Happy Monday!! I hope everyone had a wonderful weekend. It was low key over here. I worked pretty much all day on Friday and when I finally got home around 7:30, I was POOPED! I think I passed out at 9 p.m. #grandmastatus. Saturday I worked in the morning, got a facial in the afternoon, and then Michael made freaking awesome pasta which was immediately followed by an outing for ice cream.  Yesterday we went on a nice walk before the heat was at full force to Maple Acres Farmers Market, a wonderful farm near our place that has all sorts of amazing fresh produce and meat! We bought $8 worth of produce that would have probably been $20 at any grocery store. I'm talking 25 cents for a massive eggplant. And 3 for $1 cucumbers. Shop local - so worth it! If you're in the Philadelphia area or surrounding suburbs I definitely recommend a trip to Maple Acres.

We chilled by the pool, watched the olympics and browsed properties to buy in Italy for the rest of the day. No we're not moving to Italy, but one can dream! If couch lounging was an olympic sport, we would have gotten gold yesterday. And then we had more pasta for dinner last night with homemade marinara...can you tell we really, REALLY want to go back to Italy?!? 

Lazy weekend for the win after a crazy few past weekends.

Chewy Apricot Energy Bars

My friends bought me this new cookbook for my birthday in attempt to motivate me to post more recipes on the blog and it totally worked.

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You know I'm all about my power snacks. I just tweaked a few ingredients in the recipe to make it my own and to use up what I had and I absolutely LOVED this recipe. Its chewy, gooey, nutty, crunchy and perfectly sweet. 

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Chewy Apricot Bars via ahealthfulheart.com

Ingredients:

1/2 cup coconut oil
1/3 cup packed light brown sugar
1/4 cup peanut butter*
1 apple peeled, cored and coarsely grated
1 2/3 cups rolled oats
1/3 cup oat flour**
1/2 cup chopped walnuts***
1/3 cup sunflower seeds
1 1/2 cups dried apricots, diced

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees and spray an 8-inch square cake pan with cooking spray or line with parchment paper
Heat oil & sugar in saucepan over low until sugar dissolves
Remove from heat & stir in nut butter
Add apple, oats, flour, walnuts, sunflower seeds and mix well
Spoon about 2/3 of mixture into pan
Sprinkle with apricots (press them into mixture) and dot the remaining oat mixture over the apricots in a thin layer
Bake for 25-30 minutes or until top is golden brown
Let cool until almost cold (or else they will crumble apart!) and then cut into 16 squares
Store in fridge for up to 3 days or freeze for later

**Recipe called for almond butter, but I only had PB on hand and it worked great - could use any nut butter!
**Recipe called for brown rice flour but I stuck with oats here
***Recipe called for almonds, again adapted here with walnuts because I love walnuts in baked goods

Hope you all have a great Monday!

XO - Rach

What did you do this weekend?

If you could travel anywhere right now, where would it be?

Hey there! I haven't had the time to sit down and catch up lately - everything has been really busy, to say the least! I'll share some snap shots of the last week and a half or so, which seems to have gone by so fast. First off, I moved! Again! Michael and I got our first place together. It's been very new and exciting. We couldn't be happier with our place, and it seems to be finally coming together. We had an Ikea field day last Sunday and it took us three days to build a dresser. Okay, it was probably only a total of four hours, but when we get home from work the last thing we want to do is build furniture...

I'll share photos once the place looks nice, but here is one from the day we moved. Moving this leather couch was one of the hardest things I've ever done - it feels like it weighs 1,000 pounds and we put multiple holes in the hall way walls lugging this thing up the stairs!

The last few days we've just been busy trying to settle in. Here's a few snapshots from last week. We had a fun week at work including a venture to Painting With A Twist, a Good Humor sponsored ice cream party (clearly the ice cream deliverer doesn't eat the ice cream), and a morning of volunteering at MANNA which included making a batch of brownies for 300 people which was SO FUN. You better believe we cleaned the bowl pretty well...

On Thursday my mom and grandma came to visit! I had a blast showing them around Philly. They both have never been here before and absolutely love it!

I was able to leave work early on Friday to give them a little tour. We stopped at Agno for lunch, which is basically a really healthy & Mediterranean Chipotle (AMAZING).

I showed them a lot of the historic landmarks including the Liberty Bell, Independence Hall, Elfreth's Alley and Betsy Ross's house. We also walked through the National Museum of Jewish American History. It's a beautiful museum! I loved it because it wasn't too large or overwhelming. We got through the entire museum in probably an hour, if that. Definitely recommend! The bottom floor features a lot of Jewish pop culture and we were cracking up at a Seinfeld episode that plays on a loop. We ended up at Spruce Street Harbor Park on the river because we all needed a beer after walking all day. Spruce Street Harbor Park is easily one of my favorite places in Philadelphia.

Yesterday my mom came to my Saturday morning class at Sweat Fitness, we grabbed an egg sandwich at Reading Terminal Market and then we all hopped on the train to come to the new apartment. We spent the rest of the day buying some odds and ends for the apartment, some booze (necessary for a new apartment) and some stuff to make for dinner. It was the perfect Saturday ending with an amazing home cooked meal - angel hair with veggies and shrimp and delicious sirloin. Plus some munchies before hand...

Michael and I are heading into Center City soon to have brunch with my mom and grandma before they leave to go back to Florida. It was a short but sweet visit - we packed it in! I always say this, but I really do feel like I'm on a summer vacation even though I work full time - Philadelphia is such an amazing city with so much to offer! I probably won't be saying this in the winter, but for now, I'm loving it.

- Rach

How is everyone's summer going?

What's your favorite city?