Labor Day Weekend: Family and Food

Hello everyone! I hope that you all had a fantastic weekend, holiday or no holiday!

I certainly did…my mom’s side of the family came over to our house, and we all had a blast talking, eating, playing games and euchre, watching – or not, in my case – the Michigan football game, and going to the lake. There were almost 20 of us there, which, in my opinion, only made it better.

I took this picture off my dad’s facebook…hence the black bar at the bottom! Whoops!

That being said, I’m going to do WIAW a bit differently today. Normally I chronicle my day of eats for a Wednesday, but this time I’m going to share some foods that I ate over the weekend, because there was some really good stuff going around. There really isn’t any rhyme or reason (or healthiness) to my WIAW list, so please bear with me. I am, however, planning on posting quite a few recipes within the next week or so, so please come back and visit!

WIAW

This month’s WIAW theme is basically what I have been doing after this past weekend….

I am in desperate need of falling back into good habits, because, honestly, it was a party, and I ate what I wanted to! 😛

For dinner on Saturday we had sandwiches (made on homemade bread, might I add), and dinner on Sunday was just some pizza – nothing too extraordinary! Which is why I’ll be writing about the snacks we enjoyed…… 🙂

Snacks (savory)

When everyone started to arrive on Saturday, our kitchen quite literally turned into a snack bar. I’m guessing we had close to 10 chip bags, 2 dips, homemade guacamole, a veggie tray, and a few other odds and ends. It was nuts, but everything was sooooo delicious! I’m a horrible blogger and didn’t get a picture of it all, but what I did manage to snap a picture of was my mom’s spinach dip. This is a family favorite (on both sides), and the recipe has been passed around more times than you could count.

It. is. so. good.

Recipe coming soon!

Snacks (sweet)

We also had so many snacks of the sweet variety. Now, most people would probably call these “desserts”, but the way I/we were eating them, they really were more like snacks. 😉

Of course, I already told you about those absolutely Amazing Chocolate Cupcakes (yes, I am going to brag there!), but I also made some vanilla cupcakes with vanilla frosting, and vegan pumpkin cupcakes. I’d never made pumpkin cake/cupcakes before, but they were a huge hit! Part of the reason we all got together was to celebrate the “fall” birthdays, and my aunt loves pumpkin cake, so I made it in her honor. They were so popular that I didn’t even get to try one!

No worries, though: I have leftover pumpkin in my fridge that I will definitely use for more cupcakes soon! 🙂

Anyway, in addition to the cupcakes we had lemon cake, rice krispie treats (made by my aunt, who makes THE best rice krispie treats ever. I don’t know what she does differently, but they’re so marshmallow-y and gooey and delicious…yum), different candies, and finally….

….candy corn!

Now that summer is unofficially over (with the passing of Labor Day), I have decided to fully embrace fall. 😀

As a sidenote, I just cannot say/read/type “candy corn” without thinking of that scene in the movie Elf…anyone with me?

(Check out the 0:58 mark! Hahaha!)

On Sunday, my dad, brother, cousins, and uncle all went out to Lake Michigan to do some fishing. They were out there for quite a few hours, but ended up coming back with some really great stuff! (I apologize in advance to my vegan readers.)

While they were out on the boat, my aunt, cousins, mom, and I all went to the beach to soak up some of the last rays of the summer sun.

There really is nothing better than Lake Michigan during the summer.

Finally, on Monday evening we ate some of the fish that my brother caught. He caught a steelhead, which turned out to be a type of trout. (We originally thought it was salmon.)

It was pretty good, though I will admit, knowing exactly where it came from and exactly when it was caught actually ended up freaking me out a bit. 😛

I also made two other dishes Monday afternoon to take up to school with me. Because of my ridiculously busy schedule, I hardly have any time to cook, and when I do, I don’t want to because I’m so tired. So, to combat that, I decided to prepare a brown rice side dish (that I’ll eat alongside chicken or a salmon burger, for instance), and a dish that I found called Pizza Quinoa Casserole.

I actually just tried it for lunch yesterday, and it is pretty good! I’m not sure if its name fits what it tastes like, but when I upload the recipe, I’ll give you some pointers and tips on how to make it taste more pizza-y.

After typing all of that, I’m beginning to realize how incredibly important this next point will be…

Workouts September 2-8
Sunday: off
Monday: off
Tuesday: this awesome workout (seriously, I love it! I’m still kind of sore!)
Wednesday: 20 minutes jogging + 20 minutes walking on treadmill
Thursday: 30-Day Shred or elliptical (I haven’t decided yet!)
Friday: 20 minutes jogging + 30 minutes walking + yoga
Saturday: circuit training

Well, I’m off to do some homework – have a great night, everyone! Keep checking back for recipes!

🙂

Tags: family, holidays, WIAW