Weekend Wrap Up

Weekend Wrap Up: Good Eats & a Giveaway (Closed)

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If you are looking for the giveaway you’ll just go nuts about scroll down! 

This weekend Neil and I were fairly busy and it seems that things aren’t going to be slowing down anytime soon!  We started the weekend off with a homemade Mexican pizza (recipe to come tomorrow) which was absolutely delicious.

Here it is all fixed up with a sprinkle of baby arugula, fresh tomatoes and sour supreme.  We enjoyed our slices, went for a walk and settled on the couch to watch a few shows.

Saturday morning I got up bright and early to bake up a batch of Babycakes gluten free Pumpkin Spice Muffins for our early morning birthing class.  Around 8:30 our birthing class teacher arrived (we are taking private classes) and we served up coffee, muffins and fruit before starting our four hours of class. In other news our birthing class teacher is also a doula and last week after doing a bunch of reading Neil and I made a last minute decision to hire a doula for the birth.  I checked with Sarah (our birth coach) to see if she had any July openings and she did so after our class we decided to hire her to be our doula (she is really wonderful and so comfortable to be around).  I’ll discuss more of this doula talk in Thursday’s update post.

After our four plus hours of birthing class Neil and I were so hungry we decided to use up the remaining homemade dough and make another small pizza for lunch and then I passed out for a few hours.  When I finally woke up Neil was going a little stir crazy and was ready to get out of the house so we decided to have a date night downtown including window shopping, drinks (beer for him and water for me) and dinner out at A Single Pebble <–Neil had a gift card from work so free (almost) dinner for us! After dinner we headed home and cuddled on the couch while watching the remainder of the Yankees game, we should have just gone to bed though such a bad game.

Sunday we enjoyed a lazy morning before heading out for brunch with friends that we hadn’t seen since last July.  We spent over two hours enjoying food, conversation and having tons of belly laughs at Duino Duende.  It was so nice not to have a rushed meal and really enjoy the company.  After brunch we rean a few errands, took a nap, Neil did a training run and I watched House Hunters International.

While Neil finished up his run I made dinner of arugula walnut pesto with peas and white beans, a side of kale and leftover tofu from dinner at A Single Pebble.  After dinner we went for a stroll and then relaxed on the couch. What did you do this weekend?

Now that you’ve read my weekend recap keep scrolling and you’ll find a great giveaway! 

Review and Giveaway: Doug’s Nuts

A few weeks ago Doug’s Nuts sent me a few complimentary bags of their nuts to try out and ever since then I have been in love.  When I first open the nuts I am expecting them to be sugary based on their shiny coating but they were super mild and really delicious.  They are coated with a flavorful glaze consisting of organic evaporated sugarcane juice, honey, oatmeal stout beer <– my husband saw beer and had to try them immediately, sea salt, organic vanilla extract, and other natural flavors. In the mix are roasted almonds, peanuts, hazelnuts, walnuts, cashews, pecans, and pumpkin seeds (the hazelnuts and pecans are my favorites).

I unfortunately finished off my two pouches pretty quickly (time to get some more I guess!)  but boy where they good.  I enjoyed them over soy yogurt, by the palm-full and my favorite way as a topping for apple “nachos”.  What are apple nachos? Simply thinly sliced apples (I use my mandolin) drizzled with almond butter and topped with a sprinkling of Doug’s Nuts and a few mini chocolate chips for good measure.

Giveaway Details- Open Until Friday May 11th at 8pm EST: CLOSED

  • Doug’s Nuts will provide and ship one 6-pack of Doug’s Nuts to the winner ($30 + shipping costs value) – OPEN TO US RESIDENTS ONLY
Winner:

To enter:

  • Visit the Doug’s Nuts and come back and leave a comment letting me know something that you have learned. (Mandatory)
Additional Entries: (Leave a separate entry for each)
  • Follow Doug’s Nuts on Twitter
  • Follow Running With Tongs on Twitter
  • Tweet “I’d go nuts to win @runwithtongs @dougsnuts giveaway http://wp.me/pFVWo-3fL”

Weekend Wrap Up: Busy, Busy, Busy

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This weekend was one of the busiest and most productive weekends we have had in, um, months? Friday night was a little on the lazy side, we had dinner and relaxed on the couch and I went to bed early.

Saturday I was up early to get a little cleaning done and then off to my girlfriend Cate who was in town for the weekend so we could chat and go over plans for the baby shower she is hosting with help from my mom in June. We also indulged in some sticky buns that Neil was ever so nice to get up and bake us Saturday morning (unfortunately no photo).

After my visit with Cate, Neil and I headed out to run a few errands around town.  We also stopped into the new sandwich shop to pick up an Indian Chickpea grinder to share for lunch. It was a really great sandwich on delicious bread but both Neil and I didn’t totally get the Indian part of it, but either way we enjoyed it.

The remainder of our Saturday was spent organizing, relaxing on the couch, reading and eventually I made a delicious dinner which will be tomorrow’s recipe of the week.

Sunday: There was no rest at our house this Sunday, it was our most productive and busiest day of the week! Neil and I got up early to pick up the floors (in our carpeted rooms) and move everything out of the nursery so we could shampoo the carpets.

While we waited for my parents to arrive with their machine Neil prepared some homemade bagels and coffee and I worked on the bagel toppings and a nice fruit bowl.

Everyone (except me) got their coffee on and then it was off to the cleaning and shampooing!

After shampooing all of our carpets we decided to head out for a few hours to run some errands and have a picnic lunch while the carpets dried.  After stopping at a few shops, Buttered Noodles and Home Depot, we decided to find a spot for lunch.  We enjoyed a nice spread of homemade ginger peach iced tea, hummus, crackers, berries, and pasta salad.

Quick and Easy Pasta Salad: 1 packaged of cooked whole wheat shells; 1 15-oz can of black beans and 1 15-oz can of chickpeas, a bunch of cherry tomatoes cut in half, one small red onion diced, a handful or two of baby carrots cut into circles, lots of black pepper and enough of Briannas French Vinaigrette to coat everything.

After our outing we headed back to our house to move things back into place and my mom and I worked on decorating the nursery while the guys watched the remainder of the Yankees game.

Once my parents headed home I made some dinner and we settled in on the couch and caught up on a few shows before heading to bed to read. After a busy day my snoogle never looked so good.

How did you spend your weekend?

Weekend Wrap Up: Slowing Down

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Friday Night: We started our weekend off with a bang aka we didn’t just spend the night sitting around at home doing nothing. Neil worked from home which meant when he was finished working we could go straight to spending time together rather than having to deal with a commute.

Since it was a beautiful evening I changed into a skirt (YAY finally skirt weather again) and we headed downtown to do a little shopping, walking and wondering around. We picked up a few new shirts for Neil and then decided that it was time for dinner. We debated going out but in the end decided to pick up the fixings for veggie burgers to make at home.

So we picked up the goods and headed home to make delicious veggie burgers and caught up on a few shows.

Saturday: We had minor morning plans to pick up a vegan cupcake from Nibble or Nosh at the market, stop into Plato’s closet to sell some of Neil’s old clothes and pick up fixings for our pizza party later that night. What was going to be a quick trip out to do these things turned into shopping for a new bike for Neil when we saw that North Star was having a bike sale and then I was hungry so we stopped into Healthy Living for a snack and picked up the fixings for our pizza party. Then we were off to Plato’s Closet to sell clothes, which ended up being over an hour wait so we decided to do a little more shopping.

We ended up finding ourselves at Buttered Noodles, a kids shop in Williston. We had always debated stopping in but for some reason the name just really but us off and I think we both imagined there would just be a bunch of random junk there, however we were delightfully surprised. We ended up walking into this huge store that is filled with everything from books and toys to clothes, strollers, and cribs. There was even a small maternity clothes section and a cloth diaper section. Most of the items there were all at a discount, almost like a TJMaxx or Marhsalls. I ended up finding some maternity leggings, a few really cute organic baby clothes and a few books. We will definitely be back another time to pick up more items for the baby, such as the cloth diapers!

Finally an hour passes and we are able to see what Plato’s took and after be coming $29 richer we decided to take ourselves to Thai lunch since we both were super hungry at this point.

After lunch I was just about dead. Apparently the Third Trimester has hit me and I am getting run down real fast. We headed home to clean before our guests came aka Neil did most of the cleaning and I took a nap. Then we pizza partied the night away.

Sunday: This day for me was all about relaxing, catching up on a bit of work and then heading out for a long 5k walk. It was beautiful out and it was a perfect day to walk but boy am I starting to slow down. A few weeks ago I could easily go at an 18-19 minute pace and now I’m closer to averaging 22 minutes per mile, hello third trimester I see you are starting 4 days early.

What did you do this weekend? Where you able to get out and enjoy the weather?

Also Weekend Wrap Ups- yay? or nay?

iWeekend

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This weekend started out bright, early and cold at Neil’s first 10k of the season.

Promptly following his successful race we headed to Magnolia Bistro where we sipped super spicy delicious vegan bloody mary’s (virgin for me)…

And brunched- I ordered a bunch of my favorite sides- SO GOOD!

Following brunch we headed to Michael’s to pick up a few necessary art supplies to complete our nursery art work.

Then it was over to Healthy Living Market where I spotted their electric car charging station and we picked up a few ingredients for meals this weekend.

The remainder of the weekend was spent doing laundry and lounging on the couch with this guy:

We did however manage to peel ourselves off the couch on Sunday and got out for a 2.25 mile walk.

What did you do this weekend?

Lazy-Active Weekend

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This weekend was one of those weekends where I just didn’t want to do anything but relax on the couch.  Unfortunately I have responsibilities and a husband who gets stir crazy if he stays home for too long so only about 60% of my time was spent lounging.

On Saturday morning I made my first attempt at organizing our office/spare room which used to be my office/elliptical room.  Now that we have (finally) gotten rid of the non-functioning elliptical we have tons of space to organize the office and make it into the perfect space for me to work and to practice yoga.  I love having a little quiet hideaway to get my work done, I’m so much more productive.  After a cleaning sesh Hubz convinced me to head downtown to look for new shoes and hit up the farmers market.  Finding new shoes was a bust since nice vegan shoes and boots are very limited in Burlington, we’re hopping our trips to Philly and NYC will be more fruitful.

We stopped into the farmers market in search of a vegan cupcake however all they had this week was chocolate-mint, not quite what we were looking for so instead we headed to one of our favorite eateries Zabby & Elf’s Stone Soup.  I was really in the mood for a nice cup of chili which came with two hunk of nice bread and the Hubz decided to go with the hot bar and a hunk of my bread.  Everything was so warm and delicious, perfect for a fall day.

The remainder of Saturday was spent running errands and then home to do a short yoga session, lounge and catch up on Dexter.

Sunday came and along with it a time change, this totally screwed my day up.  I was all ready to head out the door to pick up groceries when Neil pointed out at that it wasn’t 8am but rather 7am!  We waited around for a bit and then headed out to pick up our groceries for the week which included lots of root veggies, squash, Brussels Sprouts and green beans. Any idea what I might be making this week??

After grocery shopping we headed home and I decided to just relax for awhile because I wasn’t feeling great, a little bit of an upset stomach- I blame all the gluten I ate on Saturday.  I was supposed to do a 5-Miler yesterday but after waiting out to see how I was feeling I ultimately decided I just wasn’t up for it so the Hubz and I went for a 2.3 mile walk before dinner.  When we got back he changed into his running gear and went for a run and I made dinner: Black Bean & Butternut Squash Burritos with Chipotle-Cashew Sauce and a green salad.

Chipotle-Cashew Sauce:

Ingredients:

  • 1 tablespoon canola oil
  • 1 small onion, diced
  • 4 garlic cloves, sliced
  • 1 dried chipotle pepper
  • 1 15oz can whole tomatoes, with juices
  • 1/4 cup water
  • 1 tablespoon cumin powder
  • 3 tablespoons cashew pieces
  • salt and pepper to taste
Heat the oil in a small pan over med-high heat. Add the onions and cook for 3-5 minutes until translucent.  Stir in the garlic cloves and cook for 1 minute. Stir in the tomatoes, water and chipotle pepper; bring to a simmer then cover and reduce heat.  Cook for 10 minutes on low.   Stir in the cumin and cashew pieces and cook uncovered for 5 minutes. Transfer everything to a blender or food processor and process until smooth.  Return to the pan and season with salt and pepper to taste.
In other news I have temporarily givin up coffee and alcohol.  

Weekend Wrap Up: Farmers Market, Ferry Rides & Eating In

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Saturday morning Neil and I headed out early on a mission for Fall veggies from the Farmers Market and new jeans. First stop the Burlington Farmers Market where I picked up two types of kale and two types of squash.

  

  

YUM Kale! And Neil loves his delicata squash!

  

We did a little jean shopping around Burlington and well it was pretty unsuccessful so we decided to take advantage of the beautiful day and rode the ferry to New York and took a scenic drive to the outlets in Lake George.  It was a relatively fruitless trip for me but Neil came home with a new pair of jeans.

It was a wonderful day with my main squeeze, my hunky hubz.

After our long day away I came home and made dinner of quinoa, kale and tempeh, ordered jeans from JCrew.com (on sale-win!) and spent some cuddle time with my furry little man.

  
Today we’ve spent most of the day relaxing on the couch watching movie trailers, a movie (Morning Glory- really cute) and drinking chai lattes. The benefit of staying home to watch a movie is enjoying a giant bowl of popcorn with nutritional yeast and homemade chai lattes. After relaxing on the couch all day the Hubz and I went on a three mile walk and watched the sunset before dinner.

What did you do this weekend?

Weekend Wrap Up: Sunday Night Dinner

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My weekend started off with a really great run with my Hubz and then we got ready for a date night. We started our night at the South End Art Hop where we looked at some wonderful local art studios and stole a few snacks (pretzels, veg and hummus) before heading to dinner at Flatbread. We enjoyed a delicious drink while we waited for a table, wine for me and beer for him, and then shared a salad and flatbread with mushrooms, heirloom tomatoes, peppers and eggplant- so good.

Art Hoping

Saturday morning Hubz and I headed out for our Saturday coffee and spent some time working before going shopping. This coming weekend I am heading to NYC for an IIN conference and I “needed” to go get a new “dress to impress” outfit. I spent too many hours looking for a new outfit and by the end of the day I found one I liked but couldn’t commit. I decided to sleep on on it.

This morning the Hubz and I got up at my parents (unplanned over night) and did a hilly, back road run. I had 4 miles on my plan for today but once I got going I felt amazing and decided to do a 60 minute run which ended up being 4.56 miles!!! The most I have ever run in my life and it felt amazing. I really could have kept going but I knew I shouldn’t because I shouldn’t veer off my training plan. After running it was time to get ready to celebrate my G-Ma’s 80th Birthday! Happy Birthday to her!

After her b-day party, Hubz and I headed home and I finally decided to commit to the outfit…and a new pair of pants. Neil was thrilled because after putting him through too many hours of shopping yesterday I finally bought something. See outfit below.

Now it’s time to sit and relax for a bit, watch a few shows and help the Hubz bottle his most recent homebrew. Dinner was sauteed chard, creamy white beans and a root veg mash- recipe to come!