>Hey Hey Hey,
How was your weekend? Mine was glorious. As I told ya before, the manfriend was visiting. He flew in Thursday night and stayed until this morning. For some reason neither of us looked at his flight time and assumed it was today at 1:45pm…however, we soon found out we were 40mins off. But after a morning of rushing (more on his part) he made it to his flight and arrived safely home 🙂 I’m so used to seeing him every 2-3 months (ugh, I know) that this last month of TWICE in one month has been fantastic!
Well the weekend started off great, spent Thursday night catching up/enjoying some vino on the couch with Seth and the roomies. Friday night was my program’s holiday party. Let me just say there are few things more entertaining than seeing your professors, dean, chair of the department (more than) tipsy. How I love holiday parties…
After my program’s party we (manfriend, me, and sis) headed to another holiday party, this one for the Georgetown MBA program, at a swanky bar (en route pic of Setho)..
We met up some a few other friends and danced the night away..
LOVE this pic! Me (on the right) and my friend Ally gettin our dance on.
Saturday was quite lazy as the weather wasn’t helping. Spent most of the day on the couch 🙂 Seth got a little antsy so went to get some work done, but me and Kels (sis/roomie) happily watched a couple (ok more like 4) re-runs of 90210 😉 Aaah, love that show.
In the evening, Seth had the pleasure of accompanying me to lab for a couple of hours. Scienceland can be great but one area where it falls short is timing. If drug X needs to be added exactly 36 hours after drug Y then there is little room for flexibility and it will be added exactly 36 hours later. So yep, we were in lab til 9pm on a Saturday night. Cool, I know 😛
(I was testing how efficently 4 new kill leukemic cells)
After lab we made a quick trip to Heaven (aka Whole Foods), blasted Holiday music, and cooked up a fiesta! Seth made clams in a garlic/lemon/butter sauce (vegan Earth Balance butter…was actually very similar to butter. I highly recommend it):
I spiralized 2 raw zucchinis (as the “pasta”) then made a pesto sauce (inspired by Fitnessista) made of handful of fresh basil, 2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil, 3 cloves of garlic, 1 tbsp pine nuts, dollop of Greek yogurt (I’m allergic to Parmesan. Sad, I know):
Both were delish! We paired this with a spring mix salad topped with balsamic. And obviously great wine alongside.
Anddd then some dessert (dark chocolate covered strawberries, also from Heaven):
Ah, such a great date night 🙂
On Sunday morning I was in the cooking mood again. Kels had worked the night shift (she’s an RN) so her bfast was delivered in bed. Yes, I know I’m quite the sister. Wink Wink Kels..
I made these protein pancakes adapted from Tosca’s Reno’s Clean Eat Cookbook. As much as I love to cook, cookbooks have never been my thing. However, this books is AMAZING. Everything is 100% Natural (hence the name ‘clean’), made with minimal ingredients (aka college student friendly) and of items that you’ve probably heard of. I highly recommend it!
The recipe called for 1 tbsp. canola oil (I substituted this with unsweetened apple sauce) and wheat germ (which I didn’t have, so also gluten-free..aka roomie-friendly)
Pancakes were made of rolled oats, whipped egg whites, apple sauce, vanilla whey protein powder, cottage cheese, cinnamon, stevia (an all-natural, zero calorie sweetener), and flax seeds. I made a fruit topping by microwaving some frozen fruit (Trader Joe’s berry blend) and adding some stevia. Delish!
And yes, I sometimes drink OJ out of a wine/champagne glass..
Well I’ve gotta run back to this experiment…Happy Monday! Have a great week!!!
-Lauren
Note: Check out my brother’s new blog. He was trained as a division one college athlete and is studying exercise physiology. Anything questions fitness-related, he’s a pro!
Biochemista 