Hi friends, I hope you had a nice weekend! What did you do for Valentine’s Day?
No dinner out for us this year for obvious reasons, but we wanted to do something a little special so Matt made us a fun dinner. Lighting candles (and the flowers Matt got!) made it feel more special even though we had a third wheel 😉
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I stumbled across the Date Night Rigatoni with Sausage and Kale recipe over on the blog Pinch of Yum recently and we thought it sounded super good. Valentine’s night seemed like a good time to try it!
Matt said he used a little less heavy cream and a little more tomato paste than the recipe called for, because we love tomato-based sauces, but otherwise he followed the recipe.
It came out really yummy and Riese liked it, too! We have lots of leftovers so that will be useful for the workweek.
Other dinners this weekend included a taco night, which we hadn’t done in way too long. Matt always makes a mean taco – check out how high all the toppings were piled!
They were stuffed with ground beef, guac, tomato, cilantro, chopped spinach, and cheese. Plus some hot sauce and lime on the side!
I’m starting to feel a little nauseous again in the evenings, which I’m not super pumped about – I remember when I was pregnant with Riese my nausea came back late in the pregnancy but not this early (I’m almost 26 weeks). Bummerrrrrr.
(If you missed it, here is the baby number 2 pregnancy announcement and first trimester recap, and here is a 23 week update. I’ll do another update soon!)
Basic meals have been sounding best, and on Friday night all I wanted was chicken tenders and fries so we pulled a bunch of stuff out of the freezer for a really easy dinner that ended up hitting the spot.
Important question: are you team regular fry shape or team waffle fries? I like all fries, but if I have the choice I’m definitely 100% team waffle fries. They get so crispy and delicious!
Plus some string beans on the side to get in some veggies! Matt, Riese, and I all really enjoyed this meal. 🙂 It reminded me I need to make my homemade Gluten Free Chicken Tenders (<- recipe) again soon because those are really delicious.
But having a frozen option on hand is nice, too. These are the ones that we used – Bell & Evans brand that we got from Whole Foods – and they were great. Good flavor and nice and meaty! And not too salty either.
We didn’t do much besides a couple walks and some chores around the house this weekend because the weather was pretty crummy. I got a lot of reading in, too. I just started “Cinderella Ate My Daughter” (FYI this and the other Amazon links that follow are affiliate links) and am finding it interesting (and disturbing…) so far. I had this on my list to read ages ago and am glad I finally picked it up.
I don’t think this book is quite as well done as “Girls & Sex” by the same author which I also just read, but it has been interesting for sure. I will have some new book round up (both non-fiction and fiction) posts coming to you soon, so stay tuned for more of a review!
I’m about to start a new fiction book (not sure what yet, recs are welcome!) to give me a break from all the non-fiction, but after that the next non-fiction book on my list is Caste and/or The Warmth of Other Suns by the same author. Have you read either?
I hope you all have a nice day – I’ll see you back here with a new recipe on Wednesday! Did any of you try my Cherry Chocolate Overnight Oats over the weekend? Or any of my other Valentine’s-related recipes?
