So after buying all that food yesterday, obviously I had to cook it, since waiting for my handsome personal chef to materialize and cook for me didn’t work. That and up until now, Eat in More Month has been sort of a fail. I got busy and totally fell off track, but I’m still trying to eat in more.
I’ve been going nonstop since I started my new job just after Thanksgiving, so I deliberately didn’t plan anything this weekend so that I could have time to just chill out. There were a few points this weekend I got a little bored, but I’ve mostly been happy to just snuggle with my sweet little dog on my couch and catch up on cooking and life.
I went to a comedy show at the Upright Citizens Brigade last night with Eileen. We saw a bunch of comics, but Ophira Eisenberg was my favorite. After her, every other comic just seemed like they were reaching for jokes. The show was in a theater, not a club which was different from every other comedy show I’d ever been to, but a nice change. While I certainly have no problem having two drinks in a row, it was nice to not have a two-drink minimum of crappy overpriced drinks.
Today, I made chocolate chip cookies, since I still had some leftover chocolate chips from my cookie swap. I used one of Tina’s recipes because it didn’t have butter, and neither did I.
They turned out kind of dense, and definitely tasted healthy.
The next thing I made today was this chickpea, avocado and kale salad. I’d found it on Pinterest a while ago, and remembered it today when I had a bunch of kale. I made it incredibly lazily–just the kale, chickpeas, guacamole and a few shakes of red pepper and a squeeze of lemon. It was still pretty tasty, and it actually filled me up and didn’t bother my stomach–which are two things salad never does.
I’d bought some butternut squash yesterday, and was going to recreate probably the only recipe I’ve ever written out on this here blog, Butternut Squash and Scallop Garlic Whole Wheat Pasta, but the butternut squash looked a little more difficult to cook/cut than I realized. (I’ve only used the Trader Joe’s pre-cut kind before.) I ended up substituting the butternut squash for just regular squash, and it tasted just fine.
What about you? Cook anything good this weekend?
Pumpkin Pie in a bowl! It’s a recipe from a raw food cookbook, but I make it non-raw with 4 c cooked butternut squash, 2 c carrot juice, 1 avocado 2 t pumpkin pie spice and a packet of stevia (or other sweetener). This recipe makes 4 servings. Blend it up and it’s like pumpkin pie filling. Yum!
Those scallops look amazing! This weekend I made this chicken tikka masala in my slow cooker:
http://tastykitchen.com/blog/2011/10/slow-cooker-chicken-tikka-masala/
Healthiest thing in the world? No. Delicious? Oh yes!
To survive last night’s sub-freezing temperatures, comfort food seemed like the only way to go. Unfortunately, most comfort food — the good stuff, that is — comes doused in cheese and complete with a heart resuscitator. I compromised with this recipe, and it was well worth the extra calories of real butter:
http://cookthis.menshealth.com/recipes/cook-chicken-pot-pie
Also, I’m a first time commenter, but have been reading your blog since your NYTimes mention and have found it downright inspiring. So much so, in fact, that it encouraged me to become a runner, drop 30 pounds and — after months of foot dragging — start my own blog! Thanks for being such a key motivator for me, whether you knew you were being one or not!
@Anne: Awww, what a sweet comment, thank you! 🙂 And congratulations on your own weight loss and starting to run. I clicked through to your blog–is it NYCM that you’re going to do???
Also, that recipe looks amazing.
@Theodora:
I’m thinking the Marine Corps Marathon, since I’m already planning to run the Marine’s Irish Sprint 10K in March, and that guarantees you entry into the MCM without ever hitting the refresh button. I’d love, love, love to do the NYCM, but I haven’t done 9+1 and I don’t like my odds otherwise. NYCM 2013?
Love TJ’s butternut squash- saves the hassle of peeling and chopping, def worth the few extra pennies! This weekend was totally kicked-back and relaxed, lots of eats were simple and required minimal cooking- I was more in the mood to sit in front of the fire 🙂
I LOVE UCB, have you ever seen a show at the PIT? also awesome. I’m making spicy refried bean soup tonight, and that’s ALWAYS a hit, so I am sorta stoked.
I made a coconut curry butternut squash and quinoa. Butternut squash = definitely something I don’t mind paying a little extra for if it’s cut and peeled for me!
I made kale for the first time today. It was just okay – I’m not sure if I would eat it in a salad. Did you put it in without cooking it at all? Just raw?
@Nicole: Yeah, I just ate it raw. I definitely like it better cooked, but it wasn’t too bad raw (but I also had tons of avocado and lemon juice with it.)