Leftover creativity

You guys KNOW I didn’t leave the East Bay without hitting up WF for my favorite salad right??

It’s packed with sooo many nuts and 9 different whole grains, and lentils and kale and feta, gah.  It’s heavenly. The ratio of everything is hard to nail down on my own.  I just love this version so so much.  Anyway, I bought enough for two lunches this week so of course it was gone by Tuesday. 😛

I still hadn’t made it grocery shopping for reals (I didn’t go til mid week which is so unlike me but we had heaps of Mexican food leftovers to get us by).

We had nachos on Monday night with the shredded meat, chips and tomatoes from El Charro.  I added avo and cheese (vegan for everyone but Kyle) to turn it into ooey gooey melty goodness.

Packed up the kids’ lunches for the next day right then and there because we had a Tuesday adventure on the cal.

Still continuing with the chia pudding phase…this time with peanut butter on top.

We spent the day at the Lake Folsom for my bestie’s birthday.  She loves it here and we had never been so it only made sense.  It was so calm and peaceful and the perfect thing to do with kids in the summer.

Rough life, huh.

Eventually we made it home for dual naps (P fell asleep on the way back even in a car full of kiddos so I just plopped him down on the couch and he stayed asleep for another hour or so).  And then I had to sort out what we were doing for dinner.

Once again, I managed to create something out of what we had on hand (because I still hadn’t gone to the store!).

I ended up picking a ton of chard from the garden to sauté with leftover pork.

I added tamari, coconut aminos, and sesame oil to spin it in the Asian direction.  And then sesame seeds.

Finished off with cashews.

I gave Kyle the spicy nuts (they are the Thai flavored ones from Tjs) and I used leftover sticky sweet cashews from this meal for me.

So good!

I love cashews, but P isn’t a fan, so I don’t use them as much in cooking as I’d like to.  I gave him sunflower seeds instead in this case.  He loved the meal so much that I ended up saving the leftovers and giving them to him the next day for lunch.  The kids certainly don’t seem to mind eating chard all day long!  I had leftover mac n cheese for V that wasn’t enough for both kids so it actually worked out perfectly.  I love when small amounts of things get used up.

P is very lucky that the portion remaining wasn’t bigger because both Kyle and I wanted these leftovers.

After dinner, my side kick helped me pack some food up for Kyle.

He was leaving early the next morning for a quickie work trip (just two days) and much of it was on the road…so I thought I’d pack food for him so he wouldn’t have to rely on random gas station fare.

Dessert timeeeeeee.

I had a lot of time the next morning before stroller strides so I picked some nectarines.  And by some I mean 70.  How perfect that we JUST finished off the last jar of nectarine jam from last year’s crop (notice the plum jar in the photo above instead of the nectarine).  I think I say that every year!  We always seem to ration the jam I make from summer fruit so perfectly.

Lunch salad ingredients:

• butternut squash noodles
• arugula
• smoked salmon
• pecorino romano
• sun dried tomato pesto

SOOOOOO good!

And now I will close with that meal from Wednesday because it was the last before we finally made it to the store!  Empty fridge no more…

Nor an empty freezer!! Hurray!!!  Guess what is back in stock!!!  [I bought 10]  😛