Weekly Eats: Monday August 27 to Sunday September 2

A weekly roundup: eats, workouts, watches, and reads.  Spaghetti and meatballs edition.

When my husband and I were talking about what to have for dinner tonight, he asked, "Is it too soon for pasta again?"  We were both still thinking about our big family dinner and sister-in law #1's meatballs and sauce.  The problem is that SIL #1 lives overseas and went back home this week.  The soonest that we're going to get another dinner from her is Thanksgiving...sigh...and right then I there I determined that it is time for us to focus and find our own family recipe.  And so tonight the quest began.  For that, many other awesome eats of the week, and a Trader Joe's haul, read on.



Weekday Breakfasts
Breakfast burrito x2

Avocado toast x2

Sausage, cheddar, and avocado scramble with English muffin x1

Weekend Breakfasts
Saturday: stop me if you've seen this before...more sausage, cheddar, and avocado scramble.

Sunday: fruit, cereal bar, and cheese.

Weekday Lunches
Blue Apron's Zesty Shrimp and Fettuccine (prepped last Sunday, as discussed it's a Blue Apron recipe that I made with my own ingredients).  It was everything that I wanted it to be.

Weekend Lunches
Saturday: Grocery store sushi

Sunday: salad with leftover fajita mix

Weekday Dinners
Monday (family meal): Quickie chicken parm.  That's leftover pasta and SIL#1 sauce from our weekend family dinner and freezer breaded chicken breast.

Tuesday (family meal): Mac n'cheese and hot dogs.

Wednesday (date night): grilled lamb and mashed potatoes

Thursday (unplanned date night): Cheesecake Factory!  It's fairly close to where we work (hubs and I work within a few miles of each other) and hubs got the random and very welcome idea to go there to start off our four day weekend.  My standard order is the tuna tataki salad.  We got cheesecake to go.

Friday (date night):  Hubs and I took the day of work...to work on the house.  He finished up our newly remodeled bathroom and I deep cleaned.  We were exhausted by the end of the day, and even though we'd been out the day before, we treated ourselves and got takeout from our favorite nearby Lebanese restaurant.  Meat platter for him, lamb salad for me.  Cheesecake Factory cheesecake for dessert.

Weekend Dinners
Saturday (date night): Chicken fajitas via Taste of Home. I did have some hesitations about making something that was part of the series "vintage recipes from the 70's worth making today" but my prejudice was unfounded and this is good food.  That we'll be having again.

Sunday (family meal): Spaghetti Sauce with Meatballs.  Now look, it wasn't as good as SIL#1's, but it was excellent and easy to make.  I used crushed tomatoes instead of whole tomatoes and made 1.5x times the number of meatballs. 

Full disclosure: the kids love lasagna but they are suspicious of spaghetti and meatballs (the same ingredients in a different configuration).  Though stepson #2 paid me the huge compliment of eating his meatballs before his garlic bread (normally he scarfs down bread and drags out the rest of the meal), so I will take it.

Meal Prep
Another batch of breakfast burritos.  We have one family meals and one adult meal's worth of meatballs left over.

Trader Joe's Haul Deets
Staples: This Fig Walks into a Bar, frozen chicken breasts, frozen spinach, unsalted butter, energy bites, Bay Blend coffee, and oranges.
Treats: Gone Bananas (for stepson #1), Strawberry bites gone berry (for me), Smashing S'mores
New: Mint Coins cookies (for steps), and finally cauliflower gnocchi (for me).  I cannot wait to try it.

Workouts
Ah, the good, the bad, and the ugly...
The good:a new to me weight workout!  My mind and my glutes were blown by single leg squats.
The bad: single leg squats...Jillian Michaels used to joke about a workout leaving someone so sore that they couldn't get on the toilet.  Yep, bending that low was pretty painful for all of this week.  Single leg squats...I will conquer you.
The ugly: I feel like all of the fitness bloggers that I follow have been posting about fall weather this week.  Not so where I live.  It's been nothing but heat, heat, and more humidity.  I can't remember a previous year when it was this humid even at dark o'clock in the morning when I work out.  I keep reading how training in humidity is supposed to acclimatize you to humidity but I ain't feeling it.  What happens is that I get dizzy/pukey/fainty and have to cut my workouts short and usually feel terrible for the rest of the day.  So boo to humidity, and judging by next week's forecast the treadmill and I will be spending quality time together.

Watching
(from the treadmill): How to Get Away with Murder, Marvelous Mrs. Maisel
(from the couch - adults): This is Spinal Tap followed by Popstar.  So basically we watched the same movie twice and enjoyed it both times.

Reading
Yeah, I'm floundering.  I've tried a few things and haven't found a book to hook me in.  Stay tuned (and better yet leave a comment if you have a recommendation).