Mother’s Day Weekend Recap

Happy Monday guys! Did you all have a good weekend? I sure did but it went by so fast (as all trips to Michigan do). Anyway, here’s a recap of the rest of my weekend, you can find the first half here.

Saturday night, Ian, my mom and I all went out to Coyote Grill, a tex mex place that my mom and I used to go to all the time when I was younger. We hadn’t been in awhile so we weren’t sure what to expect.Thankfully, not much had changed!

They still brought us chips and super fresh cilantro salsa to start.

I’m honestly not a big chips and salsa eater but these are totally worth it. They taste so light and fresh!

One thing that has changed is what I ordered. I used to always get the fajita salad in a deep fried taco shell. However, neither chicken nor a deep fried bowl appeal to me anymore so I opted for shrimp fajitas instead.

Served with all of the appropriate toppings of course.

I only managed to eat two fajitas but I definitely finished off the veggies and shrimp. No wasting here!

Everyone else really enjoyed their meals as well. My mom had chicken enchiladas and Ian had steak tacos. We were all pretty happy and full afterwards 🙂

But of course, no Saturday night can be complete with dessert so on our way home from dinner we stopped at a small custard stand to pick up a little something sweet.

I had a small vanilla custard cone with rainbow sprinkles. The sprinkles are absolutely necessary 😉

We spent the rest of the night relaxing and ended up staying up waay too late to watch Iron Chef. The secret ingredient was peaches– we just haad to see what they could do!

On Sunday morning I got up, munched on some cereal, changed into running clothes, and headed out for a 6 mile run. My legs felt extremely heavy and tired, most likely from travelling and cycling on Saturday, but I pushed through it and ended up finishing in just under 46 minutes for a 7:37 min/mile. Granted, the area where my mom lives is flatter than Chicago but it still felt great to have a speedier run!

I snacked on more cereal post-run and then my mom and I headed out to run some errands and look at doggies. Our family dog passed away last fall and my mom has been waiting to get a new one and just recently started looking. Unfortunately we didn’t see any candidates yesterday but hopefully she’ll find one next weekend (she’s looking for a lab/golden puppy) :).

I picked up some new tri gear. After my ride on Saturday I knew that I needed to invest both in bike gloves and shorts (I ended up buying tri shorts) and I also bought a new bathing suit since mine is falling apart.

Another great weekend find was whipped cottage cheese. I spotted it at a small, local market in the area and purchased one to take back with me to Chicago. I obviously need to find a spot the sells it in the area but I’m so excited to try it 🙂

After we completed our errands, my mom and I went out to a Mother’s Day lunch at Crispelli’s a new Italian eatery that opened relatively close to my mom’s house. Per her suggestion, we split a Crispelli salad and a White Pie.

The salad dressing was amazing. We both kept dipping pizza crust into it!

The pizza had roasted garlic and artichoke hearts on it. Yum! I enjoyed two slices before calling it quits.

After lunch, I had to drop some cards off at my dad’s house and then my mom and I went to TCBY to take advantage of their free small cone/cup for moms on Mother’s Day. My mom had a small twist in a cup and I enjoyed a cone with chocolate malt frozen yogurt and more sprinkles. What can I say? I love my cones and sprinkles!

While we were looking at dogs, I had picked up a small harness and leash for Sonic so we could try to take him outside. When we got home, we tried everything on and went out for a test walk.

Doesn’t he look handsome in his harness, it looks like a little vest!

He was quite a natural outside on the leash, it’s too bad I’m not comfortable taking him out in Chicago. Maybe if we move farther north he’ll be able to go out but until then the vest is exclusively for use in Michigan.

Around 3, Ian and I hit the road to head back to Chicago. We made great time, stopping once for gas and then another time to get some water and to let Sonic use his litter. When we got back to the city, we dropped Sonic and our stuff off at the apartment and then headed out to do our grocery shopping for the week. About 45 minutes later we were back at the apartment and eating dinner (we’re fast shoppers!).

I had a salad with mushrooms, carrots, and tempeh crumbles with homemade mustard vinaigrette.

This salad was just what I needed after a heavy lunch.

Dessert was a mini pistachio cannoli that my mom picked up from Crispelli’s and sent home with us.

They’re so tiny! The perfect size for a non-Mike’s cannoli :P. I also had some almond milk with protein powder on the side.

All in all I had a great weekend. I love going home and seeing family and old friends and hopefully, I can make the trip more often now that I don’t have to worry about school!

How was your weekend? Did you do anything special?
Do you like sprinkles?

Date Night {people}

Last night Ian and I went to people, a tapas bar in Wicker Park.

We started with their red wine sangria (I could not win with this picture, sorry guys!).

It was good but it didn’t wow me. It was also really really weak. Now, I’m not trying to get hammered on date night, but if I’m drinking I want to taste a little bit of the alcohol. I kind of felt like I was drinking a juice box 😉 .

Our first small plate was an order of the patata bravas: potatoes, roasted red pepper aioli.

This dish may not look like much but it was packed with so much flavor! Plus, I’m not going to deny that I love home fries and these patatas reminded me of a spicy, salty homefry. Yum!

Next we had the pastel de vegetales: pan seared seasonal vegetable cake, tomato buerre blanc.

This was another winner and I think Ian was surprised to find that he really liked it as well! The cake had a nice doughy texture and the sauce was very flavorful.

We also split an order of the gambas: cazuela style sizzling chili shrimp, garlic bread.

The shrimp were good, but nothing I wouldn’t expect from a restaurant. I skipped out on the garlic bread so I can’t comment on it but Ian seemed to like his piece.

Lastly, we had the scallops: yukon gold potato and vegetable sofrito, crispy serrano.

The scallops were really good and I’m picky with scallops. However, I guess I didn’t read the menu close enough to see that there was ham in the dish! It wasn’t a big deal though, I just took one of the scallops off the plate and let Ian have the other two plus the sofrito. I don’t think he minded too much 😉

Now after all that food you’d think we’d be stuffed right? Wrong. The plates were so small (except for the patatas) that we both were not full. Unfortunately, none of the non-meat items looked good at the moment so we left the restaurant a little hungry.

No worries though, there’s a small ice cream/coffee bar/custard shop just down the street from the tapas bar that we had been waiting for an excuse to try ;).

Ian got this amazing-looking stacked banana split with custard, whipped cream, etc.(think banana split in cup-form) and I had a single scoop of pistachio ice cream.

Mmm pistachio ice cream is my favorite, but I must have looked really silly walking around Chicago in the winter, eating an ice cream cone, and wearing gloves 😛 . Totally worth it though and the small cone was the perfect amount to satisfy my sweet tooth!

After dessert, we headed home and caught up on t.v. (ahem… Friday Night Lights) and I’m happy to say I was tucked in bed before midnight. I like to sleep on my weekends!

Breakfast
I woke up hungry this morning so I decided to make steel cut oats for breakfast. I added 1/4 cup of oats, 3/4 cup of water, 1 tsp chia seeds, and then about 5 cashews to the pot and warmed it over medium high heat. Once the oats started to thicken, I added in 1/2 a smushed banana, cinnamon, and vanilla extract. I let the oats cook for about 15 minutes, stirring occasionally, and then added some almond milk for creaminess.

While my oats cooked, I enjoyed some french roast coffee with my new favorite coffee creamer, Coffee Mate’s Peppermint Mocha.

While it’s not the healthiest of creamers, it does taste pretty good, and it brings me back to the days of Starbuck’s Peppermint Mocha (well, almost!).

Once my oats were done, I topped them with some thawed and warmed strawberries and a mixture of peanut flour, water, and maple syrup.

I don’t know if the way I cooked the steel cut oats was very different from last time, but I definitely liked them more this morning!

Plans for today include homework, a short run, and some quality Ian/Sonic-time.

Do you make steel-cut oats? How do you normally prepare them?

What are your Saturday plans?

Date Night & Great Lake Pizza

I spent most of my morning reading on the couch. I’m almost done with Jeffrey Eugindes’ The Marriage Plot and I’m incredibly hooked. While its not as good as Middlesex, I prefer it to The Virgin Suicides and have definitely enjoyed reading it. I’m going to need a new book soon, any suggestions?

Ian woke up around lunchtime today. I’m always amazed how people can do this. I’m wired to wake up early in the mornings and I can’t fathom sleeping in until noon. I’m so jealous! We were planning on running errands this afternoon, so while he ate breakfast I had a small lunch of cottage cheese, spinach, black pepper, and hot sauce.

I also had a little kefir with some granola.

We got ready and headed out to Walmart to pick up some cleaning supplies and Christmas decorations. It was still really cold out so I bundled up and wore a scarf, heavy coat, hat, and gloves. Ian always teases me about my “Elmer Fudd” hat, but its so warm!

We’re dorks 😛

Tonight was our date night, we try to have one once a week, and we decided to check out Great Lake, a pizza place in one of the northern Chicago neighborhoods. Great Lake is a teeny tiny BYOB pizza place and grocery store that emphasizes regionally produced ingredients. They only offer about 4 pizzas at a time and the toppings change with the seasons.

We started with the specialty salad of the day: spiralized brussels sprouts with a honey mustard vinaigrette, black pepper, and cheese.

Easily one of the best salads I have ever had! It was light, crispy, and the cheese was absolutely incredible. I need to get a spiralizer so I can recreate this!

For our pizza we ordered the number 2, a mushroom pizza without marinara sauce

Yum! The pictures don’t do this pizza justice. The flavors were perfectly balanced and the crust was nice and doughy. I enjoyed three small slices.

Because we were so far north and hadn’t been for awhile, we decided to head over to Lickity Split for dessert. Lickity Split is a frozen custard, cupcake, and candy bar that has an old school feel and charm. Just walking into the store transports you back in time.

Cute right?

Tonight they had egg nog flavored custard, and as I love egg nog anything, I had a small concrete with the eggnog custard and crushed ice cream cone.

It hit the spot. I love frozen yogurt but there is nothing quite like frozen custard, although it is definitely not something you’d want to eat very often 😉

I’m off to relax a bit and then go to bed, I have my first Boston training run tomorrow morning!

What did you do Saturday night?