Recent Eats: Fall Foods + My First Crumbl Cookie

Hi and happy Halloween! I’ll have a full recap of all of our Halloween weekend adventures tomorrow. For now, I have a round up of all the things I’ve been eating these last few weeks. Hope you’re not hungry. 😉

BREAKFAST

This is an excellent fall breakfast combo right here! FAGE 5% plain greek yogurt with Purely Elizabeth Pumpkin Cinnamon Granola, Fix & Fog Almond Butter with Cashew and Maple, Akron Honey Bourbon Barrel Honey, banana and dried cranberries.

It’s rare that I crave a bowl of oatmeal these days but every now and then I get the urge. I think I majorly overdid it on oatmeal in the early days of blogging but I’ve also overdone it on other breakfasts that I don’t eat now – sweet potato breakfast bowls, chia pudding and overnight oats to name a few.

Finn likes oatmeal so sometimes when I make a pot for him I decide it sounds good to me too. This bowl of pumpkin oatmeal was really good, especially on a chilly fall morning. Here are the details:

1/3 cup oats, 1/3 cup oat milk, 1/3 cup water, golden raisins, 1 tablespoon Triple Omega Seed Mix, 1/2 ripe banana, a little coconut oil, a couple of big spoonfuls of pumpkin puree, pinch of salt, pumpkin pie spice, a spoonful of cottage cheese, the almond butter you see in the yogurt bowl above and some blueberry ginger jam.

You can read more about my oatmeal cooking method in this post. The key is to cook the banana in coconut oil first to break it down and caramelize it. Sweetens the whole pot in the most lovely way!

Buttered sourdough toast, green smoothie and black coffee with Bulletproof Collagen Protein.

Cottage cheese scrambled eggs, Cleveland Kitchen Kimchi, grapes and the remnants of Finn’s donut from OMG Donuts. It was so fresh and yeasty that I couldn’t resist finishing it off!

I have been trying to add more low-sugar fermented foods into my diet for the gut benefits (not lost on me that I ate this with a donut but oh well). It’s my first time trying this brand of kimchi and I really like it. I found it at Publix. And FYI: it definitely has a kick!

LUNCH

Trader Joe’s multigrain blend with vegetables, sautéed spinach and arugula, avocado, the Cleveland Kitchen Kimchi, hummus, Cedar’s Feta Dip and pita chips for dipping into all of it.

UAV cottage cheese topped with avocado and sliced tomatoes along with two soft boiled eggs and a piece of buttered freshly baked sourdough. This lunch was a WIN although the sourdough was a fail. My loaves turned out very flat and sad.

I sent a photo to my dad and he recommended I refresh my starter so that’s what I’m doing.  Here are his instructions:

“Start with 50 grams, feed it (50g flour, 50g water) and then 12 hours later discard all but 50 grams. Do this until your starter is very bubbly and happy and it has a good sourdough smell. It took me several days to refresh mine.”

I ate this as a late lunch/heavy snack. Same cottage cheese mix you see above but with Cedar’s Sesame Pita Chips for dipping. If you like cottage cheese, I definitely recommend this combo of avocado and tomato.

Mixed greens tossed in balsamic, olive oil and sea salt and topped with quinoa, carrots, avocado, dried cranberries, cherry pistachio goat cheese, glazed pecans, and chopped baked chicken thighs leftover from a sheet pan meal I made that you’ll see in the dinner section of this post. Finished off with a drizzle of balsamic.

Sometimes I keep it super simple. Ham sandwich with mayo, avocado, ham that was roasted in-house at Whole Foods, bread and butter pickles and colby jack cheese.

Leftover Tartufi pizza from Stagioni. It has three cheeses, mushrooms, caramelized onions and truffle oil. Yum.

This autumn kale and quinoa salad that I posted a recipe for earlier this week but with apples instead of pears.

My last lunch share is an out to lunch bowl. It’s the Edie Bowl from Village Juice and oh my gosh I loved it so much. Here’s what’s in there – quinoa, spinach, roasted squash, nori, avocado, kimchi, pumpkin seeds. I subbed a green goddess dressing for the one that came with it. I really liked the flavors of the nori and kimchi in this bowl – so much so that I bought both things on my next grocery trip!

DINNER 

Simple baked salmon that I seasoned with a Dizzy Pig rub. An artichoke and cheese strudel that I got from ALDI on the side along with a salad. I served this when my mom was in town.

Another meal I made for my mom – creamy white chicken chili. I used this recipe which is delicious but has a hefty amount of cream cheese. I reduced it to six ounces, FYI. If you’re looking for a dairy-free white chicken chili, I have a great slow-cooker recipe on my site.

Another night we did Thai delivery from Deejai. My mom loves Thai food but it’s not my dad’s favorite so we often get it when she visits. I ordered Pad Woonsen for the first time and really liked it! It has super light clear noodles and is cooked with egg, bean sprouts, onion, green onion, tomato, snow peas, celery, mushroom, carrots and baby corn. I added tofu. It was a very veggie-heavy dish and I’d definitely order this again. We also had dumplings and Gai Grob which was lightly battered crispy chicken coated with sesame seeds and sweet and sour sauce garnished with broccoli, baby corn and carrots.

Here’s a sheet pan meal that I made for myself. I chopped up brussel sprouts, sweet potatoes, russet potatoes, onion and fennel and tossed them with olive oil, sea salt and pepper. I placed a few chicken thighs over top and roasted it all together at 400 until the veggies were soft and the thighs were cooked through. I think it took around 30-35 minutes. The thighs were seasoned with a Dizzy Pig rub.

Another salmon dinner! I air fried a piece of salmon in my Ninja Foodi Oven (on sale for a great price at Target right now – I use this every single day!). I seasoned it with a Dizzy Pig rub and placed some lemon slices on top. Served with Parmesan Risotto Right Rice and roasted cauliflower. Finished with a sprinkle of basil.

This dinner was a little random but very good! Steamed basmati rice was the base and I topped it with air fried falafel, the kimchi you’ve seen throughout this post, sautéed baby kale, avocado, hummus and a fried egg.

Lastly, a big bowl of fall-shaped pasta with a jarred butternut pumpkin sauce from ALDI. I added sautéed chicken sausage and a frozen mushroom medley from Trader Joe’s. Finished off with cheese!

ETC

Finn and I were out appliance shopping at Lowe’s for my rental house and there was a Crumbl Cookies in shopping center. I’ve heard so much about Crumbl but never tried the cookies so we stopped by to get cookies to take home. Finn chose chocolate chip and I had the pink sugar cookie. I think this is going to be an unpopular opinion but I was not a big fan. To be fair, I didn’t try the chocolate chip but the pink sugar left me with a pretty big belly ache (I ate maybe half of it) and I don’t have a very sensitive stomach.

If you are a Crumbl Cookie fan (I feel like I should give them another chance), you should check out this YouTube channel. One of my teacher trainees from this last training I helped lead  at Vidya Yoga + Fitness does weekly Crumbl Cookie reviews. He was just invited to Crumbl headquarters in Utah for their birthday celebration.

Okay, off to wake up the little one and get him in his Halloween costume for preschool today. They have a parade this morning and I can’t wait to see all the cuteness.

QUESTIONS 

Have you burnt out on a particular breakfast? 

What’s your go-to Thai order? 

Have you tried Crumbl Cookies? Thoughts?