Bind & CrEATe

The blog’s been busy with sentimental feelings lately, but in the background I’ve been eating – eating lots of good-for-me power foods that’s keeping me sustained. When it reaches Thursday, and I’m feeling at my wit’s end with the week, I almost want to give myself a hug. Hug myself for making meals on Sunday. Hug myself for having things organized and planned. I’m not sure when I became this person, but I like her, and I think I’ll keep her around. Because by this point, I almost don’t care what I shove into my mouth. It’s handy to have a ‘fridge stocked with vegetarian options.

Many of these meals came from – where else – Pinterest.

1. Lentil Meatballs with Spaghetti Squash “Pasta”

I liked these quite a bit. Especially in red sauce. But they must be becoming a “thing.” I saw them featured on another blog this week. The one thing I dislike about Pinterest is the redundancy. It makes me feel much less cool that I’m not the only one making “meatballs” out of lentils, cheese, and breadcrumbs.

2. “Egg” Salad Sandwiches (made with tofu!)

So it was pretty much confirmed this week that low-fat mayo has a remarkable taste. It doesn’t matter if you use egg or tofu – this will taste just like the picnic egg salads of your youth. It tasted as if like there was no trace of tofu. I couldn’t get enough of this and ate three sandwiches for dinner on three separate occasions. The protein was incredible! Looks like I really don’t mind redundancy after all.

3. Quinoa with Lentils & Chickpeas

This was the less-than-stellar meal of the week. It lacked in flavor. What do you know – it was one of my one recipes? I was basically trying to use up some old ingredients and threw this together along with some “Pasta Sprinkle” seasoning. I revved it up on Wednesday by adding some tomato sauce from home. That made this lunch much more tolerable.

I have a lot of baking on the agenda for this weekend. Cupcakes are becoming a slight obsession. I don’t even want to eat them; I just want to pipe icing out of a ziploc bag. It’s the most therapeutic thing I’ve done in weeks.

What’s on your weekly menu?

Cat and I have begun a new quest: Sunday cooking. I always cook a little something on Sundays, but this time we’re taking it to more-serious meal-planning level. Lately I’ve found myself rushing from one activity to the next during the week, with little time during the cook to cook or make lunches. This caused the restructuring of our food making.

First on the list was a basic chili recipe. We made this chili using fresh ground beef from my grandparents’ garden. I’ve eaten this chili twice this week – both for lunch and dinner on two separate days. It provided me with a ton of fuel to get through my running workouts and extracurricular activities. Though, I won’t lie. I still feel strange eating meat twice in once week. Maybe that means I’m more of a vegetarian than I thought.

The second dish we created was this Curried Red Lentil and Swiss Chard Stew with Garbanzo Beans. This is a major power-food meal. Cat has already reported increased levels of energy after eating this for lunch, and I concur. Plus, we got to use up 12 cups of the swiss chard from the garden – pretty much our last surviving garden good.

Cooking in advance had made my life infinitely easier this week. Having healthy meals on stock has really helped me choose the right foods, especially in moments where I’m fatigued and just need to eat.

After nearly a year of willy-nilly eating, I’m ready to get my nutrition back in check – and what better way to do it than with a little beans, vegetables and meat that comes from a source I know.

Do you cook in advance?