Hot for ice cream, baby?

After a crazy week of appointments, meetings, sickness, and every-day stress. It is finally the weekend!

There is something so liberating about knowing that you are free for two whole days. Free to do as you wish with no expectations or pressure from anyone else. Got to love that feeling!

Today started with a let’s get through one more day kick-start: Coffee oats

Oh so decadent and rich!

1/4 cup oats

1/2 cup brewed coffee

Splash of milk

1 banana, smashed

1 Tbsp. cottage cheese

Dribble of hazelnut flavored coffee syrup

Dash of salt

coconut flakes, ground hazelnuts, flax, hemp, cinnamon, and nutella

I had another appointment this morning with the jaw doctor. Pretty much a waste of my morning, but at least he was making sure that all was well. He referred me to yet another doctor to have a night brace made to prevent nighttime clenching. Thinking about a night brace produces frightening flashbacks of my metal, behind the neck, hook into the braces horror movie-like corrective device from my 13th year of life. Let’s hope I’m not heading down a path as dark and terrifying as that again!

Morning snack consisted of a sliver of chocolate birthday cake. Germans do bread very well… but I’m not fond of their cakes. A bit to dry for my taste. With that being said, I still ate about half of this.

Before I knew it, it was already lunch. My salad yesterday was so delicious, I thought it deserved an encore.

During class fruit snack, I ate a clementine and a few green grapes- all of which went un-photographed. After school, I tutored then drug my tired behind back home.  I am always so tired by the time Friday rolls around. Throughout the day, my energy level remains high… but once that final bell goes and the kids all go home, I take a deep breath and realize just how tired I really am.

This morning I read Angharad’s post about her mouth-watering Chana Masala and knew that I needed it in my life. Since I had some extra tofu and red peppers to use up, they also went in. Holy Yum! This recipe was so fast and delicious! I will certainly make it again! I served the dish with homemade garlic wheat naan and quinoa.

Want to know my secret ingredient? A long blond hair, apparently! Gross! I’m glad it went in my bowl and not Sebastian’s!

Once I was done eating, my mind was already onto dessert. Hmm… I have bananas I can freeze for some ‘ice cream.’ No, I’m too impatient for that. Just then, Sebastian said he wished we had ice cream. (Weird since we never buy the stuff.) The grocery store was already closed so we did the unthinkable. We ordered ice cream from the local pizza delivery service. Who would have thunk it?

The sexy little pizza delivery girl cartoon is asking, “Heiss auf eis, baby?” = “Hot for ice cream, baby?”

Yes, I was hot for ice cream, thank you for asking, and thank you for sending your little friend with the buckets of over-sugared chemicals and cream.

We ordered macadamia nut crunch and cookie caramel brownie.

Although next time I’ll stick to my naturally sweet banana ice cream, this cured my sweet tooth. We all know I’ve had trouble in the dental department lately.

With that, have a naturally sweet evening !

I hope you are all up to wonderful and fulfilling things this weekend!

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The Bakery is Open

Wow! What a day! What a week!

As I was walking home today, my mind traced back to the very beginning of the morning. The kindergarten students came for a visit to my classroom to be read to by my students. Suddenly I thought, wow, that was today! It already feels like weeks ago! Yes, it has been one of those days! Busy, busy, busy.

I started off with the usual bowl of steaming oatmeal. Topped today with  strawberries, flax, hemp, and almond butter. Accompanied by frothy coffee, naturally.

As I mentioned, the Kindergarten kids came up first thing this morning. It was really cute watching my students care for the younger kids. They did a great job reading with excitement and a variety of character voices. So proud. I was trying to capture the moment by snapping pictures between nose-picking. I really don’t believe I posses the patients to teach that age level. I want to teach about social responsibility… and not in the sense of being aware of where you wipe or don’t wipe your nose nuggets.

The morning continued in a crazy busy way with putting together our class skeleton! We are now beginning a study of skeletons and my students need to learn the bones of the human body. Each kid was assigned a bone or bone group to create for a class compiled life-sized skeleton. It turned out pretty well! I have such a creative and resourceful group of students! Again, so proud!

Morning snack was another White Chocolate Macadamia Granola Bar- so, so good!

Lunch was my much anticipated Beetroot Hummus. I had enough to share with my colleagues. I was surprised that so many people actually tried it. Apparently it was well received as I came home with an empty bowl.

I ate twice that amount of beautiful bright  hummus, almost all of the veggies, and the whole homemade honey wheat pitta. Kim said she could have eaten the whole bowl with a spoon… she’s known to eat a whole jar of Nutella or jam in one sitting. I informed her that this would be a much healthier option.

Fridays are always extra exciting in our class as we have a “Mystery Reader.” Any parent, Grandparent, Aunt, Uncle, neighbor, or older sibling can volunteer to be a Mystery Reader. Before someone comes to read to the class, they create 5 clues. I read the clues and the kids try to figure out who it is before they come. Today’s Mystery Reader was a mom- her son didn’t even look at the book, he just kept staring at his mother with a huge grin. Too cute.

Heading into the afternoon, things didn’t slow down. We went from one mother to another. Another mother came in to talk about our skeleton with the class. She was nervous about doing the talk in English but did a fantastic job! Everyone was completely enthralled as she talked about what exactly our bones do for us. Once she was done and I had the class to myself again, we busted out singing my more advanced rendition of “head, shoulders, knees and toes.” I affectionately call the song “Cranium, clavicle, pelvis, phalanges.” And yes, there are dance moves to accompany.

After-school- pre-tutoring snack was an apple.

Once home, the bakery was opened! Sebastian suggested making Pretend  Paneer Masala for dinner. Since our local grocery store stopped carrying naan bread, I decided to make some myself. The recipe I followed suggested cooking the bread in a grill. It is still winter here so I opted to use the cast iron pan. It worked like a dream!

I did the bread and Sebastian did the rest.

This photo certainly doesn’t do our delicious dinner justice. It was amazing! Sebastian makes a killer masala!

Since I was in bread baking mode I also made another batch of pita bread.

Apparently the cats were curious about the resting and rising pita bread. Luckily it was covered by a towel!

Final bakery production for the evening: 14 buttery mini- naan and 6 pitas.

The Bakery is Closed. Good night!

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