Easter Weekend

Even though it was a busy weekend, I still miss it! I had a great 6-mile run Saturday training for an upcoming 12k race. And had enough energy to take the dogs for a long walk after to visit grazing sheep in our neighborhood.

They all came to the fence to get a closer look at us and did not seem bothered by the dogs at all.

I could have watched them for hours as they played, interacted, and munched grass.

Every spring, we get them around our neighborhood to eat the wild grass and it was so cute to see them for Easter … and a little sad.

After a busy Saturday night of babysitting my nephew, I woke up at the crack of dawn Sunday to start Easter preparation and buzzed around the house cooking, cleaning, and doing laundry. I stuffed in a workout too and good thing since there was plenty of food at our Easter family gathering! My sister made the vegan sugar cookie recipe from Peas and Thank You so we could have a cookie decorating party. And I’m not very good at it!

But the kids had a blast.

And probably consumed 3 years worth of sugar at the party alone between cookies, desserts, and Easter candy – yikes!

For an Easter vegan main dish, I prepared a huge batch of my Quick Curried Lentils and added quinoa and chopped sweet potatoes to make it more hearty.

Lentil and quinoa dishes are perfect for our family gatherings as a main dish for me or side dish for others. It’s also cheap and I can freeze the leftovers.

We also had plenty of salads.

And I had a beautiful color explosion for a dinner plate with plenty of fruit and veggies.

But I had to save room for dessert because I made the raw chocolate cake from Ani’s Raw Food Desserts.

With a layer of fresh strawberries in the center.

Unfortunately a lot of people brought desserts to this party, there were multiple chocolate cakes, brownies, cookies, and more cake! But Ani’s moist cake made the others look a little plain and it got rave reviews.

Most who tried it could not believe the icing was avocado! It wasn’t a cheap cake at all being solid organic walnuts, dates, and cacao powder. But totally worth it for special occasions and the best way to eat dessert!