Blueberry oatmeal with peanut butter, wheat germ, cranberries, and almond slivers. Plus green pomegranate tea.

Is it snowing where you are? I guess New York, Philadelphia, D.C. got slammed, but the flakes are only just starting to fall here in Albany. Apparently it’s going to last all day! I hope the morning and evening commutes aren’t pain! Stay warm and dry!

I remembered my camera today. Lunch in action:

Greens and mushrooms with leftover tofu and YUMMY peanut sauce as salad dressing. Pretty sure I have to start making this weekly.

Fruit and cottage cheese. Cottage cheese doesn’t photograph well.

PB&J Larabar.

This held me over well through my second job, the ride home, and dinner prep. Tonight was taco night (a Boyfriend favorite). The Boyf and The Roommate had ground chicken in their tacos, but I’m trying to stick with the meatless thing so I did black beans instead. We had salsa, homemade guacamole, tomatoes, cheese, and salad greens, too.

Tacos have a high deliciousness factor, it’s true.

Nothing too complicated, but veggie-ful and hearty. Perfect Thursday night dinner. We’re only a night and a day away from the weekend, folks! I can’t wait for a little break. I’ve added a hot laundry date to my list of fun times. And lots of play time with this monster:

Lunch was thrown together before work:

My review? Delicious! I love most Larabars, but this flavor is near the top. I was really excited when I saw them in Price Chopper this weekend.

After my snack I started work on dinner.

Stir fry! I didn’t mention this earlier, but I’m avoiding meat, too. Normally I don’t eat much meat at all, but lately I’ve been ordering meals with bacon on them or craving chicken on pizza. It’s weird for me and truthfully I prefer a diet light on meat.

The Boyfriend made (unpictured) sweet and sour chicken to go with the stir fry, but I went with marinated tofu.

We ate our dinner with brown rice and this incredibly yummy peanut sauce:

The sauce was a recipe from this book:

I’ve had this book for a few years, back from the time when I was a vegetarian. It’s extremely resourceful and I recommend it for anyone, from a newbie vegetarian to a cheeseburger lover who needs a reference cookbook on grains. I took the recipe for my mushroom barley soup from here.

The players:

Barley

Mushrooms, carrots, onions, and garlic. I let it all simmer together while we ate dinner.

The photo may be a bit unimpressive, but the smell was incredible. I cannot wait to eat this for lunch tomorrow!

So what is the result from my first day of hitting the “refresh” button on my system? In one day I’ve definitely inspired myself to get back on the meal-planning and veggie-eating wagon. The only bump in the road was about seven minutes ago when I was cleaning up the kitchen. I saw cookies The Roommate made this weekend and moved to grab one before remembering my challenge.

Not being one to deprive myself a treat, I searched for ways to calm my sweet tooth and decided to whip up chocolate banana soft serve. If you read food or fitness blogs you may have seen this wandering around the blogosphere. All you need is a frozen banana and a blender/mixer/food processor.

I used my immersion blender with decent results. A food processor is just better, but my kitchen already looked like this and I didn’t feel like lugging the thing out:

   

Delish! Jack and I ate dessert in the kitchen together. His tasty treat was the last licks of the peanut butter jar.

I’m off for an episode of Criminal Minds with The Roommies and then bed!