was actually pretty delicious.

With a potato latke topped with applesauce because….it’s Hanukkah time.

I can’t take credit for making the latkes this year. Why should I bother to make them myself when the latkes at Shoprite are so good? They have small and large, and both regular potato and sweet potato latkes.

I had a larger latke with applesauce on the side of roasted cauliflower mixed with quinoa for dinner — what a great combination.

And finally, tis the season for hot chocolate!

I’ve had a few cups of hot chocolate from Dunkin Donuts at night recently and have enjoyed every sip.

Dropped Something On My Foot + Monday’s Meals

 

Oh, hey. It’s Wednesday again, just like that! I guess after this week we will start to feel like we are in the routine swing of things? Gosh I get so thrown off and out of routine after these holiday break weeks.

So I didn’t get a chance to tell you that I very randomly dropped a full bottle of shampoo on the top of my right foot while in the shower on Saturday after my long run.

I KNOW.

How ridiculous?

This wouldn’t be a big deal except I dropped the shampoo bottle on my foot and I need my foot to run, among other important life things.

I get really nutty and protective when it comes to my feet and take major precaution to keep them safe and uninjured so dropping the shampoo bottle on the top of that really delicate part of my foot was really not okay!

I felt it on occasion throughout the day on Saturday and but then I actually forgot that the whole thing happened — until Sunday morning during Pure Barre in my living room when I looked down at my foot and saw it was swollen and bruised. Luckily, it didn’t hurt AT ALL but the sight of it and fear of causing real damage by running on it is what has kept me from running since Saturday.

I’m not one of those runners. You know, the runners who run through anything when they should probably back off? That’s not me. I run a whole lot but I know when I should take precautions. A swollen top of foot should probably not be run on, just in case. Why risk creating an injury when you can just take a few days to rest?

Sometimes I think that I shock people with my ability to back off easily. For example, my dad’s first response was, “you better not run on it!” – like hello – I know that! I am not stupid. In fact, I am pretty sure my foot is fine even today but mentally I am so scared of hurting it that I’m taking my foot to the doctor later today just to be super safe and told when it’s okay to run on it.

I totally understand that runners are stubborn. I am stubborn by nature. Stubborn is not the same as stupid. You may think you aren’t injured and something is just a little bruised. But see, running creates stress and impact and that could present a whole new host of problems that may not have occurred had you just let something rest and heal for a few days.

Okay, enough about my foot, time to talk food.

Monday turned into a rest day from everything which was really nice if you want to know the truth. I thought who I was resting my foot, sleeping a little late and staying in my pajamas until lunch time.

Breakfast:

Since I slept late and didn’t workout in any way, I only had one breakfast. Weird concept for me! I like having a normal person appetite. 🙂

I found interest in bananas again by the way! It happened so randomly but one day last week I was like, oh I think I am in the mood to buy bananas again!

Peanut butter and cinnamon were added to the oatmeal.

Lunch:

I realized I hadn’t made a Dr. Prager’s Veggie Burger in a while! I paired it with roasted broccoli, spiraled carrots and the colorful carrot coins.

Dinner:

Look who cooked and ate wild salmon! My son actually likes salmon so I figured I should buy it for a change as a dinner option. I’m not a huge salmon eater but the health benefits of wild salmon are pretty spectacular so I decided I should eat it too. It made him happy actually that I was eating what he was eating so we decided salmon is a dinner I should make once a week.

Do I love salmon? I wouldn’t call it my favorite but I’m going to try to make it a favorite since wild salmon is really a nutritional powerhouse with benefits like rich in B vitamins especially B12, anti-inflammatory Omega 3’s, good source of protein and vitamin D, potassium, selenium, cancer-fighting properties, improves blood flow which can prevent blood clots, and strengthens the immune system.

Remember, I’m in no way vegan and I’m not classified as a vegetarian either because I will eat fish from time to time. 

Dessert:

Apple with peanut butter and chocolate, just like old times.

On a side note, I updated my Mac to High Sierra. Since then, I am having issues with my photos. Anyone else? I can’t save photos unless they are coming from my phone photo library via the cloud and any editing I do on my laptop won’t save either. Please let me know if you are experiencing this too!

[bctt tweet=”I sort of hurt my foot plus Monday’s Meals on the blog today! #WIAW #runner #footissues #recenteats #wildsalmon #eats #drpraegers #oatmeal #restday” username=”cookiechrunicle”]

Ever drop something on your foot? What did you drop and did you hurt yourself?

Are you a wild salmon fan? How do you like to cook it?