Brunch in Chicago

Happy Friday!

Today I am going back to June and my wonderful trip to Chicago to visit my bff! 

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Brunch breakfast whatever, to me it's the best meal of the day! If you couldn't tell by my last post, an egg bake! 

La Pain Quotidien 

French translation The Daily Bread.

Every time I visit Maggie we take a day to go into the city (Chicago) and we like to try and find a new restaurant. This time her Mother in law suggested this amazing bakery and communal table La Pain Quotidien, that only serves the freshest ingredients and all organic! I'm like "we are SO going there Maggie!!" It started out in Brussels just as a bread bakery and communal table, it is now an international chain that serves much more than just bread.

I loved the atmosphere! Homey and rustic.

my go to food_EGGS

It's Thursday already! Man the work week goes by so fast when it's only four days!:) I am liking this week a lot, schedule wise anyway because it is lighter than most. It's nice every once in a while to have some down time in the evenings. I have actually had time to blog:) I am not a fan of the weather we are having though. It was only in the sixties for a couple of days and it felt like fall! SAD Come on hot summer days! 

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On Monday my day off, I finally had time to get groceries and cook for the week! I decided to make an egg bake and Mediterranean quinoa salad. I'm going to share the egg bake recipe with you today. It's easy and I love eggs because they are full of protein and good fats! Add some vegetables and it's a one dish meal. One dish meals are the easiest for taking to work for lunches too.

Egg Bake

Preheat oven to 375

1 green or red bell pepper chopped

1 small white onion chopped

4oz mushrooms chopped

Few hand fulls of baby kale

Saute the pepper and onion until almost done, add the mushrooms and kale continue to cook until the kale is limp and a dark green. Dump this veggie mixture in the bottom of a greased pan, I would say a big pie plate like the one pictured or a square pan.

10 eggs

garlic salt

1 C or so of shredded cheddar cheese

1/4 - 1/2 C Feta cheese

Beat the eggs with a whisk add garlic salt, I never measure this....sorry just dump a bunch in. You can use regular salt too if you want. I love garlic salt in my eggs though. Sprinkle the veggies with half the cheddar cheese, pour egg mixture over the veggies and cheese, sprinkle with the remaining cheddar cheese and feta cheese.  

Bake for 30 min the edges should be golden and the eggs set.

Enjoy!

Ciao,

Rachel

The Races

June and my visit to see Maggie seems so long ago already. It was an incredible time though as always and I cherish the memories! The first day I arrived almost felt like two days I still actually get confused with what we all did, because I was up at 3:30 A.M. to make my 6:30 A.M. flight! (Note to self I will never do that ever again!) I am pretty sure we got massages first thing in the morning.....but I do know for sure that in the afternoon we went to the horse races at Arlington. I loved horses and all horse movies growing up and have always wanted to go to the races! Being there kept reminding me of National Velvet. Dream come true, and it was a great experience! 

Timeless

It's an unusually chilly July morning in MN, I'm thinking a long sleeve shirt will be needed for my run. Kinda sad. I still love this day though, because it's Monday and I don't have to get back to reality until tomorrow. Back to a tight schedule, I love my occupations for sure, it just makes for very little free time. It definitely makes those days of timelessness that much sweeter!

It was what every Sunday should be. Timeless, relaxing and spent with the ones you love! It was one of those days I never wanted to end. I want to hit the repeat button a few times:)

I took my sister on my run with me in the morning and we didn't go back in the house until supper time! Perfection! 

She even took her afternoon nap on the bench swing!

I think she liked sleeping outside because she took a really long one:)

My parents back yard looks like it could be straight out of some Home and Garden magazine!

This path reminds me of Alice in Wonderland!

 

In my Mom's words "this is the best pot"

"Huck Fin and his girlfriend"

 she woke up and realized she was still outside! what a cutie!

We couldn't get them out of the pool, they loved it!!!

How do you spend your Sunday's?

Ciao,

Rachel

Being

(From Sunday)

I am currently still in my scrubs:/

Do you ever get those feelings where you just LOVE life? I do and it's the greatest! I seriously love life! Nothing exciting just happened I don't have anything in particular that I am looking forward to. I am just HAPPY and content in the moment. Now I just need to stay this way forever! God's got this whole thing called life anyway!

Enjoy some sunshine peeps! I'm about to:)

Ciao,

Rachel

Day-to-day

I feel like I need to reset lately, re-focus. Some weeks I feel like I am just getting by. There are things that need to get done, I need more motivation. I think it is partly summer time, I want to be outside whenever I'm not working and it's nice out.  I have finally gotten back to making bread though! Yum, it's so much better than the stuff in the store. 

Needing:

~ To get back into my daily spiritual reading like TODAY! I have gotten back into making it to daily Mass once a week!

~ To write letters

~ To finish my Rome and Ireland book and my posts on Rome and Ireland. That is taking me so long it's embarrassing. 

~ To cook more. I hate grocery shopping though.....I have to get over it.

~ More days in the sun

~ More time to do nothing. Meaning; time to read and write.

~ An apartment where I can get outside. That's more of a wishful needing though:)

~ To re-focus for my work, some days I just can't wait for the work day to be done so I can be outside. I should've been a teacher so I could have summers off. right? ha ha 

~ To practice my Tae Kwon Do patterns.

Do you have a hard time keeping up in the summer months? There is always something going on! That's the best part of summer though:)!!! I love it! 

Ciao,

Rachel

Gone fishin

How on earth did it get to be July already? OH man pray time slows down! Please!!!! I love summer! I just have to enjoy every moment, if only I could do my job outside....then my life would be perfect:) 

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Fishing!

I have only been fishing twice in my life. Once when I was really young at my Great Uncles pond and once in the Pacific Ocean in Alaska. I had no idea how to fish in a lake! One of my coaching friend's parents has a lake home, so randomly one evening we went fishing. I was thinking this should be pretty boring after Alaska, but still fun. HA what was I thinking?

I actually caught a fish!! A sunny. I was determined to do it all, take it off the hook and have to touch it....ick Their dang fins a sharp and it peed on me! lovely. After we took a picture of my amazing pathetic catch my friend says ok get it back in the water fast! So I turn around and chuck it towards the water....so I thought, the fish landed on the NARROW dock! All that water out there and it lands on the dock. My friend is laughing and I'm laughing running after the fish to get it in the water. The silly thing somehow gets itself wedged under the tire that's weighing the dock down and I'm struggling to get the slimy thing in the water. I finally did, it just didn't swim:(.....I should just stick to the figure skating. This is how things go down for me though. Never smooth and boring...that's no fun why would I do that?! ha ha oh well keeps life interesting I guess! Poor fish!

  

My second catch did make it back in the water ALIVE!:) Success!

Have you had any new adventures this summer?

Ciao,

Rachel