I'm feeling much better!

Well thanks to my three day weekend and having time to just take it easy. Although I still forced myself to get out and do things in town such as go for a couple hikes, go shopping, eat at bakeries, take a drive up the road to a smaller town than Garmisch called Mittenwald, clean and organize my room, and do my laundry to wash all the snot out of things. That sounds like a lot I realize now, but I did have three whole days off and compared to last weekend when I visited 3 countries in 3 days this felt very relaxing.

I do not have time to continue telling of last weeks trip, but I promise I will, not only for you, but so I have a written record of it. :)

I thought though I would show you something Ryan and I have been up to that I have not mentioned much about yet. My Dad sent me a very nice email concerned about me being sick. He encouraged me to drink lots of fluids to flush out the virus, which Dad don't worry I was already doing. I drank nearly an entire container of orange juice yesterday along with a ton of beer.... just kidding I meant water. He also asked if I have been eating a balanced diet over here to stay healthy, which he was questioning because of how much I write about bakeries. Yes Ryan and I do eat at A LOT of bakeries mostly on our days off I would say, it is not a daily outing. Although it is fairly common when we are in town on days off to go to an average of 3 bakeries in a day. :) I am very aware that the white flour they use in their pretzels is really not all that nutritious for us, but I want to also have everyone note that when we go to bakeries we do eat our fair share or pretzels, or other breads such as these great loaves with olives (mmmmmmmm). It is not all sugary sweets that we are indulging in. Of course we are eating those too.

So to show my Dad and the rest of you that we are actually eating quite well here I am posting pictures of some of our most well thought out and put together meals, none of which have been all that time consuming of labor intensive, but have turned out very well. I've been meaning to post these for awhile and thought this was a great opportunity.


Shrimp fajitas with homemade guacamole

Bruchetta with spinach pasta and marinara

Ryan made pizza dough from scratch (he has done this several times here) My half is cheeseless with broccoli, green beans, and peppers on pesto sauce. His half was pesto chicken with lots of cheese.

Orange sesame tofu with brown rice. I got this recipe from my Mom, but doctored it up by adding water chestnuts, bamboo shoots, and broccoli.

At the gym we workout at they had a fitness challenge that some people took part in and posted recipes every month that were healthy. I got this one from the gym. It is basically aztsuki beans with shitake mushrooms white mushrooms, some veggies, and a pretty spicy sauce. We hate it over brown rice with salad and bread from a german bakery.

We actually just made this last night. It is spatzel, a German noodle (we did buy the noodle at the German grocery and did not make it from scratch). Green beans, mushrooms in the center, and hiding under the little pile of mushrooms is an alfredo sauce I made without using an animal products. I've been wanting to try to do that for awhile now, even though I'm not an alfredo fan to begin with. I started with olive oil and flour for the roux and then used soy milk. I seasoned it with all kinds of things but ended up accidentally getting too much white pepper in it and felt like it tasted like a white pepper sauce, but Ryan thought it was great so I still felt okay about it.

This was my favorite meal that we've made. Well not to brag, but I made this one on my own. :) It was sea bass with a port wine reduction with a side of steamed broccoli and green beans. It was SO good!

So there! We are eating well and having a good time cooking together.