All I do is eat eat eat

Remember my last post where I pep talked you all out of being depressed during the winter? Well, I almost immediately fell into a black hole of despair after I wrote that, not taking any of my own advice! (Easier said than done, huh?) I had zero motivation to do anything, even less than before, & I did a lot of whining, & some crying, & wah wah wah'ed my way through the weekend. Then I decided to pull my head out of my ass, & try a little bit to not hate everything so much. My main focus for the past couple of days was trying some new recipes, so Eddy & I don't get bored with our bread-free/dairy-free/delicious food-free diet. I did a little Pinteret hunting, & chose a bunch of stuff that sounded delicious, with the hopes of having fun in the kitchen again! The first thing I tried was a Cucumber Dill Hummus, which isn't exactly a meal, but who cares?

So I will say, that I was not 100% sure about this recipe. I am not a huge fan of cucumbers, and at first taste, I thought I was going to have to let Eddy eat all of it himself. But, after I busted out the black bean chips, I couldn't stop scooping up this surprisingly refreshing snack! It was super easy, & it cost around $5.00 for all of the ingredients, making about 3x the amount of hummus you would get in a normal container at the grocery store.

The next recipe I chose was quinoa pizza bites, because I swear, all we see are commercials for pizza! I won't lie, I am definitely on a quinoa kick right now, and you'll be able to tell from my Pinterest board. I am sure I will be sick of it soon, but for now, QUINOA FOR EVERYTHING! Anyway, I was pretty proud of myself with this kitchen endeavor, because I decided to make the marinara sauce from scratch too. Who knows if I did it right, but it tasted good to us, and that is all that matters!

 

All of these ingredients look pretty disgusting right now, huh? 

The recipe called for the pizza bites to be made in a muffin pan, but I think you could always bake them in a glass dish (like one you would use for brownies), and then you would have a funny little quinoa pizza loaf! 

After I took them out of the oven, I sprinkled the bites with Trader Joe's Soy Cheese Blend (sorry, the internet wouldn't help me link that one for ya!), satisfying my efforts to stay dairy-free. 

Voila! I threw a little of that homemade marinara on the side for dipping, and we had a pretty sweet pizza substitute. We both agreed that the recipe could use some meat, so I think next time I will mix in some ground turkey, and then they will be perfecto! 

Finally, last night I decided to try this Parmesan Zucchini and Corn. Again, Eddy wanted to throw in some left over ground turkey to add some meat to the meal (he doesn't consider it dinner without meat!), and I cannot believe how tasty this was. It was by far, my favorite new thing I tried this week.

Fully equipped with a margarita, I'll say that dinner last night was just as delicious as if we had gone out to eat! Of course, even if we wanted to go somewhere yesterday, we couldn't have. I totally forgot to mention the 24" of snow that Winter Storm Juno brought us this week! The whole city had a driving ban on it yesterday, so we all got a snow day from work. You would think this would add to my winter blues, but it somehow cheered me up, and I actually thought being stuck in the house was fun. Here is a little glimpse of what we got, from my front door:

Crazy, right? Luckily, the house hadn't been cleaned since before we left on our month vacation, and I opted for staying in to clean, while Eddy shoveled our sidewalks, and both of our cars. He came inside with icicles in his beard! I did have to go back to work today, and this was the snowy mess that was once the parking lot behind my job:

I don't think I will ever get used to seeing this much snow, and the only thing I can compare it to is Blizzard Beach (you Floridians know what I'm talkin' 'bout). 

That is all I have for you for today. I am hoping to try some more new dishes over this weekend, and am hoping to have a post about some new items in my Etsy shop by the end of this week too! Have you guys tried anything new in the kitchen lately? I'll take all of the new recipes I can get!