lele lurves leftovers

I like my breakfast bowl and my tea mug to be about the same size.

And I refill the tea mug.

I hope none of my coworkers think my extremely frequent bathroom trips are the sign of a cocaine addition or something.

  

More precooked apple oats for the week. Homeless apples, oats, milk, flax, cinnamon. Plus almonds, all mixed in so it looks like baby food.

 

Took a sick day due to the allergy stuff/stomach bug that (knock on wood) seems to’ve passed. Delightfully, I already had, ready to made and perfect for a sick person

 

And (leftover) homemade bread. Rounded out with smiley mug, always there to cheer me when sick.

Smiley mug contained, yes this blog IS extremely repetitive, plain Greek yogurt and applesauce. It is delicious and, I am sure, highly therapeutic.

 

Didn’t have any afternoon snack… just pulled my sorry self together to go to class (Diet Coke helped a lot).

Returned home and was, despite no afternoon snack, weirdly un-hungry. So I watched TV (?!??! I NEVER watch TV) and The Biggest Loser was on (a show I have like… never seen ever?!?!) but I was delighted to see them raising funds for Feeding America. Spot on, Biggest Loser.

And then figured it was like 9 at night and I hadn’t eaten since lunch.

So the randomest dinner of the year award goes tooooooo….

 

Leftover fish and rice (not a full enough portion to be dinner.)

What I really wanted (and honestly, what I’d probably eat for every meal if given the chance): bread and nuts.

Virtuous kale:

And for dessert, the last of a peanut butter jar.

I’ve explained oats in a jar to my mom but she still scrapes them down to the bottom… and then leaves them in the fridge.

Oats in a jar… it isn’t, like, oh, this will be fun to eat oats from a cylindrical container. It’s supposed to be because there’s still nut butter in it. To flavor your oatmeal. Like, an adequate amount.

So, anyway, having not gotten this point across this contained, oh, half a teaspoon. A nice palate cleanser.

 

And then it was bedtime and I wanted some nice carbs, so I had this bread.

Which was sort of too energizing and I didn’t get to sleep. C’est la vie. It tasted wonderful, anyway.

Yes, you’ve seen this breakfast before. (Though this time you get a view of the giant cat on my giant mug. I am such a cliche.)

In my defense, my mother also eats the same breakfast most every morning: she sits at the table with matzoh crackers and smears them with tons and tons of peanut (or almond butter), usually with jam, too.

I don’t get it. I think matzoh crackers are flavorless and bland. And yes this is passover week but we aren’t Jewish. Anyway. We are both creatures of habit.

In more exciting news, LOOK WHAT AMY GOT ME.

 

Regular readers will know that I work at a food bank, and part of my job is packing food in boxes in our warehouse. Morning packing is MUCH more fun when accompanied by music, and we’ve been known to play 90s boy bands in the past, but I was disappointed that Amy’s iPod contained no Spice Girls.

Welllllll, star thrift store shopper Amy amended that, then gave me the CD!

<3 <3 <3 Still have every song memorized.

I’ve been on a kick of having a half-citrus fruit around 10 or 11 at work. It’s perfect. I eat breakfast around 7:30 and lunch not til 12 or 1, so having that blood sugar booster with a hint of fiber keeps me happy til my next meal.

My next meal was eaten outside, on a beautiful day.

I mean, not the best view, but still outside.

On a picnic table! Also a slightly random meal, but included a lot of my favorite things.

Ants on a log! Well, logs.

Cottage cheese and strawberries!

Homemade brown Irish soda bread!

Salad… with hummus. Kind of a yawn. I ate it first and dutifully.

Went to the gym and had my first proper workout in awhile between sickness and allergies and so on. I worked out, then I ran into a friend and we started chatting about the Supreme Court debating health care, and then I was so RILED UP that I then ran sprints.

I should keep my heart as healthy as possible, since I am likely imminently uninsured x_x

Refueled with a smoothie. Look at my not-at-all precarious way of getting the extra liquid from the bottom of the blender out!

Because I am too lazy to dirty a spatula.

Also al fresco. Wow my deck looks absolutely lovely in this picture. I am increasing my typing speed to finish this post and go outside.

Dogwood is blooming CRAZY early.

In my foodbuzz swag cup. This had milk, frozen banana, peanut butter, and cinnamon (key!), whirred up with ice. Perfect after a workout. It was kinda late (5:30?) but I knew if I waited til dinner to eat I’d be super hangry and scarf, rather than enjoy, my meal.

Glad I did because I THOROUGHLY enjoyed Creamy Cajun Vegetable Pasta from Eat Run Write.

The dish included these awesome gigantic peppers Steve brought over.

The basic technique of the recipe is that you cook the vegetables til they’re blistery, seasoned with Cajun seasoning and meanwhile make a sauce with fire roasted tomatoes, garlic, and (surprise!) blended up tofu as kind of a cheese stand in. It made for a better taste and texture than my usual “dump it in a bowl” method, so I recommend it :D

Steve helps stir.

Blackening the veggies makes them awwwwwwwwwwwwwesome. Carrots (which cook perfectly) red onion, what should’ve been cherry tomatoes but the store was out so chopped up plum tomatoes, mushrooms, red peppers. Colorful and nutritious!

 

Also awwwwwwwwwwwwwwesome was the smell of the sauce.

The pureed tofu really did look like ricotta cheese…

 

… especially as you stirred it in!

My skillet was overflowing as I piled the veggies on top. An enjoyable challenge.

 

(is it bad that I’m proud of myself when my photo taken with an *actual camera* looks like one taken on Instagram? My skills are really lacking…)

I served it with whole wheat penne.

Thoroughly excellent combination. Thoroughly belly-packing. A bit drunk on carbs, I said “I have a pasta full of belly”, and Steve and I agreed Pasta Full of Belly would be a great restaurant name.

The only wish I had was that the individual veggie flavors shone a bit more… they all kinda blended into the (delicious) sauce.

I know the Volumetrics eating plan is getting a lot of attention these days (er, if you steal your coworker’s copy of Today’s Dietitian like I do), and I am a big fan. This is volume eater’s delight with lots of food and not a lot of calories.

After we ate, we relaxed with the paper for a bit while my cat BRAZENLY put the moves on Steve.

Told you she loved him.