friday foodie favorites

Oh yes, it's Friday. I should be cleaning the house because my mom and youngest sister are coming for the weekend, but I've been cleaning all week (a weird obsession in this new year). And it was time to stop and eat lunch. My breakfast was sadly lacking this morning (coffee and a small piece of mango cake), so I figured I needed a fair amount of calories in my lunch. So I made a salad. I luuuurrrrvvvve salad. This salad, among a few different kinds of greens/herbs (baby spinach, arugula, chives, parsley), contained two of my new food obsessions: avocado and hemp seeds. I've had a bit of an obsession with avocado for a little over a year now, though I only just recently figured out how to cut them without mashing them... I usually mash half an avocado and spread it on toasted bread as a base for a sandwich. Hard-cooked egg goes really well with avocado. The other obsession is relatively new. I had been searching for hemp seeds for a while and finally found them at Costco. They taste a bit nutty and are super good for you. I sprinkle them on toast, put them in my smoothies, and sprinkle them on salads. So yummy. My other obsession lately is San Pellegrino. For those of you who have never had it, it's sparkling mineral water from Italy. Never thought I'd like sparkling mineral water, but there you have it. And because it's fizzy, I can trick myself into thinking I'm drinking a soda. (Club soda is good for this, too, because it's really only one step above sparkling water and still has zero calories.)