Rainbow Peanut Noodles

Rainbow Peanut Noodles

If I had forgotten what a hunger signal was, I got a rude awakening on Saturday. I went with my family up to Cleveland for the day to see my sister and her fiance's new house. We left around 11:30 so I had a big bowl of cereal with fruit and nuts around 9:30. I even packed a Larabar. I thought about packing lunch, but figured we'd stop along the way. Nope.

We got there and did my family think to get lunch? Nope. By 3:30.. even after I had my snack, I was dying of hunger. A snack bar and a bowl of cereal doesn't last long. When I mentioned I was hungry that meant my mom and sister had to pipe up about how little they ate and they weren't complaining. That's great my mom can got 6 hours on a piece of toast and my sister can go 8 hours on coffee and a handful of triscuits, apparently I was made to be a "wuss" because my body couldn't subsist on 550 calories for 8 hours.

I did get a handful of peanuts and South Beach cereal bar my mom had in her purse, but I didn't make the best choices at dinner because I couldn't get rid of the headache I developed from being over hungry.

On the bright side, my sister's house was super cute and makes me want to save even more so I can own my own place and have the opportunity to paint and decorate things.

Today was MUCH better all around. I started my day off with another bowl of Kashi Go Lean with blueberries, pecans and vanilla soy milk and coffee with a little half and half. Then, I went shoe shopping! My right arch has been hurting on and off when I run and my left knee was starting to bother me again, so I decided it was time to plunk some money down on good shoes. So glad I did!

No pain at all.. I even went a little farther than I normally do. I should really keep track of mileage so I can replace them before the pain sets in.

I stopped in for lunch.. leftover pulled chicken from Friday night on a Trader Joe's whole wheat bun. It was much better cold, but still very vinegary.. I think I like a more sweet bbq sauce kind of pulled chicken.


Pulled Chicken Sandwich

Then off to do my grocery shopping so I could make some dinner. As I got out of the car a young guy was a couple spaces over loading up his car with his groceries -- an entire cart of gallon-sized tubs of ice cream and gallon jugs of 2% milk. Looks like he picked up the basics! I'm guessing he lives with a bunch of other guys?

I picked up stuff to make this Rainbow Peanut Noodles recipe I saw on the Splendid Table site. I usually listen to it in the car every Saturday while I'm running errands, but I've never actually made any of the recipes from the website. I wasn't disappointed.. these were fantastic! I skipped the bean sprouts since they looked awful at the store and skipped the chicken because I didn't want to fuss with making some. I think seared tofu would be excellent in this salad if you didn't want to use chicken.

Now I'm exhausted. I think I'll crawl into bed and catch up on some reading. Night!

Veggie Pizza

I continue to make ugly meals. Actually, last night's was just plain terrible. I threw most of it away. I'd like to end this cooking funk pronto. It was a pretty crummy cap to an equally cruddy day.

At least today was better — even though I only ate scrambled egg whites and toast. Some nights that's perfect, for tonight, it was. I also learned tonight that my cat, Bella, loves crackers. If Kashi ever needs a spokescat she happily volunteers — she only requires a lifetime of TLC original crackers as payment. Also acceptable crackers — graham crackers and cheeze-its.

Anyhow, since I don't have a recent meal to share I'll share my veggie pizza I made a week or so ago. I don't know how I missed this. It was delicious!

I saw this pizza dough on a blog recently, and that's what started my craving. I immediately started day dreaming about veggie pizza.

After I graduated college, I went out a lot with one of my coworkers from the movie theater I worked at part time. After a long night of drinking we usually needed some food to soak it all up, so we found ourselves at a late night pizza shop. She's vegetarian so it was always a veggie pizza. Our favorite? Broccoli and feta cheese. If you've never had broccoli on a pizza — try it. I thought she was crazy at first, but it totally works.

From that time on I've been hooked on pizzas loaded with veggies. Another favorite is loaded with roma tomatoes, fresh mushrooms and green peppers. So all of the above went on my version. For the sauce, I used this quick recipe I saw on another blog.

And it didn't disappoint me. Maybe not as good as what I can get at my local shops, but probably the best at-home version I've made so far.

Even Bella agrees. She looks agreeable, no?

Pasta with Two Tomatoes

Saturday's dinner, Pasta with Two Tomatoes, is prettier than the meals I ate tonight and last night. Both were good, but brownish, monotone and ugly. I decided not to subject you to that.

And not only was Saturday's meal not bad looking, it tasted pretty great, too! It was really fresh tasting with all the tomatoes. It wasn't very sauce like, so if you prefer actual sauce with your pasta this isn't for you. If you like chunks of tomato with a little olive oil and cheese, this is more your speed. The only problem with it was my mozzarella melted. But that could be my fault rather than the recipe's.

Last night I had a vegetable stir fry from Food and Wine, but I used shredded carrots instead of the cabbage, increased the vegetable broth, and decreased the oil drastically. I served it over brown rice with a couple of steamed chicken pot stickers I found in the back of my freezer. It was really good. It was still good today as leftovers and was really points-friendly despite the amount of cashews if you decrease the oil down to 1 tbsp. If you're using a nonstick pan with cooking spray you don't need a bunch of oil, especially with the sesame oil to add so much flavor.

Tonight's dinner was less successful — grilled portabellas with bulgur salad. I wanted to like it so badly.. and it wasn't awful.. it was pretty good, really. It was so involved I ended up losing patience midway through and slapped the rest together. So I can't blame the recipe for much. I did cut WAY back on the oil and tried to compensate a little with some vegetable broth, so my vinaigrette didn't come out so vinegar-y.

But 5 minutes for cooking bulgur? What planet are they on? That's definitely not long enough. At least the roasted asparagus I had on the side was good. I eat it once a week and I haven't tired of it yet!

All right — off to watch Jon and Kate Plus 8. It looks like it's going to be a bit of a train wreck this season, but I can't help but watch. That's probably what TLC is banking on.

Night!