A Reunion of Sorts

This morning I had something I haven’t had in a long time….two whole weeks~

Oh how I have missed my oatmeal! 

I was CRAVING it this morning!  I microwaved together 1/3 cup oats, 1/3 cup almond milk, 1/3 cup water, a handful of organic blueberries, half a small organic mango…and afterwards I topped it with a spoonful of raw cacao nubs (perfect crunchy goodness) and a TBS of almond butter.

On the side I also had half an organic grapefruit from yesterday’s box:

These are so incredibly sweet…we never get enough in the box and four out of five of us fight over them!  I seriously have to ration out the grapefruits to make sure the grapefruit piggies in my house (I am NOT pointing fingers at my husband or daughter of course) don’t steal all of the grapefruits and everybody gets at least half of one!

In the predawn hours, in the midst of getting kids ready and off to school, I also chugged an Amazing Grass shake (1 cup almond milk, one scoop Amazing Grass Superfood, and a scoop of ground flax seed)Along with a shot of almost not photographed espresso!

 The Perfect Breakfast!

Speaking of produce…yesterday was produce day and oh did I get a glorious mix!

• Bananas
• Apples
• Strawberries
• Blueberries
• Mango
• Oranges
• Grapefruit
• Kiwi
• Red Pears
• English Peas
• Mint
• Rhubarb
• Lettuce
• Eggplant
• Tomatoes
• Garlic
• Leeks
• Sweet Crunchy Minipeppers!!!  YAY!
• Collards
• Lemons
• Limes
• Zucchini

A really really really great share!!

Rhubarb is a new one for me…we don’t grow it in South Florida, and it isn’t prevalent in the grocery store, so I have not had it often!

Only when I have been to Canada!  I have to figure out what I will do with it…Not enough for a pie…..

I got a pound and a half of these English Peas:

Now as a kid my mom used to buy these all the time…and we would pop them open and eat the peas raw right out of the pod.  Sweet crunchy healthy snacking.  I always thought that is how you are supposed to eat these! 

But yesterday I kind of had an epiphany, because of the mint included in the box, they are really meant to be cooked. Like peas.

I called my mom and told her about it, and she said she never liked cooked peas so she just ate them raw.  Now, while I DO love cooked peas I am not wasting these…guess what I will be snacking on today!

I Love Oats In A Jar!

Remember that empty jar I forgot to use last week?  Well I continued to forget to use it for oats in a jar a la Kathy and every day I would kick myself when I remembered it, as I went hunting for the almond butter to put in my already cooked in a bowl oatmeal! 

Yesterday morning the light bulb finally went off at the right time!!  YAY! 

Here was my empty jar of almond butter all ready to go!

Into the jar went half a chopped pear, a handful of blueberries, 1/3 cup of oats, 1/3 cup of almond milk, and 1/3 cup of water! Into the microwave it went for 3 minutes at 50% power and it came out like this!  Really it looked just the blueberry version of the artificially flavored and sugared up instant packets…but it was 100% natural and mostly organic!  (only the oats were not organic).

Can’t forget to add the yummy scrapings off the lid! This was absolutely delicious.

Along with my second dose of espresso for the day!  One day I will be giving this up….but not yet!

Lunch was fresh and enjoyable too!  I saw that Karilynn started a water challenge on the Losing To Win site so I decided to jump on in.  I need to be drinking four of these gigantic 18 ounce glasses a day!  (Card added for your comparative viewing pleasure)

I downed this…but then I was freezing!  So I dug into my Oh She Glows winning box (yes…that is still going strong) and warmed myself up with a yummy cup of tea!   I also snacked on an unphotographed Larabar…apple pie flavor.  This was deeeevine!

I was still hungry though, so before long I broke out the organics to fix myself a gorgeous salad.  Butter lettuce, escarole, Roma tomato, daikon radish, scallion, carrot, red bell pepper, chopped mushrooms, and a reheated piece of kabocha! I am out of my beloved peanut dressing and didn’t have time to make any fresh (which I want to do) but I remembered I had this in the fridge. I bought it a while back but didn’t really like it…so I decided to try and doctor it up to make it into a salad dressing.  I added some agave and fresh organic lemon juice. Isn’t this lemon just gorgeous! I ended up with this!  It was passable but just okay.  I need to tweak some.I finished off lunch with this!  Yummy.  Not organic and only 60% cacao…low on the healthy scale for chocolate.  But the cranberries, blueberries, and yum factor made up for it, right?

After a lovely day of fun and fresh eats….dinner was far less than rewarding.  We had a pot luck at our boy scout Court of Honor ceremony (awards banquet).  To FabPreteen and my great disappointment, there was no salad and no veggies!

The best we could do with no meat was some mac and cheese (that was really good); past salad; and some other undisclosed fettuccini that I ended up giving away.  I had some yellow rice that I picked the chicken out of as well. 

At least there was dessert!  (no photos though).

I definitely need to remember to start packing dinner for FabPreteen and myself to these potlucks!

On another note, my organics arrived today!  (yes I know it is Wednesday, not Monday but better late than never!)

Stay tuned to see what deliciousness I got!

Oh No Turns Into Oh Yeah!

It is cold!  In the 40s!  This is FLORIDA for crying out loud, Miami for that matter…and I have no heat!  Yes…I know, I just finished a whole season of whining about the heat because I had no A/C!  I just can’t make up my mind, can I!

So I put my bowl of yummy, warm , and filling oats in the micro to cook this morning and went to grab the almond butter and found this!

Sad thing is I cannot blame FabHubs or the kids for putting the jar back in the fridge like this as I am the only one who eats the almond butter!

Even sadder was I realized I could have made my oats in a jar a la Kathy and had missed my perfect opportunity!

So I sighed and put the jar back in the fridge for tomorrow…and went to the pantry (new cleaned out this weekend by FabHubs so I can walk in it now) to grab the new jar of almond butter.  It was totally separated and maybe because it is so cold here, was hard to mix.  I just didn’t feel like dealing with it.  I usually store it upside down, it mixes together much easier that way. 

So I sighed and put that jar away for tomorrow, upside down of course, and went back to the pantry to settle for the Costco peanut butter…good and what I give the kids, but not my yummy almond butter.

But I got excited when I found this! I had totally forgotten I had that in there! 

And so when the oats came out of the microwave with their yummy cooked bananas, I succumbed to some dark chocolate dreams!  This was the perfect complement to those bananas too!

Then I went all out decadent and sprinkled a large spoonful of the raw cacao nibs over it.  I can’t eat these plain, they are too butter…but on top of oatmeal they are incredible!  They add this fantastic chocolaty crunch to the oats. 

Warm, chocolaty, crunchy,  peanut buttery, banana oats?  OH YEAH!

Dressing The Oats

Somehow my breakfasts just aren’t as filling and satisfying when I eat something other than oatmeal.

And I do love my oats with a little something something added to them!

This morning’s was a new experiment!

First of all…I think FabHubs must have run out of time this morning because his bowl of untouched oatmeal was sitting waiting for me when I woke up.  Then FabPreteen did not like the Fuji apple she was eating (not crunchy enough!) so she gave that to me.

So I took everybody’s breakfast leftovers and turned them into a breakfast for me…boy did I feel special!

Digging into my Winning Box Of Healthy Goodies from Oh She Glows Angela, I found these:

These are cacao nibs, raw chocolate, powerfully healthy and a SuperFood! 

If you can’t read it…(I can’t!) it says how these contain a rich supply of vitamins and minerals including beta-carotene, zinc, and magnesium, and more anti-oxidant flavanoids than blueberries, red wine, and green tea.

We had opened the package a few weeks ago and eagerly dug and and…and…and…UGH!  BITTER!  Yes…no sugar added!  But I wanted to like them!

I knew I needed to find a way to enjoy them…in something else because at this point I just cannot snack on them as is!

So the lightbulb went off when I was making my oatmeal this morning and I went and got them and added a large spoonful to my oats, along with half of FabPreteen’s leftover apple (chopped up and microwaved along with the oats when I heated them up) and of course my usual spoonful of almond butter.  The almond butter just makes the oatmeal for me!

    This was absolutely delicious!  The bitterness of the cacao nibs was totally masked by the rest of the ingredients…and not only did it add a perfect hint of chocolate to my oatmeal, it also added a fabulous crunchiness that I really enjoyed.  This will also be really good with bananas I think….chocolate…bananas…almond butter….OH YUM!

Yes…this is definitely a keeper and I am looking forward to using my nibs now!

My Very “Producive” Week In Review

Ugh..that was  bad, wasn’t it!  Sorry!!

Here I was going to blog about how I  used my produce box all week…and then I pulled a disappearing act.

This week I went into overdrive and became overwhelmed….and it just didn’t happen.  By evening I was tired and just couldn’t summon the energy and creativity to blog.

But the food part and pictures did happen  so I can put together a quick recap! 

Monday:

All fruits and veggies from my produce co-op except the carrots, (organic from Costco:

Homemade coleslaw, Asian style vinegar based dressing

  

I dragged this thing out…it is at least 18 years old and I haven’t used it probably in 10 years…but it worked!

     

Roasted tater chips…sweet and russet!

   

Final dinner was a huge helping of the coleslaw to fill me up, the homemade potato chips, and a Boca Burger on an Arnold Sandwich thin with totally processed American cheese, and organic onion and sliced cucumbers.

      

Dessert was yummy mango…not quite ripe enough though so it was a little tart.  These two were chunked and shared between the four mango lovers.   Mangos are not on FabHubs approved fruit list!

  

Tuesday:

Oatmeal with almond milk, leftover mango, cinnamon, and almond butter.  I had been craving this!  Obviously only the mango came  from my delivery!

A snack of local Florida mandarins…I didn’t even know we grew mandarins in Florida!  We loved these…a lot more than the blood oranges that came last week.

  

Lunch was a tempeh wrap.  I have never tried tempeh before!  It was really good and is a definite repeat.  I put it on a flatout wrap with some more sliced cukes,  green leaf lettuce, and grape tomatoes.  I rounded it off with a large helping of my Asian style  coleslaw…very healthy, low in fat and very filling!

    

Sorry for blurry picture!

Dinner….

While looking  for a recipe to use my collard greens, somehow I found this perfect recipe!

Perfect because oddly enough…I pretty much had all of the ingredients for it!  I had bought  the Field Roast vegetarian sausage when we went  camping a few weeks ago with the Boy Scout troop…but because they ended up having some vegetarian MRIs  I never used it and it was at the point where it really needed to be used…or else!  It wasn’t apple sage…it was Italian…but I didn’t care, it still fit the bill!

     

From the produce box I pulled into service some garlic, red bell pepper, red onion, and collard greens.  We were out of whole wheat pasta so I just used what we had on hand.

          

Dessert!  Dark organic Green and Black chocolate and organic raspberries.

 

Wednesday:

Around here, week was getting crazier so pictures are sparser!

For breakfast I mixed Fage 0% Greek yogurt with the last of the razzies, some bananas, some Granola To Go (about 1/4 cup sprinkled), 1/2 TBS almond butter, and a drizzle of Agave nectar.   Yummy…but I did miss my oatmeal!

For dinner I wanted to use up the  broccoli before it went bad, some more potatoes (I have a major back up of those right now and need to use them!) and the eggplants.

I ended up roasting the eggplants over charcoal to make  baba ghanoush…I took pictures of the process but they seem to have left!

So I have:

   

I snacked on this with some of Mary’s organic crackers that I received from Oh She Glows Angela in the box of fabulous goodies I won from her!

OMG!  I am in heaven with these crackers…they are so crisp and crunchy and flavorful  and I immediately read the package to find out if they are Canadian only or American because I want to buy more of them!  I was hugely relieved to see they are made in California!  I will be hunting these down in Whole Foods!

  

For dinner we had the baked potato which I smothered topped with a little in light sour cream and cheddar cheese (I know!)   The lemon was for the broccoli! 

And to my complete horror,  I am having a complete brain blank here and have no idea what that other stuff is that I put on my plate that I am sure made my husband give me “the look” that I get when I serve my no meat meals!  I will have to show the picture to FabTeen and ask him…he will remember for me!  Thank goodness for kids!

(HA!  Update here and I didn’t even need the kid for it!  After squinting hard at the photo for a while, I remembered all by myself!  They are homemade bean burgers…which were not the best I have made but they were palatable.  And yes…I definitely, absolutely got the look!)

Thursday:

Thursday I finally broke out the kabocha squash.   I have received two of these in my boxes and have yet to use them!

If it weren’t for Heather, who eats these fanatically when she is not eating almond butter, I would have never known what to do with it! 

It is something I never would have bought…it looks ornamental!  But because I have been “hearing” about this for weeks, when it showed up in my box I was pretty excited!  (Yes, I know…excited about a squash, pretty pathetic!)

Hmm…I had some more “done” photos of these but they must be hanging out with those missing pix of the eggplants on charcoal!

At any rate…I am in LOVE with this squash!  It is so sweet and yummy and I loved it prepared this way and it totally reminds me of something else I have eaten…boniato maybe?  Although the skin is different…..don’t think so…but I don’t know!  I ate it skin and all.  I loved the crunchy skin on  the sweet, soft flesh…it was so perfect. 

We had dinner:

A salad I threw together with more veggies on their last legs, begging to be eaten, a nekkid Boca Burger, the last of the broccoli sprinkled with a little parmesan…and the Kabocha!

And I kept going back for more and more and more and more kabocha.

and we watched Survivor, and then CSI, and then I hit the kabocha bowl again!

   

I have one more kabocha to enjoy…and  then I need to hunt some down!  After I thank Heather of course!

Friday:

Was a day of complete lunacy where I had one activity after another from the moment I woke up until I  got home after 9 p.m.  Bake sale, Girl Scout activity, picking up kids, driving kids….it was nonstop!

No pictures!  Dinner was 1 slice cheese pizza and a bottle of water at the Girl Scout activity!

Saturday:

The madness continued!  Girl Scout caroling at a local nursing home, then a memorial BBQ (didn’t eat anything there) then a big family Hanukkah dinner!  Didn’t get in until well after 1 a.m.!   (Geez!  When did that become late?  Probably after the second child!)

Still no pictures!

I  passed on the brisket (which upset my sister terribly!!!) and filled my plate with salad,  also avocado salad, and delicious homemade latkes!

Sunday:

Finally!  FabHubs wanted more latkes and since we have a ton of potatoes to use up that is what we had at breakfast! 

Camera was still sleeping though!  And the day was another one on the run…so no pix at breakfast!

Off to yet another Girl Scout activity!  FabPreteen ate pizza…I waited for dinner though.

Dinner was another avocado salad with avocado and red onion from  the box, tossed in balsamic with a little S&P.  Very simple but very good!

  

More tossed salad, again to use up veggies before I get my  refill  tomorrow!

Brown rice:

And a coconut/peanut tofu stirfry!  I had some green onions that were starting to go mushy and they fit  the bill perfectly in here! First time I have ever pressed  and pan fried tofu…it was good…not great but good.  Need to tweak the seasonings here…..(soy sauce, peanut butter, garlic, coconut)

      

And that is my week in review!  I did a great job using up my fruits and veggies from this week…and  even most of what I had piled up in the fridge from previous weeks!

Still left from last week and before are two mangos, two bananas, 2 lemons, 1 kiwi, salad, 3 zukes, more collards, a bunch of fresh spinach, some fresh herbs (I seem to have trouble using these up!), white taters, yams, and a kabocha! 

Sounds like a lot but relatively speaking it is not and will be easy to use!

The fridge actually looks kind of empty and ready to receive tomorrow's delivery.

The clock just struck midnight and I am off to bed!  Another busy busy day tomorrow.