Happy Wednesday! This week seems to be moving pretty quickly, yes?
Ok, so where were we…Oh yes, I recapped the first part of my weekend in Seattle (<<– click there if you missed it) and need to finish the latter half. Here we go!

Saturday morning we kept it pretty relaxed and hit up for Portage Bay Cafe in Ballard, a local-organic-sustainable eatery, for a mostly healthy brunch. Because you know, it’s practically mandatory for brunch to be both savory and sweet.

After some major pondering (everything sounded SO incredibly delicious), I ordered the mushroom fall/winter hash, which was 3 scrambled eggs, local, organic roasted root veggies and butternut squash, roasted onions, sauteed mushrooms, and fresh herbs. Super delish.

But the highlight of our brunch was the Oatmeal Cobbler French Toast my friend ordered for our table to share. It’s exactly as it sounds which was…soft and fluffy challah bread dipped in a cinnamon custard, topped with an oatmeal-crumb crust and finished off with a generous drizzle of organic pear compote & vanilla creme anglaise. Uh, yum?

The vegetarian sloppy joe breakfast sandwich, quinoa cake benedict, and wild salmon omelette were also quite delicious and worth ordering if you ever visit Portage Bay Cafe.

We spent the rest of the afternoon doing some shopping in Ballard and eventually making our way over to Fremont. I love how there are so many different neighborhoods in Seattle and they all have their own characteristics and vibe that make them each so special. Plus you can find the most fun & adorable things in the various shops along the street.  We went to an adorable fabric shop, a vintage shop, some of the cutest boutiques, and refreshed with some hot teas in between.

We finished up our shopping day with a visit to TJ’s where we picked up some groceries to make pizza and pizookies for dinner at home. Sometimes a home cooked meal is a million times better than going out to eat.

Grocery shopping when you’re hungry is probably only a good idea if you for some reason want to ensure you have plenty of leftovers. We were quite ambitious with our meal planning and ended up making 5 pizzas and a gigantic salad for 6 people. I think we could have easily fed another handful of people with the amount of food we ended up with.

Three of us were on pizza duty. Using TJ’s fresh whole wheat and herb pizza dough, we made both pesto and marinara pizzas with fresh mozzarella slices, shredded parmesan, and smoked mozzarella cheese. Toppings included mushrooms, bell peppers, olives, marinated artichoke hearts, garlic, fresh basil, avocado, prosciutto, and eggs.

We made sure to balance our meal with lots of yummy veggies.

If you like eggs, I highly suggest you add it to your pizza. It’s fantastic. Just crack your eggs on your pizza with approximately 7 mins left (adjust according to preferred done-ness) of bake time (at 425F) for a semi runny yolk that’ll ooze into your pizza when you slice. So.good.

After dinner, it was pizzokie time. Ohh ya.

We made our pizzookie with two bags of tj’s double chocolate chip cookie dough (just press it all into a greased cake tin) and baked for approximately 25-30 mins at 350F or until edges are slightly crisp and golden. The middle should still be slightly undercooked for the ultimate gooey bite. Once out of the oven, let cool approximately 5-10 mins and top with a very generous heaping of creamy vanilla ice cream, stick in some spoons, and your dessert is ready. The ice cream gets melty all over the warm cookie.
Suuuper indulgent. But that’s perfectly acceptable and necessary some nights.

I enjoyed a nice and toasty crumpet with pesto + egg + english cheese + tomato along with a hot foamy latte.
yum yum.

We spent an hour or two walking off our breakfast as we made our way over to our 9:45am barre class where we clenched and shook our way through class. This was my first time taking this kind of fitness class and it was definitely a different kind of pace and intensity than other types of fitness classes. Its actually very intense, but a different kind of intensity than say, circuits. It an isometric kind of exercise  where you work muscles in static positions.

And just before leaving Pikes we went down to check out the gum wall, just for kicks.

The day was too gorgeous to not spend more time outdoors so later in the afternoon, after we showered and freshened up, we headed out to Fremont to pick up a couple Caribbean sandwiches from Paseo’s  to take with us to picnic at Gas Works Park. We paitently waited in line for about 45 mins and ordered a seared scallops and a tofu delight.  The sandwiches were huge and two were aplenty for the three of us to share.  They ended up being kinda messy, but their flavors definitely made up for our sauce covered hands.