Welcome back to the world of healthy living! Where we eat actual dinners and mucinex isn’t a staple portion of our diets. PHEW. It feels nice to be back here.
I did a bunch of prep so that we would have awesome meals ready to go without too much hands on prep because the week was a little crazy. I think that’s the new norm now, so I am just embracing it and figuring out ways to eat well in spite of having less time to cook.
I love the Thai quinoa salad in Run Fast Cook Fast Eat Slow and have shared it many times here on the blog. This time I topped it with tofu.
Quick Q: Where do you guys buy roasted salted peanuts? Back in the day when we were Costco members (and in the business of buying peanuts) I used to love the Kirkland packs, but that plastic waste doesn’t jive with my current goals. That said, the ones I have been getting in the bulk bins aren’t that good. Any ideas? Hit me up.
This randomness came about because I was too lazy to go to the store and knew we were getting a box of CSA veggies the next day so I just wanted to use up some stuff we had on hand.
I made a dressing with tahini, miso, and maple syrup (SO GOOD), which I tossed on some greens and leftover roasted Brussels sprouts. I did it early so it would wilt enough by dinner time, thereby making it a perfect component for a grain bowl.
The rest of the bowl had a brown rice blend with other seeds and grains, roasted butternut squash, avo, and leftover shredded chicken salad.
The bowl was so layered that you can’t see the grains or the greens from opposite sides. It was a random bowl, but totally checked all the boxes. As an added bonus, it cleared up some room in the fridge because we finished off the roasted Brussels and squash and chicken.
Next up, pesto pasta!
Bitchin’ sauce back story: Years ago (circa 2015) I bought a container of bitchin sauce at our WF. Yes, this was back when Davis still had a Whole Foods, Trump was just a reality star, and life was good. I digress. I had heard rave review after rave review about the stuff so I bought a container thinking I would give it a try. Unbeknownst to me, I bought the chipotle flavor. Or maybe it was the spicy heat flavor. Either way, I burned my face off with the first bite and have been scared ever since.
Cut to present day…
This shows up on the imperfect foods website at a discounted rate for who knows what reason and I decided to give it a shot. You all know I can’t resist a nutty vegan pesto. So I built it into the meal plan right then and there. Imperfect Foods FTW! I’m loving that I can buy more than produce nowadays.
Here’s an ingredient list shot if you’re interested.
It’s thinner and creamier than I thought it would be, but after a single lick of the spoon I was in LOVE.
The summer squash was also from imperfect foods and then I had TJs lentil sedanini in the pantry, so dinner pretty much made itself from there.
I sautéed the squash and added it into the cooked pasta and tossed it all with the pesto bitchin sauce and was met with rave reviews.
The basil flavor is subtle enough that it can only barely be called pesto, but the umami factor from the Bragg’s and nooch is insanely addictive. I could have added it to a washcloth and it would have tasted good.
Now I fully understand the hype around this awesome sauce.
SOLD.
Next up was the meal that V came up with (when asked what she wanted this week).
Kale massaged in Tessemae’s creamy Caesar dressing (her fave at the moment).
Roasted sweet potatoes.
Shrimp sautéed in a home-made spice rub that a friend gave us.
All the veggies came from the CSA.
The last meal I have to share was a semi-repeat but this grain bowl was so good the first time around I decided to remake it with a few tweaks (no chicken salad, sub roasted walnuts). I also roasted an acorn squash with a bit of the tahini, miso, maple dressing that I used for the greens.
Otherwise it was the same combo of brown rice, avo, squash, and spinach.
Pretty sure I could live off grain bowls with minor to no variations all fall and winter long. Maybe spring and summer too!
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