Cooking fail

Seriously, when am I going to suck it up and cook more? Never. Yesterday I ate leftover vegetables from Tuesday night's awesome birthday dinner for lunch and for dinner it was seaweed snacks, a banana and a bowl of broccoli.

Today's lunch was this:

V8, vegan jerky and an organic apple clif bar. Pros? I got three servings of vegetables, a serving of fruit and some healthy nuts for about 250calories. Con? This all cost me $4.27! I could have eaten healthier and fresher for much cheaper. One of these days I'll stop complaining and actually cook.

Soup Time

Last week I hung out with some friends that reminded me the importance of cooking. Yes life is crazy busy and yes I feel like I have better things to do, but honestly, taking 2 hrs on a free afternoon to cook meals for the week saves time AND money. Plus my body thanks me for it later. Soo Friday before work I did another fridge cleanout and made soup. AWESOME soup, if I might say so.

I really need a new camera. Or a phone from this decade. Anyways, the soup has everything in it. I started with water, then mixed in vegetable bullion cubes and some left over baby carrots that I chopped. Then I got creative and added my baby bok choy, snap peas and some quinoa I had in the fridge and was avoiding (too. much. quinoa). I then finished it with some white miso paste and curry powder. So good, so cheap and so filling!

So lesson is that I need to cook more often. This past week my lunches have been a larabar and an apple, which is okay when I'm out and really need to eat lunch, but it's not okay as a regular thing when I can totally prepare ahead.

Pantry Cleanout

I bought some food on Monday and told myself that I would stretch the $20 worth of groceries until Friday. That means not eating out at all for the remainder of the week so I can stay true to my budget.

When I got home from class last night, I had a few left overs and an eggplant in my fridge. I decided to put them all together, which produced this hot mess:

It's not pretty, at all. I roasted one very small eggplant with two vine tomatoes in a little balsamic, then mixed it with my remaining 1/3 c spicy quinoa (which I mixed with my remaining 2 tbs of hummus), 1 black bean burger patty and a little over 1 cup of spinach. And a lot of Frank's Red Hot because I still put that sh*t on everything.

I ate it over 1/2 a whole wheat pita bread last night, then ate the remaining serving for lunch today. Not the greatest thing but it did fill me up and will keep me full for a while, which is awesome because I'm at work until 930 tonight. Plus it taught me how to stretch my grocery bill and not be wasteful of food. Seeing what's happened in Japan with that horrific earthquake followed by the tsunamis really puts things in perspective, so I'm cool with eating weird looking food because I'm grateful for it.

Have a happy Friday!

Food Issues

Okay so this post doesn't have anything to do with what I cooked or I'm eating but more about my attitudes toward food. Over the weekend I reached a goal of losing, over the course of 6 months, 68lbs. Even though I still have about 35 more to go to reach a healthy goal, you'd think my mindset about food and weight has changed because I've done it pretty slowly but I learned a harsh lesson about myself today.

I studied my butt off for an exam last week and did way worse than I expected. It blew mind. Granted, he said that this class had the lowest average he's had in years and he doesn't quite know what to make of the exams except he's going to curve it (I don't know how much but anything is better than nothing). He's a great educator, so I'm not sure what happened either. My class let out at 12:45 and my tea, banana and V8 were done for, so when I got to my next class, I ate a normal lunch for me, which was 1 cup organic tomato soup with 1/3 c quinoa. Then I started to digest what exactly happened with my test and I became ravenous. I was starving and all I could think about was how to cram as much food as I could into my piehole when the next class ended. Then it hit me; I will always be a fat kid.

It was a shocker to realize that all the hard work that I've put into my body can go out the window with some stressful situations if I'm not aware of it before it happens. I thought that maybe one day I would think like a skinny person but life doesn't work that way for me. I will always have to be careful that I do not get obsessed with food. As a first inclination, I will always want to first use food to destress. Always. It's not even about the food but the feeling. It's the reason that I don't have snack food in my house. If I really listen to my body I'm not hungry enough to snack inbetween meals, so there is no reason to have it. Plus, if I do want to snack, my body will thank me for using carrots or something raw instead of something processed that contains too much salt. Overall the food I eat now isn't exactly bad but there are plenty of vegan options that will make you fat. Too much of any food, healthy or not, will make you fat. It was a scary realization but one that I'm glad I can be more aware of now so that when the semester gets more intense I can be more mindful of my choices.

So when I got out of class at 215 and went to Starbucks for my usual venti bold with a splash of soy milk instead of a bag of (insert fried junk here) and laid out some study guidelines so I rock my next exam =) I just need to remember to breath and think before I eat.

The Kombucha Experience

The grocery store I work for is like a smaller, nicer Whole Foods. We have more variety of the "weirder" stuff and I love it. I was a little slow to start as I learned the ins and outs of the job, but I'm learning a ton about how to be more environmentally aware and the importance of eating really good, whole food. Plus I get a discount, so that helps with my food budget.

One of our most popular things we sell is a drink called "Kombucha." I realize that probably most everyone has at least heard of it before and I've seen it on the shelf in the past but never picked it up. On Sunday, I had to straighten the kombucha fridge so I took the opportunity to finally took a look at it and the drink looked disgusting.

There was mold like stuff at the bottom.

And it looked chunky.

Reenactment of my fear.

That's because it is chunky. It's black tea that is fermented with a bunch of yeast and bacteria. Does this sound appealing to anyone yet because it was turning me off.

Until today. My boss tried the multi-green one and looking at the label, the drink has outstanding health benefits. He also drinks a couple a day and swears by them. The guy that I trained with was also curious, bought one then was soon in my line with a return slip for the drink. He said it was disgusting, it exploded everywhere, smelled bad, and, I quote, "tastes like beer. You might like it though."

Sold.

So I bought the multi-green one. You have to be careful as you open it because it fizzes everywhere and as it fizzes, the stuff on the bottom mixes all together and creates this sort of green sludge. It smells horrible too, so I wasn't hopeful this was going to end well. I took a sip and.....it was pretty great. My coworker is right, it did taste a little like beer. And it makes you feel a little buzzed. Not drunk buzzed but a weird buzzed.

I give it an enthusiastic thumbs up. It's clean and refreshing and makes your body feel happy when you drink it. With all the probiotics in it, I'm interested in seeing if I can stop taking them in pill form and drink this tea. I'm usually so open at trying new things, so it surprised me to be hesitant towards it and it definitely taught me to not judge the food by the chunky yeast at the bottom.

dresstiiiiime

I bought my bridesmaid dress for my friend's wedding in May. I lucked out because the size/color requested was on the rack, so no need to order it but...

it's just a tad tight.

And by a tad I mean it's really tight.

The dress is three sizes smaller than what I tried on back in September, so I feel encouraged about it, but it definitely means I need to be on my game with my eating/exercising. I estimate that ten pounds and the dress will fit beautifully, and given that I have 11 weeks until the wedding, I think I can manage that. Either that, or I will have to resort to a week of lemonade and laxative diet cleanse.

Kidding.

Maybe.

Perhaps I'll just have a spanx waiting as a backup.

Cooking wise has been slow. Dinners and lunch tend to be whatever vegetables I have in the freezer/fridge all sauted together, and breakfast is a smoothie or oatmeal. For lunch today, because I was off and studying, I made some quinoa and paired it with the Mexican pumpkin stew I had in the freezer. I forgot how much I loved quinoa.

For now I must get back to studying. Two exams tomorrow and my mouse is taking the opportunity to funk out, so a Target trip in the very near future might be in the cards. I start work at a small organic market for reals on Friday, so hopefully I'll get some inspiration as I use my discount to shop for dinner. Or at the very least I'll have inspiration for more blog posts, please is awesome nuts, I'm excited =)