Welcome back! We’ve had a bit of a cool snap in Minnesota over the past week which means I’ve officially broken out my sweaters and long-sleeved shirts! The sun is also starting to set a lot earlier which means my dog, Maggie, and I end up walking in the darkness for at least the last half of our evening walks. We’ll have to start leaving earlier and earlier to try and beat the dark!
As far as my job hunt is concerned, I’m still hunting. I’ve heard back from a couple of places, but they ended up not being a great fit, so I’m still looking. I’ve got a lot of applications out there, it’s just a long process. In the meantime, I’ve been working on the blog and my professional social media accounts. You may have noticed one of the updates I’ve made to the blog–ads. If you don’t have an ad blocker installed, you’ve probably noticed them appear over the last week or so. I know that ads can sometimes be annoying, however, blogging is not free (I have to pay hosting fees, security fees so any personal info you share on here like your email is protected, etc.). My intention in using ads is to hopefully offset these costs so that I can at least breakeven with my blog expenses. If you have any feedback regarding my use of ads on this site, please feel free to reach out to me at hookomonhealth@gmail.com. Okay, moving on!
Since the temps have been getting cooler and cooler it’s the perfect time to try out some soup recipes! On Monday, I experimented with a chickpea noodle soup. Like chicken noodle soup, but with plant protein instead of chicken! I absolutely loved it, and it was a perfect addition to my meatless Monday rotation.
On Tuesday, we had pork chops on the grill and miracle of miracles, it wasn’t pouring rain! If you haven’t been following along, the last couple of times we’ve grilled it’s been down-pouring rain. We paired our pork chops with baked potatoes and green beans–can you tell I love green beans?! :P
The other thing I like about temps getting cooler is that we can actually start using the oven without feeling like we’re melting in the kitchen. In honor of this, on Wednesday, we made a delicious sheet pan supper with chicken and veggies. The veggies we chose for this particular meal were brussels sprouts, purple onion, red bell pepper, and sweet potatoes. It was a great way to use up some leftover sweet potatoes from the previous week’s sweet potato skillet dish.
It’s been a couple of weeks since we last had stir-fry, so of course we had to have it again! On Thursday, we had shrimp stir-fry with lots of veggies over noodle nests. Can you tell that stir-fry is one of my favorite foods? I definitely loaded up–no regrets!
Early Friday morning, my parents left for a fun anniversary trip! They’ll be touring the west coast for the next week or so–jealous! Since they’re gone, however, my meals for the next week will be a lot simpler than normal. Until then!