For breakfast, I had grits with sea salt and cheesy Bragg's Nutritional Yeast.

Lunch

My mother makes the best pasta salad on the planet! I've had a lot of pasta salad, but they always fall short to the gold standard of my childhood. The pasta salad has tri-color rotini, colby jack cheese (sometimes pepper jack), Boar's Head ham, green olives, broccoli ( preferably a whole bunch!), Parmesan cheese, red bell pepper, salt, pepper, red pepper flakes, and low fat Italian dressing. She made me a whole giant container of it, and I've been horsing it down all week! My mom is the best!
Dinner

Our dinner came from internet inspiration. I made Sriracha Street Corn from Camille Style's Tuesday Tastings. It was a lot of fun to make, and was delicious, but I'm more of a salt and pepper kind of girl when it comes to my corn. We also had to use up some sweet potatoes we had so we made Bobby Dean's Shrimp Stuffed Sweet Potato. So delicious!
Snack

From Starbucks, I had a Grande White Peppermint Mocha with nonfat milk and no whip cream. I really like the white mocha opposed to the regular mocha. The white is very smooth and clean tasting and the mocha is kind of harsh.


Tomorrow is Thanksgiving; one of the best times of the year! Enjoy time with your family and don't forget why you are thankful!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Friday is starting to become one of my favorite days of the week. Since I work weekends, and not a normal 9-5 work week, I typically do not look forward to Fridays, knowing work is the next day. However, I'm pretty excited about Fridays.

For the past couple of weeks, my husband and I have been going to the lake to jog/walk and it's always really beautiful. But that's not the only reason why I love Fridays. After we get around the lake we go to Mitchell's Coffee House in downtown Lakeland. We shared a delicious, flaky-crust quiche and a maple hazelnut coffee.

While I'm talking about my favorite things, here are a few others:

• The amazingly awesome new mason jar lids
  
• A cute video by the Humane Wildlife Services reuniting baby squirrels with their mom
  
• If that isn't enough, here is one more video about a baby squirrel
  
• Favorite recipe I tried from Tuesday Tastings - Sriracha Street Corn
  

Happy Friday!

Breakfast

For breakfast I had some quick oats with pear, chia seeds, hemp powder, pumpkin pie spice, honey, & pumpkin puree. And a glass of 100% No sugar added cranberry juice.

Lunch

For lunch I made a chicken noodle/Pho inspired soup which was EXCELLENT. I'll post the recipe!
Snack

At Starbucks I got a Grande Caramel Brulee Latte with Nonfat Milk & No Whip
Dinner

For dinner my husband made pan-seared Mahi- Mahi, with a black bean, corn, avocado, and red onion salsa, and yellow rice. It was delicious!

It is fall time, even though it still feels more like summer in Florida. The weather has been very bipolar, switching from cold to hot day by day. But that doesn't mean I can't bring fall inside the home, even though it might be a little excessive! It started as soon as the PSL was released from Starbucks...and I over did it a bit. Last week I attempted everything pumpkin! I added pumpkin to my oatmeal, came up with an awesome cookie recipe, and managed to make some pumpkin treats for my pumpkin obsessed pooch.

These cookies are just in time for the holiday season and have an ingredient you might not expect......chia seeds. At an attempt to lessen the calories and the cholesterol, I traded out eggs for chia seeds and substituted some of the butter with greek yogurt. These cookies are chewy,  pumpkin-y, and 120 calories for each cookie.

Ingredients

• 2 Cups All-Purpose Flour
• 1 Cup Sugar
• 1 Teaspoon Baking Soda
• 1 Teaspoon Baking Powder 
• 1/2 Teaspoon Salt
• 1/4 Cup Crushed Walnuts
• 1/4 Cup Smart Balance Spread
• 1/4 Cup Plain Greek Yogurt
• 2 Tablespoons Chia Seeds in 6 Tablespoons of Water - set for 5 minutes (1 Tablespoon of Chia Seeds in 3 Tablespoons of Water = 1 Egg)
  
• 2 Teaspoon Vanilla
• 1 Cup Pumpkin Puree 
• 1 Cup Butterscotch Morsels
• 2 Teaspoons of Pumpkin Spice
  

Steps
1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees F.

2. In a cup, mix the chia seeds with the water and let set for 5 minutes

3. Mix all-purpose flour, sugar, baking soda, baking powder, and salt in a bowl

4. Mix in the butter spread, greek yogurt, chia seed mixture, vanilla, pumpkin puree, pumpkin spice, and walnuts.

5. Carefully fold in the butterscotch morsels.

6. Using a small scoop, scoop up the cookie batter and place on the cookie sheet (cookies approximately 3 inches in diameter), spacing approximately an inch to two inches.

7. Bake the cookies for 18 minutes, letting them cool for 5 minutes after.

8. Cookies are best stored in a ziploc bag or tight lid container in the fridge.

Yields: 24 Cookies
Per Cookie: Calories: 120 Carbs: 20g Fat: 3g Sugar: 11g

I let Lily lick the spoon and found that she loves pumpkin too! It was only fair to make her a batch of her own pumpkin treats.