Caroline Dines

Happy Friday All! As you can see in the pic below, I made it out of the house for the first time in two days! Despite the cloudy skies and windy conditions it felt AMAZING (and my ankle felt great too!) I had my trusty ankle sleeve on and tied my shoes nice and tight. I took it really really slow too. I would have worn my air cast but you simply can’t put a shoe over that!

Before my walk I had a bowl of what else, Barbara’s Shredded spoonfuls. I couldn’t bear to take another picture of it so I didn’t. My appetite has been weird again today (probably just getting over the cold and not exercising) so I didn’t eat again til around 2:00 p.m. when I got home from my walk. I did a little window shopping and some actual shopping in Coolidge Corner. It was fun to look around and get some ideas for Christmas but I made a promise to myself that I wasn’t going to buy a bunch of stuff that I didn’t need. I actually stuck to it and found three awesome deals: a shirt from gap for $2.97, a plate from Pier 1 for $2.00 and a place mat from Pier 1 for .98 cents! This was 6 dollars well spent in my opinion. I didn’t waste any time using my new purchases.

I have never owned a square plate before and was so excited to use it! The food I put on it wasn’t half bad either It was only the sweetest carrot, the creamiest hummus, and some extra crispy reduced fat wheat thins (TJ’s). This snack totally hit the spot when everything else I thought of kind of made my stomach turn.

My cousin Meg decided to stop by tonight since her plans changed for the weekend (feel better J!). I was psyched to hear she was free since Darin had plans of his own and I was looking for company. We got busy prepping our desserts when she arrived. I mixed up 1 box of Trader Joe’s vanilla pudding with 2 cups of cold skim milk. I have had this pudding on hand for awhile now, just waiting for the perfect excuse to make it up. Do you remember the cranberry sauce from yesterday? Well with only 1 tablespoon (roughly) of agave added to the whole bag, let’s just say it came out rather tart! I wanted to find a way to sweeten it up with out adding a bunch of sugar…and then it hit me!

Cranberry Vanilla Parfaits! I made up 4 ramekins for the week and then artfully prepared these two goblets for Meg and myself to enjoy later on.

Dinner HAD to focus on the amazing “roast up” and there was no better way to serve them then on a bed of fresh baby spinach. I added a drizzle of balsamic to awaken the flavors. I heated the veggies before adding them to the spinach which actually served as a nice way to wilt the spinach ever so slightly. Who needs to go out to dinner anyway

Meg had some left over curry from Thai Night and I scored a bit of her sauce to add to my salad.

After dinner (I know we were a little backwards tonight), we made ourselves a POM cocktail. We kind of didn’t have as much alcohol as we expected (probably a good thing) but they were tasty none-the-less.

Annnnd the pre-made dessert did not disappoint.  Mmmmm….the perfectly balanced spoonful