Hello and welcome to my private food life!
As in, the foods I eat when I’m just… living life. Like a person. Not in food blog mode.
My eating this month has been a little bit all over the place. I had a weekend birthday binge of very delicious, well, birthday-type foods, and then I ate raw vegetables in the form of this brussels and kale caesar for, like, a week straight.
A little bit healthy, a little bit French fries… such is my life.
Here’s WIAW, May edition!
Breakfast
And now I shall impress you all with… a bowl of cereal!
This is Puffins cereal (original flavor – of key importance) with vanilla almond milk.
And this is about 1/100th of what I ate. Serving sizes on cereal boxes might be one of the greatest public deceptions of our time. 3/4 cup?! Please.
This pour-and-go breakfast is very unfancy, and also mysteriously delicious. If you’ve had Puffins you know what I’m talking about. Why are they these little dry crunchy boxes so tasty when submerged in milk? It shocks me every time.
Snack
Nope, didn’t change out of pajamas yet.
Yep, struggled to peel the orange.
I don’t even know. It was one that was so juicy that it divided out into chunks rather than segments. Someone tell me you know what I’m talking about.
Lunch
Well, hello tempeh, you beautiful thing you!
I think this might have been my first time cooking tempeh at home. I used a recipe from the Chloe Flavor cookbook for “tempeh bacon” that was supposed to go on a BLT. Instead, I threw it on some leftover rice, tossed some greens in the extra marinade, and cubed some avocado on top.
You guys, the tempeh. I made some changes to the recipe, and no, it did not taste like bacon, but that doesn’t even matter because it was SERIOUSLY DELICIOUS. I can’t wait to get this into more official recipe form for you.
Drink Snack
Is Drink Snack a thing?
I’m trying to reduce my usage of individually packaged food items, but I’m having a hard time quitting these little coconut waters. They are just the right amount of sweet when regular water is starting to get boring.
Dinner
This pasta was very on-the-fly, and very, very, very good.
I will spare you the full explanation of how I got to this combination and just outline for you what all is going on here:
- whole wheat penne
- jarred red sauce – Rao’s, I think?
- tahini
- shiitake mushrooms
- a very loose rendition of cashew parm
It’s bizarre, but wow. SO GOOD.
Nightly TV Snack
In a moment of genius / weakness last week, I bought a bag of this stuff and I cannot quit. It is my ultimate favorite night-time salty-sweet / crispy treat, tied with those sugary-salty dark chocolate almonds from Trader Joe’s.
Also, hot tea. Always!
Please Report Back
What have YOU been eating? I mean, if you’re a professional chef on a Tuesday night at home, that’s great. But mostly what I like to talk about when it comes to food is the regular and the un-fancy! ♡
Love these posts! It always gives me ideas… Shame shiitakes are so hard to find in Switzerland though!
My un-fancy meals are either some variation on a brown rice-tofu-veggie stir fry, a bag of pre-chopped coleslaw with a nice dressing and some smoked trout (Swiss Fast Food! Seriously delicious!) or chinese noodles with a POY-inspired put-in-a-jar-and-shake-well sauce and minced chicken.
I have been really into cinnamon roasted almonds from WalMart lately. Gotta learn how to make them at home, And yes drinks can be a snack, sometimes I have a sparkling ice water in pomegranate blueberry and that satisfies my sweet craving. Love the those bark thins, I don’t buy them very often, way too addicting for me to have in the house. Loving Nature Valley almond butter granola bites, the toasted coconut chocolate, again I have to learn how to make them at home. Any ideas?
I am guilty. I had a meatball sandwich in the wee hours this morning from Wawa with Parmesan cheese on 10 inch Wheat bread. I need to up my cardio game and start eating healthy again. 🙂
I am OBSESSED with BarkThins dark chocolate pretzel too. I could literally eat the entire bag in one day.
Ditto on trying to make better choices about packaging and plastic waste, especially when it comes to food and household items. But I’m also trying to balance that with healthiness and affordability…. It’s haaaard!
Have you checked out the new Tare Market in Mpls yet? I’m hoping to go this weekend!
If you like those Bark Thins you HAVE to get the dark chocolate covered pretzel crisps from Snack Factory. I get them at Target. THEY ARE SO GOOOOOD. Better than the Bark Thins.
Oh my gosh. Those Bark Thins are both the best and worst thing I’ve ever bought – LOL! That stuff is crack. So, so, so good. Talk about deceptive serving sizes – I think that’s the case with those too. I’ll devour a whole bag in one sitting like it’s my day job 🙂
MY guess is they were that delicious to the point of saying that, meaning they taste that good? 🙂
Could you describe Puffins? Could they be a healthier version of Cinnamon Toast Crunch (my daughter’s favorite cereal..talk about fancy).
Cinnamon Puffins with a sliced banana and milk is literally what I ate for breakfast EVERY SINGLE MORNING when I was pregnant. Could not get enough! It’s not fancy, but with somewhat warmer weather now, I’ve been loving basic grilled chicken thighs on salad!
Yesterday I ate a lot of stuff from Pinch of Yum! Started off with yogurt with bananas and blueberries. Lunch was a simple salad with veggies, snack was apple with cheese slices and almonds. But dinner was a mix of the backpacker stir fry with veggies, and then we had leftover buffalo cauliflower (we had those tacos on Sunday) so that got crisped up and put on top of the noodle stir fry, and I drizzled the whole thing in the jalapeño ranch, which I know is super gross sounding to mix those flavours, but it worked. I ate it, I enjoyed it. 🙂
Aldi has these coconut cashews that are dangerously delicious! Love puffins, but I’m into the peanut butter flavor.
I am such a huge fan of the Chloe Flavor cookbook! The white shells and cheese (cauliflower based), the general tso’s tofu, and sriracha tempeh alfredo (make this immediately if you haven’t already!!) are my favorites and I make them for dinner on a weekly basis. I love how Chloe’s recipes are often so simple yet so satisfying. The peanut tempeh kale salad is also a great hearty salad.
Love cereal for breakfast – yesterday I had Whole Foods’ 365 Honey Almond Flax Protein & Fiber cereal with 2% milk.
Lunch was leftover greek-inspired pasta salad made on the weekend: Orzo, cucumber, sundried tomato, red onion, feta, pesto, lemon, olive oil, red wine vinegar and a big handful of arugula plus some kalamata olives.
Dinner was broiled salmon and french green beans sauteed with garlic and a splash of Trader Joe’s General Tso sauce, plus half an avocado and some sriracha.
TV snack: Whole Foods 365 Midnight Double Feature Trail Mix (so good – mini pb cups, dried cherries, roasted almonds and cashews) and also a few of those amazing Trader Joe’s Salty-Sugary Dark Chocolate Almonds.
Ok can I just say the orange struggle is real. That was my snack this morning and it was a chunker too! Breakfast was scrambled eggs on a bagel with everything but the bagel seasoning (and some broccoli because I’m weird and like veg for breakfast?), snack was the chunky orange and some cashews, lunch was a taco salad with crispy chicken situation (gotta love a salad with crispy things involved!) and dinner TBD today, along with a likely ice cream snack in the near future 🙂 I love love love your recipes but honestly love posts like this just as much- if not more! I love getting to know people through random life updates (ie food updates) like this! Thanks for sharing!
I have been making my own smoothies, I was juicing and then got bored, and now back to smoothies for breakfast. A palm full of Wasabi & Soy Sauce almonds for a snack, and lunch has been a Iconic Protein Coffee drink (so good!) and roasted red pepper hummus with Wheat Thins. And dinner tonight will be Costco’s breaded chicken patties, and a carrot and zucchini stir fry, and tomorrow night Emeril’s Tuna Melt.
I’ve only tried tempeh once, years ago, and didn’t like it. The flavor or the texture. I have the recipe book “Fuss Free Vegan” from the blog of “It Doesn’t Taste Like Chicken”, and she makes Tofu Bacon for BLT’s and it’s dynamite, I love it! But you can use tempeh too she says, I don’t know…but your lunch above is making me think I should give it another try.
Here’s what I ate today. I am 37.5 weeks pregnant, so might be a few more calories than the average person 🙂
– Fiber One bar
– 2 handfuls of almonds
– Starbucks iced cinnamon almondmilk macchiato with only 2 pumps of flavor (sooo good, tastes like Cinnamon Toast Crunch)
– Peruvian roast chicken with pinto beans and rice
– 2 clementines
– Individual bag of Fritos
– Dubliner cheese wedge with a few spelt pretzels
– For dinner, I am making the pineapple chicken you posted last week, with sautéed peppers. I am going to double the recipe and freeze half for post-baby.
– A little yogurt or chocolate milk before bed if I need it
This is great and wonderful and all…but HOW CAN YOU SLIGHT PEANUT BUTTER PUFFINS LIKE THAT?!?
You should try the Bark Thins with pumpkin seeds, my favorite! 😍
I just want to agree with the serving sizes of cereal. Who are they feeding and I wish I was one of those types of people #goals.
Can you get fresh coconuts in Minnesota? –the kind where you drink the absolutely fantastic, delicious, thirst-quenching, need-a-snack-satisfying juice. Then you scoop out the thin layer of jellied meat with a spoon and eat that too 🙂 Fresh coconuts are relatively easy to find here in Vancouver, Canada. There must have been lots when you were in the Philippines.
I love these posts! These days I can’t get enough of yogurt with (homemade tahini-cardamom) granola. As far as main meals, lately I’ve been loving zucchini slice and spanakopita (not together!). And I truly believe cereal serving sizes were designed for ants. And not very hungry ants at that!
I love these posts! It is nice to see that you throw together meals like the rest of us. For me, oatmeal or yogurt with granola for breakfast. Morning snack is 1 BelGioioso fresh mozzarella snacking cheese (SOO good if you haven’t tried them). Lunch lately has been leftovers of a modified rendition of your sesame noodle bowls. Usually too crazy at work to eat an afternoon snack so I am ravenous when I get home at 6. Dinner was a Mexican quinoa bowl from Annie’s Eats – soo easy and good! I started getting into goldfish crackers again lately… am I 3 years old? Apparently. They’re such a yummy snack, but I try not to eat too many which is nearly impossible. I also have been loving the potato chip chuao chocolate bars and have been eating FAR too many pieces to constitute a serving, but we all must have a guilty pleasure, right? And I hear ya on reducing individually packaged things. Why is it so hard? We are hooked on La Croix and I can’t seem to find a good substitute that isn’t individually packaged. Ugh.
SQUEEEEEE Bark Thins makes chocolate covered pretzels???? YES… (doing the happy snoopy dance). My favorite bark thins are the blueberry chocolate bark but maybe not for long…
Today Was kinda out of balance. The husband found (and bought) red rice / quinoa Ancho cilia chips, organic even, as a snack while we ran errands. Good and crunchy, not very spicy. Dinner was most amazing traditional Enchiladas: organic chick rolled in corn tortillas smothered in homemade green tomatillo sauce with rice and red beans on the side. Talk about a beautiful way to end the day, yummy. The tomatillos and chilis were from the garden last year, frozen whole in a zip lock bag, so the whole shebang was organic. It was a true thing of beauty. I CAN’T wait for the next installment of WIAW.
Those bark thins look amazing 💗 This week I considered myself fancy because I cooked real dinner twice! Cashew coconut curry and then lentil soup. The weather was warming up around here about two weeks ago but abruptly took a nose dive this week. Sad face. So the warming foods have been welcome!
Thank you for being open about your plastic usage/trying to quit! I think it’s important that you imply that you don’t have to aim for perfection but we can all make little differences in our choices…really appreciate that you talk about this on your blog.