easy protein

Once again, I have reached a time of year I don’t eat meat. When you’re Orthodox, there are many times of year you cannot eat meat. The priest’s wife at our old church did the math- it’s like 180 days.

However, I like to think of this (the current one is the Apostle’s Fast, for anyone who’s interested) as an opportunity to get in more creative protein sources. Plus I started my  new internship on Monday (yay for new jobs with jet lag! x_x) so creative protein in a hurry is a good thing.

Quick n easy lunch number one, made easy by weekend prep:

Take awesome Thai brown rice

 

Chop up tofu (of which we currently have a glut)

Take some favorite veggies, and green onions for flave:

 

Combine. Season with seasoned rice vinegar, soy sauce, maybe a bit of sesame oil, and copious quantities of Sriracha. It’s no beauty in the looks department (and thus no final picture) but it’s soooooo tasty and easy and well balanced for lunches. Also, unlike some lunch salads incorporating protein, there’s no mayo, so fewer food safety concerns if it’s out of a refrigerator for your commute, etc.

Another good one:

The hums. Can o’ chickpeas, juice o’ 2 lemons, the equivalent of 2 small cloves of garlic, dab of tahini, 1/2 T or so of olive oil, 1/4 cup so of water, COPIOUS amounts of harissa (Middle Eastern chili paste… mmmmmmmmm), cumin, parsley, paprika to taste. Drizzle with more olive oil and paprika, admire.

Easy fish:

A rather luscious recipe, courtesy of recipezaar. The sauce is like craaaaack.

Accompany with a simple salad:

And a quality, protein packed snack:

 

Apple and peanuts in the shell (so fun! they were an impulse buy by my mom because they were on sale, but I have gotten a ridiculous amount of enjoyment from peeling peanuts!)

And of course, the greatest protein source, the chocolate peanut butter brownie, courtesy of this Cooking Light recipe.

Ze dry:

 

Ze wet:

Ze batter:

Ze brownies:

Nothing like warm gooey peanut butter n chocolate. I slightly underbaked them. This is really not at all a bad thing!