Ready or Not

This week was kinda a downer.  The mood in Nor Cal is depressing and I’m not sure if the kids can sense it, but I feel like they know something is up.  P’s school has kept them inside due to poor air quality for most of the week and several of our other activities have been cancelled as well.  The winds are changing constantly though, so I’m googling AQI scores in our zip code all day long to try to keep us safe and healthy.  The winds are really making it hard for fire fighters to get these fires contained.  Blah.  There’s not much else to say about it…it’s heartbreaking.

I had a super thick slice of nourish bread with the last of this jar of cashew butter.

School photo sneak peek 🙂  That smile can brighten my day right up.

Same old same old.

Since our outing to the pumpkin patch was cancelled, I told the kids we would go get Halloween decorations instead and make the house look festive.

We have quite the spied web situation in the front now…

Leftovers for dinner, included corned beef, quinoa, and peas.

He spent some of his “quiet time” before bed matching number flashcards.  While singing to himself.  He’s such a sweet little boy. Lately he is soaking up every educational thing I throw at him.  He has even started reading a little bit with the BOB books.  It’s all initiated by him, though, because I want him to like it, rather than feel forced into it.

I wanted a break from nourish bread but was too lazy to make anything, so I checked the freezer and found this guy.

Which was a perfect vehicle to get cashew butter into my mouth. New jar!!

V and I had a field trip to the pumpkin patch that I was secretly hoping would be called off, but wasn’t.

The air was fine, but the wind was INSANE.  My eyes were tearing non-stop and I could hardly open them for the hour we were there.

But at least she got to do the whole hay ride, maze, baby animal petting zoo, pumpkin picking thing.  Again.

We have two more trips here in the books and I am feeling like scrooge because of how over it I am.  We currently have 10 pumpkins on our front porch.  I think we are good.

Top of the world!

In any event, it was enough to tire us both out and resulted in a very good nap after lunches.

It was a pita and sunbutter kind of day. 

I had a bunch of chips on the side too.  No shame in my game.

Time to work on dinner.

I’m soooo inspired by this book right now.  THANK YOU MOM AND DAD!!!!  First I made the dressing and then I chopped/shredded things up.

I added (leftover grilled) salmon to make it more of a main than a side dish.  Because there’s no lettuce, you can dress it as early as you want, so it was good to go by the time we got home from soccer.

I gave Kyle (leftover) shrimp as well as red and green onions (per the recipe) but nixed the onions for the rest of our servings.

Dude. Another hit out of the park from Michelle Tam.

I have leftover Thai dressing from the recipe, which will be great for another salad later, but there was barely one serving leftover so it’s now destined to be the side dish it was probably intended to be.

But that’s the best thing about the cookbook.  It is divided into section based on how “ready” you are aka how much time you want to devote to cooking a meal.  So if you have leftover proteins or dressing on hand, it’s pretty easy to assemble them and reinvent a recipe into something new and great without putting in much extra work.  Which is the whole point of her type of cooking.  Love it.

Dessert night.

I don’t have pics of the next morning but we didn’t do OIT so we were in town, and since P doesn’t have school on Fridays, it meant both kids got to join me for stroller strides.  I hadn’t been in a while (due to aforementioned air quality) so I was itching to go.  The mood was somber though, because of how many friends and their families are affected by the fires.  We tried to keep it upbeat, but there’s just this cloud hanging over us all.  After the workout the kids played play doh until we went home for lunch.

Leftovers reinvented!  This was a bomb a$$ lunch which I polished off with some salty roasted almonds too.  I bought these in bulk from Costco and am sooo thrilled that we can all eat them now because previously P couldn’t have them because they shared equipment with peanuts.  But he is free to eat things with cross contamination risk now!  So bring on the almonds.

I wasn’t sure what to do for dinner, so I ended up making use of a bunch of leftovers.  First things first, I made spaghetti squash in 7 minutes (thank you instant pot).

Steamy!

Fluffed with a fork and ready to get filled up with toppings and broiled later that night.

We met a few friends at Three Ladies Cafe downtown for their grand opening that afternoon.  I think it’s going to be a go-to spot in the coming cold months.  The kids ate a ton of dried mangos on the way and didn’t want any snacks while there, so instead they just played while I attempted to catch up with my friends.  You know how that goes though…always a little tough when managing 8 kids.

This was the highlight of dinner.  I bought it at the co-op a LONG time ago and forgot about it.  Luckily it didn’t go bad, because it was a huge treat for me to buy.  I always think to myself, I could just make this myself!?!  Why would I pay $$$$ for it.  But the answer is simple.  I don’t make it for myself.  And buying it allows me to have delicious wholesome food without losing the time I would lose by making it.

And guess what?!?!  It was SO GOOD!!!

I used half of the tub to mix into my half of the squash.  On Kyle’s half I used cotija cheese (one of his favorites) which I STILL have leftover from back when I made this dish.  Everyone’s dinner was different because I had odds and ends to use up.  Kyle and the kids shared pinto beans – theirs in tacos, his in squash.

Tacos are an easy sell and I only had four shells left, that were basically stale (but the kids don’t care), so they got tacos and Kyle and I got stuffed squash bowls.  All in the name of using up what we’ve got on hand.  Excellent way to enter the weekend in my opinion…meal planning and grocery shopping with a clean slate (slash emptied fridge) is the best.

Check out how that broil got his cheese all brown and bubbly!

Mine looks boring by comparison, but I added nooch and literally savored every single bite.

Mmmmm.  Hello cheesy lover.

Also, Kyle and I have a date at a steak house planned this weekend (I think we are calling it my early birthday dinner because next weekend is already filled with other plans) so I wanted to do something veg friendly the night before.

Their tacos had a tiny portion of ground beef crumbled into it along with beans and vegan cheese.

And in the name of cleaning things out and finishing things off, I spent the first part of the evening after V was down ripping out the huge tomato plant.  It was dark by the time I finished but I finished!!!!

I picked some of the fruit off as I hacked it all up into the compost, but there were too many to deal with so this is all I grabbed.  I have been looking up green tomato recipes so the unripe ones get used too, and I think I’m going to use my pressure cooker to make a soup of some kind with them…oh and I found a zucchini hiding under it too!

As soon as I was done we went in the hot tub, which was the best feeling ever.

I take it back, eating chocolate on the couch with Kyle, while watching The Handmaid’s Tale is the best thing ever. Friday night perfection right there.

We don’t have much planned this weekend aside from our date night, but I already washed and changed our towels, sheets, and bleached two of our bathrooms down (don’t ask), so I’m feeling pretty accomplished before we even head into it!  I guess I should start prepping for birthday week eats.  Priorities people.