Weekly Eats: Cracking the Salad Code

A weekly round up: eats, watches, and reads.  In this week's edition, I cracked the salad code, celebrated a new state law, "helped" my stepson with his homework, and went on a book binge.

I think I've finally cracked the salad code!  Eating salads for lunch has been a fail for me in the past.  I haven't found the happy medium between eating a few leaves of lettuce and ending up starving all afternoon, or eating a few leaves of lettuce with a mountain of toppings and dressings only to end up stuffed to the gills.

I'm not sure where I got this idea but I picked up a salad kit from Costco, air fried a pound of shrimp, and mixed in leftover rice, roasted sweet potatoes, and avocado.  The dressing, corn and corn chips are from the salad kit.  And high 5, we have a winner here!  Filling without being a calorie bomb, a reasonable balance of nutrition and yummy tasting stuff.  Stay tuned to see where this goes.

Breakfasts
On my running days, I've started to go for the convenience/sure fueling of Cliff bars and coffee.  On non running days, avocado toast and a homemade Egg McMuffin showed up.

Lunches
In addition to my new beloved salad, there were also a few instances of salad/pizza/side of kalamata olives.

On Saturday I made refried rice ala Gwen Jorgensen (heads up the recipe link is a YouTube video).  8 oz of mushrooms, a few cups of Costco stir fry veggie mix, and everything mixed together b/c that's how I roll.

Dinners
Monday: This is an example of a very typical menu for family dinner nights when I first met my husband, picky kid proof/single dad low stress.  My stepsons and I both like to tease my husband for what we call "Dad Food", except that he wasn't the one to suggest it this time so I guess this meal is now "Stepmom Food".

Tuesday: Pitching my A game with Jo Cooks Hunan Chicken and Costco egg rolls.  The sauce was a miss for all of us, nothing wrong with it, just not to any of our tastes.  Why am I linking to the recipe then?  Because of the chicken cooking technique.  It was 100% spot on so we'll repeat that part of the recipe and use a different sauce next time.

Wednesday: steak night!

Thursday: leftover night!  Hubs had steak and mashed potatoes and the kids were let loose with hot dogs and leftover mac & cheese and rice.  I had a salmon bowl (air fried salmon, rice, Costco stir fry veggies, avocado, sushi ginger, and the dressing from Skinny Taste's Seattle Salmon bowls (with the wasabi on the side where I can see it and know what I'm getting into.  I love spice but the wasabi that I have is really hot and I just can't get it to mix in evenly with the dressing)

Friday: mandatory take out night!  We went back to the Mexican place.


Wait, here is a more accurate representation: the temporary bill that allowed restaurants to sell alcohol to-go during the pandemic just became a permanent part of state law.  I'm becoming quite a fan of our state government.

Saturday: mandatory burger night.  The kids had beef burgers and the adults mixed it up and had chicken burgers.

Sunday: and now for something completely different with homemade hamburger helper.   If you're looking for a tasty home cooked meal that's on the table in 15 minutes, this is for you.  If you're looking for something that the kids in our house adore...look elsewhere.  They love ground beef, they love pasta, they love cheese...but they didn't buy the combination of all of it in the same bowl.  The adults loved it though.

Treats
I made a batch of chocolate chip banana bread muffins earlier in the week.

And something a little naughtier for the weekend...cream cheese brownies.

Watching
Hubs and I finished Jungletown ((here's a link to the series playlist on Youtube).  I saw the first episode of season 2 of Dead to Me and am looking forward to more.

Friday was the last day of school with the final timestamp of midnight for assignments and both of our guys were up late.  After dinner stepson #1 and I were in the back room and he was hunched over his school computer watching some lame documentary for health class.  He had the volume as low as it could go and I caught a few strains of music that sounded familiar.  He clicked the volume up one notch...

Me: "OMG are you watching SuperSize Me???????!!!!!!!"
Him: "You scared me".

Yes!  One of my favorite documentaries!  We plugged his computer into the backroom TV and finished it up on the big screen.  Man, I wish I'd had this kind of homework when I was in school.

Reading
Normally I read a chapter or two right before bed, so sometimes it takes me a while to get through a book.  Not this week!  I found not one but two good books.

• Time After Time by Lisa Grunwald.  I think that this is the first time I've read a book that was described as a "Satisfying Supernatural Romance" and it looks like I need to read more in this genre.  I binged this sucker down in 24 hours, could not put it down. 
• The Passenger by Lisa Lutz, we're back in thriller/suspense territory and I downed a big chunk of the book in my first sitting.

P.S. I avoid email lists like the plague, but one that I've found it very useful to be on is Modern Mrs. Darcy's E-book Deals.  I scan the emails for books that look interesting and if I'm lucky I can get them from my library (Time After Time) and if I'm not (The Passenger) the ebooks are in the $1-$3 range so I'm happy to take a chance for that price.