Hey friends – happy Friday, and thank you for your great comments over on my “Should Everyone Go Gluten Free?” blog post yesterday!
Did this week go by super quickly for anyone else? I can’t believe it’s Friday already! Matt and I were out and about a lot for dinner this week but last night stayed home and made a really simple but delicious meal – pan seared chicken with roasted veggies and leftover mashed potatoes.
For the veggies, we used my standard “dump all the veggies in a bag, then drizzle in olive oil, salt, pepper, and some spices” approach. We also cut the ends off the brussels sprouts, per my how to make brussels sprouts delicious post. 🙂
We roasted the brussels sprouts, carrots, and parsnips at 400 for about 20 or so minutes, I believe. Perfect!
As for the chicken breasts, we used the same bag trick to coat them in a little olive oil, pepper, and spices. This time we used garlic salt (that gets a lot of love in our house – it’s almost empty!) and lemon herb – good combo.
We pan seared the chicken with the lid on until it was cooked through, then removed it from the pan and wrapped it in foil while we made a little sauce in the same pan using a mixture of olive oil, butter, chicken broth, lemon juice, and rosemary, plus the drippings already in the pan. It came out delicious – we let it simmer until it thickened a bit.
Ready to eat!
While we cooked, we also enjoyed some wine – this California Pinot Noir from Dreaming Tree was AMAZING. No idea where it came from (maybe someone brought it for my birthday bash awhile ago?) but we must find it again.
Another dinner highlight from this week was a girls dinner at my friend Sarah’s place! We decided instead of going out to dinner together like we usually do, we want to start having each other over for a cozier (and more cost effective) approach. Sarah offered to host first, so I headed to her place in Dupont on Tuesday night with our friend Kathleen for the fun. How pretty was Dupont Circle at night with the snow, btw?
Sarah had an awesome spread of snacks and drinks for us – I love meals like this where you get to taste all sorts of different stuff. Cheese, sausage, crackers, carrot salad, some homemade pickled veggies (obsessed), and a really good farro, beet, and goat cheese salad.
The farro salad was my fave – so delicious! Unfortunately she didn’t follow a recipe – I asked. 🙂
Thanks again for having us, Sarah! Looking forward to hosting you and Kathleen at my place next month. 🙂
On the workout front this week, I was really craving a step back week so that’s what I treated myself to! I kept things low key, didn’t get up for any super early workouts (extra sleep was amazing), and mostly did yoga. I went three times this week during lunch downtown – felt amazing.
Rocking another pair of my new fave VSX Knockout Capris! (affiliate link)
No runs this week – I wasn’t feeling it given the snow all over the place! Running is happy for me so I didn’t want to force it if I wasn’t into it, and I felt like I needed to let my body recover from the Charleston Half Marathon anyway. I did get in a nice walking break yesterday afternoon with my buddy Heather, though! We were both working from home nearby – so fun when she’s in town.
I’ll close out this post with a big congrats to those of you who are almost complete with the first week of the Winter Shape Up! Gina and I have been loving your photos and updates in our Winter Shape Up Facebook Group, on our blogs, and on social media. Please keep them coming – and don’t forget to comment on the week 1 meal plan to be entered in the Cabot giveaway and on Gina’s week 1 workout page for the DailyHarvest giveaway! Gina put together this fun collage with some of this week’s pics from you guys. 🙂 Keep up the great work – and thank you for making the Facebook group such a positive and inspiring space!
The Winter Shape Up week 2 meal plan is now live for those of you that want to shop this weekend – you can find a link to it on the main Winter Shape Up landing page.
Have a great weekend, everyone! It’s supposed to be warmer here – we’re thinking some hiking might need to happen! 🙂
What’s the best thing you ate this week? The best workout you had?
