In search of breakfast ideas

I’m sorry if the gobble link wasn’t working…gobble sent me a code to give you guys instead, so have at it with 50DPARTNER

Moving on…

Mondays amiright?

My photos just uploaded all out of order, so now I have to sort out what day was what.  I told you my memory was crap lately, didn’t I?

I had a MOPS meeting so I ate the zucchini banana bread I shared in my last post for breakfast.  THREE slices of it to be exact, because I was hunnnngry by the time we ate.

The good news was they had plenty of coffee this time and I added so much So Delicious creamer to mine that I was kinda bouncing off the walls from the sugar (not the decaf, obvs).

P.S. vegan Winter salad for lunch above.

 

Dinner came from this oldie but goodie.

I had zero plans for dinner because I decided I wanted to try to eat from our freezer this week.  I planned two meals, but that’s it.

We have a ton of sausage in the freezer because Nugget had a buy one, get one free deal for Aidells a few weeks ago.  And I went crazy and bought all the meat.  So I needed something to pair with that…

At first I thought cornbread.  But then I was feeling too lazy to bake…so then I was thinking a (vegan) take on creamed corn…which is why I turned to Veganomicon.

It had a recipe for Southwestern Corn Pudding and I actually had every ingredient needed, including bell peppers, green onions, jalapeño, corn starch, corn meal, coconut milk, and corn.  Destiny.

We had a play date with some friends that afternoon.  These kids are speedy on their bikes/scooters!  They left me in the dust on our walk there.

The corn pudding was already taken care of so I just did a quick roast and broil in the oven for the sausage – mango chicken and organic beef.

Voila!  I know it seems odd to pair a vegan dish with non-vegan sausage, but I’m an omnivore now, so that’s what we did.

I can still remember everything about buying myself Veganomicon.  It was the first cookbook I bought myself ever.  I was a new vegan living in NYC and as much as I loved cooking, I didn’t do too much of it in my teeny tiny NYC kitchen.  I made myself most meals, but it wasn’t real cooking.  I practically lived in Barnes & Noble but for some reason never thought to check out the cookbook section.  And then I found it – the vegetarian section in the lower corner of the Upper West Side B&N.  Buying it for myself was a big deal because what 20 something buys herself a present when every cent of her paycheck goes into renting a 2 foot x 2 foot space.  And WF groceries.

I digress…

The corn pudding was a HUGE hit!  Kyle loved it, the kids loved it, I loved it, and it was super easy to make!  I need to remember to cook more things out of V’con.  The only downside is the lack of photos (because food photography wasn’t as big of a thing back then), but I can get over that.  V’con is where I learned to make seitan.  It’s where I learned about how diverse chickpeas can be.  It’s really what led me to discover I love food/cooking/baking, and is therefore the foundation of this blog.

I made a smoothie for breakfast and didn’t turn into an icicle!

The berries were leftover from our dinner party with friends, so I tossed them in with a frozen banana, almond milk, vanilla vega one, and ice.

Lunch was more of the same.

Valley is rocking my Nike “run like a girl” charm because she got it into her head that she needed to wear a golden necklace.  <—link to a post from 2009!  I think it’s fitting since she’s super girl and strong in so many ways.

After gymnastics we came home to change before going to Steve’s pizza for a 4th birthday party.

You guys.

I ate two pieces of gluten and dairy FILLED pizza.  And felt 100% afterwards.  No issues whatsoever.  My gut is SO CONFUSING!?!?!  I was feeling all kinds of proud of myself for just LIVING LIFE and eating pizza like a normal human even though my head was trying to play tricks on me about how terrible it would be.  Turns out, my mind was wrong and I am glad I was able to prove that to myself because sometimes I get so caught up in making decisions based on what will be the healthiest or most GI friendly or whatever and forget to just LIVE and eat for the purpose of enjoying.  I know this may seem dumb or obvious to many, but I am sure there are also plenty of you who can relate to this.  My GI issues sometimes lead me astray.

 Sometimes I will have a meal that *should be* totally awesome for my gut and I will feel like crap after.  For obvious reasons, that makes me frustrated.

On the other end of the spectrum, I have times like this, where I eat things that I’ve traditionally found to cause big time problems for me…and…nada.  WEIRD.

The highlight, however, was not the pizza, but “Keb Keb” the clown who has been at this same birthday party for four years now…

P has always been terrified of him (he is terrifying so it makes sense) but this year he was practically part of the act!  Sometimes he is such a ham!  He definitely loves the spotlight, so it is no surprise that he was participating and cracking up and loving every second of it.  Even V came around on it after a bit.

Oh and Pattycakes ate pizza like it was no big deal and had zero issues.  So I guess we are that family now!  The family that can eat at a pizza parlor like normal Americans!  Life is crazy.

After we got home and the kids were in bed I bottled up my second batch of kombucha and made the third one.  I’m thinking of trying out flavorings on the next one.  Maybe a lemon ginger combo?  I was thinking of using part ginger honey instead of all cane sugar like I’ve been doing.  Will honey still work in feeding the SCOBY?  I think I have some research to do first…  In the meantime, I’ve been very pleased with how my brew is turning out.  And the SCOBY is thriving, as you can see above.  I’ll wait and see if anyone needs a mother before getting rid of part of it.

Kyle had to leave early the next morning so my workout was kinda make shift (in the living room while the kids ate breakfast).  They like watching, but it also ends up being very frequently interrupted because they need one thing or another.  In the end, I made it work and something is better than nothing.

I am trying to stay away from stroller strides to let my foot heal all the way.  It is MUCH better already and that’s because I’m being a good girl and giving it a rest (meaning not running and modifying any and all impact exercises from my DVDs).  Basically I’ve been alternating bike rides with arm and ab focused workouts for the past week and it’s been helping big time.  Ordinarily I’d see the improvement as “good enough” and go right back to what I was doing before, but that has only set me back to square one.  So yeah.  I’m being patient (ish) this time around.  Even the monkeys learn!

I can’t decide if P learning to read is better for him, her or me.  But it’s definitely happening and it’s amazing to watch.  Bob books are the best!

I had granola and coconut clusters (see the bag above) for breakfast on the go.

And then I made a bowl out of these three ingredients for lunch.  🙂

Followed by some of this for an afternoon pick me up.

It’s a weird flavor and I’m not super into it, but Kyle got it for me as a surprise and so I finally popped it open.  Soccer days are long and I needed to go into it with my best foot forward.

Luckily I already had dinner for the night totally handled.  Since we were going out for pizza the day before I made Wednesday’s dinner that night in anticipation.  It was an instant pot meal from Dinner in an Instant that I threw in the fridge over night and then set to “warm” before we left the house for the afternoon.

Came home to this beauty.

This is one of the few meals I did plan on making this week.  Beef bourguignon is one of those bucket list kinds of meals for me.  Something I have always felt like I have to one day tackle.  And thanks to Melissa Clark I was able to attempt it in a much less intimidating (more manageable) way.

I also made millet in the rice cooker.

Big hit!  No knives necessary because the meat was so tender.  It was also very flavorful for being so lean.  I didn’t even bother cutting up the onions for the kids, which ended up being one of their favorite parts.

Definitely a winner of a dish.

And while it was still more labor intensive than your average week night meal, it wasn’t too complicated.

To be fair, I did cut a few corners to reduce the number of dishes I’d have to wash.

Any time a recipe for the IP has me browning things then take them out to brown more things, is when I tend to skip ahead.  I’d rather risk a poorer Maillard reaction than take things in and out and use more dishes.  And guess what?!  it still tastes excellent!

Kyle had his on the late night, since he got home after the kids were in bed and I had already had dessert.

I had the rest of these chocolate covered nuts with some candied ginger while listening to a podcast and trying to take care of a bunch of random things on the computer.  Sometimes podcasts are the perfect background option when you’re home alone.

My goal this weekend is to get my breakfast game back on point.  I need to prep something that will excite me so that I do better than a baggy of nuts to start the day.  What good ideas do you have?  I am bored with everything lately.