Cooking Maniac

I just finished making all of my food for the week! (Well, today through Wednesday - I will be going to Cincy on Wednesday night and I'll be mainly eating out then...)

I made this Southwest Skillet. It has blackbeans, whole kernel corn, fake chicken made of soybeans - sounds nasty but is realy good, salsa, Tabasco sauce, and cilantro. (Randy really liked this meal.)

I made a homemade Mac N' Cheese. I know this may not be the healthiest of options, but it sounded really good and I had everything on hand that I needed. (Remember, I'm trying to use up the food that I have before I buy more.) I only made a half batch - 2 servings. I had one small serving for lunch today and I'm planning on having the other half for lunch tomorrow.

Polenta lasanga!!! This is the best meal in my opinion. At whole foods last week I was able to get this instant polenta. It was the first time I had ever made it myself - usually I buy it already made in the tube. I really liked it this way and I will get it like this more often. The main ingredient though is the mushrooms. I got all of these wonderful funky mushrooms at whole foods (they were like $5 which is a little much for mushrooms, but I justified it with the fact that I'm using them for four meals and even frozen lean cuisines cost more than that when they're on sale!). There were baby portobellos, shitake, and oyster mushrooms. I use the baby bellas all the time, but it was so fun trying to other more exotic mushrooms for the first time. It also has mozz cheese, riocotta, bread crumbs, a little egg substitute, and one really large roasted red pepper.

So anyway, I put all of the meals into individual servings. (I have these adorable little tupperware containers that I bought at Big Lots last week. They are the perfect serving size and they look so neat and organized in the fridge with all of my meals stacked up!) So now I have dinner for tonight, lunch and dinner for tomorrow and Tuesday, and lunch for Wednesday all lined up. (I'll probably just get subway on the way to Cincy on Wednesday cuz I don't think I'll even have time to go home after work to eat.) I decided to cook and organize all of my meals today because when I get off of work from my second job on Mondays, Tuesdays, and Wednesdays I'm just TOO HUNGRY and I don't like to cook when I'm too hungry. So instead of going to get fast food after work (sometimes I get the healthy stuff, sometimes i get the unhealthy stuff, but either way, fast food is just too expensive!) I'll just be able to run home, pop my tupperware container into the microwave, and have my meal in literally one minute. This would not work for someone who has kids and a family and stuff, but for me I think it's ideal. If I like how this works this week, I'll probably make this part of my Sunday routine - to get all of my lunches and dinners all ready and boxed up for Mon, Tues, and Wed. (I won't ever really need to prepare for Thursday and Fridays cuz I only go to school on those days so I can get home a little after four and I'm not starving at that point, so I'll be able to cook myself a nice fresh meal.)

Now it's time to talk about what I've been avoiding like the plague. Exercise. Here's my plan. I would love to get up early and go to the gym every morning. But that is just not realistic. So here's my new plan. Before school on M, T, and W I'll either do my Biggest Loser exercise DVD or I'll go for a walk in the morning. I'll take thursdays off from exercise cuz I'm pretty tired on thursdays. Then I'll go to the gym after work on Friday - meeting R there. On Saturdays I'll either go to the gym or a bike ride or walk or something. Sundays I'll take off. Sounds like a plan. Now for the hard part - sticking to it.

I think I'm going to go re-read Skinny B*tch. I'm back on track with the veggie/no-meat thing. At this time, I'm not even trying to be a vegan though. I'm still eating eggs and dairy. Maybe after I've done it this way for a few months I'll give up that stuff too. I guess I'll just wait and see...