Travel Adventures: Live From Here: Chris Thile

What a great and yet really quick weekend we had. It flew by and I can barely catch my breath before I am off to Florida for the week for work and the Service Hero 2017 Summit. I love a good recap so here are some amazing highlights from this past weekend.

We started off Friday by trading in the Honda FIT for a more spacious VW Jetta wagon. Now forever called the Trashwagon.

 What a flash back from college days. Stopped in my college town River Falls and my favorite Mexican place ever Mariachi Loco for some mole enchiladas, a margarita and tons of chips. Way too much food but it was delicious as always and I got to enjoy it with my friend Maggie. YEY!

We stopped at a new local brewery in River Falls Swinging Bridge Brewing Company. Some really tasty options. I wish I had more room in belly to drink more.

We went for a really fun day hike. I feel like I never dress good for hiking either too hot or too cold. 

 Really good looking view from the top of the hill.

 Onward. Ryan had to walk in the front because he kept hitting me with snowballs.

Sadly turtles do not cross roads in winter. We still loved the sign and Ryan was wearing a green jacket soo.... turtle?

 Waiting to see Live From Here with Chris Thile. Now I bet you were like jeez when is she going to talk about the title of the post. On my Facebook, Instagram and Twitter you can see a clip of the show. I highly recommend you go watch a live recording of this show it is a top notch show. Runs on national radio and Chris is an amazing host. The humor, music and uniqueness of this show cannot be beat. Plus during the break you can request a song for them to cover on twitter and they do it like 2 minutes later live. YEP, you guessed it Ryan's selection "Sex and Candy" got selected and it was truly amazing.

What does one do after an awesome radio show? Eat pasta duh. This was a pasta with in house made alfredo/pesto sauce blend topped with chicken and chunks of parmesan cheese. HEAVEN. We may have also watched Titantic you know the movie from 1997? Classic.

This Omelette was the size of my dang head. It was really good and the spicy guac was amazing.

Hello old friend. I love Caribou and I am said they do not live where I live.

Did you think I would post about a trip out to Maggie without a picture of her cat Pickle? Come on you know me!

He is the laziest cat with he plays. Yes he is laying on the ground and playing on his side.












I just loved this weekend and we had so many good laughs and saw some really good music in the process. I will be MIA for a bit while in Florida for work. I plan to do a nice post when I am back and things settle down.

Until next time~
XoXo Emily

Travel Adventures: Horicon Marsh

What a windy but fun little hiking day. We wanted to go somewhere we had not been before and Ryan found this place after a little research. It was honestly really cool. The wind whipped around us the entire time since we were in the marsh but it was beautiful and peaceful there. We even saw a little oppossum rambling around out on the ice. Here are some photo highlights from our trip.

I earned the heck out of this Big Mac and Shamrock shake. 

Brisk hike but so fun. 

Hello little wilderness friend. A opossum!

It really is pretty we will have to come back in the summer. 

Leading the way. 

I bet this is extra pretty in the summer.

Lovely view. 

I promise he had a good time. 

The map!

It was a fun day trip. I will be doing a lot of traveling this next month so stay tuned to more fun posts.

Until next time~

XoXo Emily

Mashed Cauliflower

Just plain yummy. Now I am a slacker on posts I know. It is for a good reason though I am addicted to the Olympics it is like sucking up all the free time. I don't even watch sports until this time when I literally watch like 15 hours of ice skating and snowboarding a week. Which is pretty funny. Now this has nothing to do with this awesome sneaky healthy side. I love making this because it truly reminds me of mashed potatoes if you make it just right.

What you need~
1 head of cauliflower
2-6 cloves of garlic
Olive oil
Seasoning
Milk

Pre-heat your oven to 375 degrees F. Cut your cauliflower pretty small so it gets extra tender. You want the cauliflower almost mushy to make this. I lightly coat in olive oil and and season with salt and pepper. I also remove the outer layer of the garlic and roast that too with the cauliflower. While this is roasting get your food processor out. Now I have tried the blender, food processor and stand mixer. Now they all work okay but the food processor really has the ability to get the perfect mouth texture I like to mimic potatoes. Once done roasting dump all of the cauliflower and garlic into the food processor and start to blend. Slowly add your milk to get it to the texture you like. I served this with stuffed pork chops and a mushroom/onion mole sauce I made.  SUPER good and I will always love this mashed cauliflower as a side.

NOM NOM

I really just love this option instead of heavy potatoes. You can get away with eating a ton of it as well. Happy cooking.

Until next time~
XoXo Emily

Roasted Vegetables In Salad

This will change your life. I went to a pizza joint and I got a salad. I know that sounds insane but it was so good. They actually roasted broccoli and had that in the salad and I am telling you this changed my entire life. Last night for dinner I made salad and roasted broccoli and sweet peppers. It just really adds another layer of delicious flavor and depth to the salad. It is also super easy to do and people will be blown away at the extra step you took.

What you need~
Two large heads of broccoli
6 large sweet peppers
1 tablespoon of olive oil
Salt & pepper

Start by pre-heating oven to 450 degrees F. Get a large sheet pan out to place your veggies on. Dice the vegetables to a smaller size but not to tiny as they shrink when baking. Toss the veggies in your oil and I used curry oil.  I roasted mine for about 10 minutes. Let it cool before putting in the salad or if you really want to you can serve in the salad warm. I like them cooled a bit.

Chop up the veggies.

Done roasting and cooling.

Mixed in the salad. Roasted goodness.

YUM!

I know this is an extra step but it makes salads all the better. It also makes my boring salads seem a lot more exciting.

Until next time~
XoXo Emily

Orzo Pasta Salad

Just super simple and yummy. I am sure you are like what the heck is Orzo. I mean it looks like rice but it is actually pasta. It stays true to it's size when you cook it and works really well in a cold salad. I love it with a lemon sauce. I made this due to working late last night I knew it would be the perfect lunch since I packed it with veggies. I love it. I sorta feel bad for eating it all and not leaving any for Ryan. OH well.

What you need~
2 cups of orzo (cooked according to package and cooled)
1/4 cup of oil (I used lemon liquid coconut oil)
3 tablespoons of water
1/2 a cucumber diced
4 small sweet peppers diced
3 green onions diced
5 small pepperoni chopped up
1/4 cup greek olives chopped
Italian seasoning to the oil and garlic salt to taste

I really just prep all the veggies, cook the orzo and mix up the oil and seasonings. Then dump it all together and let cool before eating in 2 hours. It is amazing!

It really is fantastic and so refreshing with the lemon undertones. Try it soon.

Until next time~
XoXo Emily

Travel Adventures: Wisconsin Dells

What is better than fun in February?
We needed a bit of a mini vacation and this was fun and much needed. We ate some really tasty food and many laughs. Some highlights:

• We may have drank drinks the size of our heads. I am a sucker for a Miami vice.
• Pretty sure the man at the check-in desk hated us but we had some funny jokes. At least smile a bit dude.
• People watching is always fun. We may have saw a man wearing a 80's bright jumpsuit at the swim up bar.
• Went on a really scary water ride with the girls. We did not realize how intense it was going to be and once we dropped into a giant tunnel it got insane.
• The food. Oh goodness the food was amazing at the places we went too.
• The friendship. So many good laughs with everyone. It really was a solid weekend.

I love that I am not looking at the camera. Brandon looks happy.

Ryan is a creeper here. Classic.

We look like we are 12. Katelyn looks all smiles though.

Liz legit has a polaroid camera. This was hilarious and fun. These pictures for some reason reminded me of when we were younger. We all patiently waited for them to develop to look at them. Big smiles.

Both Friday and Saturday night we played this super fun game where you are a wizard and you need to kill the other wizards. I managed to win Saturday night. As you can see we had some yummy beverages too.

This was amazing. Handmade bloody Mary and chaser.

Yum!

Monk's has some tasty burgers. The chips where good too.

The best biscuits in gravy I have ever had at The Keg.

I am always a fan of adventures and this was a good little get away. The Wilderness were we stayed was nice. Our giant rooms were relatively nice. This place is huge so be prepared to walk a lot.

Until next time~
XoXo Emily

Moderation

I have been a slacker. I will admit to that freely. To be completely fair I had a sinus infection and a pretty nasty bronchitis flare up. I am on the mend finally finished up my antibiotics today.  So why do you ask do I go into this ramble and what does it have to do with moderation? Being sick and unable to work out stresses me out. I have to watch what I eat closer to keep up my weight loss. But I don't want to go insane when I am sick and want a piece of pizza. So what does one do? You work at moderation. Yes the statement everything in moderation is true. This moto is something I follow closely and is why I have had success over 3 years maintaining my weight now. I base my days off of the theory that some days I am going to eat fried chicken or a salad/soup. You really have to look at the big picture here and figure out what works for you. Here are some examples.

This is literally what I ate for dinner not 10 minutes ago. Two rolls of sushi and a diet soda.. Emily.. I can feel you judging but let me explain how I fit this in. I had 3 strawberries and a yogurt for breakfast. I drank two things of chai tea not sweetened in between my breakfast and lunch. I followed that up with a medium salad (no meat) and some coconut cashews. Pretty decent meals right? It leaves me with more calories if you will for that sushi. I am eating in moderation. I am looking at serving sizes and counting it all up. 

Oh goodness it is the end of the world we ate chicken for dinner one night. This was when I was sick and damn if I wanted some mashed potatoes. I have had KFC maybe once in the past year. So because of that thought and the idea of moderation I planned this day out. Yogurt, gatorade and chicken soup for breakfast/lunch this day. Left me plenty of calories for this meal. Now could I have cut out the gravy and removed the chicken skin to save even more? Sure... but come on why do that we barely ever have chicken like this.

When I talk about moderation what sorts of salads and soups do I have? Well look at my blog history I have plenty of ideas. You can really make soup with whatever you have in fridge and the same goes for salads. For me it is easier to eat a big dinner for more calories than my other meals.

So now I am sure you are like oh you make it seem easy but come on what about beverages?
I drink beer, wine, soda and juice like I eat food. Either I save up the calories or I pick lower calorie options. Let's be real though I love a good dark beer. I drink moderately though. You do not need to go get drunk every where you go to have a good time. Having a good dark beer or a glass of wine with dinner is fine. 5 glasses of wine are a bit over the top though and let's be honest that is not moderation. I also will sub in a diet soda if there are not good options as needed. Diet coke is of course my favorite.







I bring up this topic today because people comment on what I eat and drink all the time. I wanted to bring up the idea of moderation and how you can still have your cake and eat it too. Literally eat the damn piece of cake every once and a while. Just not the entire cake okay.

Until next time~
XoXo Emily