To those of you who celebrate Easter – Happy Easter!!!
(source)
When I was growing up Easter was one of my favorite holidays because all the cousins got together at my grandparents for an epic Easter egg hunt! Oh and a brunch, but I was probably too ill from candy to partake in that.
My grandparents lived in an apartment complex that had a huge backyard styled after an English garden. It was absolutely beautiful, and the perfect place for a hunt! My grandfather would hide eggs filled with candy and coins all over (I wonder how long that took!) and we’d all go crazy looking for them! There was a rule though, the youngest always went first and if we saw super-obvious eggs, then we had to leave those for them.
I definitely miss doing that with my family, I’m pretty sure I’d be ridiculously competitive about it now and it would be a blast (let’s ignore the fact that I would be too old to partake…).
This Easter, however, I don’t have much in the way of celebration going on! But I’m sure I’ll find something (cough, cough, froyo) to celebrate a bit with, and take some time to myself to reflect on the holiday!
Yesterday was a pretty productive and relaxing day here in Chicago! We were lucky that it got up to about 66! I’m always up for good weather, it makes it so much more pleasant to walk around to run my errands! I started the morning by headed to the gym to get in a strength workout and some HIIT on the elliptical. I also ran 1 mile! Haha I have been trying to keep from running this week and do cross training instead, but I cheated and ran a day early! My legs were super sore though from the circuit workout I did!
After the gym I met my “next door” neighbor, Lauren, for brunch at a place called Orange. I’d been hearing about it since I first moved here and when Lauren told me it was her favorite breakfast place, I knew we had to go!
You can make your own juice here, meaning they have a juice card and you circle the flavors you want to mix in. After much debate, I went a little wild and got pear/mango. Not the best combo ever, but not bad! I also got an egg white scramble with fruit.
Another thing we ordered? Their famous Fruishi! It’s fruit sushi! Sound crazy? I thought so too, I literally could just not imagine what this was going to taste like. Verdict? AMAZING.
The yellow roll was mango flavored rice with watermelon slices in the middle This was was good, but nothing spectacular. The white one on the other hand, was heaven. It was a strawberry on top and the white rice was coconut flavored with pieces of coconut in it. I died and went to heaven. I could have eaten a bunch of those for my breakfast and been very, very happy.
After breakfast, I got some school work done and then headed over to my brother’s apartment to borrow his car and go to Whole Foods. Of course, this means I got to see one of my favorite people (okay, dogs)!!!!
MOLLY, MOLLY!
Why do I love Molly so much? She’s ALWAYS thrilled to see me. If I could have someone greet me like that every time I came home, I would be very happy. Too bad Neville (my goldfish) isn’t one to show too much emotion… Speaking of Neville, next week he’ll be 18 months old! I cannot believe I’ve kept him alive so long…
Anyway, after the grocery store and then some more work, I made some protein bars! I’d made some other flavors of Jamie Eason’s protein bars several times before, but this time I tried the Apple Cinnamon bars. I made a few adjustments to make them gluten free, plus I used yogurt instead of cottage cheese and I didn’t have any stevia… so they were unsweetened. Which turned out fine because the apples were enough sweetness, although it would have been better if I’d had some.
Mixed up the dry, wet, and processed the apple:
Mix it all together:
And into the pan!
They turned out well and I packaged them into portion sizes (the pan makes 16 bars – 2 bars makes me a snack!) and now I can bring them to school and won’t have to buy any bars! Much more economical. I forget why I stopped making these!
Today I’m going to try and go for a run (or I might split up mileage and go for a morning run and an afternoon run… hmmm can’t decide) and get a LOT more work done. Hopefully….
HAPPY EASTER/HAVE A GREAT SUNDAY!
Are you doing anything for Easter today?
Would you try Frushi?