Recent Lunches, Dinners, and Desserts

My hamstring feels so much better! I may try running outside today OR I may not. I don’t mind not running, but the weather is so nice for this time of year and I already did barre and pilates so far this week. I’m just so proud of myself for realizing that my hamstring hurt during Saturday’s run and that I was smart enough to back off immediately, rest it for a few days from running/walking, and feel like myself again. I just don’t understand why people push themselves into injuries.

Recent Meals

I eat oatmeal every day for breakfast but never take a picture of it. However, I had the baked oatmeal at the Premier Diner on Monday for lunch and did take a picture because it’s such a big beautiful bowl of goodness.

From what I understand, the diner makes one batch of baked oatmeal every morning. When it runs out, they don’t make more until the next day. I was lucky to get a big bowl served with a side of milk that I pour on top to mush everything up — it’s just so good.

In other lunch news, I had this big chopped salad from Town Bagel. I would be lying if I listed the ingredients – I really don’t remember well enough to do so.

I do remember what was in this salad that I made for lunch:

• Romaine
• Tomatoes
• Cucumbers
• Mushrooms
• Onion
• Dr. Praeger’s Veggie Burger
• Chickpeas
• Avocado
• Feta Cheese
• Balsamic Vinaigrette

My new routine after yoga is to come home, shower, and make mashed avocado on Ezekiel toast and/or an egg on toast. There’s mashed avocado under that egg, by the way.

The staff at Mario’s gets really confused if I walk in to order something other than “my usual” which is the whole wheat margarita pizza to go, not heated up.

I decided, on a whim, to order the eggplant pizza for a change. The girl rang it up but the man who usually boxes up my pizza put the whole wheat margarita pizza in the box first. When we told him I did something crazy and got a different slice, he boxed the eggplant pizza but they gave me the margarita pizza to take home (for free) too.

My son ate my free margarita slice so fast as a snack before I could even decide if I wanted a bite or to wrap it up.

I always say how much I enjoy the lentil pasta from Trader Joe’s – I really do! It’s so great to have on hand for a quick and easy, healthy but always tasty dinner.

I cooked mushrooms in a pan with olive oil while cooking the lentil pasta separately. Then I combined everything in the pan with the Trader Joe’s plant-based bolognese sauce. Really is such a good combination!

Apples!

I mentioned last week that I’ve been back to eating an apple almost every night.

This was an organic honey crisp warmed with cinnamon and a little bit of peanut butter.

And this apple was a Granny Smith not warmed, sprinkled with cinnamon, peanut butter, and a few dark chocolate chips.

A little blurry but I’m including it anyway!

And finally, a big box of Godiva.

Recent Dinners + Rainbow Cookie Cupcakes

I figured out the image loading issue with my blog that I mentioned last week. What I haven’t figured out is why my blog emails stopped sending a few weeks ago! My initial approach of pretending there wasn’t a problem and that the issue would fix itself didn’t in fact fix it. I’m hopeful that whatever I managed to tweak in the system yesterday will have the emails start sending again after today’s post.

Recent Meals

I have a few dinners and an excellent dessert to discuss for this week! I wish I had a few lunches to share but I didn’t stop to take pictures of them — I will do a better job for next week.

Pizza!

It had been at least a month since I last had the whole wheat grandma pizza I discovered from La Focaccia.

The crust is so airy and light that it sits so nicely in my stomach. Not to mention, it’s quite delicious.

I’m also still enjoying the whole wheat margarita pizza with a salad for dinner at least one night a week. This has been a routine dinner staple of mine now for about five years!

I’m really trying to have wild salmon for dinner one to two times a week.

I had this salmon with a baked potato and roasted cauliflower.

And another night I made the wild salmon with a baked sweet potato and rainbow cauliflower.

If you follow me on Instagram, you may have noticed that I’m posting more to my stories again. I shared about these rainbow cookie cupcakes last week!

When I arrived at Small Cakes, there were two rainbow cookie cupcakes left so I bought them both – one for me and one for my son.

My son did not eat his cupcake the day I bought which, to me, means that it was now anyone’s cupcake the next day. He didn’t really agree with me but hello, eat it the day I buy it or it’s up for grabs.

I’ve also been eating an apple again every night as a snack. I bought organic honey crisp but also decided to go back to granny smith apples too. If you are a longtime reader, you may recall that I lived on big granny smith apples for years! Then I got tired of them. Well, now they are back in my life so I will share some new apple snack photos next week. In the meantime, I did a quick “apple” search in the blog media library which revealed tons of results from over the years.

Dinner At The Bryant!

 

I’ve been really excited for the opening of the The Bryant which is the latest restaurant in the Poll Restaurants dynasty.

Local readers may be aware that the same owners of Bryant & Cooper (where we had dinner for my son’s birthday) as well as owners of Toku (which I last had around my birthday), Cipollini, Major’s, Bar Frites, and Hendricks Tavern, were planning to open The Bryant this fall — and it finally opened a week or so ago!

The hype over the opening has been SERIOUS. Usually, you don’t like to try a new restaurant until it’s been around for a while but this restaurant group doesn’t mess around which means it’s ready to roll when the doors open.

Rumor already had it that the spinach and artichoke dip was a must. We ordered it as soon as we sat down. Delicious, but terrible picture which I didn’t realize until I got home.

There were SO MANY excellent menu choices for me (me meaning, a meatless eater) that I wasn’t quite sure which direction to go in with my meal! I was choosing between pizzas, salads (really wasn’t in the mood for salad), zucchini noodles, sushi, and the house made veggie burger.

I ultimately went with the veggie burger which doesn’t look like anything amazing in the photo but it was very good. It had great taste and a good bite with crunch to the outside rather than mush.

With molten chocolate cake on the menu, even the warm brownie didn’t tempt me.

I only wish that molten chocolate cakes were bigger! The waiter had apologized that dessert took a long time (which I didn’t think it did but he felt bad anyway which was nice) but he explained it was because the molten cakes are made fresh to order. The ooze of chocolate was everything you could ask for in a molten cake.

I will definitely be back to The Bryant soon to try everything else on the menu! One thing you need to know, make a reservation in advance. If you expect a day of reservation, think again!

That’s basically all I’ve got for today, aside from this snapchat picture. I haven’t a true clue or need for snapchat but sometimes if I remember, I check the filters for some fun.

^This Generation Love top is still available and on sale!

[bctt tweet=”Dinner at The Bryant reviewed on the blog today! #dinner #weekend #restaurantreview #longisland #longislandeats #thebryant” username=”cookiechrunicle”]

Best thing you ate over the weekend?

Recent Eats: Lunches + Dinners (Plus French Fries!)

 

 

Today let’s take a look at my recent lunches and dinners!

I’ve been enjoying English muffins with peanut butter for lunch quite often lately. I don’t always feel like savory foods like salads and power bowls for lunch so this solves the problem when my cravings vary.

Sometimes I make an English muffin with peanut butter and jelly and sometimes I go without jelly.

It’s always nice when I eat an English muffin with peanut butter for lunch because then I don’t miss it at breakfast. On occasion I still have that mixed breakfast feeling of do I want oatmeal or do I want an English muffin? This solves the problem. Oatmeal for breakfast, English muffin with peanut butter for lunch. 🙂

Right now I have two kinds of English muffins in the house. One package of Thomas’ whole wheat English muffins and one package of Trader Joe’s  cinnamon raisin British muffins. The more toasted the muffin, the better.

I made a quick stop at Trader Joe’s the other afternoon even though I really do try (and often make it) a good week before needing to restock the kitchen. There were just a few things I didn’t buy enough of last week, including those colorful carrot coins from the frozen section!

My biggest problem when food shopping is realizing HOW MANY of something to purchase at once, so that I don’t need to come back again to the store within a few days. Certain foods like frozen blueberries (for my oatmeal), frozen broccoli, and now the colorful carrot coins, go really quickly so I definitely need to stock up with more than one bag.

I’ve been adding the colorful carrot coins to everything including this quick power bowl for lunch the other day when I wanted something savory.

This power bowl of sorts included the colorful carrot coins, chick peas, green beans, and leftover roasted potatoes. I also mixed in some leftover vegetarian 5 layer dip! I love a 5 layer dip even though sour cream and cheese aren’t my favorite parts. When it’s all combined though, it makes me happy. I don’t make the 5 layer dip myself but I’m sure that I can.

Yesterday for the first time in a while, I worked from Panera. Working from Panera usually means lunch at Panera! I’m still creating my own salad of seasonal greens with the addition of avocado and hummus.

And then there was the random stop at this new French fries spot called Spuds Pommes Fries. I’m not a big French fries person (I prefer onion rings) but I’ve been meaning to try “Long Island’s first Pommes Frites shop” so yesterday became the day.

Of course now I need to go back because there were so many French fries choices and other menu items! I went with parmesan crusted fries and a few dipping sauces. Initial response: Yum.

As for dinner, I keep loading my cast iron pan with all the veggies and plant-based proteins lately. This particular night was roasted sweet potatoes, peppers, onions, green beans, broccoli, and quinoa in a tomato type of sauce. I really want to create and share a recipe for my favorite diner even though it’s really not much of a recipe. It’s really simple with lots of variety.

Regarding the lentil soup recipe from my friend Lisa, she is totally going to give me the ingredients list and easy instructions this week so I will share that super soon! It was on me to text her to remind her and of course I didn’t but I will today.

[bctt tweet=”Recent Eats: Lunches + Dinners + French Fries! #recenteats #lunch #dinner #traderjoes #spudspommesfries #pommesfrites #panera” username=”cookiechrunicle”]

What have you been alternating for lunch lately?

Which types of English muffins do you like? Are you a peanut butter and jelly fan or do you leave off the jelly?

Are you good about buying enough at a time when you go to the grocery store?

Recipe Challenge: Vegan Sloppy Joe’s

 

It’s Friday which means it’s time for week #2 of the Recipe Challenge Laura and I created for ourselves!

In case you missed our first Recipe Challenge last week, you can check it out here. I loved those sweet potato, black bean and quinoa burgers. I had frozen a few of the burger patties from that recipe so I had one again earlier this week for dinner. It reheated really well and provided me with dinner in a pinch.

Before getting to this week’s recipe challenge, Lisa mentioned that she tried making the sweet potato, black bean and quinoa burgers and although she liked them, she said they took a really long time to make. Most likely the issue with making the burgers quickly revolves around baking the sweet potatoes required in the recipe. If you don’t have a chance to bake your sweet potatoes in advance, one trick I learned to quickly baking a sweet potato (or any potato) is to microwave it a bit first while preheating your oven to 450 degrees. I usually set the microwave to the potato setting and then when it beeps that there are only a few minutes remaining to cook, I take it out and switch the potato over to the oven.

It definitely reduces your baking time and still comes out tasting delicious!

This week’s recipe:

Laura suggested we try making this Double Bean Burger recipe from one of my top favorite blogs, How Sweet Eats. Of course I agreed since Jessica of How Sweet Eats is not only an amazing recipe creator but also one of most favorite bloggers (I love her recipes, pictures and especially her personality – she loves Lisa Frank as much as I do).

Only problem, the double bean burger recipe failed me. The burgers did not hold up at all in the pan and looked like mushed splattered cookie dough. I don’t know what I did wrong as I actually followed the directions, using the panko crumbs as the recipe required.

Laura on the other hand, had a wonderful experience with the recipe (read her review here) so this just goes to show you that sometimes recipes will work wonders for one person and not so much for the other!

While I didn’t retry that burger recipe, I did want to try something new for this week so I quickly switched gears to make these Anything Goes Vegan Sloppy Joe’s from Connoisseurus Veg.

This recipe worked PERFECTLY as a quick recipe substitute as I had basically all ingredients on hand.

The anything goes part of the vegan sloppy joe’s recipe title is key here because it allows you to work with any type of lentil/bean you have in the house rather than stick to a strict ingredient list. I don’t like strict recipes!

Here’s a snapshot of the ingredient list from Connoisseurus Veg’s pin to the recipe on Pinterest. It’s a pretty basic ingredients list which is another requirement for me if I am going to be cooking.

Preparation:

The vegan sloppy joe’s recipe is super easy to make and comes together really quickly. It’ a perfect weeknight meal when you are starving and have zero patience (um, that’s me every single night regardless of the day of the week) and can also be prepped in advance to reheat at a later time.

I didn’t have any carrots left in the house so I left them out of the recipe. I cut down the serving size by using only one can of chick peas and one red pepper but next time I make this recipe, I think I would want to make it in a bulk amount so that I have even more leftover to freeze! That’s how much I liked it.

Taste:

Loved it! It’s a nice light meal but rich in flavor and texture, leaving you satisfied but not overstuffed. I served it on a toasted Ezekiel roll because those are my favorite at the moment. The vegan sloppy joe’s mixture though would be perfect over a baked potato and roasted vegetables which is my next plan for this dish.

I loved the red pepper in this dish. I always liked red peppers but rarely remember to buy them in the store but that will now change. So much flavor! Next time I would like to try making the vegan sloppy joe’s with lentils or even a mix of lentils with chick peas and possibly through in some quinoa too.

Gosh, I love that I am playing around in the kitchen again. I am excited to plan next week’s recipe which I will talk to Laura about later today. Have a great weekend!

[bctt tweet=”recipe challenge: vegan sloppy joe’s! #recipe #vegan #sloppyjoes #pinterest @thisrunrecipes #recipechallenge” username=”cookiechrunicle”]

Have you had a recent recipe fail without knowing what went wrong?

Do you like sloppy joe’s? How do you normally serve them?

What are you doing this weekend?!

Lunch With Lisa!

 

You guys left the sweetest most thoughtful comments on yesterday’s post! I am still working on responding but wanted to thank you for sharing how you started your blog as well as for the nice things you had to say about mine. 🙂

I am also still waiting for my plug-in’s to be reactivated over here. If you don’t have a blog, plug-in’s are all the little features that help me run this site, things I don’t even think about anymore but really miss at the moment – spell check, social media sharing buttons, SEO stuff, spam filtering (OMG the amount of spam in my inbox!), and I can’t view my site statistics. Or respond to comments in my typical way.

But I am here! And it’s Friday! And I saw Lisa yesterday!

Lisa drove up to New York yesterday from Maryland for a wedding today so finally, we were able to meet! Our timing worked out perfectly because she was literally going in to be in my area at the exact time that I was free with enough time to meet her for a nice lunch at Bagel Basket. I was so happy to see her!

Chopped salads for lunch eaten while chatting about everything from growing up in New York to running and blogging and life and where I thought she should get her nails done real quick before heading to her hotel.

While I had never actually met Lisa in real life, of course it felt like I already knew her which is the one of the best things about having blog friends! In fact, before Lisa arrived at the bagel store, I ran into another friend of mine and told her I was meeting one of my friends for lunch, not realizing I should probably explain that it’s my blog friend who I don’t actually know yet but I already know so it’s not weird. But that wouldn’t have made much sense probably to anyone other than us blog reading and writing people.

Anyway.

I went food shopping last night with my son at Trader Joe’s which wasn’t exactly a good time since he makes fun of every product in the store yet loaded my cart with extras like Move Theater Popcorn, boxes of granola bars and tortillas for a recipe he claims he will make for himself.

I went there for Apple Cider Vinegar, I know I put the bottle in the cart, spent over seventy dollars and there’s no Apple Cider Vinegar in my pantry which means somehow, it never made it home. I don’t get it.

Did you see these new Shooting Star Cookies at Trader Joe’s? Sounds like a chocolate cookie covered in Pop Rocks candy?

Recipes of Interest:

We really need to get back to planning our dinners over here. It’s been a lot of random what do you want for dinner, we can’t keep eating out but okay just for tonight which is getting out of hand. The next two weeks are a little hectic so I am not sure which nights we will be home for dinner but for the nights we are, I am aiming to try some new and easy recipes.

Here’s what I have been pinning lately:

30 Easy Vegan Dinner Recipes – So many good options.

Italian Style Chickpea Burgers – A quick recipe that sounds delicious.

Zucchini Parmesan Sandwiches – I keep thinking about this recipe to serve on my Ezekiel rolls!

Mushroom Quinoa Meatball Sandwich – Must try.

One Skillet Mexican Quinoa – Really sounds easy, different and something my son may even eat!

Summer Pesto Grilled Vegetables with Penne – I just bought the black bean pasta for the first time, maybe I will use it in this recipe.

One Bowl Jumbo Chocolate Chunk Cookies (Vegan/Gluten Free) – Yum.

Peanut Butter Skillet Cookie – I love a giant cookie cake.

Have a great weekend!

3 things you are doing this weekend?

Have you tried black bean pasta yet? Is it good?

Did you like Pop Rocks as a kid? What was your favorite candy when you were younger?

A Boring Trader Joe’s Shop & Recipes of Interest

 

I found it so interesting to read the comments (which I am still responding to) on yesterday’s post regarding career choices. So many of us changed course from our original plan or figured out through the process of going to college and then living life what it was we wanted to do. This is probably worth discussing more often because most of the time, our initial choice or idea is not where we end up yet the knowledge and experience we gain from our education and job choices, even if we end up choosing another path, do benefit our future. Seriously, there isn’t a job position from my past that hasn’t helped me in some way to be where I am today.

Anyway.

I ended up doing most of our food shopping on Wednesday since my son was going to be off from school yesterday and today. I certainly didn’t want him tagging along because that would mean extra food thrown into the cart.

Nothing exciting or new going on in here, in fact, my cart at Trader Joe’s is getting boring.

I did remember to pick up another package of my favorite soap. The Oatmeal & Honey soap is my favorite.

Has anyone tried Trader Joe’s new Black Bean pasta? I still didn’t buy it. Please let me know if you have tried it and if it’s worth getting. Thanks.

At the buffet the other night in the 40/40 Club at the Islanders game, they had a delicious “Candy Apple Salad” which was really basic ingredient-wise. I should recreate it. I even have a few additional salad ingredient ideas in mind that would work really well in the combination.

In meal planning news, I made my son the Lemon Chicken Risotto recipe shared in last Friday’s recipe links post and it was a major success! It was really easy to make and my son LOVED IT. Like really loved it. He even ate it for dinner 3 nights in a row. I kept the chicken and risotto in separate containers just so he could add the chicken to salads or whatever, assuming he didn’t want risotto every night. I think the chicken part of the recipe will be a new staple in our recipe rotation.

I didn’t think ahead to our dinners for next week just yet, probably because he is off from school now and neither of us are up to thinking about getting back to routine for a few more days. I did find more good (and easy) recipes though!

Recipes of Interest:

One Pot Vegetarian Chili Mac

Roasted Cauliflower & Sweet Potato Nourish Bowl with Turmeric Tahini Dressing

Asparagus Stir-Fry with Sesame Miso Sauce

Lemon Roasted Asparagus

Herb-Roasted Tri-Colored Carrots

25 Tasty Ways to use Nutritional Yeast

30-Minute Vegetarian Meatballs

Spring Vegetable Strata

Dessert:

Paleo Apple Pie in a Jar < – Genius. Simple. Love it.

Dark Chocolate Avocado Truffles

Chocolate Covered Peanut Butter Eggs

Healthy Chocolate Banana Snack Cake

[bctt tweet=”Recipes of Interest #mealprep #mealplan #recipes #dinner #traderjoes #fitfluential”]

3 things you are doing this weekend?

Have you had the black bean pasta from Trader Joe’s or from somewhere else? Is it any good?

Are you off today?

A Singing Banana & Recipes of Interest

 

Anyone else crazy ready for the weekend? I know, me too. I totally need a break!

The good news is that my food shopping is basically done which frees up extra weekend time for things like restocking my moisturizers which all decided to run out at once and doing my son’s camp clothing shopping (and maybe my own warm weather shopping too).

I will ignore the fact that a snowstorm is on the horizon for Sunday. Let’s not talk about it.

A peak in my Trader Joe’s shopping cart from yesterday…

Nothing out of the norm in my cart although I did finally try Trader Joe’s frozen grilled cauliflower. It’s okay, nothing special, and I wouldn’t get it again. I can roast my own cauliflower.

I also stopped in to Stew Leonard’s for a few things which is always a good time. Not only is the smell incredible ( I think it’s the fresh donuts they are constantly making) but the scenery is entertaining too.

Who wouldn’t enjoy a dancing and singing banana while food shopping?

So after the whole surprise pizza ordering that my son pulled the other night, I realized we needed to chat about some of his dinners for the upcoming week to keep him from plotting another attack.

His dinner ideas were basic and acceptable, here’s what he requested:

Steak and baked potato < – I may not eat steak anymore but I still know how to make it real nice

Pizza night < – Making it at home, no ordering!

Subway night < – Fine, I can handle picking that up for a change

Breakfast for dinner < – omelets and home fries

I came across so many great recipes though I may want to tackle for myself and if my son is feeling friendly, maybe he will be open to something new too.

Let’s take a look!

Main Dishes:

Lemon Chicken Risotto < – convinced he will love this, hoping to make it for him Sunday!

Thai Peanut Burrito Bowls

Roasted Broccoli Quinoa Salad with Honey Mustard Dressing < – my kind of meal

Easy Baked Falafel < – looks so easy and we both like falafel

Portobello Mushroom Fajitas

Lentil Walnut Burgers

Sides:

Honey Glazed Roasted Carrots

How to Cook Perfect Quinoa & 10 Quinoa Recipes

16 Green Vegetable Sides

Low-Carb Cauliflower Tortillas – maybe they would work with the Portobello mushroom fajitas listed above?

Thai Peanut Hummus

Sweet Stuff:

Carrot Quinoa Oatmeal Breakfast Cookies

Vegan Chocolate Chunk Cookies for Two

Peanut Butter Coconut Power Breakfast Bars

I also keep meaning to make my flourless & grain gree fudge brownie bites all week! Hoping to get around to it this weekend 🙂

[bctt tweet=”A singing banana & recipes of interest #mealplanning #mealprep #recipes #stewleonards #traderjoes #fitfluential”]

3 things you are doing this weekend?

Have you been good about planning your dinners for the week or do you wing it?

 

 

What I Ate Wednesday 3.16.16

 

I woke up in a bit of a mood both Monday and Tuesday morning. Not tired per say, just moody. Now, of course there’s always that chance that my moodiness may just be a product of my ever-charming, often hormonally driven + Gemini + Jewish mother + New Yorker personality but that wasn’t quite it.

It took me until Tuesday morning, as I grumbled my way in the dark over to the treadmill, to realize that I was in fact in a mood because of daylight savings time!

I was really enjoying the early morning light lately for my runs and now it’s gone. Waking up in the dark and having to run indoors on the treadmill again because it’s dark outside even though it’s after 6:00 am is not nice. I am ready for Spring, okay?

I realize that with each passing day comes an earlier sunrise so I am just focusing on trying to remain early morning pleasant as best as I can but I am not doing a very good job of it so my advice is to avoid me until at least 9:00 am.

Or maybe 10:00 am. Or just send me a text that way I don’t have to answer until I feel like it.

Anyway.

Let’s take a look at what I ate on Monday which might as well be What I ate on Tuesday too since I basically ate the same foods both days.

Breakfast:

I refuse to part with my son’s baby bowls and dishes. In fact, I like to use them still for snacks. And on Monday, I used his Gerber Baby Bunch a Bowls as a bowl for my pre-run oatmeal.

Clearly my photos are not staged for these posts. Ha

After my run, I made a protein pancake (similar to this recipe only I added Skoop) which flipped really well, didn’t it? Even with the blueberries in the center!

Lunch:

Since I had frozen yogurt for lunch both Saturday and Sunday, I went back to basics to start the week. Eggs on toasted cinnamon raisin Ezekiel bread with avocado and a side of roasted asparagus which I bought on sale this week.

I haven’t had a Synergy Kombucha in a while so I treated myself to a bottle while I was out after lunch.

Dinner:

I love a good plant based power bowl. Quinoa, roasted broccoli, brussels sprouts and sweet potato wedges. I added avocado and a maple Dijon vinaigrette? Sauce? I don’t know what to call it but whatever it is, I made it myself and it’s real tasty.

Dessert:

Back to my old favorite – a granny smith apple with peanut butter.

Don’t forget to check out what everyone else is eating today 🙂

[bctt tweet=”what I ate Wednesday #WIAW #recenteats #daylightsavings #running #fitfluential “]

Has the time change been bothering you?

What was for dinner last night?

What’s on the workout agenda today?

About That Ezekiel Bread & Meal Prep Recipes

 

The highlight of my day yesterday was seeing that someone googled the following phrase that somehow brought them to my blog:

“Telling someone off sarcastically“

Usually people find my blog by asking google if it’s okay to eat cake as a meal but telling people off? Sarcastically? Ha.

Anyway.

With my son home sick and not eating normally, in addition to polishing off his grapes, I took the liberty of eating some of his Chobani 100 vanilla greek yogurt since it was about to expire.

Such a genius move.

I don’t have a picture of my post-run breakfast but it involved my blueberry pie oatmeal served COLD (including the blueberries which were frozen) with a scoop of Chobani 100 vanilla greek yogurt mixed in. I highly recommend this combo anytime, especially post-run, because it’s a filling meal containing a good mix of complex carbohydrates and protein.

I am so glad that last Friday I made the decision to not plan our dinners for this week. As a meatless eater, I am totally able to wing my meals since nothing needs to be defrosted and so much can be prepared on the fly. For my son though, I do need to plan a little bit more ahead if it means defrosting chicken or steak in preparation for his dinner. Since he has not been eating normally, the only foods I have been preparing are toast with jelly and English muffin pizzas, making me glad I didn’t defrost anything that would have gone to waste!

Speaking of toast, I finally contacted Food For Life to tell them about that randomly wrong cinnamon raisin Ezekiel bread I bought recently at Trader Joe’s. Remember, the loaf I got was just not the usual texture or flavor and was missing almost all of the raisins?

Although they think there might have been a problem with quality control and are sending me a coupon, I learned something new about buying my favorite Ezekiel bread at Trader Joe’s:

I did go to Trader Joe’s before receiving this email this week and I did get a new loaf which tastes the way it should and certainly wasn’t moldy but this is still something to think about. The email also informed me that the loaf in question was from December which means Trader Joe’s had it somewhere in their stock for a few months before putting it out on shelves.

What I now wonder is that since Trader Joe’s is clearly selling me bread that has been defrosted, is it wrong for me to then take that loaf and keep it in the freezer? I wonder if that will affect the overall flavor and texture. I may email her back to ask. Sometimes I do store my Ezekiel breads in the freezer since we don’t always eat the slices that quickly, otherwise, I store the loaves in the fridge.

Oh and before I forget, I picked up this new dressing for my son because my dad said it’s good – have you tried it?

A few things that I want to prep for the week ahead:

Quinoa & Lentils – I like to cook them together for a good balance of texture and protein!

Spicy Black Bean & Lentil Chili – Love this chili recipe. Will probably add the quinoa/lentil mix.

This chicken recipe for my son. He loves the spices of this recipe and enjoys the chicken served hot with a baked potato or cold in a salad.

Meatless Meatballs – I ran out of my freezer stash.

Recipes of interest:

Crispy Baked Sweet Potato Fries & Homemade BBQ Sauce (Paleo & Vegan) – I must make this bbq sauce!

Easy Garlic Ranch Potatoes

What To Cook This March

Bagel Avocado Toast with Pears, Tomato & Meditarreanan Garlic Lemon Olive Oil Dressing

Spiced Cauliflower with Tahini

Almond Flour Coconut Sugar Cookies

Cadbury Mini Egg Cookies

30 Scientifically Proven Post Run Meals for Optimal Recovery

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Any funny search engine terms to your site lately?

3 things you are doing this weekend?

Are you an Ezekiel bread eater?