Weekly Eats: OMG a Trader Joe's Haul!

A weekly round up: eats, watches, and reads.  This week I went to TJ's and bought All of The Things and had adventures with the air fryer.

Breakfasts

The standard fare of Cliff bars before runs and carby snacks afterwards.  I treated myself to air fryer French Toast before Saturday's long run.

Pro tip if you have the same air fryer that I do, for some reason French toast really sticks to the basket.  This week I tried using parchment paper and got to enjoy one of my favorite breakfasts without all of the mess.

Lunches

Ah sofritas bowls, you are where it's at.  Roasted sweet potatoes, rice, refried beans, salad mix, avocado, and Pinch of Yum's tofu sofritas.

I made another batch this weekend and I've really honed in on my tofu air frying skills.  I press the tofu for a few minutes to get some but not all of the liquid out, and then blot the surface with a paper towel.  Spray with oil and season with seasoned salt.  Air fry 20 minutes at 360 degrees and then let it sit in the oven for a bit after that.  End result = crispy outside, tender inside.

From there I break up the tofu and stir in the sauce and just reheat it briefly rather than simmering it like the original recipe.

Dinners

Monday: as usual it was a complete and total surprise when dinner time rolled around and the adults had to figure out how to feed ourselves and the kiddos quick to get to nighttime activities.  We had a little bit of steak left over from the night before, so we made burritos.  The kids got steak, rice, and cheese in theirs, hubs is more sophisticated so he added Trader Joe's fire roasted peppers and onions, sour cream, and guac.  I am even more sophisticated (high maintenance?) so mine was refried beans in place of rice, steak, cheese, the pepper mix, sour cream, and copious amounts of salsa and hot sauce.

Tuesday: another "wing it" meal prepared by my soul mate.  Mac n'cheese and frozen crispy chicken strips, which are wicked good in the air fryer (kinda grown up chicken nuggets, which is to say that the adults love them and the kids think they are weird).

Wednesday: the boys had dinner with their mom, and hubs and I did a "fend for yourself" night.  He had a tuna sandwich.  I raided the freezer for roasted sweet potatoes, peas, and a chicken sausage, which I air fried.

Thursday: oh look I do cook nutritious dinners for my family once in a blue moon.  Air fried salmon, rice, Costco stir fry veggies, avocado, sushi ginger, and the dressing from Skinny Taste's Seattle Salmon Bowls.

Friday and Saturday: single girl nights.  The menfolk went off to boy scout camp and the girls (stepdog and I) hunkered down.  She had dog food, I had frozen pizza (both unpictured). 

Sunday: our standard "everybody survived boy scout camp!" dinner of tacos.

Trader Joe's Haul Deets

Currently the plan is for me to stop by the office once every two weeks to pick up paperwork, so I have regular access to TJ's again.  Autumn is by far my Most Wonderful Time of the Year for TJ's.  I got:

• A bunch of random groceries that we needed that are buried under everything else.
• A lot of Smashing S'mores.  They were out last time I was there so we've been in a drought.
• Hold the Cone chocolate chip (hidden underneath everything else), which is currently the stepsons' favorite treat.
• Hold the Cone pumpkin ginger, which is currently and always will be my all time favorite Trader Joe's treat and alas is only available once a year.  So so good...
• New stuff to try:
• Maple Kettle Corn, v. good & recommend, and thank goodness I only got one bag and will not be able to get another one for two more weeks.
• Jalapeno corn & rice puffs were also v. good & recommend and thank goodness that stepson #2 thought so as well which is the only reason why I didn't eat the whole bag by myself.  I love spicy food and stepson #2 has a tender palate, so I think we liked this for opposite reasons - I found it respectably spicy and he found it very spicy but not too spicy.
• Did not get: This Pumpkin Walks into a Bar, which was a former hard crush of mine.  I'm just more into the fig bars that I can get year round. 

TJ's is good for more than just food.  My husband and I were talking about sunflowers recently, so I got him some:

The stepsons are big fans of succulents, especially in spooky pots (thanks Wendy for telling us about these!) so it was a given that I was coming home with two of these:

Watching

I polished off a bunch of old movies, nothing notable to report. BUT OMG...OMG...OMG there's a new season of Shtisel coming out next year!!!  Sorry, I know everyone is saying "huh? what?" so I will explain that Shtisel is on Netflix, it's one of the best TV shows I've seen this year, and even if you haven't heard of it you probably have heard of a little show called Unorthodox and Shira Haas is in both shows so that's enough of a reason to check out Shtisel.  Season 2 came out several years ago and nothing since then so I assumed that was it and holla there's more.

Reading

Speaking of Unorthodox...I listened to Deborah Feldman's second memoir this week on audiobook.  Exodus picks up where Unorthodox leaves off and all I can say is that it was quite good.