Most Popular:

1. Chevre and Apricot Phyllo Purses

I made these for my friend Josie’s virtual baby shower, and Mike and I both though they were an awesome appetizer. Can you ever really go wrong with goat cheese?

2. Crispy-Chewy Lemon Cookies

Although I’m usually reluctant to use shortening, it does wonders for these cookies! They’ve got an amazing texture and lots of bright lemon flavor.

3. Blueberry Cheesecake Tart

One of my childhood favorites!

4. Eggnog Cupcakes

I only made these a couple weeks ago, but they quickly became one of my most popular posts, thanks to a post on Cupcakes Take the Cake!

5. Cinnamon Rolls

One of the first things I made when we brought Ellie home from the hospital, these are definitely crowd pleasers!

My Favorites:

1. Khao Soi

A vegetarian version of one of my all-time favorite Thai dishes

2. White Chocolate Peanut Butter Cookies

Pretty much anyone who tastes these calls them the best peanut butter cookies they’ve ever had, and I have to say I agree.

3. Black Bean and Butternut Tacos

I think I made these at least three times in a single month. The pickled shallots are awesome!

4. Kale and Butternut Squash Pizza

I liked this so much, I made it the header image for the blog! One of my new favorite pizzas of all time.

5. Vegetable Filled Mac and Cheese

A smidge healthier than traditional mac and cheese, this is a great way to get a n extra serving of vegetables while you satisfy your cheesy-carb craving.

When I was home on summer break and maternity leave, I got in the habit of making really healthy lunches because I had plenty of time to prep them while Ellie napped. Now that I’m back at work, I’m trying to stick to those produce-filled lunches full of healthy grains and proteins, but I have WAY less time during the week to make it happen.

My new strategy is to devote an hour or two of meal prep on Sunday night so that it’s easy to assemble healthy meals to go all week long. Here’s my general strategy:

VEGETABLES:
The photo above shows what I prepped for this week:
a big container of red cabbage, diced cucumber, and diced red bell pepper
1 head of kale, chopped and sauteed with garlic and red pepper flakes
carrots and celery, cut into sticks (and soaking in cold water so they don’t get soft).
Last week, I roasted some sweet potatoes and cubes of butternut squash (just tossed with olive oil and a little salt.)
I keep tomatoes and avocados on hand most of the time, but I don’t cut those until the night before I’m planning on packing them.
I also LOVE my salad spinner. This week it’s full of arugula but I also love butter lettuce, baby spinach or red leaf lettuce

PROTEIN AND GRAINS
In addition to cutting up a ton of vegetables, I cook some grains and protein. My favorite sources of protein are beans (which I cook in the slow cooker), lentils, which cook pretty quickly on the stove top, and tofu or tempeh, cut into cubes and sauteed.

For grains, my current favorites are quinoa and farro, which both cook relatively quickly on the stove. I also like to make a big batch of brown rice in the rice cooker.

I keep these in Snapware containers in the fridge so it’s easy to assemble salads the night before work.

CONDIMENTS:
This is probably the most important part. I don’t follow recipes when I’m throwing lunch together, but I do have a couple go-to combinations that I love.
rice vinegar + soy sauce + sesame seeds (this is especially good with avocado!
tahini + Bragg’s liquid aminos + sriracha
plain yogurt
olive oil + lemon juice
pumpkin or sunflower seeds

By having all this on hand, it’s really easy to make lunches at night, while I’m cleaning up from dinner. I usually start with a layer of greens, top with grain + protein, then add some extra vegetables on top. Sometimes I’ll mix up the dressing in a separate container, but most of the time I drizzle it over the top when I pack, then mix it all up when it’s time to eat.

Hopefully these ideas will save you from expensive takeout or a boring sandwich rut!

I meant to write this post yesterday, but somehow the day passed far too quickly and I feel like I accomplished almost nothing. I did manage to squeeze in a run (4.5 miles at 9:26 min/mile) even though I was completely exhausted and almost decided not to go. Fortunately, I got out there, ran a ridiculously slow first mile, and then ended up feeling pretty good. Running for the win, as usual!

Mike’s 30th birthday was super mellow but pretty delicious (am I allowed to say that if I’m the one that made all the food?) He loves Middle Eastern food…so much that every time we have it he says “I could eat this way every day. So good.” So a mezze seemed like a natural choice for his birthday dinner. The only issue was this:

Don’t let the picture fool you. Ellie went from sleeping pretty well to waking up every single hour from about midnight to 7 AM. She naps, kind of, but is happiest hanging out in the Ergo pretty much all day. Fortunately most of this stuff was easy to make with her strapped to me!

All the recipes I used were from one of my very favorite cookbooks:

I’m pretty sure I’ve talked about it on the blog before, but I got Alice’s Kitchen: Traditional Lebanese Cooking from my aunt for Christmas a few years ago and I adore it. All the recipes are simple and completely delicious (and there are a lot of vegetarian recipes!)

I made pita, tabouli, hummus, baba ghannouj, and labne.

Lebne is one of my favorites. Just take a container of plain yogurt (full fat is best), dump it into a cheesecloth-lined strainer and set over a bowl in the fridge for about 8 hours. Then drizzle with olive oil and sprinkle with sumac.

Mike requested Persian Love Cake for dessert.

Mine looks a little sad because I had to use 9″ pans instead of 8″ so the layers are super thin, and I didn’t really feel like seeking out and candying organic rose petals, but even without them, the cake is delicious. Incredibly light cake flavored with cardamom and a hint of lemon enveloped in sweet rose-scented whipped cream. HIGHLY recommended!

Now that we’re almost to October, it seemed like an appropriate time to round up my favorite pumpkin recipes:

1. Pumpkin pancakes for one – start your day right!

2. Vegan Pumpkin Bread full of awesome pupmkin flavor, plus lots of nuts and raisins

3. There’s nothing better to have with coffee than Pumpkin Scones

4. Another great mid-morning snack is these Pumpkin Cream Cheese Muffins

5. Pumpkin Oatmeal Chocolate Chunk Cookies make a great lunchtime dessert

6. Always irresistible Pupmkin-White Chocolate Blondies

Although they’re not on my blog, I made Annie’s Pumpkin Snickerdoodles last night and highly recommend them!

Happy Baking! (And if you have any awesome pumpkin recipes, let me know! I’m always looking for more)

Sunday morning started like this:

Still pregnant, and well-rested for the last time for who knows how long!

We got to the hospital around 11 AM to start the induction, and the first 12 hours we just hung out waiting for things to get going. I had a couple rounds of Cytotec, watched a bunch of crappy daytime television, and went for a few walks with Mike.

By that night things had progressed enough to start Pitocin, and for a few hours the contractions weren’t too bad so I walked around a lot, snacked a little, and tried to rest. Then things got a little more intense (and by that I mean the pain was pretty nuts and I was over it) and I knew I was ready for the epidural.

The anesthesiologist came and within half an hour the pain had diminished and I was definitely feeling pretty awesome. I wasn’t sure what to expect getting an epidural, but it went in quickly and easily, I could feel contractions but they didn’t bother me, and I could still feel my legs and move my feet a little bit (plus the baby’s heart rate stayed where it was and so did my blood pressure, which was nice).

The next 12 hours I napped off and on and things kept progressing. By 2 PM the nurses said I’d be ready to push soon, which honestly kind of freaked me out. But we listened to my pump up song (All These Things That I’ve Done by the Killers) and Mike reminded me that I could totally do this. I started pushing a little before 3 (holy crap, it is HARD – I have NO idea how people do that for hours. I was almost ready to give up after 15 minutes, but they put up a mirror so I could see her head and that totally motivated me)

By 3:21 Eleanor Jane arrived (TMI warning… the pushing made me feel really queasy and I ended up throwing up, which apparently just the right thing to do because it pushed her out!) She was 21″ long and 7 lbs 10 ounces. She’s an AMAZING baby and we absolutely adore her.

I cannot say enough about how absolutely wonderful the hospital staff was. All the doctors and nurses were so sweet and supportive, and I always felt like I had plenty of information and options.

We’ve been home for two nights now and I’m still getting used to being completely sleep-deprived and having milk end up all over everything, but I love this baby girl!

Mike is such a good dad, and you can already tell she adores him!

For those asking what they can do to help my healing process, make a peanut butter pie this Friday and share it with someone you love. Then hug them like there’s no tomorrow because today is the only guarantee we can count on.

We both agreed that tonight, we’d have pie.  In honor of Jennie and Mikey, and to appreciate the time we have together right now, because like Jennie says, today is the only guarantee we can count on.

Recipe is posted at In Jennie’s Kitchen

Most Beautiful:
I’m not sure any of my posts are particularly beautiful, but I think this post during National Eating Disorder Awareness Week was honest and possibly beautiful in that regard(?)…

Most Popular:

Without a doubt, the Oreo Cheesecake Cupcakes get more hits than any other post by FAR!

Most Controversial:

I don’t think I’ve really written any controversial posts. I get a few negative comments here and there, but there really hasn’t been a post that’s generated more than others. However, I’ll link to this one (about eating Indian food in Bangkok)just because the one negative comment I did get was so ridiculous. I ended up deleting the comment, but it basically said “why would you waste any time eating Indian food in Thailand when Thai food is so much better?”
We were in Thailand for several months, and 99.9% of the time we did eat Thai food…which was completely obvious based on my other posts, so I’m not sure what the point was.

Most Helfpul:

I am really striking out with this challenge.  I’m not really sure I’ve ever posted anything particularly helpful.  I keep meaning to do one about shopping at our co-op so we don’t end up using ANY disposable packaging, but since it hasn’t been written yet, that doesn’t count!  I think the closest I’ve come to a helpful post is this one where I wrote about how I baked 120 cupcakes for a wedding that was 45 minutes away.

A Post Whose Success Surprised You:

The top 10 most visited posts on the blog are all cupcake recipes (not really a surprise), but this is my most popular healthy recipe. It’s a great one, but it’s a little surprising to me that of all the savory dishes I’ve posted, this one gets the most hits.

A Post You Feel Didn’t Get the Attention It Deserved:

This one is completely my fault.  I buried my huge news (I’m pregnant!) in a recipe post, when I’m sure it actually would have gotten the attention it deserved if it had a post of its own.

Most Proud Of:
I can’t decide between these of so I’m going to link to the two things I’m most proud of:
1. Finishing my first ultramarathon

2. Running the Boston Marathon at 20 weeks pregnant

I know a ton of people have already done this, and if you haven’t but want to, consider yourself tagged!

Sunday morning we all woke up at 4 AM to get Emily to the start of the race in time. After dropping her off in her corral, we walked up the Embarcadero a little ways to watch the start.

The weather was perfect – not too warm or cold, and not too windy. As soon as she ran by we drove out to Golden Gate Park so we could see her at mile 12 and 16.

Photo from RoadBunner

We saw Emily, Aron, Alyssa, and Courtney looking strong! Then we headed back down to the Embarcadero to watch the finish.

Emily beat that guy! After getting her medal, we met up in the beer garden so she could celebrate properly.

Unfortunately she had to fly home last night because she had class today, but it was a super fun weekend! I forgot how much fun spectating for marathons can be, and it was great to see some friends run new PRs!