Saturday Stuff

I finished out the rest of the week trying to follow along with the LearnVest recipes, but by Friday I was completely burned out. It’s probably okay when you’re only eating it for dinner, and sharing it with someone, but lunch/dinner of the the same things plus making recipes out of the same ingredients all week, it’s totally and completely overkill.

I made this soup-turned-stew:Thursday night with a bunch of the leftover stuff I had–spinach, garlic, turnip, black beans, parsnip, onion, radish, pork, carrot, broth. I was going to toss the quinoa into it but went with pasta just in case I ended up making the pork fried quinoa [I didn’t]. Since I cooked the pasta in the soup, it soaked up almost all of the broth and turned thick and stew-like. I was okay with it, but after two bowls, and having 2+ more leftover for lunch the next day, I was ready to chuck it all out the window. I had a sweet potato, black bean, and pork salad the two times earlier in the week, so when an opportunity came up to go out for Hawaiian food for lunch [loco moco + rice + mac salad] I ran went. The leftover soup is still sitting in the fridge, and I don’t care.

Andrew came home last night, and while we were snacking on cake and dill hummus and pita chips [great combo, I know] I mentioned that I had the stuff for pork fried quinoa. I was obviously not very convincing and gladly went to the store to pick up some fat rib-eye steaks, potatoes, and mushrooms. I was glad to grill at that point. Steak is just a vehicle for me to eat sauteed mushrooms anyway.

I also finally finished up my second can of pumpkin this fall.

These smoothies took up the bulk of it every morning [besides the failed cinnamon rolls and a cake that is coming soon]. This was easily my favorite smoothie to date. Pumpkin helps hide up the fact that I have protein powder up in there pretty well. I like the protein powder well enough, but even with a half-scoop it usually dominates the flavor of most smoothies. The key is to add a huge dash of cinnamon. Pumpkin just isn’t the same without it.

Ingredients

• 1 cup coconut milk [or milk of choice]
• 1/2 scoop protein powder [I’m almost out of Garden of Life Raw Protein Powder]
• 1/2 packet NuNaturals Stevia [or sweetener of choice]
• 1/4 cup pumpkin puree
• Large dash of cinnamon
• Handful of spinach

Preparation

1. Put all ingredients into a blender.
2. Blend.