Tex-Mex Week Continues

Leftovers from yesterday

I mentioned standing at my freezer contemplating lunch options yesterday. Here is what I was contemplating (minus the container of Bean Balls & Rice I had yesterday).

As of this morning there were 3 containers of Bean Balls & Rice, 3 containers of Moroccan Stew for lunches. There are also 2 small containers and 1 large container of the Marinara sauce I made on Saturday. It’s a well stocked freezer! 

And when I sent Husband to the basement for Salsa last night, this is where he went:

Lots of homemade salsa and jam to get us through the winter.

On to today

Yesterday was so cold, it was the first time we came home from work and the house was freezing. I’ve been saying all along that this winter is not going to be fun because we couldn’t get any firewood. I think yesterday was the first time Husband started to get what I was talking about. Yeah, we can turn up the electric heat, but that’s going to be expensive and it’s just not the same.

Today, the weather warmed up again. I’m loving it; I wish it would stay this way until January.

Breakfast:

And coffee on the way to work; you can keep your Starbucks Red Cup because I’ve got a Moose cup.  :)

 

For lunch today I had Rockin’ Moroccan Stew.

I ate the apple around 3:00, then around 4:00 I was hungry again, so I raided my desk drawer for a snack.

Quittin’ Time

Husband was ready to go a little early today which was good because they were in the process of blocking off the streets for the Olympic Torch Ceremony tonight. We made it out of town just in time. Can’t say it was a nice night for an outdoor ceremony – it was relatively warm, but it was raining. Does not sound like fun to me.

After feeding the cats I made directly for the treadmill. For some reason my interval session felt hard today, but I got through it. I usually walk for 10 minutes at the end of my intervals to cool down, but today I was enjoying my tunes and I kept telling myself “I’ll just do five more minutes” and I ended up doing 20 minutes of walking, for a total 45 minutes of cardio. I got to that point where I was suddenly feeling fantastic, like I could go forever. Gotta love endorphins. But I have learned my lesson (I hope) and I stopped at 45 minutes.

Dinner was easy – Tex-Mex Taco Soup was all ready and waiting in the slow cooker. There were two tortillas and some refried beans left too, so I decided to use them up and make a couple of quesadillas.

Inside each tortilla is refried beans and my favorite cheddar.

Balderson makes fantastic cheddar – Old Cheddar being the best as far as I’m concerned. They make really good aged White Cheddar as well. The 2 year old comes in convenient single serving packages, which is great for taking to work or if you have issues with portion control and cheese. *Ahem!*

Husband was starving and came for a bowl of soup while I was making the quesadillas. Poor guy. The soup was ready; he could have helped himself at any time. For some reason he seems to think he has to wait for me.

This felt like fancy dinner.

It tasted like awesome dinner.

There was still a little of the refried beans left, so I heated it up and dolloped it on top of my soup, then added some cheese. Oh yes I did.

I seriously enjoyed this dinner. There is soup leftover for tomorrow night, but sadly no refried beans or tortillas. Oh well.

And you know I had dessert:

Before I go, here’s a hello from the Fabulous Felines.

Good night!

Pound Cake Success!

Sunday - Had a hard time figuring out what to eat for breakfast; wanted an English Muffin again, but we finished them off on Saturday. I finally settled on finishing off the last of the Optimum Slim (about 3/4 cup left in the box), with a couple dollops of jam (making up for the lack of English Muffin). With coffee x 2.

Husband was out late playing computer games with his friends, and was still sleeping, so I ate my breakfast while watching The Vampire Diaries.

I was feeling kind of funky yesterday - really tired out and headache-y. After I finished my breakfast, I got up and started puttering around the kitchen. Finished cleaning up from Saturday's cooking extravaganza and cooked some brown rice. While I was doing this Husband woke, wandered out to get some breakfast and juice (he ate Triscuits & cheese for breakfast, with a Bolthouse fruit juice), then went and sat down in the living room. Since he usually would go off to his computer room, I took this as a sign that he was ready to watch this week's Stargate Universe. I got my self some water to drink and went back to the couch.

After Stargate, there was lunch and more puttering. On Saturday I froze my leftover beanballs in individual portions. I got 4 containers with 5 beanballs each, and had 2 leftover. Yesterday I added a half cup of brown rice to each of my single serving containers, then ate the last two with half a cup of rice for lunch.

A while back, The Bag Lady asked if anyone had requests (things they’d like to hear/learn about from her) and I mentioned in the comments that I was thinking of making a pound cake to take home to my parents at Christmas time and I was looking for a recipe. She told me to go find one myself. Just kidding. Well, sort of. She did kinda say that, but in a much friendlier way because she didn’t have  a recipe to share. I was just going for dramatic effect. Sorry Bag Lady! You're awesome! I'm just being mischievous.  :)

Anyway, my Dad has mentioned a couple of times that he likes Pound Cake, so I thought I might try making one. I looked around at recipes and finally settled on one from my old reliable Purity Cookbook. My sisters & I pretty much learned to bake from this cookbook; the chocolate chip cookie recipe is still my favorite.

So a trial run of this Pound Cake recipe has been on my to-do list for a while and yesterday I finally went for it…The result being:

I also had every intention of doing a workout yesterday, but the day was getting away from me and I was still not feeling great so I decided to give myself the day off. Yeah, there’s a recipe for success – skip your workout and bake Pound Cake. Better yet; skip your workout and eat Pound Cake. Which I did. More on that later.

What I did do, while the Pound Cake was in the oven, was move the car out of the garage and proceed to sort through some stuff, move things around, etc, to make space to finally bring in my big planters. They’ve been sitting outside the garage waiting for me to put away and I wanted it done in case it decides to do something nasty like snow.

I had to get Husband to help me finish up, but it got done. So there’s another thing crossed off my list.

Then we made supper – Chicken Fajitas. Or what I call Chicken Fajitas. Into our biggest frying pan went chicken breasts, red onion, bell peppers and garlic. For flavoring: red pepper flakes, cumin, a little oregano, a lot of chili powder and a couple tablespoons each of brown sugar and apple cider vinegar. I also threw in the dregs of two bottles of salsa that were sitting in the fridge waiting to be used.

While that was cooking, and Refried Black Beans (from a can, Herdez) were heating up I frosted the pound cake with the rest of a container of  icing that had been sitting in the fridge since Halloween. I sliced the top off the cake to make it easier to frost and Husband and I ate the trimmings. That’s darn good stuff.

I threw together a couple of lazy salads – bagged salad mix & strawberry tomatoes.

And here is my plate of Fajitas:

The Tortillas are PC Blue Menu Corn & Jalapeno; topped with cheddar and homemade salsa. There’s refried black beans on the bottom.

I also gave in to the weekend long craving for The Real Thing:

And of course we had to have dessert:

Not to toot my own horn, but this was the best slice of pound cake I’ve ever had. My only complaint is that the sides and the bottom are a teeny bit overdone; the cake is perfect though, and it’s a pretty thin crust that is overdone. Not sure if it was the size of the pan, or my oven. May have to do some more experimenting.

I confess, I went back for another slice. It was so fresh and so good.

Monday – Breakfast is my hardest meal of the day. It is so hard to think of things that appeal to me. I’m just not a morning person. I never even used to be able to eat breakfast – I would always feel nauseous if I tried to eat first thing in the morning. Over time I trained myself, but lately I’m just tired of trying to find things I want to eat. So you may be seeing a lot of this for the next little while:

That I can handle. And it’s not a coffee shop muffin.

I drank my smoothie and contemplated what to pack for lunch. I should have taken a picture of the freezer – I actually have choices. Usually I just have one thing on the go, which I’m okay with, but today I stood there looking at 3 containers of Moroccan Stew and 4 containers of Bean Balls & Brown Rice. I decided to go for the Bean Balls. Might as well alternate and keep things interesting.

As usual, coffee at work.

I started to get hungry around 11:30, but I drank some water and had no problem making it until noon, when I had my Beanballs & Rice.

Enjoyed every bite. I kinda think this is so good because I love the Marinara Sauce (Thank you Giada De Laurentiis).

I ate the apple around 3:00 in the afternoon.

Husband was ready to go almost on the dot of 5:00 today. It was downright chilly out, and dark. Winter is coming, whether we like it or not.

Today was a Circuit Workout, took about 30 minutes in the chilly basement (at least I’m not feeling steam rising off my face like I was in the summer). I had the window open for the cats, but they are going to have to get used to much less outdoors time because it is too cold to leave the window open for long.

Supper was a rerun – more lazy salad (better than no salad):

And Fajitas:

I have two different types of salsa because we reached the end of the jar we started with supper last night – Poblano & Serrano Salsa:

I set Husband to the basement for another bottle and he came back with Lime & Chipotle Salsa:

Both good, but I could definitely taste the difference. I love this meal because it’s really easy to throw together, it doesn’t make a huge mess in the kitchen, and we always get two meals out of it. And tastes really good.

I had a piece of Pound Cake for dessert (just one) but I don’t have a picture; Husband brought it to me because I was on the couch with a Fabulous Feline snoozing on my lap; couldn’t disturb his Highness.

Now I am tired; time to hit the hay.

Vegetarian days

I really can’t come up with a title. Oh well.

Friday

Nothing particularly exciting about yesterday; it was Friday and I was glad. I was feeling tired and ready for the weekend.

First Breakfast:

Second Breakfast:

Husband seemed quite shocked when I ordered a scone. Looked at me like I’d grown a second head or something. True, I’ve never ordered one before, but yesterday I wanted one. It was quite good too.

Lunch:

Sorry for the blur – apparently I can’t hold a camera (iPhone) still. Rockin’ Moroccan Stew. It’s not a large amount of food, but it’s quite filling. Mainly chickpeas and sweet potato.

Went out for my afternoon walk, hit the City Market and the book store. Got caught in the rain coming back, but it was pretty light. And my snack was worth it:

Mmmm! Pomegranate!

I was sooo tired and would have loved for it to have been one of those days where Husband was ready to leave early, but it was around 5:30 when he finally messaged me.

The usual Friday dinner:

Pad Thai with Tofu and extra veggies.

I thought about doing my interval workout, because Saturdays are always so busy, but I was just too tired.

Dessert:

Had some couch potato time, was in bed by 11 pm. Was dead to the world until 9? 9:30? this morning.

Saturday

Only one breakfast today:

Watched some TV while eating breakfast and finishing my grocery list. Then I ran out to do the shopping because Husband was going out for the evening and he needed the car. I think I headed out somewhere between 11 – 11:30 and got home around 2.

I had a protein drink:

While I put the groceries away. Then I took Frankie out for a walk.

While Frank nibbled on some grass, I worked on my balance – each foot on a different rock; he will pick the most awkward places to stop.

He’s awful purty though, so I let him get away with a lot.

Zappa was [im]patiently waiting in the yard.

When I took Frank in, there was a deer standing on a lawn across the street. Cars kept slowing down to look at it.

I brought Zappa out…

…and when we turned to go up the hill,we saw the deer had crossed to our side of the street.

 

It kept an eye on us, but did not seem particularly concerned. Zappa was quite interested in sniffing around where it had been though.

The deer moseyed it’s way up the hill…

…and Zappa and I went back to the house and out into the yard.

Still a couple of brave little flowers showing their colors.

Zappa decided to attack the tree. Poor tree.

Then he went to chew on some catnip.

Frank was just taking in the ambiance.

When I went in Husband was ready to leave for the evening and I decided it was time to tackle my kitchen project of the day. I grabbed a LaraBar because I didn’t want to take the time to eat – this tends to happen on the weekends, I get busy and I put off eating. I never plan on it, it just happens.

Anyway, I made a pot of Marinara sauce and I made the Bean Balls from Veganomicon. The recipe calls for a 20 oz can of Kidney Beans, drained and rinsed, and says it should be about 3 cups.

All I ever see are 19 oz cans, and when I measured, it was two cups. So I scaled back the other ingredients a bit.

The recipe says to make the Bean Balls walnut sized, and that it should produce 12 – 15 Bean Balls.

I don’t know what kind of weird vegan math they are doing, but with my reduced recipe I got 27 bean balls.

By this time I was getting hungry. No wonder, since it was 5:30 and I hadn’t eaten a real lunch. I may have eaten a handful of Jelly Tots during my cooking…

But that was it. I decided to quickly get in my interval workout and then have supper.

I did 35 minutes on the treadmill, went back to the kitchen and threw some broccoli in the oven to roast. Had a shower, came back to the kitchen and took the broccoli out of the oven – it cooked faster than I thought it would.

Not being vegan, I would have had no problem putting cheese on my spaghetti & bean balls. However, I happened to find Nutritional Yeast while I was shopping today, and I’ve been curious about this whole “Cheeze” sauce stuff, so I decided to make that as well.

Sure seems like I worked hard for my supper today, but I finally had everything ready. Bean Balls with Marinara Sauce on Whole Wheat Spaghetti, Roasted Broccoli, and Cheezy Sauce. I made myself a little “mocktail” to drink as well.

 

I sat down to enjoy dinner with this little present that I bought myself today:

The verdict – I liked the Bean Balls. You would not fool anyone into thinking they are real meat balls, but if you like beans – which I do – they are quite tasty. The Cheezy Sauce I am not so sure about. It does have a vaguely cheese-y flavor. And that seems to be all I can think of to say about it.

So basically, I’m quite happy to replace my meat with beans, but don’t mess with the cheese. Please.

Dessert:

Pretty tasty little cookies. I had two and was quite content.

Enjoyed my movie, dinner and dessert. Then I had to do the dishes. That would be the down side of kitchen experiments – they do tend to make a mess.

Now it’s way past my bedtime. Good night all, hope you have a great Sunday!