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:

For lunch I had some of my barley soup. Holy deliciousness! You should seriously go get yourself a copy of The Best Vegetarian Recipes if only to make mushroom barley soup. I don’t even LIKE soup most of the time but this is amazing. I left my camera at home but I did snap a humorous photo with my phone. I give you Exhibit A, or Why I Desperately Need An iPhone:

Oh, yeeeeah.

My soup and yogurt-with-fruit combo did not hold me over for the seven hours between lunch and dinner so I snuck a Pecan Pie Larabar in during the commute home. Dear good people of Larabar: higher me to say good things about your company. I have high praises.

Dinner was the product of many cravings. Since I can’t stuff myself full of grilled cheese or pasta this week, I figured a hot and filling option was best. At first I wanted a repeat of last night — eggs, avocado and mushrooms. But then I wanted a baked potato. And then I remembered these Roma tomatoes I bought and need to use. So I created mishmash of all of these things in a Farmer’s Market Frittata. Frittatas are so tasty, so easy, and you can throw anything in them (like an abundance of vegetables in your fridge).

This photo only has 6 eggs, but that turned out to be too few — with all of these add-ins, I needed an extra three. I cut up a small potato (with skin — that’s where all the nutrients are!) and stuck it in the microwave for 2 minutes. Next I chopped up half an avocado, two mushroom caps, a Roma tomato, and the last bits from a bag of spinach.

Here are the instructions: heat olive oil in a cast-iron or any oven-safe skillet, beat eggs in a bowl, add ingredients, pour mixture into skillet and cook over medium heat until the sides pull away slightly and the middle almost sets.

Not quite done! Heat the oven to 350 degrees, grate some cheese on top (I used a mixture of Cheddar and Parm) and bake for 15 to 20 minutes, until the eggs are cooked through and the top is set.

As such, I’m not in the best mood and I’m not feeling the positive and calming effects of refresh week. I won’t bore you with my morning bowl of oats (which is pretty much the same every day). Lunch was a repeat. Dinner was kind of weird looking, but totally delicious.

I had really wanted to make that pumpkin risotto that I love so much, but I cannot for the life of me find canned pumpkin! Are you telling me that I am the only person in the Albany area who uses pumpkin post Thanksgiving? The next time I find cans of it I’m stocking up!

In lieu of pumpkin-y delight, I used up leftover avocado in this:

Omelette (or something…) with mushrooms, avocado, and cheddar. Hot sauce added after the photo. Not the prettiest plate, but I think it’s sort of fun.

LOST is in a half hour. I love LOST but I’m already… lost. I can’t remember anything from last season. Bad. Hopefully it will all come back to me when I’m watching it!

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!

Not cooking and planning my meals has led to a lot of take-out, many a meal-on-the-go, and dinners that consist of an unusual assortment of foodstuffs from my fridge. Which is my fancy way of saying I’ve been eating a lot of Stewarts’ Cream and Coffee Fudge for dinner.

In addition to eating poorly, I’ve gone out a lot with friends (drinks and bar food galore!) to celebrate birthdays and out-of-town visits and Fridays. I’ve been stressed, I haven’t been sleeping well, and I feel drained of energy all of the time.

So not only do I need to perk up my attitude a little, I need to hit the refresh button on my body. I’ve been reading a little about detoxes and cleanses and all that, and for the most part I think it’s a load of phooey. For a week I followed the statuses of a friend on Facebook who was doing a juice cleanse. Sorry, but the “benefits” of drinking only fruit juice for 7 days do not outweigh the fact that I’d be a HUGE grumposaurus from denying myself solid foods. No Master Cleanse for me.

I wanted to do some sort of literal “detoxification” of all the crap I’d been putting into my body lately, but I was hesitant to call it that. I don’t want to spend a week depriving myself of essential nutrients — that’s just not safe. I’ve decided that, for at least this week, I do need to cut out foods that have no nutritional value. For a week I’m cutting out the following:

• Sugar (yes, this includes my beloved ice cream)
• Bread (yes, this means no bagels)
• Caffeine (yes, this means no 3 o’clock savior in the form of a medium coffee)
• Alcohol (yes, this means coming home after a loooong day and taking the edge off with a nice glass of… herbal tea)

Basically, I’m cutting out my four main food groups. Sigh. A lot of resources recommend cutting out dairy. Like cheese.

Um.

Sorry. I just need to take a moment. The idea of not eating cheese for a week is on par with spending a week holding my breath under water: guaranteed catastrophe.

Frankly, I’m not interested in deprivation; there’s no self-love in that. Cheese is in.

On Sunday night, to help kick-off the eve of Refresh Week, The Boyfriend and I did two things:

1. Ordered a cheese pizza.

Rome wasn’t built in a day, people.

2. Went grocery shopping.

I allowed myself to spend money on items I don’t normally buy because of cost: avocados, a new box of tea, Parmesan (see what I’m saying about cheese?).

Part of my Refresh Week is about getting back in the kitchen. As retro as that sounds, cooking is a good way for me to unwind after a day. I like spending 30-40 minutes preparing dinner for my little family. Plus my two furry boys usually keep me company while I chop, boil, and saute away the day.

I spent my Sunday night planning meals for the week. I’ve got some good recipes to try out, so stay tuned!