Do you remember when people used to blog three times a day?  Yeah … I can’t even handle once a week!  I don’t have a wrap-up, but I did manage to get 2 – 3 items from each category, and the stuff I do have to share was all awesome.  Here we go –

breakfast

1. Pumpkin pie (crisp?) in a bowl.

I topped some TJ’s low-fat pumpkin Greek yogurt (3/4 of the container or so; the serving seems oddly large to me) with some of my Simply Sweet Granola and a sprinkle of cinnamon.

I made my oats a little too toasty, but I was very pleased with the yogurt.

2. Pumpkin Pie Through A Straw.

That’s right, I cracked open my first can of pumpkin!

I’ve made this smoothie for years and it is a total winner.  The husband is usually not as into the pumpkin thing as I am and he likes this even more than I do.

3. Sundae on a Wednesday.

This was the most dessert-y of the “dessert” breakfasts but it was still pretty healthy.

Wallaby low-fat maple yogurt topped with Crispy Green bananas (former freebie), and melted Biscoff Spread.

snacks

1. Cinnamon Crunch Somersaults and a caramel macchiato.

I made so many updates to my coffee (a little more of this, a little less of that) that it was basically a big cup of espresso and caramel, aka perfection.

The crunchy portion of this snack was brought to you by this generous package I received from Somersaults:

I received this package free of charge.  I was not provided with further compensation for this post.  All opinions are my own.

They recently had their top flavors certified as GMO-free and expanded their retailer list to include Target and Costco and they’re trying to spread the word about their good news.  Fun snack facts – a serving of Somersaults has as much protein as a serving of almonds (with half of the fat) and they are a good source of fiber and vitamin E.  Also they are Adam’s very favorite snack!

I thought that the Cinnamon Crunch (a new flavor this year) was great; a good blend of sweet and seedy.

2. Cinnamon Pumpkin Beer Bread.

Just Beer Bread made with a pumpkin beer and a layer of cinnamon sugar (we used cinnamon maple sugar) on top.

Quite good with schmear of butter.

3. An actual sundae.

Ben and Jerry’s Vanilla Honey Caramel Greek Frozen Yogurt with melted Biscoff Spread; I was all about the Biscoff this week.

I bought the frozen yogurt by chance (I needed vanilla frozen yogurt for my pumpkin smoothie and this was all I could find at the store near my house) and ended up adoring it.  The flavor was so complex!

lunch

1. Sandwich success.

I’ve been planning this sandwich combo for weeks, ever since a serendipitous trip to Trader Joe’s.

A whole wheat Bagel Thin topped with Applegate Farms roasted turkey, TJ’s pumpkin butter, and a TJ’s mini brie bite.

The brie and pumpkin butter mash-up was just as good as I thought it would be.

Roasted green beans on the side,

and TJ’s Hawaiian Style BBQ Potato Chips.

This was a fun lunch to munch through.

2. A trip to Chobani Bar in SoHo.

A girlfriend and I took the train into the city from Queens.  We snacked on Somersaults on the way in.

She had never tasted them before but was an instant fan.

A quick walk down Prince Street and we were at Chobani.

The space was very pretty, but strangely they had no seating.  We ended up finding a nice spot on a sunny stoop.

I ordered a half-size of toasted coconut and pineapple.  Plain yogurt topped with pineapple, toasted coconut, and Turkish hazelnuts.  It comes with light agave nectar but I asked that they leave it off.

I was very impressed with my bowl; the pineapple was so sweet!  My friend got the same thing and I did and she liked it too.  We both agreed that we probably wouldn’t go back but that we were glad we went.

dinner

1. Mac and cheese, please.

This combo of ingredients made for one heck of a dinner –

While my mushrooms were browning…

I ate some of the rest of the bbq chips,

and opened a Pumking.

I agree with what I’ve read online, this year’s batch wasn’t the best.  I really enjoyed it the first few minutes but after that I grew tired of the flavor.  In fact, most of the bottle ended up in my cinnamon pumpkin beer bread.  At least my dinner was good.

Salads on the side.  A romaine blend dressed with a sprinkle of salt and 1 tsp each honey and olive oil.

My salad was technically on the bottom, not the side.  I topped my greens with mac (Annie’s Shells and White Cheddar, with spinach, mushrooms, and Bela smoked sardines) and then topped my whole bowl with crumbled goat cheese.

2. Taco night.

I recently received a package from Ortega to help me celebrate National Taco Day:

I received this package free of charge.  I was not provided with further compensation for this post.  All opinions are my own.

They sent along some recipes on which they collaborated with Chef Aarón Sánchez, including this vegetarian one –

I really liked the sound of it, but you know I had to put my own spin on the recipe.

Vegetarian Black Bean Tacos, serves 3

• 1 Tbsp extra-virgin olive oil
• medium sweet onion, chopped
• 4 cloves garlic, diced
• 2 jalapeño peppers, diced
• 15.5 oz can low-sodium black beans (don’t drain!)
• 1 packet Ortega 40% less sodium taco seasoning mix
• 9 Ortega yellow corn taco shells
• 4 oz raw baby spinach
• 3 oz crumbled feta cheese

1. Heat evoo in a large pan over medium heat.  Add onion and cook until softened and beginning to brown, 5 – 7 minutes.
2. Add garlic and jalapeños and cook an additional 5 minutes.
3. Stir in beans (liquid and all) and taco seasoning mix and cook an additional 10 minutes.  Mash up some of the beans with the side of your spatula while you stir.
4. Heat taco shells according to package instructions.
5. Stuff the bottom of each taco with spinach.  Spread the bean mixture evenly among the tacos on top of spinach.  Top tacos evenly with feta cheese.

We loved them!  The beans were delicious, if I do say so myself.  And the taco shells were wonderful; they seemed to hold together much better than ones I’ve used in the past.

life

1. The house.

Three full months of living here later, we finally bought shelving for the living room.

There’s not a lot on them right now (I managed to find spaces for all of our books in the office in the interim) but it’s nice to have one less blank wall.

2. The man.

I didn’t talk about it on the blog, but a month or so ago Webster had a cluster seizure.  It was very scary, and more importantly, it meant that we had to start medically treating his epilepsy.  He’s been on medication for more than a month now and he has been seizure-free the entire time (yay!).

Feeling better has given him time to focus on his other interests, like sitting with his butt up in the air like a total weirdo.

What’s going on in your life?  Tell me something good from the last week?