Sweet Strawberries

When I made the grocery list for this week, I knew I wanted to make something summery and sweet, so I thought a light strawberry shortcake would be a hit.  Tonight, I took 20 minutes to assemble this quick dessert and it was yummy!

Angel food cake!

 

Whole strawberries ready to be cleaned!

Cleaned + chopped strawberries.

 

Sliced piece of angel food cake.

Topped with light whipped cream + heart shaped strawberry!

Final product!

All told, it actually took me less than 20 minutes to make this.  I sliced up the angel food cake, cleaned and cut the berries and topped it all with whipped cream.

Nom, nom, friends!

More Strength

Last nights workout was cray-cray.  Our normal instructor wasn’t there, so we were graced with the presence of another instructor who k-i-l-l-ed it.

The workout had a lot of free weights, slide discs for lunges, exercises on the ball, resistance bands, and a bunch of other crap that had me sweating like a beast.

Basically, it looked like this:

The instructor completely whooped my ass.  I am in awe at how some of the girls in the class kill the workout without looking winded.  Okay, maybe two of them, the rest of us are really getting worked.  Either way, by the time I came home, I was already super sore and spent the remainder of my evening on the couch.

Chris swam the entire hour I was in class and was whooped as well, so we both slept like rocks last night.

We were supposed to go to the gym tonight, but we are both so incredibly sore (my arms are burning), that we thought a day of rest could do us some good.  Tonight, we made turkey spaghetti and I’m about to whip up some tasty strawberry shortcake for my love.

I’m sore and exhausted just looking at those pictures.  Ouch.

Away We Go

You know what the best thing is?  When you have a horrible week, but somehow end it on a super great note.

Today friends, we picked out our wedding rings!

I was so super excited to knock this one off of our list, and I couldn’t wait to see what style of ring Chris liked and what it would look like on him!  So, right after work, we met at Midtown Jewelers in Reston, and we got our shop on.

We started with Chris first and he was hilarious to watch.  There were so many options, and as we looked through them, he’d look at them, touch them and just respond with “I don’t know, I don’t know!”  After a few minutes, he relaxed a little bit and was able to identify a style he liked.  It came down to cobalt or titanium, but titanium was the winner.  Come October,  Chris can officially open beer bottles with his wedding ring.

My band was easy to pick out since the designer makes a matching band to go along with my engagement ring.

To celebrate this momentous occasion, we decided to turn our little shopping adventure into an impromptu date night.  So, we walked around Reston Town Center and stumbled upon an awesome place called SweetGreen.  We had never heard of it, but it looked kind of healthy, so we thought we’d give it a shot.

Seriously friends, coolest place ever.  So many amazing + healthy options, locally grown food, no soda (only all natural soft drinks…as in made with sugar cane, no aspartame) and recycling/compost bins galore.  So neat!  I had a deconstructed guacamole salad with shrimp and Chris got some salad with chicken, watermelon and feta.  Everything was silly delicious and I want to go back asap.

After a healthy and fresh dinner, we treated ourselves to a tiny helping of gelato across the street.  I happen to love gelato and there is nowhere nearby to get it, so when we’re at Reston Town Center, I make it a point to stop for a treat.

I love how Chris goes for mango + pineapple and I go for vanilla chocolate chip + chocolate hazelnut.  Opposites totally attract.

After our dessert and people watching, Chris took me to my favorite shop in the town center, PaperSource.  I could spend hours in this store, friends.  Between the journals, the stationary, the unique cards and the stunning single sheet gift wrap, I’m in love.  We popped in for some wedding inspiration (I was hoping to get beautiful paper to wrap our bridal party gifts in, but at $7 a sheet, it’s not happening), and we left with a few cute and unexpected things.

After making our way through the town center, we were getting tired and ready to go home, but, we had to make one last stop at Barnes and Noble and Michaels to pick up some supplies for our crafting day on Sunday.  We have plans to get a lot knocked out this weekend with the help of some of our bridal party, so we’re excited to see how our ideas come to life.

We took these couple of pictures while at Barnes and Noble, and yes, it has to do with the wedding.  Are we crazy, or are we creative?

I’m really excited to get through this weekend and see what we’ve accomplished by Sunday evening.  Hair + makeup trial tomorrow and projects on Sunday…we should be productive.

Wish us luck!  Away we go!

Fish for Non Fish Eaters

I’ve never been a fish person.  The extent of my fish consumption consisted of fish sticks and ketchup when I was a kid.  I never order fish as an entrée and hate it when people bring leftovers to work and microwave them and smell up the room.

Chris loves fish, and with us cooking a lot now, he has been asking me for a few weeks to be open to trying a fish recipe.  So, after talking to some friends who cook fish and also finding some somewhat yummy looking recipes, I finally got the courage and added a dish to our menu for the week.

I found an appetizing recipe for broiled tilapia (I hear you yelling, D), so I gave it a shot tonight and was pleasantly surprised.  It was super easy to make, quick and actually pretty tasty.  It wasn’t fishy at all, either, so that was an added bonus.  I served it with couscous & green beans sautéed in fresh lemon juice.   Chris loved it and his biggest complaint was that there wasn’t enough, so I can take that as a compliment.

I think we’ll start trying to make fish at least once a week, and change it up as I learn to like and cook different types of fish.  I feel a new sense of confidence for not only making, but also eating something from the ocean other than crab.  It’s refreshing.

After dinner we let our food settle and then made our way to the gym.  I had challenged Chris to a rowing contest to see who could row a mile the fastest, and lets just say that had we been on actual water, I would have fallen over and probably drowned.  After about 500 meters, my arms and legs were burning, but I made it the entire 1,609 meters.  Chris killed me by a good four minutes, but I like to think it’s because of his longer legs and upper body strength that I lack.  Either way, it was a fun competition and a good way to start the workout.  After that, I hit the elliptical for 30 minutes and got 2.15 miles out of myself.  Slower than my normal pace, but my legs were like jello from the rowing. I have a feeling I’m going to be extra sore tomorrow.

In excellent news, we finally found someone to finish our kitchen floors and they’re coming tomorrow!!!!  Just as a reminder, this is what we’ve been living in for the past month.

I might cry with joy when the floors are finished.  I think once it’s all done we will feel a sense of “home” that we’ve been lacking.  We’ll finally get to put our kitchen away completely, get our new stove installed (it arrived a few days ago and we haven’t been able to hook it up yet) and we’ll be able to start other tasks that have been put on the back burner.  Let me just publicly say that I learned a huge lesson from this incident…NEVER tear up floors without knowing what you’re doing.  I. CAN. NOT. WAIT.  Before/After pictures, coming soon!

Tilapia Recipe!

Servings:  6 servings

•Time:  15 minutes

• 6 tilapia fillets (6oz)
• 2 cloves garlic, crushed
• 3 tsp extra virgin olive oil
• 1 tsp oregano
• 1 tsp parsley
• salt and pepper
• 1 lemon

Wash fish and pat dry.  Line broiler pan with tin foil.  Place fishon the tin foil and season with salt, pepper, oregano, and parsley.  Drizzlewith olive oil and top with crushed garlic.

Set broiler to low and place fish about 8 inches from the flame. Cook until fish is cooked through, about 7 minutes (be careful not to burn garlic). Serve with freshly squeezed lemon juice.

Yummy

New favorite mid-morning snack!

Vanilla yogurt + apple cinnamon granola!

The yogurt is 80 calories with no fat, and the granola is 180 calories and 2.5g of fat for 1/3 cup.  Since my little yogurt cup is so small, I’d guess I got about tbsp of granola into my yogurt, which cuts the calories and fat by lots.  Seriously, it tastes like apple pie.

Delish!

Nom, nom.