Preppy Runner – Theodora Blanchfield

For those of you who started reading within the past year, you may not know that I used to take pictures of all of my meals until I got laid off last summer. Gone was any desire to chronicle my day in food, especially since my days were so dull. How many days in a row could I say I ate a banana sandwich, it was good, and then I sat on my couch with my laptop and probably cried?

So I focused on my workouts, one of the only things I felt I had control over at the time, with all that extra time.

And it worked–I shattered my marathon goals last year.

Gratuitous marathon shot? Why not?

But anyway, I still eat, even though I don’t talk about it here.

Breakfast today: whole-grain Trader Joe’s waffles with banana and sunflower butter. (Whole Foods brand whole-grain waffles > Trader Joe’s whole-grain waffles.)

And still fairly healthily most of the time. Baked salmon, avocado, arugula and tomato on seven-grain. (From Delectica, for New Yorkers.)

But while photographing what I ate when I was losing weight was great because it made me not want to eat something unhealthy and then have to blog it, when I was unemployed and most vulnerable, I decided I didn’t want to worry about anyone judging that I was eating too much or not enough. <— This will likely never happen.

But during those losing-weight-and-photographing-my-meals days, I learned how to cook healthy food, and learned to dabble in cooking foods slightly more exotic than chicken parmigiana.

One of my favorite things I learned how to cook was a quick and easy stir-fry. Once I started at my last job, I found a soba noodle salad that I LOVED (if you work in Midtown West, go to Thalia’s Kitchen and get the soba noodle salad. You won’t regret it.) It’s now one of my go-tos. I saw a soba noodle salad at Delectica this afternoon, but it had peanut oil, and so I couldn’t get it, but was inspired tonight to make my own.

(I should add that, while writing this post, I saw Ashley tweet about a very similar recipe. Great minds think alike.)

Mine included:

Soba noodles

Broccoli

Shredded carrots (thank you Trader Joe’s)

Sesame oil

Soy sauce

Chicken (pre-cooked. Again, thank you Trader Joe’s. It wasn’t the tastiest before coating it in the sauce, but it got better)

Red pepper flakes

Curry powder

Chili powder

Easiest preparation ever. I’m not even going to call this a recipe: Sautee veggies, chicken, oil and soy sauce with spices. Cook noodles. Dump noodles on top of chicken and veggies. Eat.

I made the entire package of chicken and noodles, so it’s coming to work with me for the rest of the week.

Oh, about running? Yeah, 4 miles this morning. It was fine. Five miles tomorrow. Good night!

What’s your fast go-to meal?