Only one week left of my winter break! I start my clinical rotation next Tuesday (January 16th). I’m excited to get back to it and finish up my dietetic internship, but it’s also bittersweet because I’ll be leaving Maggie, my family, and Spencer again. It’s crazy to think that by the end of this year I’ll be a Registered Dietitian Nutritionist. It feels like it has taken forever, but also that it’s coming up so quick! This week was full of some pretty great food, plus it was Maggie’s birthday!
New Year’s Day was pretty relaxed. I feel like New Year’s Eve always screws up everybody’s sleep, so the energy on actual New Year’s is pretty low. We did make a delicious chicken, barley and vegetable soup though.
Tuesday was my best girl’s 10th birthday!
I made her this dog friendly birthday cake. It was really easy to make, and she absolutely loved it! She only got a little piece though, because I bought her a special dog friendly cupcake from Nadia Cakes too. Spencer came over to celebrate with her as well, and we spent the day spoiling her rotten. It was still way too cold out for a walk though (bummer).
On Wednesday, we made this delicious ground turkey, brussels sprout, quinoa “Buddha Bowl” (bowl with protein, grain and veg) with roasted butternut squash. It was very tasty, though I think we’ll have to add more sauce next time.
Thursday, I made this white bean chicken chili recipe (though I used ground turkey instead of chicken and kale instead of swiss chard). This continues to be one of my favorite white bean chili recipes–the seasoning is incredible!
Spencer and I spent Friday together coming up with a meal plan for him and grocery shopping. We made turkey burgers, oven roasted asparagus, and chicken-flavored rice for supper.
Zach came over Friday night, and Saturday we had our immediate family Christmas. We have a tradition of making crab legs and shrimp for our Christmas plus some kind of potato, vegetable, and fruit. While we were grocery shopping for supper I picked up a dragon fruit too, and made everyone try it.
After supper, we all played “Cosmic Encounter”–another one of Zach’s many board games. Spencer and I played on a team together which was good because it took me a while to figure out how to play the game. Basically you have to get your ships onto 5 other planets in order to win the game. We were one of the winners (more than one person can win per game). It was a lot of fun, and very different from other board games (which I think is part of the fun).
By Sunday, it was finally warm enough to take Maggie out on a walk which she was very ready for. My parents and Zach joined too, and we all enjoyed getting some fresh air. Sunday night, my parents, Zach, Ben and I went out to dinner at the Tipsy Chicken. If you didn’t catch my post last week when my parents and I went there initially you can check it out here. This time I got the chicken pot pie which was very exciting and extremely tasty.
I’ve also been working on my third blog post for the Chicago Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics which will be posted later this week, so look out for that!
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