What I ate this week

This was kind of weird. I made a rice pudding-ish concoction with soft tofu, an old can of pumpkin pie filling (accidentally purchased; I thought it was plain pumpkin! Dumb!), and brown rice. It was very filling and tasted pretty good, but the texture was weird. In the background: mason jar of coffee with walnut milk.

After years of eating breakfast at my desk, I’m able to eat at home again now, since I don’t have to be at the office so early. It’s a small luxury, but it really makes a difference. I feel more like a human in the morning and less like an office drone on autopilot.

Roasted asparagus (given to me by my mom; she bought it at 99 Cents Only!), carrots, onions, and chickpeas. The last picture is my salad assembly line as I prepped work lunches for the week. I made a dressing with balsamic vinegar and nutritional yeast and took it on the side in tiny jars. We don’t have a refrigerator yet at work (the joys of a start-up!), so packing salads involves ice packs and an insulated bag. It’s a little cumbersome, so I’m almost happier just to pack a PB&J.

I have a lot of frozen raspberries that have been lingering for a while, so I’ve been making smoothies. This one included some red leaf lettuce that was starting to look a bit wilted.

Cinnamon fig bread made with the last of my whole wheat flour, some 00 flour that had been kicking around in my pantry for ages, a little bit of millet flour, and some quick oats. I used Peter Reinhart’s recipe for cinnamon raisin bread from The Bread Baker’s Apprentice as a guide (which I’ve made as written and loved), but I totally bastardized it. It didn’t rise much, but it tasted pretty good, especially toasted with peanut butter. And I had fun fishing out pieces of chopped figs from behind my washing machine after I managed to spill some back there (don’t ask). I have most of the loaf left in the freezer for next week.

My next priority is to finish off the rest of that millet flour. I stupidly bought 6lbs of it several months ago (why?!), and it has been a burden ever since. No more crazy flour purchases! I’m buying whole wheat from now on, and that’s it. That’s all I ever really want to bake with and eat.

Total spent this week: $0. Under budget for February by $10.34!

My goal for March: buy only produce. I don’t know if I’ll manage that, but I at least want to buy mostly produce. I need to get serious about clearing out the pantry and eating the things I’ve been avoiding.