Friday Lovin’

Happy Friday everyone!! Well I’m back from the living dead 😉 This whole week I’ve felt absolutely awful – this cold is one heck of a beast. My whole office is infected (everyone is out sick today), and now Todd has it – eek! So let’s just say this weekend will be spent holed up inside, with lots of blankets, hot cocoa, movies, and baking chocolate chip cookies to feed our colds 🙂 So that’s why I’ve been MIA the past few days, I just have not had it in me to write, my head is in the clouds, and let’s just say I’ve had some very “blonde” moments – my brain just hasn’t been with it, very frustrating! So this post is going to be short and sweet and hopefully by next Monday I’ll be good as new and back to my regular blogging schedule 🙂

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There have been some yummy eats I’ve been wanting to share with you all but didn’t since I took a break due to my cold, so I’ll share them today for Friday Lovin’!

* Chevy’s

I find this place to be a hit or miss, but lately we’ve gotten some really great service (especially if you sit at the bar) and the food has been pretty descent lately. And I’m never let down when ordering my tried and true favorite grilled fajita chicken salad – it satisfies my love of warm foods 🙂

It doesn’t look anything special here but all the goodies were hiding down below – in it was pepita seeds, cheese, avocado, grilled veggies, chicken, and tortilla strips, and I got the dressing on the side

Todd got fish tacos…

Super good as well and I ate all his sweet corn tamalito – love that stuff!

And we went through two  rounds of these…I can’t be controlled around chips and salsa!!

* Fro Yo

Last weekend I happily consumed frozen yogurt two days in a row – U Love on Saturday, and Miyo Yogurt on Sunday…

Peanut butter fro yo with an assortment of chocolate candies (can’t remember them all!), strawberries, mango, and banana

I never ever get fruit on my frozen yogurt, I always figure why get something healthy on something so indulgent and splurge on the candy? But for some reason with the warm weather I was really craving fruit and went with it, and I was pleasantly surprised by how much I liked it and it really was delicious. I’ll always be a chocolate/candy toppings girl at heart on my fro yo, but this was a nice change 🙂

*The Bay Area

Wednesday I took the day off from work because I felt like complete death, but as the day rolled on I started to feel better and was itching to get inside from being cooped up all day long. So I went out for a nice, leisurely walk and it was such a beautiful day that I had to snap some pics of this great walking trail and the view we have from it…(sorry for the icky Blackberry photos!)

Straight ahead is the skyline of San Francisco

And then once I walk up the hill I have this view…

To the left is the trail I walked…

And then if you look real close, across the way is my office building!

On the top of the hill I took some time to just sit, relax, and appreciate what a beautiful city we live in and how thankful and lucky I am to have so many blessings and greatness in my life…it was so peaceful and a beautiful spot to reflect on everything. It made me think how I need to get outside more often and not be holed up in the gym…I think for some reason I have this fear of exercising outside by myself – is that weird? I don’t know where it comes from but I’d really like to get outside more – although not sure how that will pan out seeing that we’re finally getting some fall weather and rain here in the Bay Area!

* Casseroles

I am still absolutely loving making casserole dishes lately. They’re so easy to make, delicious, and make for the perfect leftovers for Todd to take to work for his lunches. With that, I have another great casserole recipe to share with you all that I made this week. It’s super easy and it comes from my mom, not sure where she got it from but since day one of her making it we’ve called it “Sherri’s Surprise”. Now if you try it, you can just add in your own name and you can say you invented this dish yourself…don’t worry I won’t tell anyone 😉

“Sherri’s Surprise”
Ingredients:
* 3 cups Rotini pasta
* 1 cup chopped/shredded tuna/chicken/turkey – whichever “meat” you prefer, you could even use tofu to make it vegetarian. Here to make it easy, I just bought the ready made rotisserie chickens at Safeway and shredded 1 1/2 breasts which equaled to a little more than a cup.
* 1 tbsp. minced onion
* 1 tbsp. butter
* 1 can Cream of Chicken Soup, or Cream of Mushroom Soup to make it vegetarian
* 1/3 cup milk
* 2 cups shredded cheddar cheese, divided

Directions:
* Preheat oven to 350 degrees
* Cook pasta for about 7 minutes – until al dente and you still want a bit of bite to it since it will go in the oven
* In the meantime, melt 1 tbsp. butter and add the minced onion. Cook until onion is browned – about 5 min.
* In the same pan, stir in can of Cream of Chicken Soup, 1/3 cup milk, 1 cup shredded cheddar cheese, and your cup of “meat” – stir until well combined
* Once pasta is finished cooking, drain and add pasta into the pan with the meat mixture and stir until well combined
* Place into a casserole dish and sprinkle the top with the remaining 1 cup shredded cheddar cheese
* Place in the oven and bake for 20 minutes

Tada!

Here’s an inside look of it…

It’s delicious and super easy. I hope you try it sometime! 🙂

* 2% Fage

I do love my 0% Fage, but there really isn’t anything better than having Greek yogurt with some fat in it. It’s absolutely creamy, luscious, and packed full of healthy fats and protein. Lately for my 2nd breakfast after my workout, I’ve been enjoying 2% Fage yogurt with chia seeds, sliced frozen banana, and some Kashi Go Lean Crisp…

* Trader Joe’s Garlic Bread

We’ve had this bread sitting in our freezer forever, finally Thursday night we broke it our to have with our soup (that’s been our dinners all week long to fight off our colds) and it was pretty darn fantastic…

*Another Trader Joe’s find…

The Pistachio Chevre is especially amazing – you gotta try it!

*Daylight Savings

Remember everyone to turn back (“fall back” as I like to say) your clocks this Sunday…that means one extra hour of sleep, whoo hoo! 😉

So that’s it for today! Hope you all are having a fabulous Friday so far and stay healthy and sick-free! 😉

P.S. Did any of you guys get trick-or-treaters?! I for sure thought we’d a least have a couple, but nope, nothing! Now we’ve had this starting back at us for the past 4 days…

Any of you guys wanna take it off our hands??!! 😉

Questions:
Are you a fruit or chocolate/candy toppings person for your frozen yogurt?
What’s your favorite Mexican restaurant to go to? What’s your favorite dish to order?
Are any of you attending the Foodbuzz Festival in San Francisco this weekend?! I’m super bummed I’m not going or at least meeting up with any bloggers – I’m just to sick to go out 😦 Hopefully next year!