I usually don’t photograph my lunch scene…but I decided that it would hold me accountable as I try to stay on track and keep my sweet tooth in check. It’s all about staying ahead of the game. Preparation is KEY to healthy snacking success.
Kale, broccoli slaw, dried cranberries, sunflower seeds, avocado, (home-made) spicy mayo dressing. Plus home-made crackers.
You’ll notice a LOT of crackers in the following pics. I am making them on repeat and repeat and repeat and repeat.
Baby kale, broccoli slaw, edamame, dried cranberries, avocado, home-made crackers.
Left: Kale salad, broccoli slaw, sunflower seeds, dried cranberries, avocado, mayo dressing and crackers.
Right: Tuna salad with celery, grapes, sunflower seeds with carrots and pop corners to scoop.
Leftover chickpea quinoa salad, spinach, shredded carrots, cucumber, and avocado.
I had seconds of this a little bit later. I’m insatiable and pounding plant based things all day long makes me feel awesome, so I don’t even care how many heaping portions I’m eating.
I sometimes make enough for multiple servings which (you’d think) would last a few days but I often end up eating the whole thing over the course of the day.
Kale, broccoli slaw, dried cranberries, sunflower seeds, mayo dressing and crackers.
Kale and leftover shredded chicken salad (shredded chicken, mayo, celery).
I just discovered this organic baby kale lettuce from TJs and I’m so into it. And as you probably deduced from what I’ve already shared, the kale and broccoli slaw combo is, like, be still my heart good.
The next week I swapped my mayo dressing for this liquid gold vinaigrette.
I am averaging 1-2 avocados per lunch these days which feels like a little much but meh. Whatever. I can’t decide if it’s excessive or not.
Edamame is my new go to lunch protein. I wish P could eat soy.
Do I even need to caption these?
Tuna salad (because I ran out of greens) and celery, mayo, mustard, salt and pepper and home-made crackers.
More of that.
Kale and chicken salad again.
Beyond Meat’s grilled “chickn” with broccoli slaw, spinach, and dijon mayo dressing.
Plus pomegranate seeds.
My parents were in town and treated me to Nugget. Broke my salad streak, but dang is this sando ever legit.
Leftover quinoa and broccoli salad with spinach, and avo.
I made this in the big serving bowl that the quinoa was still in (thinking it would be enough for two days’ lunches)…and yeah, we all can guess how that turned out, right?
Mayo is the best best best base for dressing. My obsession is a tie between home-made crackers and mayo as a dressing. Oh, and avocado. Oh, and kale. Ok, so as you can see, I have four MUSTS and after that, the rest is just whatever.
After my first portion I thought I should feel full. But I didn’t. I tried hard not to overanalyze it, but I ended up eating the entire remaining part. Which amounted to 1/4 cup mayo and an entire avocado…with a bunch of plants. Is that gross? Don’t answer that. Fat fat fat fat. It helps with the absorption of all the nutrients in the veggies.
I know it’s cool to hate on kale right now and call it overrated, but I legitimately love it. Same with quinoa. Why do people think healthy food isn’t good? Lame.
The secret to making my crackers hold together is ground flax. And the secret to them being ridiculously yummy is coconut oil.
Slaw, kale, dried cranberries, avocado, mayo dressing (and unpictured crackers, duh).
And then I discovered this sweet kale vegetable salad bag mix by Eat Smart…
OH. EM. GEE. Gonna be buying these from Costco forever and ever more. You can find them in the refrigerated walk-in produce section – where carrots and lettuce and berries and stuff are. It was next to the other big bags of plain lettuce. I am so glad it caught my eye. I am so in love. I add avocado to it for even more oomph. The whole bag makes “nine” servings but I’d say it lasts 3-4 for me if I add in some extra greens and avo.
Can’t stop won’t stop. And the best part about it is I can prep multiple servings at once (in advance of when it will be needed) and then it’s there for me when I’m at my wits end with the chaos of life and can’t fathom how to put together something decent and healthy for myself. No thinking required. It’s there and it’s delicious. Perfect for a mom with minions to watch over. Or anyone stressed and busy and looking to make good food choices when time is of the essence.
[If I sounds lame for whining about being overworked and run down it’s because I’ve been seriously feeling a floods of hormones and lack of sleep lately and I don’t love it, but I won’t apologize for it because I am honoring my emotions to validate myself and my feelings. I realize I have the luxury of being a stay at home mom, which many do not, and for that reason I have these feelings of guilt bearing down on me. It stems from the “just” word. I’m not working out of the house, I’m just a mom. I grappled with these feelings previously – back when I quit my job and felt weird about my potential career implosion – but apparently they are all resurfacing now. I don’t know why, but I’m putting pressure (in excess, some might argue) on myself to get my act together. If I were giving a friend in my position advice I’d probably be way kinder and have way more compassion, but for some reason I hold myself to standards that anyone and everyone would fall short of. Perfectionist problems. So yeah, I’m blaming it on hormones and sleep deprivation.]
Wow, that was a tangent. So back to salads.
I was with my family in Lake Tahoe for several days and I took a break from (food) photography during that point, so you’ll just have to imagine some yummy salads and some yummy non-salads. I ate well for the most part though. Indulgences are a part of balance. I kept the kale train going though because it’s what I crave.
More of the same. Sorry if you’ve tuned out.
Once I figured out the exact way to make the Costco and TJs salads that I love so so much I started making copycat versions of them in huuuuge portions. But that doesn’t mean I didn’t cheat and buy the pre-made kind every once in a while…just to make life easier when time (read: nap schedules) was not on my side.
Add 200% more crackers to every photo for a more accurate representation of the lunch.
And baby carrots too. I eat almost 1/2 a pound of baby carrots a day.
This week was the best cracker recipe thus far andy I’m pisssssed I didn’t write it down 🙁
I know a lot of you are waiting on my home-made cracker recipe and I swear I’ve written it down the past three times I’ve made it but none have been as good as this version so I am still tweaking until I can recreate this dang batch.
Such perfect crunchy texture. GAH. Frustrating.
Greens + avo + carrots + kale + dried cranberries.
And then more avo for good measure.
Since you can’t tell the size of the cracker from the photo here’s a side shot.
More fun.
Broccoli slaw + sauteed kale/brussels + avooooooo + pom seeds + crackers
But the next day I thought maybe it wasn’t good enough? So I added sliced cucumbers. And sunflower seeds.
Leftovers. Salad-ified.
Sriracha and lime salmon + sautéed kale/brussels + carrots + avocado + leftover Vietnamese dressing + crackers
And then again the next day…with even more carrots.
Then I doscovered a hidden bag of smoked mesquite flavored almonds in the back of the pantry.
And it was ALL OVER.
Heart eyes emoji times a million.
I could maybe live off salads. How about you?
Have you given us this cracker recipe yet? I know I’ve seen them a lot, but I don’t recall if I’ve seen a recipe.
Is it weird that seeing photos of your kale/broccoli slaw salads over and over and over wasn’t boring to me in the slightest? haha. Seriously. So right up my alley! Looove all these combos. And I’m legitimately obsessed with that Kale & Cranberry Salad mix from Coscto too- amazing! But I can’t figure out who the hell makes 9 servings out of that bag? It’s 3 for me too. 🙂
haha right? that bag is in no way 9 servings. and i add stuff to it too (i.e. avocado) so they are delusional.
salads for life! great ideas! thanks, cant wait to try the crackers
I love salads, too! Can you share your spicy mayo dressing recipe?
Just a Mom! (I don’t mean this in a negative way at all) It’s the most important job in the world and the hardest. I do work full time and while balance is tough I often think of how tough it would be to stay at home too (and I only have one). When I am at home I can hardly balance chores and playing, and at the end of the day when I’m starving because I can’t remember if I ate and look around to see that I *may* have accomplished one thing in it’s entirety I know being a Mom is tough whether you work in the home or out of the home because it is a full time job in itself! I only know you from the blog but know that you’re an amazing Mom, it would be lovely if there were more like you! Celebrate your awesomeness!!!!!
I don’t want to be annoying because I always ask you the same stupid question, but doesn’t that wreck havoc on your digestion and cause bloating? I actually backed off the kale when my yoga friend confided in me that the doctor believed she threw her thyroid off from eating daily kale, spinach and mounds of broccoli. All contain oxalates that can be very damaging when over consumed. I had loved and lived on your same diet, but my husband finally pushed me to try a breakfast like for example, I made zucchini, shucked cooked corn kernels, cinnamon, coconut oil and coconut flour muffins. I ate three small ones for breakfast with a sun butter sauce loosened with coconut milk and off to yoga. I now put just romaine lettuce, carrots and tomatoes with my lunch and three o’ clock is a summer fruit salad and then a hefty serving of veggies with dinner. It definitely has taken a lot of bloating away. I was raised vegetarian and we did not consume salads and veggies all day long. I came up with this whole idea from the times we live in—we all consume crazy amounts of produce. Quantity is not the answer moderation is I am finding. Just wondering how you are feeling. You have always been so very helpful and because you have such good common sense, an independent, strong thinker and a very accomplished professional background I trust your way of thinking. I know we don’t come in one-size-fits-all packaging but hearing other people’s opinions and beliefs who you respect helps to just rethink, revamp and adjust our own styles as we feel is right for us. Btw, you children are absolutely adorable!!! Remind me of mine when they were younger bec I have the older boy and younger girl. Enjoy rock’in the rest of the summer. Any thoughts would be appreciated.
So many thoughts! First, I genuinely love and appreciate your comments – they provoke reflection for me which is always good. To be honest, kale (and it’s cruciferous cousins) don’t give me the digestive discomfort that they used to but I know many others have issues with them. I used to. Broccoli made me bloated and gassy and uncomfortable and then one day I realized it didn’t anymore. Same with greek yogurt. I removed it from my diet for severe years (when I was vegan) and since then, it’s pretty much the only dairy I consume (goat cheese is a rare exception) and I still seem to tolerate it fine in moderate doses. But I know others don’t have that experience. My sister, who also doesn’t do dairy, tolerates butter fine but cannot have greek yogurt at all. So I think it’s highly individual. And whats more, is it can change for each individual over the course of your life. It makes sense though, since your gut flora is also ever changing, right? I worked and worked on mine back when I started the fodmaps diet and got it pretty much to square one, but I’m not sure if I did a good enough job reinoculating it with good bacteria. I wasn’t sure at the time how to do that because the knowledge and research just wasn’t out there yet. Kombucha was a big pat of my diet but sauerkraut and other fermented foods were not, so while I can get away with way more fodmaps now than I could previously, I still have areas I need to watch out for. Now that I’m no longer preggo, my gut has again improved and returned to a less symptomatic state. I think stress has a lot to do with it, so that makes sense also since my body was obviously under pressure to carry another human to term. I’m actually doing really great nowadays with the balance in my diet and as much as I’d like to do another full elimination phase with a more structured reintroduction of good bacteria and probiotics, I don’t have the time or energy right now. I hope that helps. My thoughts on the thyroid issue your friend had are not worth writing because I’m not well enough versed. Peanuts and soy are also goitrogenic and supposedly affect the thyroid’s functioning as well, but I’ve never noticed symptoms from any of those foods. Nor kale. Perhaps I’m not eating them in as large portions or perhaps my body is just fine to handle them at this point. Who knows. Do you find a difference in raw vs cooked? I definitely massage my kale big time (or saute it in bulk on the weekends) to help it break down quite a bit before eating it. Just wondering if that could play a part in the puzzle. I’m surprised you tolerate zucchini so well because that’s one of the veggies I definitely get bloated from when eaten in large amounts (i.e. zucchini noodles). Cooked is usually okay though in moderate portions (i.e. muffins, strata, etc.)
Thank you so so much for this comment Jessica. I want to hug you for YOUR awesomeness! I feel the same awe and amazement about (paycheck earning) moms. In fact, I want to give all moms huge hugs for the valuable thing they are doing in raising children -whether they work in or out of the home. And for some reason I don’t apply the self love to myself. Your comment is a fantastic reminder.
it’s the one from this post: http://snacktherapy.com/2013/08/27/kale-and-broccoli-slaw-salad-with-chicken-copycat-recipe/
Well I’m pretty sure I have the same taste buds as you.. I’ve been living on Salads too! You gave me even more great ideas for mix-ins! Can’t wait for the cracker recipe! yahoooo! Happy WEEKEND! Now only if we could get a TJ’s so I could get those amazing green mixes!
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I could TOTALLY live on salads! Especially if they’re like the ones in this post! They’re easy to throw together and satisfyingggg… win win! I can’t wait to make those crackers. Thanks for sharing 🙂
I could TOTALLY live on salads! Especially if they’re like the ones in this post! They’re easy to throw together and satisfyingggg… win win! I can’t wait to make those crackers. Thanks for sharing 🙂
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