A Food Loving Long Weekend

My 4th of July weekend started with me finding a new favorite long-run breakfast. Rice cakes with almond butter, and honey. It was delicious and worked well for my 10 mile run Saturday morning, but I know I have an abnormal love for rice cakes that not everybody has. If you do like rice cakes though, try this for a pre-workout meal! 

After my run I knew it was about time for a family trip to Costco because our fridge was starting to look like this, and I was having fruit withdrawals. That's actually how I discovered my new favorite long-run breakfast though. No fruit to make the usual breakfast, so I had to make something different.  

Some Costco Favorites

Family trips to Costco are the only time I actually look forward to grocery shopping because we get to walk around and try all the yummy samples, and then we come home with massive amounts of my favorite foods.

Our fridge looks much better now. :) Costco strawberries are the best. My salads can be complete again. And I recommend that chobani greek yogurt. This was my first time buying it, and I love it. 

Another rice cake meal. Are you surprised? Scott said I should write a book on 101 different ways to eat a rice cake. Ha ha.

I've always loved rice cakes, but after learning that I was gluten sensitive, rice cakes became a staple. I don't want to pay $5 for a gross loaf of gluten-free bread, and most of the time I'm too lazy to make my own gluten-free bread, so rice cakes it is. Good thing I love them, and there's a million different ways to eat them. 

I was actually really surprised at how good my Sunday night rice cake concoction turned out. I was jealously eyeing Scott's pulled pork sandwich as I ate my pulled pork all by it's lonesome, but then I had the bright idea to make my own gluten-free sandwich... 

It was "Eat of the Week" good, but I'll just give you the recipe now. 

Plain rice cakes

Monteray Pepper Jack Cheese Slice

Pulled Pork (All I did for this pulled pork was stick a roast in the crockpot with a can of beef broth. The pork recipe was courtesy of the Peanut Butter Fingers blog.)

Avocado slices.

SO GOOD!!!

I know I just said that I'm usually too lazy to make my own gluten-free bread, but Sunday night I actually made some, for the second time in my life. I'm trying to up my gluten-free eating game, so I figured having some bread on hand would help me resist my most favorite bread in the world, Great Harvest Honey Whole Wheat, which is sitting on top of our fridge right now. I never thought eating bread would become such a novelty, even if it's not the best bread. The soft texture is a nice change from the crunchy rice cakes. (I used Bob's Red Mill Hearty Whole Grain Bread Mix.) Since I've only tried two gluten-free bread mixes, I can't really compare this one yet, but I do like it. Of course it isn't nearly as good as the Great Harvest bread, but it's better than no bread.

Frozen yogurt hit the spot Monday afternoon after a sweaty 5 mile run, and a hot family bike ride. I loved being able to get an extra morning to run outside this weekend. 

I realize that we could buy an entire gallon of ice-cream for the price of one self-serve frozen yogurt, but store bought ice-cream doesn't quite have the same effect. I think I looked something like that (just not nearly as cute) when I asked Scott if we could try out this yogurt place. He'd much rather buy a gallon of Bluebell ice-cream, but he's too nice and said, "Only because it makes you so happy." Looks like I'm not the only one it makes happy either! What a nice husband I have. 

It's OK Boston, I feel like that too when my yogurt is gone. 

Our Fourth of July weekend ended with a BBQ by the pool. I made my favorite burgers, Southwest- Style Turkey Burgers. Here's the recipe. They're easy, and delicious. You should try them!

What was the best thing you ate this weekend?