Cereality
I imagined myself waking up at 8 and eating a big bowl of oatmeal but in reality I woke up at 9 (yes, that’s ten hours of sleep!) and just wanted some simple cereal.
Did you know there’s actually a restaurant called Cereality where you can choose from a variety of cereals and toppings? Oh, and there’s some pretty good looking oatmeal concoctions too!
Unfortunately Nature’s Path Crunchy Vanilla Sunrise is not on the list of available cereals.
Cereal + almond milk + small banana + cinnamon granola.
Then I got to work on lunch for later.
Hmmm what do I have on hand? Chickpeas, tomatoes, spinach, pitas, curry. Say no more, curried chickpea pita here I come!
Cooked 1/2 cup of chickpeas in some olive oil and curry then tossed in some plum tomatoes towards the end.
Then stuffed it all in a pita with some spinach. The filling proceeded to fall out as I tried to photograph it.
Carrots and hummus on the side.
And I bought a Kombucha at Whole Foods, where we ate lunch. This drink was such a pain, it would NOT stop fizzing everytime I tried to open it.
What the heck is elderberry?
Also had a couple bites of the sister’s oatmeal raisin cookie and it was stellar!!
Came home and for some odd reason was already starving — what the heck? But my body wanted food so I fed it.
Apple, cinnamon peanut butter and multiseed crackers — these did not hit the spot today 😦
I indulged in a little reading then decided it was wayyy to nice outside to pass up a chance to get some fresh air so I took a leisurely (and long!!) walk through the neighborhood. Not sure how far I went but I was gone for an hour and a half and it was pretty chilly by the time I finished up.
Tofu was on tap for dinner.
Caitlin’s Perfect Baked Tofu is my go to tofu recipe.
With roasted veggies (slow + low sweet potatoes and brussel sprouts in olive oil and salt + pepper).
I think I could have this simple dinner every week and be happy!
Ended the night with trivia and hopefully I’m out on a long run as you read this.
Ciao!
How To Assemble a Sandwich at School
Or at work for that matter.
This TLT (Tempeh Lettuce Tomato) comes from 101 Cookbooks and was the star of Wednesday night’s dinner. Unfortunately I was at work and had to use the leftovers as a sack lunch on Thursday.
P.S. There’s no lettuce on this sandwich because I hate it on sandwiches!!
We’ve made this once before but bringing it to school presented new challenges.
P.P.S. There is lettuce on the sandwiches we made the first time. Either I forgot I didn’t like lettuce or I’m a liar. You choose.
Step #1:
Marinate your tempeh the day/night before.
Step #2:
Cook your tomatoes the morning of and don’t refrigerate them. They get weird (so says Joey). If your making this sammy for one the tomatoes only take ~15 minutes to cook.
Step #3:
Mash your avocado ahead of time and store it in a plastic container. It may be brown by the time you eat it but who cares about what it looks like?
Step #4:
Once at work, toast bread.
Step #5:
Microwave tempeh for one minute.
Step #6:
Assemble sandwich layer by layer then enjoy!
Have I mentioned how much confidence assembling “weird healthy food” creations at school in front of other students has given me? No really, it has!
In other news I had a lovely pumpkin smoothie pre-run this morning.
- 1 cup almond milk
- 1/2 cup pumpkin
- 1/2 frozen banana
Creamy and delicious.
Then I pounded out 6.2 miles in 58 minutes. It felt great at the time but I regretted not just sleeping in as I was struggling to keep my eyes open during my first class.
I did a warm up mile inside, hence the Garmin saying I only did 5.2 miles.
The run was followed up by some homemade Scottish oats. By the way, now that I have steel cut oats I’m thinking I should attempt some real homemade Scottish oats. I made mine with rolled but they’re actually supposed to be made with steel cut.
Topped with cinnamon granola, Justin’s Choco Hazlenut, vanilla cinnamon peanut butter, mixed berry compote and a sprinkling of pumpkin pie spice.
I think I could have these toppings everyday.
Or for another day atleast.
What are your go to oatmeal toppings? Don’t even pretend you don’t all eat oatmeal compulsively like me…
Happy Friday!!
Loving on Lentils
Okay, so Joey made some amazing red lentil soup last night and you will get all the details about it but bear with me through breakfast and lunch first.
I promise it won’t be hard to wait because my breakfast was equally amazing!
I knew I was almost out of rolled oats but completely spaced buying more when I went to the grocery on Monday. Doh! Luckily I had picked up some steel cut oats at WF. Actually this was really lucky because it seems like everytime I try to get steel cut, they’re out!!
Yes, this was every bit as good as it looked.
My steel cut oats process is pretty standard and pretty much the same as my rolled oats process.
Steel-Cut Oats:
- 1/3 cup steel cut oats
- 1/3 cup almond milk
- 1 cup water
- 1/2 banana
- 1/2T ground flax seeds (except I forgot this step!)
- pinch of salt
- Mix all ingredients in a pan and simmer for ~30 minutes or until liquid is absorbed to your liking.
Easy enough, right? Except for that whole waiting half an hour to eat breakfast part…
Topped with:
- cinnamon granola
- mixed berry compote
- chocolate hazlenut apples (1/4 apple (chopped), 1/2T Justin’s Choco Hazlenut Butter, 1T almond milk — microwave for 30 seconds and stir, stir, stir)
- pumpkin butter which is unpictured because it was an afterthought
Gah, this was awesome!
I met up with Dad and Beanie for lunch on Pearl Street. Pearl and 29th Street are so close and have so many restaurants to choose from I don’t know why I don’t make a lunch trip more often!
We went to Zoe Ma Ma for some Chinese. I got the vegetarian dish which came with organic egg noodles, tofu, veggies and sauce.
It was alright, but nothing amazing 😦
I ate most of it anyways. I just can’t turn down veggies!
And speaking of veggies, I was craving more when I got home from school so a Green Monster was in order.
All I had on hand was kale so in it went along with some almond milk, 1 small banana, 2T pumpkin, 1T pumpkin butter and some ice.
This was a little earthy for my taste but still pretty good.
I slurped this down on the way into Boulder for work + a few bites of this and that on the side.
Alright, let’s get to the lentil soup already, shall we?
This was a recipe from 101 Cookbooks.
This totally exceeded my expectations. The recipe says you will need to liberally salt the soup so I assumed it might be relatively flavorless (why did I choose this recipe with that in mind??) but I was so wrong!
The lentils lose their red color but I assure you they were cool looking beforehand.
I guess we use some pretty good vegetable broth because it gave great flavor to the soup and extra salt was not necessary, and that’s coming from a salt addict!
Soooo glad we doubled this recipe so we could have lots of leftovers!
And a little Fall action on the side 🙂
Have any particularly wonderful soup recipes?
Enjoy your Thursday, my friends.
Lauren Loves Good Food 