Basic Granola & Birthday Weekend

How is your weekend going? I hope everyone has tomorrow off! Our weekend has been fantastic .  On Friday night, Josh, my parents, Josh’s parents, my Aunt & Uncle & friends went to dinner to celebrate my birthday!! I enjoyed tons of delicious chips and a veggie platter. Awesome!

Saturday, I took Body Step for the first time post partum! It was fantastic and my calves are FEELING it!! I also watched the Penn State game with the peanut:

Saturday night, we had birthday celebration (part 2) with Josh’s parents, brother and sister and her boyfriend.  Josh’s Mom made an incredible spread of food. We had a crab appetizer with tortilla chips (duh ). Mine had crab, black beans, corn off the cob, red pepper and jalapenos (amazing):

Second course was a shrimpy salad. Dessert was individual chocolate mousse in a graham cracker crust! I adore graham cracker crust and could eat it with no filling at all! It was AMAZING:

Today, Josh’s family watched Kaylin and Josh and I had a solo date. It was so awesome to spend time together with no distractions. We went to Triangle for brunch. I got a salad topped with a fried egg (which I am totally doing at home soon):

We also relaxed at home with this guy:

Tonight, another fun dinner! Can’t wait!!

Since I’ve been making the same granola recipe for a while, I decided to switch it up. I came up with a more basic, but still very yummy recipe.

Ingredients:

• 2 cups old fashion oats
• 1/4 cup pumpkin seeds, raw
• 1/4 cup sunflower seeds, raw
• 1/4 cup flax seeds
• 2 tablespoons butter
• 6 tablespoons honey

Directions:

Preheat oven to 300 degrees. In  a large bowl in the microwave, melt the butter and honey. Mix in all other ingredients.

Spread mixture on a cookie sheet. Bake for 25 minutes.

How was your weekend?

Pumpkin Protein Bars & Birthday Fun

Hey all!! Today is my 29th birthday!! I am looking forward to spending time with friends and family and eating Mexican food (tortilla chips =birthday cake for this chick!!)

Recently, Josh’s brother’s girlfriend asked me for a protein bar recipe and I realized I didn’t have a favorite to pass along. Fast forward to yesterday when I saw Julie post about this recipe. I switched it up and came up with the following:

Ingredients:

• ½ C Brown Sugar
• 4 oz applesauce
• 1 tsp. ground cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp. ground ginger
• 1/8 tsp. ground nutmeg
• 1 tsp. baking powder
• 1 tsp. baking soda
• 2 tsp. vanilla extract
• 4 large egg whites
• 1 - 15 oz. can of raw pumpkin
• 2 C oat bran
• 2 scoops vanilla whey protein
• ½ cup unsweetened vanilla almond milk
• chocolate chips (if desired)

Directions:

1. Preheat the oven to 350.
2. Spray a 9 X 13 Pyrex dish with non-stick spray.
3. Combine first 11 ingredients and mix well.
4. Add the final 3 ingredients (4, if adding chocolate chips), and mix until incorporated. Spread batter into the Pyrex dish and bake for 30 min.

 

I used about 3/4 cup of these chips based on Averie’s recommendation (love them- thank you!!)

They have great flavor and texture!

On a side note, I went shopping with Josh’s Mom yesterday and we found baby Under Armor gear!!! I had to have it! Baby skort? So necessary

 

Happy weekend!