January is here and all that jazz. Resolutions, fresh starts, yadda yadda. Moving on.
With blogging, the more time that passes, the further behind I get, and then I get overwhelmed and don’t know how or where to start. I fear if I don’t just post something – anything – it may be February. So here it goes.
December 29th
Breakfast: lactation cookies (both flavors) and coffee [well rounded]
Lunch: kale and cabbage salad with avocado, sunflower seeds, and grapes [also copious amounts of Brianna’s poppyseed dressing]
Sips: Rebbl maca mocha [been eyeing these for months and months and finally caved – they are $$$$ but it turns out that’s because they are delicious. FRICK. can you hear that? it’s the sound of my credit card spontaneously combusting in the whole foods checkout aisle]
Dinner: Unphotographed mystery meal?? [maybe leftovers?]
Dessert: chocolate to the infinity power
…skipping ahead a bit…
January 1st
Breakfast: banana waffles with Earth Balance [a lot a lot a lot]
Lunch: massaged kale salad with lentils, Sabra’s roasted red pepper hummus, hemp seeds, red wine vinegar and olive oil [prepped a TON for lunches throughout the week]
Sips: TJs triple ginger brew [from Santa baby]
Dinner: quinoa, kale and white beans soup (stew?) with baked “meatballs”
Dessert: more Christmas chocolate [duh]
Check out my food prepping for the new year!
Left: Roasted walnuts with rosemary, thyme, and (heavy on the) salt. Right: Pressed and cubed ‘fu.
January 2nd
Breakfast: leftover waffles with almond butter and mega coffee
Lunch: leftover kale salad with lentils and avocado
Favorite reason to hear the doorbell ring, everrrrrrr.
Dinner: freezer meal green enchilada casserole
Dessert: chocolates from the pyramid and the mixed nuts seen above
January 3rd
Breakfast: smoothie with Vega sport chocolate protein powder, frozen banana, flax meal, almond milk, and ice topped with granola
Lunch: kale and cabbage salad with poppyseed dressing and avocado and Mary’s Gone crackers
Dinner: vegan kale and white bean korma x2 [I doubled the recipe so I could bring dinner to a friend who needed help]
Served over brown rice.
Dessert: chocolate mclovin’
January 4th
Breakfast: waffle french toast
I wanted something special on Monday because it felt like a big deal after a couple of weeks with Kyle’s help to go back to the solo grind. Parenting is obviously a labor of love (extreme love and a choice I feel super lucky to have) but the chaos of the holidays left me feeling weirdly nervous about Monday after our little routine had been abandoned for so long. Anyway, that’s all just my long winded way of saying I made something special for myself on Monday morning because why the hell not? I was thinking 2016 was going to be the year I work on self care but I can’t even commit to the potential of it. Writing it out makes me feel silly, because I know I’m doing it for the sake of accountability but I also know I probably won’t do anything differently. When push comes to shove, the mom guilt is like the devil on my shoulder whispering illogical things into my ear to prevent me from doing anything close to a #treatyoself. Not meant to be a pity party, just keeping things honest. Life is great, but I struggle and any moms reading can relate, I’m sure.
I made pancakes for the kiddos too, so we all had a luxurious breakfast (but not too drawn out since we hit up the train museum with friends that morning).
P.S. sunbutter on top
Lunch: kale and cabbage salad with sunflower seeds and avocado
Dinner: kumquat glazed chicken thighs based on this recipe [basically I just used my own home-made kumquat jam instead of apricot jam and made it on the stove] served over broccoli slaw fried rice
Dessert: Theo peppermint stick chocolate and mixed nuts [plus an unpictured chocolate “chippie” from the batch of cookies we made Santa]
January 5th
Breakfast: smoothie with berries and granola [same ingredients as the previous]
Lunch: leftover kale and slaw salad [prepared in bulk in case you didn’t sense that] with tuna salad [also prepped in bulk for everyone’s lunches]
Dinner: moroccan carrot salad with millet
I added roasted chickpeas to the recipe to make it a meal instead of a side. I spy a kitchen side kick.
I didn’t think red onions were my jam, but as it turns out, they are a whole different beast when they are roasted. Pretty legit if I’m being honest.
I prepped it in advance because we had a make up swimming class late on Tuesday night, which means we get home late and need a ready to go dinner.
All I did when I got home from swimming was (change clothes) add pomegranate arils and serve us up.
P ate this!!!! Lots of it!! And the leftovers the next day!
Initially I served him a few of the components separately because (a) I wasn’t sure if the ras el hanout I had was allergen free and (b) I truly didn’t think he’d like the spices and herbs – alone or in combo.
But he proved me wrong ad that was a treat! For the record, I got the ras el hanout as a gift a while ago and since it was from a fancy spice shop, it didn’t have a label or anything saying what was in it. I googled the blend though and felt comfortable giving it to him once I saw there was no chance of it having peanuts, tree nuts, or sesame in it. In case you don’t have the spice blend, the link has a recipe to make it yourself. It’s all stuff you’d have on hand, so it wouldn’t require a separate trip to a specialty store.
We all really enjoyed it, and like I said, the leftovers were claimed by the toddler – so just let that be an indication of the yum.
Dessert: Tanzania bar from the chocolate passport [I got this from Santa too and have been so excited to try it. So far, very impressed. It tastes way richer than Trader Joe’s chocolate, that’s for sure.]
January 6th
Breakfast: banana waffles with Earth Balance
The upside to being up at 5 am is you have plenty of time to do stuff in the morning before your first activity (in this case Music class at 9:30). Case in point, the above waffles were one of three batches I made because I was up and whatever.
Lunch: his on the left and mine on the right [leftovers all around]
Dinner: baked potatoes with the works [I baked them in the oven coated in oil so the skin got nice and crispy and then we topped them with cheese (Daiya for me), roasted corn, kidney beans, and salsa. P doesn’t like potatoes so this was the night he had the leftover Moroccan millet dish. He ate a ton of “kid” beans too.]
Dessert: more from the chocolate passport and more chocolate “chippies” [I have zero interest in cutting out sugar or desserts in the new year, in case you couldn’t tell]
January 7th
Breakfast: leftover waffles with sunbutter
Lunch: kale salad AGAINNNNNN [with Mary’s Gone crackers]
Dinner: leftover vegan white bean and kale korma with white rice
Dessert: TJs fireworks chocolate bar (I missed this one!!!) + the rest of the Tanzania chocolate bar + almond kisses
January 8th
Breakfast: smoothie with granola [you know the drill by now]
Lunch: kale salad with Beyond Meat strips
I was extraordinarily starving this day for some random reason and despite including an entire avocado (and seeds and such) in with my massaged greens, I knew I needed more oomph. So I pulled these Beyond Meat “chicken-free strips” out (they were already thawed because I pulled them from the freezer earlier in the week).
After all that, I still needed an afternoon snack too. Ravenous much?
Dinner: quinoa, spinach, and roasted butternut squash with this almond butter dressing
I had forgotten about Chef AJs “Hail to the Kale” salad and was brainstorming a sauce to add to the squash, quinoa, spinach combo that I have been craving for such a long time. Remember how bowls like these used to be my favorite meal ever? Add in seitan and it would be like 2012 all over again.
P loved this meal like crazy and ate another bowl after his was gone. Must be some good saucy sauce.
Dessert: the last of the “real deal chocolate chippies” and the rest of the TJs firecracker bar
*Please note, I did not include my snacks or beverages because I was too lazy to photograph things as I took handfuls or sips here and there. The batch walnuts I roasted were key in keeping healthier things in my mouth but I still re-opened the forbidden romance that is the Quest bar. I was really late to that party, but a few months ago they entered my life and try as I might, it’s hard to shake them. They taste soooo good but man is the ingredients list long. Yogi ginger tea is another daily thing I do. Usually during the 4 second overlap in nap times around 230. It’s short but blissful. Kombucha is a once a week treat that I wish I could make daily, but the triple ginger brew stood in for those cravings this past week. Oh! I also haven’t gone to Starbucks in over a week!! This is a big deal because I started getting into a bad bad habit back in November and then I found out they were possibly opening a drive through near me and well, yeah, I needed to take a step back. I’m kinda in shock I made it this long. Now I have a streak and I’m inspired to keep it going.
It’s been so long since I’ve caught up! We have a new baby so juggling that. I remember seeing that P tolerated walnuts now – is he able to eat all tree nuts now?! This gives me so much hope!
He tolerates almonds and walnuts! We haven’t tried any others because his blood and skin tests still showed reactions to cashews, pistachios, and hazelnuts. Haven’t tried pecans yet, although they are supposed to be in the same category as walnuts so in theory, he should be okay with them. How are things with you guys! How old is your littlest now?
Thats incredible! Do you avoid cross contamination on the tree nuts or is he mostly okay with any brands since a lot of them run on shared lines? I hope we can get there one day! Mason turns three in a couple weeks and we have new allergy testing done every year so my hope is to see more numbers continue to decline. Baby sister is 3 months old, and we just moved from Southern California to Connecticut to be closer to family – it’s been chaos! I’ve missed reading your blog for a variety of reasons but allergy friendly suggestions especially 🙂 Two kids is no joke! I’m so impressed you can keep up with cooking and blogging!
I meant to ask, are you having Valerie tested? Our old allergist suggested to do so with baby sis around six months and if no known allergies – to start feeding peanuts immediately to hopefully eliminate the risk of developing the allergy at a later time. Seems so complicated. And scary!
always the best food and chocolate! keep the great posts coming!
I’m getting a little more lax with it but I still read labels and email companies pretty regularly (although I don’t branch out anymore from certain trusted companies). I have given him different a different brand of sun butter – that shares equipment with sesame and tree nuts, but not peanuts – without issue but I emailed the company about their cleaning practices and such first and felt comfortable with it. I feel like it will always be a gamble to some degree. I completely know the two kid chaos! It is really hard some times. Sometimes I go weeks without blogging and I really miss it. Sometimes I feel like I’m hardly making anything inspired but I miss being in the kitchen so I still try to do at least one or two new dishes a week but they are such basic things. And don’t get me started on mom guilt. Ugh.
Anyway…I don’t have plans to try new foods with P any time soon, since dairy and wheat went unsuccessfully. But now that he can tolerate almonds it’s making a WORLD of difference. I have tried almonds soy and dairy with V and all have been tolerated completely normally. YAY! I haven’t done any other tree nuts with her – or sesame or wheat or peanuts – and I’m not inclined to any time soon since they share toys and basically it just seems pointless. I think she will be fine because she doesn’t have any of the other eczema, spit up, etc issues he had, but who knows…at this point I don’t think early vs delayed introducing will be a factor at all. But what do I know – there are new studies every day!
Hope things in Connecticut are settling down and your family is being a help in offering support. Let me know if you try anything when Mason turns three and how it turns out.
I just realized you’ve probably been so busy with baby girl, you may not have seen the posts about our Stanford thing. If so, nevermind, but if not here’s what the last round of testing revealed.
http://www.hungryhungryhippie.com/allergy-trial-update/
Still haven’t gotten into a study or anything…just waiting in case they conduct one.
I always love seeing your food pics! I still have hope that my 2.5 yr old will start being less picky one of these days….I’d love to see what’s in those Thrive Market boxes, too! 🙂
I did read that one! I’ve been following some oral immunotherapy mom’s groups on Facebook too, in hopes that maybe one day we will be able to start treatment. From what I’m reading, the results are remarkable. And I believe now some physicians are doing more than one allergen at a time!
That’s kind of the approach I want to take with my youngest, I’m hesitant to have her eating peanuts and risk Mason having a terrible reaction. She has mild cradle cap but zero eczema and spit up issues so I hope she’s in the clear. We’ll see!
There is a another study in Sac that we know a 7 year old in who can now tolerate peanuts but the program is SOOOO INTENSE that the protocol is so life altering – it is maybe even worse than having an allergy. We looked into it but our insurance doesn’t cover it and (as you can imagine) it’s $$$$$$. Worth keeping our eye on though…
What dressing do you usually use on your kale salads? I’ve been eating kale salads almost daily for lunch with an easy homemade dressing (light mayo, dijon mustard, apple cider vinegar, salt, pepper) and I toss in cranberries, blue cheese crumbles and chopped walnuts or raw almonds. It always hits the spot but I’m looking for alternate, ideally somewhat healthy, homemade dressings. Thanks!
MMMmmmm…that sounds so good! Minus the bleu cheese part (not a fan). I either make my own basic dijon lemon vinaigrette (similar to yours) or I just massage olive oil and avocado into the kale or I do a mayo/red wine vinegar combo. Basically I rotate those three things depending on my mood. For store bought stuff I use Brianna’s poppyseed dressing which I LOVEEEEEEE. I go in phases with buying it though, since Brianna’s isn’t cheap and it seems so silly spending $$ on salad dressing. I just bought a new dressing from Thrive that I’m excited to try so I will let you know how it is. Here’s the link to it: https://thrivemarket.com/food/condiments-sauces/salad-dressings-croutons/primal-kitchen-honey-mustard-vinaigrette-featuring-avocado-oil
I love all the plant based meals here! And how exciting that P loved the corrot millet salad and can have an almond butter sauce 🙂
I’m also perpetually eating massaged kale salads from a huge batch i make at the beginning of the week so it’s nice to see what your additions are.
Trader joe’s chocolates are so good! They really had the best selection this holiday season.
I never have liked the texture or ingredient list of quest bars- my favorite bar now is Clif Builder bars. They’re vegan and have 20g protein, and keep me full for several hours! The vanilla almond is my favorite- i’ve found the best price at trader joe’s ($1.50/bar)
Your kitchen side kick is adorable! So cute 🙂
I am catching up on your posts now and am just getting to this one. I am even more impressed with your blogging with kiddos now! My little one came unexpectedly at 32 weeks when we were out of town for Christmas and we were in the NICU for 3.5 weeks and have been home for about a month now, and I have no time to do anything! This is basically the first time I have opened my computer all week and I have over 200 emails to go through. The house is a mess and there is chaos everywhere and it is driving me crazy, but baby girl loves to be held and won’t really sleep unless she is on one of us, which puts a damper on computer time, cleaning, eating, showering (ha!) etc. I totally understand your mom guilt! Anyway, just a quick note to say that I think you are amazing for blogging and cooking as much as you do with two little munchkins. My husband is lucky if I have dinner started when he gets home from work, much less already made and ready to go, lol. I don’t know how you do it! But I love reading your posts and seeing your meals–it gives me ideas and hope for when I actually get to get into the kitchen and cook again!
Courtney
First off CONGRATS!!!! Baby girl is healthy and that’s all that matters. Next is making sure you feel supported though. Don’t set any unrealistic goals or place unnecessary pressure on yourself because in the end, all that matters is how you and your family are bonding. Nothing anyone else thinks or says matters. As for the cooking and cleaning and whatever else…it will happen again! It seems crazy now, but whenever you are ready, you’ll re-emerge and get the hang of things.
How was the NICU? Is everything ok now? I am thinking of you.
Thanks so much, Elise! The NICU was awful…we were staying at the Ronald McDonald house down the street from the hospital and I cried every night when we left her. She was so tiny and vulnerable! It was not a good experience, and we fought with the doctors and nurses daily about breast feeding, formula, bottles, etc. The lactation consultants at the hospital were encouraging formula! It was crazy. Anyway, we are home now and it is so much better. I have yet to get a workout in which is frustrating, but I am hopeful she will start to have a routine and a schedule soon. Right now she does things differently every day, so it is hard to predict and plan for a workout when I am alone with her all day and she is nursing constantly. Like you said, though, it will happen eventually! Hopefully 😉 I am just so grateful to have her home and healthy that really I can’t be too upset about anything.