Family Reunion Part 1

So not surprisingly, Hannah and Jacob didn’t cook much while I was gone and obviously if you don’t cook, you aren’t going to be doing any grocery shopping.  I had about 15 minutes yesterday morning before I had to leave to figure out what I was going to eat, and after about a minute of seeing what was left in the fridge, I honestly was going to just throw in the towel and just get McDonald’s for breakfast or Jimmy John’s for lunch.  But I gave it another minute, and turned around and saw that I had granola that I bought at an awesome farmers market in Richmond.  I reached in the fridge and found a Chobani that expired on July 17 – no big, it was still good.  Then opened the fruit drawer and saw blueberries – done!

This was delicious – while granola is a calorie bomb, this was was super filling, and I love that the granola is not overly sweet.  Now lunch?  That was a bit of a stretch.  Seriously I put this in my lunch bag:

• leftover cooked white rice
• 2 ounces leftover Greek chicken
• 1 Aldi chicken sausage link
• baby spinach
• shredded carrots
• leftover cooked zucchini

I laid out everything on my counter at lunch and just started heating things up:  the chicken, the chicken sausage, the zucchini and rice.  I knew I wanted some texture so I left the carrots and spinach raw, and ended up putting it all together in a giant bowl and tossing it with a tablespoon of Newman’s Own light balsamic.  As weird as this combo sounds, it was actually really good – some of it was warm, some of it was crunchy and somehow the dressing pulled it all together!

I actually ended up going to the grocery store at lunch to stock us up for the rest of the week.  I knew there was no way in hell I could meal plan with what was left in our fridge.  So a quick trip to Mariano’s and I was all set.  Dinner last night could not have been simpler.  While I don’t mind the challenge of a recipe with 20+ ingredients and 15 cooking steps, sometimes simple is best.  I bought a 1 pound certified angus beef sirloin steak for Jacob and I to split.  While he can eat a half a pound of meat no problem, I portioned out 4 ounces of cooked steak for my dinner and will have some for breakfast tomorrow.  I bought some baby new potatoes and cooked them in the microwave for 5 minutes, let them cool slightly and then pan fried them in a bit of olive oil, paprika, salt and pepper until they started to brown.  Once browned, I took cut corn off of three cobs of corn and tossed that in the pan with a teaspoon of butter, salt and pepper and cooked until the corn started to brown.  Once off heat, I added just a couple tablespoons of chopped cilantro. 

I topped our steaks with sautéed baby portobello mushrooms that cooked down while the steaks cooked on the grill.   This is such a simple, yet delicious meal – pretty sure this will be on my food truck menu, except I’d add a chimichurri drizzle over the top to tie it all together.

Okay so long time readers now how I burn in the sun like nobody’s business.  Since I knew we were going to be in the sun a lot on Sunday I applied sunscreen all day long.  The one part of my body that I forgot?  MY LIPS!

You’re probably eating your breakfast now, so you are welcome!  During the day my lips kept feeling chapped so I kept applying EOS to my lips, but I think that was the equivalent to putting baby oil on my lips.  That’s how my lips looked yesterday when I went to work – so pretty!  Gah.  I need to find the highest SPF lip balm!  On the positive side?  I found that green necklace at Goodwill and paid $1.99 for it – score!

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So one of the things about only visiting family once a year growing up when I was younger was that it was really hard to remember who belonged to who.  It would seem I would spend half of a family reunion back then just connecting the dots, only to forget over the course of a year and have to start all over!  That’s where Facebook is amazeballs.  We have a family group Facebook page, so I can easily check in and see who is who, especially my second cousins who are about 12-15 years younger than me, and actually have relevant things to talk about – job transfers, school, etc.

We were 40 strong!  It’s awesome to see the new generation growing up too – we must have had half a dozen kids under the age of 11 and it was awesome.  My one cousin Shannon has a 4 year old Zach that I was playing whiffle ball with and holy balls could he pitch and hit!   I made him shake on it that when he makes it to the big leagues that he’s have to save me some tickets.  She also brought a baby pool which was a big hit with the little kids too.  There is no structure to our reunions at all – simply come in, drop your dish, grab a drink and start mingling!  It’s always a bit awkward at first trying to get reacquainted, but soon everyone is just laughing, talking and having a good time.   And our weather could not have been better!  I took 446 pictures in 3 days!  I’ll spare you all of them, but I’ll share some more tomorrow.

I am excited because tonight I am joining a running club with one of the attorneys in my office.  It’s a couch to 5k program that meets literally 5 minutes from my office on Wednesday nights.  I think it’s 10 or 12 weeks long – the goal being to run a whole 5k without stopping.  Shelley, I couldn’t help but think of you when I signed up!

Alright, off to pack my gym bag – make it a great day!