This weekend was really good. Saturday was rainy and warm and involved a long lunch and peach cider at The Happy Gnome followed by some gorgeous macarons from Cosettas and a movie night at home. Easter felt a little weird this year, since we would usually be doing a big brunch at my parents' house all day, but on Sunday Rob and I ate eggs and drank coffee all morning before heading out to Lake Harriet to enjoy the beautiful weather before eating a really early dinner on the patio of a restaurant in our neighborhood.

I love a weekend where we spend one day in St. Paul and the other in Minneapolis. It makes me feel like I'm really taking advantage of the area. I've said this countless times, but it's been a long winter. It feels good to finally open the windows, take a long walk, and feel the sun on my skin.

How was your weekend?

Back in January, I shared a recipe for zucchini "fettuccine" and said that you can totally make Paleo pasta with just a vegetable peeler, which is totally true, but not nearly as fun as making Paleo pasta with a spiral vegetable slicer. The Paderno is still on my wish list, but Rob and I recently received this sweet hand-held spiral slicer that was on our wedding registry. It does a great job with squash and carrots, and as a result, I've been making noodles (and juice! we got a juicer, too) nearly every day.

This recipe is similar to the fettuccine one, but it has meatballs and marinara sauce. It's simple. And it's really good.

Ingredients:

• Four zucchini
• One pound of grass-fed beef
• About half of a 28 ounce can of marinara sauce
  • (I use Trader Joe's because it has no added sugar)
• One teaspoon each of garlic powder + onion powder
• Salt and pepper, to taste
• A couple tablespoons of olive oil

Instructions:

1. Heat a pan with olive oil over medium heat. Form the beef into meatballs and place in pan. Season with salt and pepper.
2. Spiralize the zucchini and set aside in a large bowl. Once the meatballs are cooked through, take them out of the pan and add the zucchini.
3. Sauté the zucchini for about five minutes. Add a sprinkle of salt and pepper and also the garlic and onion powder.
4. Once the zucchini softens a bit, add the marinara sauce. You can put the meatballs back in before plating if they've gotten cold.
5. Serve hot and enjoy!

When it comes to games, I'm pretty picky--for the most part, I don't usually know how they work and don't want to take the time to learn. I got temporarily obsessed with Candy Crush a few months ago but rarely open the app anymore. For me to like a game, it has to be free to download, be easy to use, have fun sound effects that don't annoy me (and can be easily turned off), and look well-designed. 

Lately, I've been playing a lot of Letroca (here in iTunes and here for Android), a word game where you try to create the biggest number of words possible with the group of letters given to you in each round. It meets all of my Will I Like This Game Criteria? and is just really, really fun to play.

It's like a quick little puzzle, and you can play as many or as few rounds as you want. It's a nice little brain workout, and I think it'd be really awesome for kids, as well. It's actually used in many schools as a fun vocabulary exercise for children ages 6 and up--but obviously it's enjoyed by adults as well, since I sat on my couch last night and played it for an hour.

I put it on my iPad and my (Samsung) phone and I can't get enough of it. Download it for free here in iTunes and here for Android devices and let me know what you think!

This post is sponsored by Letroca. As usual, all thoughts and opinions are my own. Thank you so much for your support as I continue to work with advertisers.