Hello  loves!

Time for your weekly dose of food porn!

aka

Thanks Jenn for all the work you do each week to round up all our links for one super foodie celebration!

If you’re a blogger (any kind of blogger…no discrimination here!) and want to join in on the fun, just hop on over to Peas & Crayons for the rules of the game. Besides obviously drooling over some of the best looking eats, I love WIAW for the inspiration it gives me for new snacks and meals.

Check it out!

I have to say that today was a pretty delicious day…

It all started with my standard cup of coffee (Starbucks Christmas Blend FTW!) with a side of fuzzy robe sleeve…a must with the freezing temperatures we’ve had lately :-/

I didn’t really have time to make anything elaborate for breakfast this morning, but I was super excited to try a new cereal that I picked up at Target last night.

Anybody tried Kashi’s Golden Goodness?

It’s fantastic! Perfectly sweet, full of fiber, 7 grams of protein…AND a serving size is 1 1/4 cups which is perfect if you have a little fat kid inside you like me that HAS to have volume when it comes to breakfast! 😉

I added a sliced banana, cinnamon, and some unsweetened almond milk and it kept me full for about 3 1/2 hours…not bad for cereal!

My snack came in the form of some glorious (and almost forgotten) pumpkin pudding.

I haven’t made this little treat since back in March and had forgotten all about it until I finally got some peanut flour back into my possession last week.

Instead of following Gabriela’s original recipe (I was too lazy to look it up), I mixed 1/2 cup pumpkin, 1/4 cup peanut flour, 1/8 cup almond milk, a sprinkle of cinnamon and topped it with some pumpkin spice almonds.

‘Twas delicious!

Lunch made use of some of the turkey meat leftover from Thanksgiving. I was out of cranberry sauce to add to my sandwich (which is amazing!) so I chose some red pepper preserves as a substitute. There was also some of TJ’s sweet hot mustard, spinach, and a slice of provolone cheese.

And for “dessert” I had a SUPER ripe and SUPER sweet persimmon

My favorite!

After I got home from the gym and before I got started on dinner, I snacked on some broccoli and homemade Greek yogurt dip.

Greek yogurt + packet of dehydrated vegetable dip mix =

Y-U-M!

I had my friend Sherri over for dinner and since I know Olive Garden is one of her favorite places to eat, I decided to create a little Soup, Salad, and Breadstick action at home…only the multigrain loaf was on sale at the store and the breadsticks were not 😉

The soup was a recipe for White Bean and Mushroom Stew from the latest issue of Whole Living (my new favorite magazine…thank God I found out my mom just bought me a subscription for Christmas! ;)) and it turned out perfect! I was supposed to puree the tomatoes before adding them, but I prefer my soups more on the chunky side so I decided to leave them be.

The salad was FAR better than any OG salad I’ve ever eaten and it was chocked full of REAL greens…none of that silly iceberg nonsense!

Now as I sit here typing this up, I am enjoying some evidence of my roadtrip to Whole Foods this weekend…Liz’s favorite: Cookies & Cream Arctic Zero!

Oh and that’s not the lighting…it IS actually gray colored “ice cream”!
A little weird, but super tasty!

Water Count: ~ 72 ounces
Not my best day, but definitely better than last week!

Do you prefer your soups pureed or chunky?

What is your favorite way to use up Thanksgiving leftovers?