I woke up Saturday morning at 8:45am to a knock on my apartment door. The refrigerator repairman was a bit early, but I was very glad to have him finally here! My fridge has been broken since last weekend. There was a thick layer of ice blocking any cold air from getting into my fridge. I had thrown away most of the perishable food and had been living off of salads from the Green Truck for most of last week (no complaints there though, the Cali Kale Salad is the bomb!) While I waited for my fridge to get cold again, I raided my pantry for breakfast ideas. Low and behold, I found these beautiful potatoes!

Prep time: 15 minutes
Cook time: 30 minutes
Servings: 2-4

Ingredients:
10 or so small potatoes, quartered
3 tbsp olive oil
2 cloves of garlic, chopped
Rosemary to taste
Oregano to taste
Basil to taste
Paprika to taste
Salt to taste

Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Cover a baking sheet with aluminum foil. Cut the potatoes into bite size pieces. I quartered my potatoes. Mix the olive oil, garlic, and spices in a mixing bowl. Add the potatoes and mix until fully coated. Set potatoes on your baking sheet and cook for 30 minutes until a fork easily comes out of the potatoes. Let cool and devour!

What favorite breakfast item would you make to go with these potatoes?

File last weekend under “adventures.” As you may have gathered, we (Jennie and Corelyn) went camping in Joshua Tree National Park over the weekend. It was a lot of fun, but it was very, very cold. We took approximately one million photos. Here are a few of the best ones.

From left to right:

• Campfire bacon cooked in the trusty cast iron. We may or may not have gone through 3 pounds of bacon.
• The sign at the Joshua Tree entrance (FREE park admission! Another reason to love Veteran’s day).
• The stunning Key’s view, looking out over the mojave desert and the San Andreas fault line.
• Jeff, setting up a photo from on top of a boulder.
• Cholla cactus (looks fluffy in person, but watch out! It’s prickly)
• Campsite coffee, made in a french press, served in a tin.
• A bluebird posing to have it’s picture taken on top of a massive yucca bush.
• Joshua Tree rocks, excellent for climbing and scrambling.
• Our view of the desert when we awoke Saturday morning.

What about you? Would you have braved the 33 degree weather to join us in Joshua Tree?

Jennie and I are off the grid for the weekend because we’re camping in Joshua Tree. I’m sure you’ll be seeing some posts from us as we take in the sunshine and deal with the desert weather! In the meantime, here’s a recap of what we were thankful for last week.

Day 3: We went for a short hike in Wilson Canyon. Jennie took a moment to be thankful for the hike, and I was thankful for my friends who kindly let me tag along even though I am such a slow hiker!

Day 4: We both thought about family. I went to visit my cousin and his beautiful baby girl who live in L.A. and I felt grateful to have some family close by. Jennie felt thankful for her enthusiastically political parents.

Day 5: I was thankful for friends who are in love when GMS’ favorite photography, Mary Costa, put up the photos from an engagement shoot with some of my best friends.

Day 6 and 7: These days were a blur, but Jennie and I were both thankful for the outcome of the presidential election. I try to keep our politics off the blog most of the time (much to Jennie’s chagrin), but I let it slide this week, because we were just too darn excited.

Day 8: Jennie took a moment to be thankful for having so many lovely friends.

The Thanksgiving countdown has officially begun! In preparation, we’ve started collecting an arsenal of recipes that will help us use up all that leftover turkey and pumpkin! It’s a good thing, too, because we just placed the pre-order for a 28lb turkey for our Thanksgiving celebration.

Confession: I love all things oatmeal. I love oatmeal for breakfast, as a base for my granola bars, and in my cookies. So when I found out that oats weren’t gluten free, that was a bummer, because I thought for sure this would be the solution to a delicious, moist gluten free treat. Luckily, I found out that there are gluten free oats, you just have to look for them!

So when a coworker had a birthday a few weeks ago, I knew I must make gluten free oatmeal chocolate chip cookies. I didn’t ice them – they were sweet enough – and I made a batch of oatmeal raisin for good measure.

These babies were chewy, chocolately, and definitely full of oats – just the way I like them.

This was a great recipe I’ll definitely add to my wheelhouse – fast, delicious, and gluten free.

What’s your go-to cookie recipe? Is it a recipe of your own, or was it handed down to you?