Good morning and happy November!
I hope you all had an awesome Halloween! What were your costumes? Matt and I decided to be lame and just stay home and pass out candy to cute kids in costume instead of dressing up ourselves, so I want to hear what all of you did 🙂
The weather was so beautiful and warm (75 and sunny!) here in NC yesterday that it was hard to believe we were only one day away from November! I had a wonderful, relaxing day. I started by baking some cookies in my pajamas. I really like baking in my pajamas. Don’t judge.
Mmmm… Matt requested some cookies and I was happy to deliver! Making cookies always makes me think of my mom, because I used to “help” her bake cookies when I was little. I was usually in charge of mixing or helping to spoon the batter onto cookie sheets — although my cookies always got progressively larger as I went along, heh. I seem to have gotten a bit better at that by now 🙂
These are my Oatmeal Banana Coconut Cookies — I love them because they are really yummy but also healthy enough to eat for breakfast 🙂
Matt was a big fan and renamed them “Delicious Oatmeal Blobs” and/or “Banana Bread in Cookie Form.” Heh
Then, after a 4 mile run in the sunshine with a friend (I knew I was hiking later but I couldn’t pass up a last minute running date on such a gorgeous day!) — I made some homemade minestrone soup! We had a bunch of veggies, beans, and some cooked pasta to use up, so it was perfect 🙂
I followed my Veggie-tastic Minestrone Soup recipe, which I love because it’s so easily customizable. For the veggies, I used carrots, zucchini, green pepper, and spinach. The beans involved were black beans (leftover in fridge) and kidney beans. Yum 🙂
We enjoyed some of the soup for lunch out on our porch! Eating outside = yay.
Along with the soup, we had toast topped with 2% sharp cheddar cheese:
And some communal grapes 🙂
Yum yum!
After some relaxing and reading (for fun! I did not let myself do any homework this weekend, and it was so nice — I’m reading The Hunger Games and it’s SO GOOD I can’t put it down!), Matt and I headed out to meet my high school friend Kristi and her husband CJ for a mid-afternoon hike!
The weather seriously could not have been more perfect.
We hiked the Occoneechee Mountain Loop Trail, which is only about 20 minutes or so away from where we live. Sweet!
Here I am with my friend Kristi 🙂
And with Matt, although it’s hard to see us with the sun/shade combo!
Kristi and CJ’s adorable basset hound, Julep, came along for the hike, too 🙂
We were impressed with her stamina! The hike took about an hour and a half and had us going up some steep climbs. She totally rocked it!
What a wonderful day 🙂
We met friends for dinner at a bar around the corner (I was STARVING after such an active day!) and spent the rest of the night relaxing. Now, sadly, Matt is on his way back to DC for work and I need to get back down to work myself! It’s going to be a really busy week, with a paper, an assignment, and biostats homework due, culminating with my leaving for San Francisco on Thursday night for the Foodbuzz Festival. Exciting!
Have a good one — and don’t forget to enter my Mighty Leaf Tea giveaway if you haven’t already — you have until tomorrow morning at 8 a.m. EST, when I will draw the winner!
