Days 37 & 38 - Walking in the rain

The past two days have been a blur. Yesterday, I was swamped, and today, I was just tired.

After the gym on Thursday, I got another breakfast sandwich and pineapple green tea from Woods Coffee.

Lunch was leftover lasagna, and dinner was our usual pizza night affair.

This morning, I had another purple smoothie!

It's blueberry pomegranate flavor, with vanilla protein powder. Delicious!

Lunch was a Cedarlane pizza veggie wrap.

I also had a 3-cheese & broccoli Lean Pocket, not pictured, as well as plenty of apples and carrots to snack on throughout the day.

For dinner, we went to El Albañil, and I had chile rellenos. I didn't get a pic of the food, but I got a pic of the restaurant.

We got there pretty early, around 4pm. I was exhausted and hungry.

See those yellow-painted steps at the end, by the corner of the sidewalk? That's the entrance around the corner. Why are we parked so far back in an almost-empty lot? According to Hubs, those are "jumbo steps", and where we're parked, there's only "one little step" for the sidewalk. You may also notice it seems to be raining. It wasn't the lightest rain, either. I wasn't wearing a jacket. Grrr.

Dinner was fantastic, though. I actually ate everything on my plate, probably since we were there so early and there were literally no other customers in the restaurant at that time, so we didn't have to wait long for our food (and thus, we didn't fill up on the chip basket like we're normally bad about doing). We even had room for dessert, and ordered a nice big plate of sopapillas. Yum.

Day 36 - Tofu Pasta Day

I ate a lot of pasta with tofu today. Which is probably not a good thing. But it was a tasty thing.

Breakfast-on-the-go was a Mediterranean breakfast sandwich from Woods Coffee.

Also, I had some pineapple green tea to drink.

Lunch was another day of nutty noodles with tofu, broccoli, carrots, and sriracha.

I made spinach lasagna for dinner.

I crumbled bits of tofu into the sauce in an attempt to replicate the texture of meat sauce. It didn't quite turn out in that regard, but it still came out tasty on its own.

Day 35 - Tempted by Crab Rangoon

So, we went to QQ Li's for lunch. QQ's has lots of veggie options, but they have so many delicious non-veggie options that it's still tough.

They used to have hot trays of food for their express lunch, but ended up wasting too much food that way, so now they just have pics out. But they are such delicious looking pictures...

I miss their pineapple chicken so much, but alas, I cannot have it. So I had the veggie delight and the broccoli with garlic sauce, and some white rice. It was good.

Hubby, however just had to order some crab rangoon and eat it in front of me...

Just...I want...ungh....

So...yummy...want to have....

To be fair to Hubs, he did ask if it was okay to order it ahead of time, and I told him yes.

He also tried to offer me some of the cabbage that the rangoon was sitting on.

Once I finished my food, I felt better, but it was hard watching him eat that when I was still hungry.

To make myself feel better, I made slutty brownies.

You need milk when you eat these things; they're that rich. Oh, they're so bad, but they taste so good!

Dinner was stuffed eggplant.

I added a bit of extra cheese, since I was in a cheesy mood.

Day 34 - The day of the sandwich

Sandwiches are awesome, if you think about it. You can take all sorts of non-portable food, stuff them between two pieces of bread, and boom! Handy, portable food!

For instance, I started off with a Mediterranean breakfast sandwich. Egg whites, cheese, marinara, and pesto would be so messy by themselves. But bundled in a nice little ciabatta bun, it becomes a treat to eat on the go!

For lunch, I had a Boca burger. Yeah, I suppose you could wrap it up in the lettuce, but I've never figured out how to do that. My lettuce always breaks, or the filling slips out. I've never been successful when making lettuce wraps. A whole-wheat bun solves all that.

I love salads, but I hate taking dishes to work, and salads require salad bowls. Take a lettuce, onion, cheese, and tomato salad, and stick it between two slices of whole-grain bread. Bam! Portable dinner!

Though I still ended up with dishes. I made cheesy broccoli.

That's a ceramic dish, with a lid, that is microwaveable, so I can heat up my cheesy goodness at work and chow down. Yum!

Days 32 & 33 - Not hungry

So, only one picture today, because I neglected to take any on Saturday.

Saturday was a smoothie for breakfast, a Lean Cuisine cheese pizza for lunch, and some tasty veggie chili for dinner.

Sunday was this.

Salmon with veggies, mac & cheese on the side, and a dinner roll. That's it. That's all I ate Sunday. Well, this, and a few Girl Scout Cookies in the morning. So, Girl Scout cookies for breakfast, a salmon dinner, and nothing in between. I just wasn't hungry enough to cook or go order food. So even though that picture is something like 1300 calories, that's just about all I really ate (add maybe 200 more for the couple of cookies).

Days 30 & 31 - Stressed

The past two days have been super busy at work. I haven't had much time to cook. Many times, I want to just go hit up the drive thru and get a freakin' burger, but I know that's wrong. Also, I'm broke.

Thursday morning, I grabbed a breakfast of champions on my way out the door.

It...wasn't all that satisfying. The coffee was fantastic, though.

I had a Cedarlane pizza veggie roll for lunch, which was surprisingly satisfying, but not as satisfying as the actual pizza I had for dinner.

Thursday nights are pizza nights!

Friday morning, I was able to go to the gym to work out some of the stress. Also, I made smoothies for breakfast.

Peaches, pineapple, mango, kiwi, and cantaloupe all made it into these, as well as plenty of vanilla protein powder. They had a wonderfully light and fruity flavor.

Lunch was a Cedarlane chili relleno. I love those things.

Dinner was nutty noodles with tofu, broccoli, and carrots. And sriracha!

Nothing burns a stressful day away like sriracha!

Day 29 - Just, like, food and stuff.

I made some tasty baked, stuffed eggplant for lunch today. I added mushrooms and omitted zucchini because that's what I had available in the fridge.

Someone on the reviews for this recipe said it was too time-consuming to make. Personally, I find it's quick and easy. Of course, compared to Eggplant Parmesan, anything else is quick and easy, I suppose.

We met up with a friend and had dinner at Mi Mexico after a hard day of geocaching. I went for their spinach quesadilla, one of my favorite dishes there.

It actually comes with black beans instead of refried beans (though on any dish you can sub refried beans, for a cost).

After all the walking we did, I felt starving, but I only ended up eating about half my food. Oh well. Breakfast for next morning!

Day 28 - Slow-cooked mac & cheese

Behold, the macaroni & cheese made in a slow cooker!

It wasn't the greatest mac & cheese in the world, but it wasn't bad. It was very clumpy, but very cheesy. It beats the box stuff!

Slow-cooked Mac & Cheese:

• 3 cups shredded Cheddar cheese
• 2.5 cups milk
• 1 large egg, beaten
• 1 tsp salt
• 8 oz cooked elbow macaroni

Combine cheese, milk, egg, and salt in slow cooker. Cook on high 1 hour.
Add macaroni. Stir. Cover and cook on low 4 more hours.
Eat.

I tried to give blood again today. Unfortunately, my iron levels haven't budged since last time. Basically, I'm not anemic, but I don't have enough extra iron to give. It's frustrating, because I've tripled my iron supplements since last time, spreading them out throughout the day. Unfortunately, iron from veggies isn't absorbed as easily as iron from meat. I think I'll wait until after Easter to try and donate again.

Dinner was spinach lasagna, with a big ol' piece of garlic bread.

That's what happens when you decide garlic bread makes a good side, but there's only two of you to eat a whole loaf. Heh heh.

Days 26 & 27 - I can think of nothing witty to say. Sorry.

Yeah...I was just too lazy to post yesterday. I'm just all, "blaaaaaaah". Time for catching up!

For lunch, I wanted pizza, but it was just me. So I made my own "pizza" using slices of wheat, marinara, spinach, mushrooms, cheddar, and mozzarella.

It was Sunday....Salmon Sunday! I made a salmon fillet loaded with pesto sauce, mushrooms, spinach, red bell peppers, and tomatoes, with julienne potatoes on the side.

Post-workout smoothies for breakfast today!

Had just a plain ole Boca cheeseburger for lunch.

The buns were toasted with the cheese, which is why it looks like it's dripping upside-down.

I liked my avocado sandwich from the other day, so I took that, and made a guac sammy for dinner.

Avocado, onion, tomato, and lime...pretty darn tasty!

Tomorrow, Hubby is trying a culinary experiment: mac & cheese made in a slow cooker. We found a recipe for it and everything! Will it be a comestible delight of the senses? Or will it be catastrophic? Who knows? We'll find out tomorrow!

Day 25 - Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Where dips the rocky highland
Of Sleuth Wood in the lake,
There lies a leafy island
Where flapping herons wake
The drowsy water rats;
There we've hid our faery vats,
Full of berrys
And of reddest stolen cherries.
Come away, O human child!
To the waters and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand.
For the world's more full of weeping than you can understand.

- "The Stolen Child", William Butler Yeats 

I started off lunch (breakfast? whatever meal it is when you roll out of bed at 12:30pm) with some green eggs: scrambled eggs with spinach and sprouts, along with some feta and onion.

How dear to me the hour when daylight dies,
And sunbeams melt along the silent sea,
For then sweet dreams of other days arise,
And memory breathes her vesper sigh to thee.

And, as I watch the line of light, that plays
Along the smooth wave tow-rd the burning west,
I long to tread that golden path of rays,
And think 'twould lead to some bright isle of rest.

- Thomas Moore, from "Moore's Irish Melodies: The Illustrated 1846 Edition"

Dinner is a green sandwich: avocado, lettuce, sprouts, onion, and feta.

Since I skipped breakfast, Hubby is also bringing me some Taco Bell tonight at some point. That will be decidedly less green.

And Shepherds we shall be
For thee, my Lord, for thee.
Power hath descended forth from Thy hand
Our feet may swiftly carry out Thy commands.
So we shall flow a river forth to Thee
And teeming with souls shall it ever be.
In Nomeni Patri Et Fili Spiritus Sancti.

- The Boondock Saints

It's not Saint Patrick's Day until you quote The Boondock Saints.

Happy St. Patrick's Day, everyone!

Day 24 - Mushrooms!

I ate a blueberry muffin for breakfast. I grabbed a Mediterranean breakfast sandwich and some blueberry white tea from Woods Coffee after the gym.

I'm used to Jack-in-the-Box, which has a 24-hour drive-thru. Woods doesn't open until 6am. I got a bit of an extra workout in this morning, since I had to wait for them to open. Talk about motivation!

That sandwich has spinach, egg white, some white cheese (Swiss? I honestly didn't pay attention), pesto, and marinara sauce, by the way. It's made fresh to order

I really have been wanting a mushroom-Swiss burger lately. I've really, really wanted one. I can't have one, so I made the next best thing.

I didn't have any Swiss cheese, so I used cheddar, which was toasted onto a whole-wheat bun. That's a Boca burger patty, with sautéed mushrooms on top. Yum...mushrooms!

I think I should do some stuffed mushrooms one of these days...hmmm...

Dinner is a Greek wrap with feta, spinach, red onion, artichoke, olives, tomatoes, and cucumber.

Day 23 - Okay, I really want meat now

I drove past Jack-in-the-Box this morning. About once a week, Hubby and I used to stop in and get breakfast. I love their supreme croissant, which has egg, cheese, ham, and bacon. Obviously, I can't get one of those again until after Lent.

Simply replacing my usual with something vegetarian isn't always the best option. It's better to just cut those things out all together. Things like pizza night or the grocery store deli are okay, since they have such a huge variety of vegetarian items. Burger joints that have limited options though are out. Even if I enter the drive thru with the plan to order a salad or garden burger or a veggie sandwich, the temptation of those pictures of big, juicy beef patties is incredibly strong. I haven't given in yet, but I've been avoiding them like the plague. Even last Sunday when we went to Billy's, it was hard to pass up one of their turkey burgers, or a fantastic chicken dish that was on the menu.

Basically, if I used to go there to eat meat, I don't go there anymore. Not until after Easter, anyway. It's simply torture. No matter how many tasty vegetarian recipes I find, I still crave meat. It's about the halfway point of Lent right now, and I can feel the craziness setting in.

I'm at 23 days. My record was 30 days, which I barely made at the time. I can feel the tension in my bones and in my veins. It's like this stress that's really deep down inside me that's just sitting there, simmering, building up and getting ready to burst. It's not a pleasant feeling. It's slowly driving me insane.

Anyways, on to food stuff. Breakfast was toast and jam, and after my workout I had a Kashi TLC Peanutty Dark Chocolate granola bar. Lunch was a Cedarlane Chile Relleno, and dinner tonight is a Little Caesars veggie pizza.

Day 22 - Happy Pi Day!

It's 3/14; Pi Day! 3.141592653589793238462643383...that's as far as I ever managed to memorize. It was enough for me to win a pie in a Pi Day competition back in high school, though. Hooray for pie!

And enjoy pie I did. We ate breakfast at Shari's today. I started off with my favorite Spring Spinach Omelet.

It's loaded with spinach, avocado, mushrooms, tomato, onion, and cheese. I like mine with hash browns and whole wheat toast on the side.

And of course, even if it wasn't Pi Day, if you go to Shari's you have to have pie! What other kind would I get than strawberry rhubarb?

Pie a la mode for breakfast! This is proof positive that I'm an adult now, and I can do whatever I want!

Fun fact: not many people know this, but it's actually illegal to leave a Shari's restaurant without first consuming a slice of pie. (I can't be arsed to actually look this up to verify my claim, so you'll just have to take my word for it.)

Dinner once again was nutty noodles. I made them with tofu, carrots, broccoli, and red bell peppers.

Of course, there was also sriracha sauce. You can't have nutty noodles without copious amounts of sriracha!

Day 21 - Crappy Corn Chowder

I woke up to snow on the ground. Thus, breakfast was "Caribbean Passion" smoothies, made with mango, strawberry, and peach. For a brief moment, I was whisked away to somewhere tropical and warm, and forgot how cold it was outside.

One for me, and one for Hubs!

Lunch was corn chowder, adapted from a clam & corn chowder recipe. We discovered that when you take out the clams, it tastes incredibly bland. We spiced it up with some black pepper, but it still wasn't all that great.

Crappy Corn Chowder

• 1 chopped onion
• 1/2 cup chopped celery
• 3/4 cup carrot slices
• 1 tbsp butter
• 2 small potatoes, diced
• 12oz. can of evaporated milk
• 1 cup veggie broth
• 1/4 tsp thyme
• Black pepper to taste
• 1 cup corn kernels
• 2 tbsp parsley
• 2-3 tbsp cornstarch

Throw it all in a slow cooker for about 8 hours. Eat.
Make it less crappy (and less vegetarian) by adding 12 ounces of canned clams, a bit of chopped ham or bacon, and replace the veggie broth with clam broth.

Dinner was spinach lasagna. I added grated zucchini to flesh it out a bit, and added some mushrooms to make it pretty. It was so good, and so filling!

I think I want to make lasagna nights a weekly thing now. If I'd known lasagna was this easy to make, I'd have been making it for years now!

Days 19 & 20 - I can haz drinks!

So, to be frank, I was a little messed up yesterday, which is why I didn't post.

Yesterday, I made a nice raspberry protein smoothie for lunch, which I put in a milk bottle for portability purposes.

Lunch was yet another Boca burger, taken to work.

Dinner was the fun part! Sundays are feast days, and last night we definitely feasted.

We went out to Billy McHale's. I had a drink called a Billy Banger.

It's sweet and citrus-y and rum-y. Yum.

Hubby and I got into a mini sword fight with our garnish sticks.

We tried their spinach artichoke dip, which for some reason we hadn't tried before. It was so creamy and delicious! I think we have a new happy-hour appetizer favorite here.

One thing about Billy's is that they have the absolutely most fantastic seafood chowder you've ever had!

Dinner was blackened salmon with mango salsa, with rice pilaf and steamed veggies. Their blackened salmon is spicy, but not too spicy. It's just right.

Oh, and a strawberry margarita. I drank half before I thought about taking a pic of it. Heh heh.

Hubby in the background there is noshing on German chocolate cheesecake. I sampled a couple bites. I normally hate cheesecake, but that one tasted pretty good.

Since I can't remember the last time I drank before last night, those two drinks were all it took to mess me up. It's probably for the best I didn't attempt to post anything last night.

Today, it's back to veggies. I actually skipped breakfast. I was still full from all that good food from last night. Lunch was a veggie pizza from Papa Murphy's, and dinner is just another Thai Tofu Wrap from the grocery store. Not a very interesting day today.

Day 18 - Just sandwiches

Today was just a take-stuff-and-throw-it-together day. I had a blueberry muffin for breakfast.

I woke up around 1pm, because I was exhausted after a stressful work night (and I was sleep-deprived from Friday as well). I worked out, and around 2pm, finally decided I should eat something before going to work. So I had another Boca burger today.

I made myself a zucchini sandwich for dinner, because I couldn't come up with anything else on the fly. It actually was pretty good. I sliced up a zucchini and a tomato, added some feta, lettuce, and mustard, and threw it all in a whole-wheat bun.

I also packed an apple and some carrots. If it doesn't seem like a lot of food, that's because it isn't. I'm way below my calorie count for the day. After adding up all of the above, I was under 700 calories. Hubby is bringing me a 7-layer bean burrito from Taco Bell, but that still only brings me to 1000 calories, and I aim for 1500 a day.

I have days like this, where I'm just not hungry. I figure it makes up for pizza nights.

I can't wait for tomorrow. I got a bonus, so Hubby and I are going out for dinner tomorrow. It will be Sunday, which is all-day happy hour at the spot we're going to, so I'm going to have a salmon caesar salad (which is one of my favorite dishes there and also happens to be on their happy hour menu). We haven't had the money to go out like this in a while. I'm stoked!