We spent the two days out in the snow. We had snowball fights, made snow angels and sledded with other kids on our block.

We did some crafting. We made toilet paper roll monsters.

We ate some good stuff.

Pumpkin Pancakes.

Hot cocoa and Oatmeal Cranberry Dunkers. Both from Trader Joe’s.

Whole Wheat Couscous Greek Salad. (Recipe coming soon.)

I’m really not looking forward to driving tomorrow because the temps are super low, ice is everywhere and this snow isn’t going anywhere for a while. Either way, these two days were soo worth it!

Did you get any snow where you live? What are your favorite snow day activities?

The post Snow Day appeared first on Frolic Through Life.

Going into the juice cleanse I was nervous. If you have ever read my blog before, I can say it’s pretty obvious that I love to eat, and I do so, every chance I get. I was nervous about going without food, would I be hungry? Or worse, would I be hangry?

My juice arrived from Skinny Limits on Monday morning in an insulated box filled with ice packs. It had to go in the fridge right away and get in my belly within 3 days or else it would be trash. The best part about Skinny Limits, other than the taste of their juice, is the fact that their juice is raw and alive. They don’t process, pasteurize or add any type of preservatives to the juice. This is why it needs to be used within three days. Many companies claim that their juice is raw, but anything that can last more than 5 days on a shelf is not raw.

The cleanse that I received was the Tropical Juice Cleanse and came with 6 16oz. juices to drink a day. I was a little nervous going in because while I love green juice, I am used to drinking only my green juice. My first juice of the say was the Pure & Simple which was made of kale, spinach, parsley, cucumber, apple, and lemon. One sip and I was sold.

All of the juices were delicious, but my favorite was my mid-day Triangle – apple, carrot, ginger and lemon. The cleanse came with directions explaining what order to drink the juice and and how often and the bottles were labeling with number stickers to make sure I got the order correct. I also loved the last juice of the day, which wasn’t actually a juice, but a Cashew Milk sweetened with agave and vanilla bean. It was seriously like drinking a milkshake before bed.

Over the three days of the cleanse, I felt great. I did miss food, and I did feel a little hungry, but I feel that a lot of my hunger was more psychological than actual hunger. The cleanse allows you to snack on veggies if you feel too hungry, so I did in the afternoon when I got home from work. I also had a bit of a headache on the first two mornings, but I know that this was my body asking for caffeine.  Overall, I felt lighter and the bloat that I occasionally suffer from was no where to be found. It was a great way to give my body a rest from food, and a great way to load up on vitamins and nutrients, especially during the oncoming cold season. The instructional booklet also said that it is a good idea to try to do a cleanse at least one a season, four times a year, and I know that I will be giving my body this much needed break a few times a year.

The best part about my Skinny Limits Juice Cleanse experience, is that I get to share it with you! The ladies of Skinny Limits are amazing and are letting me give one of my readers a three day juice cleanse to try for themselves. So if you’re interested, use the Rafflecopter below to enter!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Do you juice? Have you ever done a juice cleanse?

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The seafood salad that the supermarket deli sells has always caught my eye, but I’ve never purchased it because I’m not sure that I trust seafood from the deli counter. I scoped out the ingredients and decided to make my own version at home.

5.0 from 1 reviews

Seafood Salad

 

Print

Prep time

15 mins

Cook time

5 mins

Total time

20 mins

 

Ingredients

• 1 pound imitation crab, chopped
• ½ cup sweet onion, chopped
• ½ cup celery, chopped
• ½ cup dill pickle, chopped
• ½ cup chives, chopped
• ¼ cup Greek yogurt
• ⅛ cup mayonnaise
• 1 teaspoon mustard
• salt and pepper to taste

Instructions

1. Toss all ingredients together with Greek yogurt, mayonnaise and mustard.
2. Salt and pepper to taste.

3.2.1230

This

salad was quick and easy to make and I loved it for lunch with some Triscuits. I swapped out most of the mayo for Greek yogurt, but I don’t think the difference in taste is very noticeable thanks to the mustard. I’m usually not a huge fan of celery, but it really worked in this combo and gave the salad a very refreshing taste.

What’s your favorite deli counter salad?

The post Seafood Salad appeared first on Frolic Through Life.

I found the idea for this dish in the Paleo cookbooks, Everyday Paleo, that I got for Christmas, and have made it twice since Christmas. It’s a big winner among everyone in my house, and just based on it’s appearance, my dad thought it was real rice. That might come in handy for tricking picky eaters! (I don’t condone tricking people into eating foods, but with a three year old who doesn’t want to try new foods, it comes in handy sometimes.)

Paleo Fried Rice

 

Print

Prep time

20 mins

Cook time

15 mins

Total time

35 mins

 

Author: Sylvia T

Cuisine: Paleo

Serves: 5

Ingredients

• 1 head of cauliflower
• 2 tablespoons coconut oil
• 1 bunch scallions, chopped
• 3 minced garlic slices
• 2 eggs
• 1 tablespoon Liquid Aminos
• (You need a food processor to make this recipe)

Instructions

1. Rinse cauliflower and cut into florets.
2. Place the florets into the food processor and pulse until finely chopped, with a texture similar to rice.
3. Saute chopped cauliflower and garlic in coconut oil in a large skillet for 5 minutes.
4. Add in scallions and Liquid Aminos and saute for another 5 minutes.
5. Push mixture to the side of the pan and crack eggs into the free space in the pan.
6. Quickly combine the egg and cauliflower mixture and mix until well incorporated.

3.1.09

This recipe comes together much quicker than traditional fried rice. You can also process a whole bunch of cauliflower at one time and freeze it in batches to make the rice at a later time without the most time consuming part

of the recipe.

Hope you enjoy it!

What’s your favorite paleo (or non-paleo) side dish?

The post Paleo Fried Rice appeared first on Frolic Through Life.

We stayed at the Hayatt Place, which was a bit outside the city, and I highly recommend it.  When we got to our room, we found that our TV didn’t work, so they switched our room and gave us a free dinner for our troubles.  I got some yummy French Toast, which I shared with Munchkin who is a big fan of the stuff.

We woke up bright and early on Saturday to head over to the Samuel Adams Brewery to go on the Brewery tour.

I never knew that Sam Adams makes so many different varieties of beer.  They even make the most alcoholic beer in the world called Utopia which was over 27%. We got a walk through of the factory and got to try the different kinds of barley they use to make the different kinds of beer.

The factory in Boston is not where they make the majority of their beer, but it is where they make all of their specialty beers.  After the tour, it was tasting time!

We got to try three kinds of beer, Boston Lager, Oktoberfest and one of their specialty beers, which was a White Ale. After the tour, we took a trolley over to one of Boston’s oldest bars that serves a ton of different Sam Adams beers on tap. Doyle’s was also one of the first places that started serving Sam Adams beer, when they were just a little brewery starting out.

We had some lunch at Doyle’s along with our Sam Adams beers.  We both had clam chowder, but I opted for the bread bowl, which was so delicious that I can’t even describe it.  I think I could eat chowder out of a bread bowl, everyday, for the rest of my life and die happy.

We also shared some potato skins which were very yummy.

After our delicious lunch, we headed over to the zoo so that Munchkin could have some fun.

Munchkin enjoyed running around and looking at all the  different animals in the zoo, but honestly I wasn’t really impressed with it. I may be spoiled because the last two zoos I visited were the San Diego and Bronx zoos which are very impressive.

After the zoo, we were all tuckered out so we headed back to our hotel to rest up a bit and change because it was getting chilly out.

For dinner we decided to do more seafood.  I found a place a bit outside of Boston called Turner’s Seafood Grill.  They had received some of the best rating on Yelp and Urban spoon and we definitely know why.

Turner’s is not only a restaurant, but it is also a seafood market.  If they’re selling fresh seafood, you have to bet that what they’re serving is super fresh.  When we sat down, our server Peggy informed us that they were having Oysterfest.  Tommy and I had never tried oysters before so we decided to go for it.

The taste was interesting and not bad at all.  We did have a good time joking at the description of the oysters. One of ours was supposed to have a coppery finish…whatever that means. We also shared some Cherry Pepper Calamari which was very good, sweet and spicy at the same time.

For my entree, I got the crab cakes. They were probably the best crab cakes I’ve ever had in my life.

After dinner, we headed over to the Apple Store so I could purchase my birthday gift! I’ve wanted an iPad for a long time, but couldn’t justify spending the money, so my parents and I split the price tag and I am now the proud new owner of an iPad 2.

We slept in a bit later on Sunday and took our time packing up and checking out.  We headed over to Faneuil Hall and Quincy Market for lunch and a bit of shopping.  We got lunch at Boston Chowda.

I got Lobster Mac and Cheese and Tommy got a Lobster Roll.  As much as we both love seafood and as good as lunch was, we both decided that we were seafooded out for a while.

After lunch, we hit the Freedom Trail.  I really like that all of the big sights to see in Boston are along the Freedom Trail and that there is an actual line on the sidewalk that you can follow to find these sights.

Quincy Mahket

Statehouse

Samuel Adams

Notice my two cuties in the corner!

My new boyfriend. Shh! Don’t tell Tommy

Park Street Church

Tadpole Playground near Frog Pond

Public Garden

 And since no birthday weekend would be complete without a cake, on our way back to the car we stumbled upon Sweet. I actually read about Sweet online when doing some pre-getaway research and I was more that excited to find it!

The decor of the place was very cute, simple and clean.

It looked like a place where you could have a tea party that every little girl dreams of.  I loved the way it looked! They also had the cutest packaging for their cupcakes.

We got a Red Velvet, Caramel Macchiato and a Boston Cream.  While they were very tasty, we both agreed that we have been spoiled by the House of Cupcakes and will probably compare every other cupcake we try to those.

Our drive home flew by so much quicker than the ride up, but I think that always happens, especially when you’re going someplace exciting.

I have to say that I had an amazing birthday and I am so lucky to have an amazing boyfriend who spoils me with these kinds of surprises.  I also have amazing friends because my phone did not shut up all weekend with texts, calls and facebook wishes.  Thank you to everyone!

What did you do this weekend?
How do you like to celebrate your birthday?

The post Boston Birthday appeared first on Frolic Through Life.

Me sleep? NEVER!

We woke up early Saturday morning to put the finishing touches on everything. We also took a bunch of trips to Giant to pick up things we remembered last minute and lots of ice to ice the keg.  Tommy fell in love with a Raspberry beer from the Iron Hill Brewery and he ordered a keg for the party, which was a huge hit.

As soon as the guests started arriving, it started to pour.  Luckily, the house has a huge enclosed deck which allowed everyone to still be outside even through the pouring rain.  The party was supposed to be a pool party and we were all disappointed that it was raining, but finally we decided that we would be getting wet in the pool anyway so what a little rain to stop us.

While we were in the pool, I put my mom in charge of taking photos and it left us with gems like this one.

Can’t blame her though, I left my camera on the wrong setting.  It’s a shame because we could’ve had some really nice photos.

After we all had enough of the pool, we changed and went for another round of food.  What is it about being in the pool that makes you starving? There was a ton of delicious food because Tommy’s mom is a chef extrordinaire.  She used to have her own deli and we are trying to convince her to start up a catering service because she’s that good.

After food, we cut the cake.

Nothing better than Carvel Ice Cream cake.

I was the official cake cutter and I was instructed to cut the cake into exactly 25 pieces, a totally random number because there was more that 40 people there.  My cake cutting skills prevailed and everyone got a piece.

I couldn’t figure out which setting to use on the camera to get clear action pictures in the dark, but the pictures I did get look pretty cool.

And since it’s not a party until I hurt myself, I managed to bite a huge chunk out of my tongue while swimming.  The best part of that is that we did so much crazy stuff with the jumps and I manage to crash into the side of the pool while just swimming some regular laps.  It’s also insane how quickly your tongue starts to swell.  Luckily, the cut wasn’t too huge and the bleeding stopped relatively quickly.  It still feels very strange and I can only chew on one side of my mouth.

On Sunday, we cleaned up the house, rationed out the leftover food and cakes, and went to Longhorn Steakhouse for dinner.  I signed up for Longhorn’s mailing list and we got a free appetizer.  I’m very torn about Longhorn though.  We enjoy the food a lot and their steaks are pretty amazing for the price, but the service kind of sucks.  I’m really not one to complain, as long as I get my food and it’s what I wanted I’m good, but yesterday we were left waiting forever and when we finally did get our food, I got something that I didn’t even order.

We got home pretty late and hit the sack early after a great weekend.

Hope you’re having a great day, even though it’s Monday.

Have you had any disappointing meals lately?
What’s the last self inflicted injury you experienced?

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