I only have one picture for you tonight! At least it’s a good one.
I was so hungry today!! Stomach grumbling, hollow belly hungry. I had a clementine + Larabar this afternoon while finishing work.
Since Nick and I have football watching plans tomorrow, we went to get groceries right after work before heading home.
Well, we got the groceries done, but then we decided to try this new Chinese place in town.
It. was. crazy.
Seriously – it was packed in there! I think the whole town was there, and our table ended up being right in front of the doors where the line of people were waiting to be seated.
I ended up not taking my camera out for pictures because it was just nuts. We had people standing right behind our tables, all around us, and another 2-top table right beside us. The food was pretty good, I guess.
I haven’t been to a Chinese buffet-type place in a while – everything I had tasted good, but I’m just a little afraid my stomach might revolt :\ Right now, I’m feeling okay. It’s just been a while since I’ve had that kind of fried/greasy food, you know? I had a bunch of green beans, some mushrooms, some chicken + broccoli and this black pepper chicken that was super spicy.
So, no dinner pictures, but I had a lot of things happen today that made me think of blogger friends! So I thought I’d spread the love.
– I saw a Pug Calendar in the bookstore today that made me think of Tina and Murphy
– I saw The Pioneer Woman Cooks cookbook in the bookstore, today, too, and- besides making me super excited to see it – it also made me think of Rose and a conversation we had earlier :)
– The locally made chocolate milk in our grocery store made me think of one of my favorite girls named Olga that had been teasing everyone with hers for a while!
– I finally saw Smuttynose IPA, Erin! I didn’t buy it tonight, but I totally thought of you.
– Nick and I saw sweet potatoes in the grocery store tonight that were, honestly, the size of my head. One looked just like a bike helmet. I knew VeggieGirl could appreciate a huge sweet potato since she loves them so much!
– Although I didn’t buy any tonight, I found a bunch of frozen waffles that I’ve been wanting to try – and those all made me think of Janetha.
I know there were more, but I can’t remember them all!
Either way, it was a fun day :)
We have a lazy night ahead, and I’m happy for it. Tomorrow morning will be pretty low key, but busy around here. I’m already in my pajamas, so I know couch time is coming up.
Leftover acorn squash + ww pasta with simple tomato sauce.
and roasted broccoli!
Since I just have leftovers, albeit good ones, for lunch, I thought I would post my Honest Scrap!
I got tagged by Camille, one of the awesome bloggers I met in San Francisco a few weeks ago.
I’m supposed to list 10 things people probably don’t know about me, so here we go!
1. I took piano lessons for 4 or 5 years, and I miss playing.
2. My Pampaw used to have a bright orange VW Beetle and I wanted it!
3. On the way to piano one night, a guy that cut my dad off while driving pulled up beside us at a stoplight and showed my dad his gun by pointing it towards our car through his window. I didn’t see it…since I was a nerd and was reading a Babysitter’s Club book with my awesome book light.
4. I hate Williams Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying. Maybe because I’ve had to read it a million times?
5. I went through a stage in my late high school/early college years where I only shopped at Hot Topic, I dyed my hair dark red, and I gauged my ears (eventually) to a size 0. I’m sure my parents are happy that phase is over.
6. My little sister and I used to dress up in my dad’s sweats, stuff pillows in our sweatshirts and pants and “sumo wrestle” on our trampoline.
7. Even though we’re 3 years apart, teachers in our high school used to ask me and my older sister if we were twins.
8. Although I was an English major, I haven’t read most of the “classics”.
9. I want to write a cookbook! Maybe more than one, but at least one.
10. I am ridiculously excited for Thanksgiving – family, friends, my mom’s fudge pie, Black Friday shopping…it’s the best.
Instead of tagging people, list a few things in the comments! I want to know you better, too ;)
Well, today wasn’t as hard as I thought it would be!
I had some almonds + dried apricots around 3 this afternoon, and then some Amazing Grass + almond milk at 4:30 to get me through the end of the work day.
Dinner…I wasn’t so sure how it would turn out.
It wasn’t that I thought it would taste bad – I just didn’t know how it would work without cheese.
My meal plan for this week included quesadillas – and you kinda’ need cheese to hold everything together.
Or maybe you don’t!
I had planned on making roasted kabocha + bean quesadillas with this spicy jack cheese, but those plans got changed a bit on Saturday when neither grocery store had kabocha! The nerve.
I bought 2 sweet potatoes instead and decided they would work fine.
Everything else in my plan stayed the same, except I just didn’t put cheese in mine.
And I think it turned out to be a great vegan / vegetarian meal!
For the quesadilla filling, I diced 2 sweet potatoes and coated them with some grapeseed oil, ancho chile powder, cumin, and salt and roasted them in the oven at 450 for about 35-40 minutes.
While the potatoes were cooking, I got everything else ready.
drained/rinsed pinto beans
chopped avocado, lettuce, scallions, cilantro
steamed some corn
got tortillas, cheese (for Nick) and salsa out of the fridge
After the potatoes were cooked, I layered some potatoes and pinto beans (plus avocado and scallion for me) in between 2 tortillas and let it crisp up in the pan. Flip it once, cut, and serve!
It was so good! I loved the spices on the potatoes with the avocado chunks and beans.
I had a few renegade beans and potato chunks that tried to escape mine, but it held together pretty well without the cheese! I think it would have been even better had I mashed the beans a bit or if the avocado was ripe enough to just mash into the tortillas.
All in all, it was a good meal! Even Nick said he liked it.
I’m actually feeling a bit hungry now, so I’m pretty sure I’ll be having some of my microwave popcorn tonight ;)
Being vegan for a day was much easier than I thought it would be. Which is interesting to me since I’m not even a vegetarian.
I thought it would be a fun challenge to take on, and it was! It made me be more creative with what I put together for meals today, and I’m always up for coming up with new ideas.
I think this would be an interesting challenge for everyone to take on at some point in their lives, just to see how much we (as a country) rely on animal products and to find out that you can go through an entire day without them.
I don’t think I’ll be going vegan anytime soon, but it definitely gave me a lot to think about. I’ve actually cut most dairy from my diet in the past few months, mostly because I was trying to figure out if that’s what was causing some of my stomach issues. I mean, I used to have a glass of milk with breakfast every morning! Now, if I have something, it’s yogurt or maybe a little cheese…and every now and then, ice cream :)
Even though I am still a meat eater, I do try to get as many things locally that I can and buy meat/dairy from places that treat their animals humanely.
I think just knowing how the food system here works and doing whatever you can to help is a good thing.
That may mean being vegan.
It may mean supporting all your local farmers, no matter what they produce.
I think the biggest thing is to figure out what works for you, in every aspect of your life.
No diet is perfect for everyone, and I think as long as you give it thought and figure out what you want to do to keep yourself healthy and happy, that’s all you need.
I can say that I’m happy I did this! Thanks to everyone that promoted this and all the others that went vegan for a day.
And I’m out – I’ve got popcorn to eat and football/The Office to watch!
