Happy Friday people! We are going to keep things short and sweet this Friday afternoon. We are in the midst of a crazy two weeks: road trip with girls to Omaha, hosting family for Easter, my birthday!, and then leaving for Mexico for a family trip.

I want to just check in with some updates on where we’ve been, what I am excited about, and what I have been cooking

1: I road-tripped solo with the girls to Omaha to visit some good friends of ours. Nothing daunts me anymore. I think I can actually say that we had fun on the road. Of the 15 hours in the car, only one was spent with both girls screaming at the top of their lungs. That is a success in my book.

2: Due to our reliance on healthy foods, I packed two huge bags filled with snacks: baby carrots, berries, cucumbers, peppers, sandwiches, freeze dried fruit, and also some treats like peanut butter crackers and chips. I felt a little foolish with how much I packed but I am happy to say by the time we got home, we had run out of most of it and that was after re-packing more from my friends’ fridge. And yet I think their favorite part was stopping for ice cream 2 hours before we reached our destinations. It’s about balance. And lots of napkins. Lots and lots of napkins….

3: I got very overwhelmed trying to plan a FODMAP-free meal for Easter. Very overwhelmed. So this is our first year of a non-traditional Easter meal. Instead of ham, we are doing pork tenderloin. I am also serving deviled eggs, slow cooker roasted carrots, green beans, salad, and possibly (depending on our cranberry supply) cranberry sauce. 

4:I am obsessed with reverse searing pork tenderloin. Hence the prior statement of a non-traditional Easter meal. You marinate it and put it in oven at 275 dg(F) for 45-60 minutes per pound. Then sear it at the end. The result is a perfectly evenly cooked tenderloin. It’s amazing. 

5:I always struggle with finding a dessert to serve guests. We don’t eat a lot of typical desserts and because of my latest food issues, I feel pretty limited and without a lot of recipes. So, this weekend I hit the easy button: I bought several dairy free ice creams for tomorrow and an Easter egg cake for Sunday (which I won’t eat). Ice cream, dairy-free or dairy-filled, is always a good idea for dessert. It’s so easy and with so many dairy-free options, it can be for everyone!

6: Does anyone else celebrate Easter Eve? For the girls, it’s just as exciting as Easter. My parents come, we dye eggs, and pretty much just get excited for finding eggs the next day. I am sure we will do several trial runs. Because of this, I am planning a somewhat nice dinner for tomorrow. 

I had no idea how food focused I was going to be in this post, but as I write this, I am baking potatoes for twice baked potatoes for tomorrow (Easter Eve) and hard boiling eggs for dying. And I still need to make hummus to bring a baked hummus dip to a friends’ tonight. Food is on the mind. So are cocktails: we will be taste testing some possible concoctions for my Moscow Muled cocktail recipe. I hope next week I can share some of these recipes with you (because that would mean something worked). 

Stay tuned!

************

And I would love to hear from you: what are YOU cooking for this weekend? 

 

Print Friendly, PDF & Email