WIAW Pies. Pies. Pies.

Well Hello there and happy Thanksgiving eve!

I started yesterday strong and took pictures of what I ate but then things started to get sketchy near the end of the day. So I hope you will enjoy and use your imagine to fill in the gaps.

As always thanks to Jen from peasandcrayons for hosting this food day awesomeness.

It all began with an early morning workout that left me starving! It was a mix of a bootcamp/interval training that left quite the burn. After working out I had some cereal with fruit and cinnamon. Such a winning combination.

       

 

Then I snacked through the morning while I worked on a big paper that I desperately need to finish before Thanksgiving! Ugh Advanced Human Nutrition you will be the death of me!

    

 

And of course I had my trusty-dusty mug of coffee!

Then I had lunch with my dad at the buffet in the Black Bear Casino in Cloquet (this is the part where things get sketchy). I will illustrate with my words what I ate. I limited myself to two plates, I will not go in depth about how big the plates were :). My first was a HUGE salad with ALL the fixings and a mix of cottage cheese and french as the dressing. So good. Then finished off my buffet time with a smaller plate of mashed potatoes, green beans, italian sausage, corn, and some grapes!

Then, I went over to my grandmas to make pies! This was my first pie making experience and it was soo much fun. You can tell that pie making is definitely one of those skills that just takes time to acquire. But I learned from the best and had a great evening with my grandma, aunts, and one of my cousins! We finished off the night with some spaghetti while the apple pies  baked to perfection in the oven. Love them all!

           

 

Then Chris brought me a latte, after we met with the Church Choir director and he also got me my favorite gluten-free chocolate chip cookie! #spoiled.

 

Sorry for the lack of pictures, but I hope you enjoy your Wednesday and give someone you love a big big hug today!

~Alyssa

 

 

 

Potluck Edition

 

My dear friends, Happy Tuesday and Welcome to the best-potluck-dish-ever edition of Faith, Hope, and Quinoa. Now if you know anything about me, you know that 1. Potlucks are the real deal in the Nutrition world and 2. I fall into every pumpkin spice trap out there. So where does that lead too…tada…Pumpkin Spice Muddy Buddies. Simple. Delicious. Pumpkin.

Ingredients:

I made a small batch so the recipe can definitely be double for a big party batch

• 5 oz (or half a bag) Pumpkin Spice chocolate chips
• 4 cups Brown Rice Chex (because these are healthy)
• 1/2 cup powdered sugar
• 1 cup dark chocolate.

bakingbites.com

My future sister-in-law always makes fun of me because I am the classic white girl who adds pumpkin to everything and loves it!

Process:

1. Melt Pumpkin Spice chips in the microwave for 30 second intervals until the chips have melted and is nice and smooth (don’t worry about the unnaturally orange color, something pumpkin spice does that to you).

2. In a large bowl mix together the melted pupmpkin-chocolate and the rice chex.

3. Then shake the rice chex with the  powdered sugar in a large ziploc bag

   

4. You can be done at this point and enjoy delicious pumpkin Muddy Buddies, OR you can melt the dark chocolate chips in the microwave, lay the muddy buddies on a cookie sheet and then proceed to drizzle the chocolate over the pumpkin-y goodness.

Delicious! And you will be highly beloved at the potluck if you walk in the door with these babies!

Enjoy!

~Alyssa

Wedding…Only 6 Weeks!

Hey everyone! I had such a great time reading what everyone ate yesterday and now I have some major cooking to do with all these new recipe ideas. But enough about food…onto the main event!

Best Moment of the Week: On Saturday Chris and I went out to eat for a late lunch date and I got to eat my favorite salmon burger. So delicious with some sweet potato hash on the side. It was simple but it was just nice to relax and eat together.

 

Excited For: We met with all our wedding vendors this weekend and while by the end of the weekend we had drunk more coffee than we could have ever wanted (we met at coffee shops), we were able to set everything  up. And it got me so excited and hungry for the big day that is coming up!

Anxious about: My mom has been having a few issues with her kidneys so I’m just hoping all is well in that arena and that she recovers quickly.

Need to Do: Spray paint and bead some cone trees to finish the table decorations. Also, we have one last marriage prep class at our church! We have been love meeting with the Deacon and his wife, and we always end up smiling as we leave because you can tell there relationship is filled with so much love.

Looking forward to: Being done with wedding planning and just enjoying focusing on my schoolwork and on Chris!

 

~Alyssa

WIAW: Hopefully Normal

Happy Wednesday folks! First, I have to give a big shout out and thanks for Chris’s post last week. He is seriously entertaining, and I tried not to take any of his little jabs too personally 🙂

As always thanks to Jen from Peasandcrayons for hosting this 200th WIAW! Wow

Let’s get down to business, here is what I munched on, on Monday. Hopefully it’s kind of normal…ok I already know that it’s not because where’s the fun in that?

For Breakfast, no surprise here, it’s…..oatmeal!

With banana, cinnamon, walnuts, and raspberries. I switched it up just a bit, but can’t go too crazy.

Lunch:

Ok, no I forgot to snap a picture of the salad that I brought and ate in between my classes. It had spinach, quinoa, beans, roasted sweet potatoes, and chicken. With an orange on the side.

Snack: A honey crisp apple (duh) with almonds and dark chocolate. Perfect for an afternoon pick me up and great fuel for some Gilmore Girls watching.

Dinner: I made some lentil sweet potato chili to have throughout the week. Yumm. I still have a few kinks to work out before it is blog ready (too much cinnamon) but it is still darn good. And it helped me to clean out my fridge of some lingering vegetables which is always a plus.

Sorry about the weird coloring, it was a little dark.

Then I rounded out my Monday with some Berry tea and some pumpkin ice cream (seriously can’t get over this stuff).

            

Enjoy your Wednesday!

Question of the day: What is your favorite ice cream flavor or dessert if you don’t like ice cream? (I don’t know why I’m asking this now that is is freezing cold outside) While pumpkin is magically delicious, my favorite is raspberry dark chocolate. Yummm.

~Alyssa

 

 

A Survey + Cold Winter Running

Hello all you wonderful people! I have a crazy busy week this week so I will keep this short and simple with as few embellishments as possible (but we need a few to keep things interesting).

Before we head to the survey I just wanted to let you all know that I completed 4.1 miles in 10° yesterday. It was chilly, but not torturous. With the addition of a scarf, I think I would have actually enjoyed it. While winter running will probably not become part of my workout routine it was nice to switch things up a bit.

I was tagged by the wonderful Emily, from sweetandbeets to complete this survey and I thought it was about time you people knew a little more about me! So here is a bunch of tidbits that I know you have been DYING to know.

Four Names That People Call Me (Other Than My Real Name):

1. Allison
2. Ally
3. Wappinator (college volleyball team)
4. Sponge Al Square Teeth (what my sister used to torture me with, until I met an orthodontist. In her defense the name was pretty accurate)

Four Jobs I’ve Had:

1. Director of Donations at Maggie’s Place
2. Research Assistant at the University of Minnesota
3. Junior Olympic Volleyball Coach
4. Babysitter extraordinaire

 

Four Movies I Have Watched More Than Once:

1. Pride and Predjudice
2. Miss Congeniality
3. Any Mary-kate and Ashley movie
4. Frozen

Four Books I’d Recommend: 

1. Harry Potter
2. Arms of Love
3. Redeeming Love
4. Harry Potter

Four Places I’ve Lived:

1. Cloquet, MN
2. Steubenville, OH
3. Phoenix, AZ
4. Minneapolis, MN

Four Places I Have Been:

1. Orlando
2. Germany
3. Portland, OR
4. Boundary Waters/ Canada

Four Places I’d Rather Be Right Now:

1. With Chris
2. In Orlando visiting my sister.
3. Harry Potter Land with Chris and my sister
4. A movie theater eating hot buttered popcorn

Four Things I Don’t Eat:

1. Raw tomatoes
2. Anything with wheat
3. Beef jerky
4. Chicken Wings, or really anything with bones

 

Four Of My Favorite Foods:

1. Honeycrisp apples
2. Oatmeal
3. Cheeseburger fresh off the grill
4. Any egg dish: omelettes, scrambled, egg bake

Four TV Shows That I Watch:

1. GILMORE GIRLS
2. Everybody Loves Raymond
3. Kathy Lee and Hoda
4. Dancing With The Stars

Four Things I Am Looking Forward To This Year:

1. Getting Married
2. Going to Mexico for our honeymoon
3. Graduating with an MPH
4. Becoming a Registered Dietitian

Oh man that is quite the ambitious year!

Four Things I’m Saying: 

1. I can’t wait to get married!
2. Thank You, so many people have been helping out with the wedding.
3. What is the temperature?
4. Is it snowing?

I hope you all enjoyed that!

Eat some quinoa and be merry

~Alyssa

Winter Wedding 7

Hey my party people! It’s Thursday which means it’s wedding time! This week has actually been a very productive wedding week so I write this post with a happy heart and a latte (which may be part of the happy heart).

Best Moment of the Week: Chris is auditing a Casino that is only an hour and 15 minutes away from my apartment, and so last night we were able to meet up for coffee, dinner, and studying. It’s just the best getting to see him during the week! Especially with hunting we have to take advantage of all the time we can get.

Non-Chris Related: My cousin and my aunt came over after church this weekend for an impromptu craft session and we actually created some brilliance.

Excited For: Packages and things for the wedding are starting to be delivered to the house and each package just gets me more and more excited! Sneak peek: everything has glitter and snowflakes on it! Eek Also, my future mother in law has also been busy creating some glittery perfection of her own, in the form of bridesmaid sashes!

Anxious about: As of today, nothing monumental to worry about, but as we just received our first snowfall of the year, I am just hoping and praying that all our friends and family arrive here safely! And of course good weather so Chris and I can get safely to Mexico for our honeymoon extraordinair.

Need to Do: We still have been throwing around some ideas for transportation for the wedding party. If anyone has suggestions, please let me know. As of now, our top contender is a limo, but we shall see!

Looking forward to: All of a sudden Thanksgiving seems right around the corner, and it has me beaming from ear to ear! I just love all the family time that Thanksgiving brings. And this year my aunt is spearheading an entire gluten-free Thanksgiving. I could/cannot still believe this is going to happen. I will be there and I will be ready to feast!

~Alyssa

WIAW: Deer Hunting

As always thanks to Jen from peasandcrayons for hosting this fun celebration of food! Without further ado here is Chris’s WIAW post. Enjoy!

Well hello! I’m happy to be back and writing another blog post! This time it is for What I Ate Wednesday…except this took place over the weekend. I’d like to first start with mentioning that I agree with Alyssa’s sister, Sara, that she never eats “normal” things. However, due to the special occasion over this weekend, my meals weren’t exactly “normal” either, but I would argue still more normal than what Alyssa eats.

 

Anyway, anyone from Minnesota knows that Saturday was deer hunting opener (for firearms). The alarm went off at 5:30 am and the excitement began. If you’ve never been hunting before, there is no explanation for how it makes you feel. Ah, it is just a wonderful time and I can’t express that enough. I set out to my deer stand with my thermos full of percolated coffee and a doughnut. One of those two items are Alyssa approved. But you have to have some homely food when you’re sitting outside in the 20 degree weather for hours on end (9 degrees on Sunday). And yes, that is my idea of fun…although I somehow couldn’t convince Alyssa to join me.

Well after a successful morning hunt (I was able to shoot a decent sized doe and my uncle got a 4 point buck, the hunting crew (which is myself, my older brother Matt, Matt’s girlfriend Jamie, my younger brother Jon, my cousin Nicholas and one of his friends, two of my uncles, my dad, and my grandpa) found ourselves back to the shack and we had Eggs Benedict with specialty hashbrowns. This includes our fried eggs, toasted English muffins, ham, and hollandaise sauce (which is even better topped with salsa). The hashbrowns are browned to perfection with some green peppers and onions. SO GOOD. (I can picture Alyssa rolling her eyes at “hollandaise.”

             

I would also like to mentionwhat I had on Sunday because it is a classic at deer camp: “deer balls”….or Scottish Eggs if you would like the proper term. These consist of a hardboiled egg, which is then wrapped in venison breakfast sausage and baked. To make it extra tasty, croissant dough is placed on top and it is then baked for a few additional minutes. (Once again, insert Alyssa eye roll.).

Back out to our respective stands we went, but unfortunately it was not a successful evening hunt. Daylight came to a close and I was now covered with snow. So we started dinner preparations. Now, at the shack (and my family’s cabin in Canada), we certainly go all out on meals. This dinner consisted of fried wontons that had cabbage, carrots, and venison breakfast sausage inside and then grilled onions, mushrooms, green peppers, and marinated venison. And all that was placed on a bed of rice that had carrots and peas mixed in. And of course, I might have had a couple of beers as well, but what’s hunting without some adult beverages?

       

Obviously, it wasn’t the healthiest of days/weekends, but hunting brings about a different sort of need for food, if you ask me. When I’m out in the stand I’m not going to be making a bunch of noise munching on carrots or celery. And with only having two full meals throughout the day (gotta maximize the daylight for the most amount of hunting time possible), I’m definitely a proponent have having food that is going to be more filling. Plus, everyone on my dad’s side of the family sure knows how to cook a hearty meal.

But I hope you enjoyed the change of pace from Alyssa’s meals and found my hunting shack meals interesting…because they sure were delicious.

Thanks and have a great day! Go enjoy some venison and best of luck to all hunters!

~Chris

It’s HERE!

Good Morning and Happy Tuesday. This blog post is short and sweet because I am too busy cuddling up in a pile of blanket and conserving energy to stay warm….ok slightly exaggerating, but people WINTER is HERE. And it’s mighty cold. But that means it’s just getting closer to Christmas and December 27th (I digress).

Soo anyway this weekend I had a volleyball tournament where I had a complete blast. I love playing with my dad! We got second place (yay!)….in the losers bracket (double yay!).

And then Sunday was filled with wedding crafting, and yes you will have to wait for Thursday to see a sneak peek!

Speaking of sneak peaks here is one for tomorrow’s WIAW post. Hint: nothing this person ate was made in a house. Hint: this person will by tying the knot to a great girl on Dec 27th 🙂

Yup, you guessed it (or maybe not). Chris did I WIAW post hunting shack edition!His family eats gourmet food at their shack, so just prepare to be amazed!

Stay warm and eat some quinoa!

~Alyssa

 

 

 

Winter Wedding 8 Weeks Away

Happy Thursday everyone!

I feel like these wedding updates come every few days, it’s crazy that we are already one more week closer to the Big day! Also if anyone asks, long distance still stinks!

Best Moment of the Week: Going to mass with Chris on Sunday morning. It is alway so great to start our weeks together and to start it with some Jesus!

Excited For: This week, my best friend, Linda, who happens to be a newlywed took me on a girls night and we went shopping and of course chatted. It was so great to talk about wedding, marriage, aka the whole nine yards. Talking about it made it more real and  just made me so excited to start this next chapter in our lives and to start to identify who we are as a married couple.

Anxious about: Not forgetting anything or anybody! It is coming down to crunch time and I don’t want to miss anything. Also the whole dress bustle thing.

Need to Do: Be less anxious 🙂 But really our DJ sent us a million questions so it has been fun going down memory lane and remembering why and how I fell in love with this wonderful man in the first place.

Looking forward to: Christmas!!! (don’t judge), coffee dates, cooking (I have so many recipes marked I need to make them) and lots and lots of crafting (hopefully a crafty gene will suddenly come alive in me).

 

~Alyssa

WIAW #8

Here we go, the story of my Tuesday life, welcome one and all!

Now I don’t want to give anything away, but next week there might be a special guest post WIAW. So stay tuned.

In the meantime head over to peasandcrayons and check out this celebration of food hosted by Jen.

It started with an early morning spin class. I always think I am getting “better” at spin class and therefore will be less sweaty, but each spin class is sweatier than the last. I returned home to a bowl of overnight oats. They just never get old.

Then lunch time rolled around while I was at one of the elementary schools for my master’s project. So I finished up and headed to Starbucks for some studying…AND some red cup loving!

I enjoyed a gopicnic which is a great option for a quick lunch that packs a lot of protein. The balanced lunch is good, but the best part is everything packaged into cute little bags that no one can resist. And there is squirt able hummus, sounds a little shady but it’s great and FUN. Obviously I enjoyed a honey crisp the size of my face, because that’s how I do apples.Then I had a Larabar for a snack.

And finished the day with some breakfast for dinner! It doesn’t look the greatest but it sure hit the spot. With a couple of Halloween Reese’s on the side.

http://sweets.seriouseats.com

Question of the day: What is your favorite brinner food? I think mine would be eggs. I can eat them 24/7 in any way shape or form.

Eat some quinoa and be merry!

~Alyssa