I’m deep in the depths of packing and move preparations but I couldn’t let Benji’s birthday pass without a post! I also have some recent eats for you so keep on reading.

BENJI’S FIRST BIRTHDAY! 

Today is Benji’s first birthday! It’s also his five month anniversary of joining our little family! I adopted Benji on February 29, 2020 from Triad Golden Retriever Rescue. You can read his adoption story in this post.

After five months of life with Benji, I am amazed by how well he has integrated and adjusted. It wasn’t without challenges but overall I couldn’t ask for a better dog for our family. Working with Keen Dog Training and enrolling Benji in their immersion program was hugely helpful in that 1) I didn’t have experience with a dog who had nervous, anxious and timid tendencies and 2) I didn’t have the bandwidth to train a puppy the way that he deserved. It was an excellent investment and I’m awed every day by how well Benji continues to do post-training. I cannot recommend the team at Keen Dog enough. I can write a post just about the training immersion if you guys are interested.

Benji loves me. He’s super attached to me and it is so, so sweet. He is very affectionate and snuggly. He’s always close by. Benji also loves Zoey and they are rarely in different rooms. They play together and get along very well. Benji is great with Finn. If Benji is not right next to me it’s because he’s watching over Finn. I often find him upstairs outside of Finn’s door while he’s napping.

We love Benji and are so happy to be his FOREVER home! 🙂 Thanks to Deeana Kortney Photography for capturing these photos.

RECENT EATS

I’ve got 20 photos edited for recent eats so we’ll see how far I get before this post becomes a novel. I got myself back into somewhat of a cooking groove during the latter half of my mom’s time in Charlotte.

BREAKFAST

Carrot maple oat banana bread with scrambled eggs and fruit.

FAGE Total plain 5% with Purely Elizabeth original granola, bananas, strawberries, blueberries, dried cranberries and Wild Friends peanut butter.

Cottage cheese scrambled eggs and fruit.

LUNCH

It has been so hot and humid in Charlotte for the past couple of weeks. Smoothie bowls have been hitting the spot for lunch. This is frozen cherries, strawberries, raspberries, blueberries, bananas, cauliflower rice, plain greek yogurt, peanut butter, a date and oat milk.

When I’m not eating smoothie bowls for lunch, I’m having tomato sandwiches! I got some great tomatoes at the farmers market last week (and peaches that are to die for). Y’all know I am a purist with my tomato sandwiches. Tomatoes, Duke’s mayo and sea salt on soft bread. I did get a little fancy this week and add basil from my basil plant.

DINNER

We always do Thai takeout when my mom is in town! We shared shrimp pad Thai and green coconut curry with chicken and veggies. This was from Aroy.

This was a clean out the freezer dinner that turned out unexpectedly delicious. I defrosted a piece of wild alaskan cod from Sitka Salmon Shares and cooked some frozen spanakopita that I bought at Whole Foods. I had a salad on the side. Both the fish and spanakopita were so yummy! I will definitely buy the spanakopita again!

Super simple dinner of rotisserie chicken, a baked sweet potato and brussels sprouts.

This dinner looks fancy but was ready in under 20 minutes. Pan-seared scallops with a simple pan sauce along with parmesan couscous and steamed green beans.

Gorgonzola gnocchi with Italian sausage, artichokes and mushrooms and a side salad.

I had a pound of ground beef and a pound of ground pork in my freezer that I needed to use. I had been craving Swedish meatballs for some reason so they were an excellent use for the meat I had on hand. I used this recipe for the meatballs and overall it was pretty good. My sauce could have used some improvement but the flavor of the meatballs was great. I served them over rice with steamed broccoli on the side. My mom doesn’t love roasted broccoli so I steamed it for her and it was a nice change of broccoli pace, haha. 🙂

This dinner was so good that I’ve made it twice in a week…once for my mom and once for Dorie. Shrimp tacos with cilantro lime crema and avocado along with a chopped salad kit and fresh corn. The tacos are super simple. I just sautéed shrimp with Dizzy Pig’s Peruvian-ish rub and served it on corn tortillas with the crema, avocado and chopped cilantro. The crema is what really pulls the taco together. It’s so good that I think I could just eat it by the spoonful. I mix together plain greek yogurt, mayo, lime zest, lime juice and sea salt.

The final dinner I made for my mom was bone-in pork chops from a local farmer friend (again, trying to clean out the freezer) along with sliced tomatoes and sautéed squash, sweet onions and eggplant.

DESSERT

My dessert game is always strong but it’s extra when my mom is in town! 🙂

We made a trip to Villani’s where my mom got the Italian cream cake and I got the lemon blueberry cheesecake.

Ice cream with chopped up baklava. If you’ve never tried baklava on your ice cream, it’s delicious! I learned this at our local Greek festival where they serve baklava sundae’s.

Finally, on my mom’s last night in town I made a peach and blueberry crisp with fresh fruit from the farmers market. I used this recipe from the ARCHIVES of my first food blog!

QUESTIONS

Which of my three desserts photos would you pick? Villani’s, the baklava sundae or the crisp? 

What have you been eating for lunch lately? And have you been cooking any summery things for dinner? 

What’s your favorite taco filling?