Greedy With The Greens

I have a confession: I’m greedy with veggies. Whenever I make a large batch for everyone in the house, I end up taking most of them for myself. Dustin doesn’t notice because he doesn’t love or miss them as much as I do, but I feel so greedy when I take a bunch and put them on my plate, leaving only a few scraps for everyone else, and I’m reluctant to even do that! They’re just SO good! I like all veggies, with the exception of radishes, I don’t like their spicy flavor.

Aunt Flo rolled into town on Friday, so the weekend pretty much sucked! She was being a major pain, as usual. At least I had some delicious foods to eat. On Saturday mom made homemade manicotti. Manicotti is an Italian baked pasta dish, usually with ricotta filling. My family has always made them from scratch, but there’s only a long tubular shaped pasta that serves the same purpose. The manicotti shell that we use is the crepe recipe from The Joy of Cooking, only we use just 1 tsp sugar instead of 1.5 TBSP. We also tend to make the crepes a little thicker than they should be, but they’re absolutely delicious. I forgot (probably a good thing!) to ask her to leave some of them plain for later. Oh well.

I steamed a bunch of asparagus in the microwave for just 1 minute, then added it to a frying pan with 1 TBSP EVOO, minced garlic and 1/2 TBSP butter. Of course, I ended up eating most of it, it was fantastic.

My mom doesn’t use recipes 99% of the time, not when cooking anyway, so I can’t tell you exactly how this was made, but I can tell you what was in it:

• Crepes filled with part skim ricotta, parsley and fresh mozzarella
• Low sodium tomato sauce
• Topped with more fresh mozzarella, then baked in the oven until deliciousness set it

The iced tea in the picture was made with Lipton Cold Brew teabags:

2 quarts water, 2 teabags…

…and 5 minutes later:

It was pretty good! A little weaker than I’m used to, but I probably didn’t let it sit long enough, even though it only recommends 3 minutes. I like making it the old fashioned way though; Lipton regular teabags + hot water + sit for a long time.

I was pretty full from the manicotti most of the day, so when movie time came around, Dustin made popcorn and I made a smooooooooooooooooooothie in my amazing Vita-Mix! I picked up this PlantFusion plant protein powder at Mother Earth’s the last time we were there. I buy plant protein powders because my tummy hates whey. When buying plant protein powders, I look for soy-free complete plant protein. It’s pretty pricey, but I’m not a powderaholic, so when I do use it, I want it to be tasty.

21g protein, 117 calories and it smells really good when you open it!!

I was expecting it to be green for some reason lol. Well, my smoothie ended up being green anyway.

• 1 cup hemp drink (100 cal)
• 1 medium-ish frozen banana (110 cal)
• 30g Plant Fusion vanilla bean plant protein powder (117 cal)
• 5g Hershey’s special dark chocolate powder (10 cal)
• 1 tsp honey (20 cal)
• ~cup fresh baby spinach (7 cal)
• Half of a small Haas avocado (100 cal)

1 smoothie, 464 calories

I enjoyed this while watching a Russian movie with subtitles. I love foreign films! All the ones we have seen have had such deep story lines compared to what comes out of Hollywood. I digress.

On Sunday my thoughtful cousin Tricia brought me a loaf of Irish soda bread from the city.

YUM! <3 I had 1 or 4 pieces throughout the day. It's very light and tastes like a cookie.

I was feeling peckish all day long, horror-mones of course, so I nibbled. My favorite creation of the day: Chocolate raspberry “pizza”

• 1 slice Ezekiel 4:9 low sodium bread (80 cal)
• With 1 TBSP MaraNatha dark chocolate almond spread (90 cal), 7g semi-sweet chocolate chips (35 cal) and 1 TBSP seedless raspberry Polaner All Fruit (40 cal) drizzled over the top

Calories: 245, 335 with 1 cup skim milk

SOOO GOOD!! I melted the fruit spread in the microwave first and it ended up melting the chocolate chips. Aaah, heaven. Try it, it’s delish.

I woke up this morning feeling like total crap. I had the worst cramps and felt overall yucky. I felt better after I showered and stuff, so the day wasn’t a total loss. I was craving tuna like crazy, which escalated to craving a tuna melt as soon as I eyed the cheese bin.

I bought this Horizon organic “cheese product” — yes, there’s a ton of organic junk food available in stores lol. This was $5.75, so it’s expensive “junk food.” lol

Sometimes you just want that creamy, yumminess that you can only get from processed American cheese products. The ingredients actually aren’t that bad, and the nutritional facts are decent; 60 calories per slice, 250mg sodium, 4g protein. Typical cheese, just highly processed (and delicious).

I made the best sandwich EVER!

• 2 slices Ezekiel 4:9 low sodium bread (160 cal) with a sliced plum tomato (15 cal), 4oz Trader Joe’s no salt added Tongol tuna (120 cal) mixed with 2 TBSP Hellmann’s olive oil mayo (100 cal) and 1 slice Horizon organic cheese (60 cal)
• 1 cup cauliflower soup

Stellar! Best soup and sandwich combo of the year, thus far. My mom made the cauliflower soup, sorry I don’t have the exact recipe. I asked her what she made it with and she said, “umm, butter… low sodium vegetable broth, flour, cauliflower, black pepper, onions…” It was great, so I’ll try to get the whole thing. I’m pretty sure those are the only ingredients, though. She creates simple, yet amazing foods with minimal, wholesome ingredients. Expect to see that soup a lot this week! lol I was tempted to add a little nutritional yeast to it, but I already had enough calories going on with the gigantic, wonderful sandwich and unknown soup made with BUTTER, so I skipped it. I did try a dab of it the day before, just to see what it’s like, and from what I can tell, it does taste like cheese, but a very strong, sour cheese. I can definitely see me liking it, but I haven’t tried it on a large scale yet, so that’s not my official verdict.

It’s been close to 6 hours since I had that tuna + soup and I’m just now getting hungry. Protein power? Or butter power? lol Pretty heavy in carbs too, and that’s what works best for me; a combination of all 3. I was in the mood for salad, but now I am freeeeeeeeeeeezing and it doesn’t sound as appealing. Hmm… we shall see when I get to the kitchen!

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Tagged as: cauliflower soup, Horizon organic cheese, Irish soda bread, Lipton cold brew teabags, manicotti, PlantFusin protein powder, tuna