successful day

Studying for finals can be a drab and stressful time but, I had a good day anyway- a solid day at that.  Here is a play-by-play (well, not exactly, but the high points will be included):

G and I went and worked our butts off at Crossfit.

Ate a delicious breakfast of fruit salad (leftover from potluck last night), fried bacon, and boiled eggs.  Yum!!

Then I did some studying, until it was time for another meal :).  Can you tell what the highlights of my day are yet?  ha.  I am a definite food lover!  Here's what I made..

Ingredients: garlic, ginger, onion, carrots, green bell pepper, yellow bell pepper, broccoli, shrimp, hoisin sauce and sweet Thai chili sauce- cleaning out the fridge.  I would recommend leaving out the sweet Thai chili sauce and using hot sauce instead, it was a little too sweet for my liking. 

Then I ran (actually biked) some errands with G- to the dry cleaners and accountant.  Still a little chilly out in Saskatchewan, but the snow is off the trails so we are good to go!

I'll admit, I was pretty tuckered out once we got home.  Had a nap- for a little longer than I'd hoped!

There you have it, the highlights of my day.  In case you are curious, this is what I had for supper:

Leftovers :)

And yes, my day did end with studying.  Two finals down, three to go!

treat - remorse = exceeding expectations

Quite often when I "treat" myself I am happy with my decision...for about three months until buyers remorse sticks it to me.  I look at my bank account and then start back tracking on things I spent money on that were not needs and so regret presents itself.  Been there?

Well, one way that I treat myself is by purchasing colourful, delicious and easy to cook food.  When cooking at home you can always avoid buyers remorse by tracking the cost of the food, evaluating how much a meal actually cost.  Then, compare it to what you could buy from a vending machine, convenience store, fast food or sit down restaurant and you are always feeling very good about your purchase. 

I know that some people are reading this and thinking colourful, delicious and easy: Kraft Dinner! 
That is not what I had in mind (that would only lead to a different kind of remorse). 

Here's an example of what I'm talking about.  Today it took me 4 minutes to prepare my meal (and I am not an efficient person), and 15 minutes for it to cook.  Last night I took a trout fillet out of the freezer (still from my collection of high quality meats) and let it thaw in the fridge over night.  

To prepare I put some olive oil in the pan, placed the fillet on it with some butter and a little dash of Montreal Steak Spice then put the pan in the oven at 350 for 15 minutes.  In the meantime I rinsed some broccoli and broke it up into a microwavable dish- put it in the microwave for two minutes.  Done!  

 That my friends is a feel good meal!  These pictures are of my half eaten meal.  I cook the trout with the skin on but I don't eat it, just personal preference. 

Total cost/serving: $3.75
Total prep time: 4mins
Total cook time: 15mins
Taste: pleasant 
Level of feel good quality (outcome): exceeding expectations

veggie delighted again

I haven't been interested in eating veggies lately so I started looking up recipes to get inspired because eating them raw and plain just wasn't working anymore.  I found a delicious looking recipe out of Jamie's Food Revolution cookbook but, it had one unfamiliar ingredient: parsnips. 

Feeling a little adventurous we went forward with another food experiment.  This one turned out much better than the kumquats!  Parsnips are the carrot shaped veggies shown below that are the same colour as the potatoes.  They ended up being impressively scrumptious.  Yummm. 

In this second picture you get a little peak at the beautiful beef (round) roast we had with our veggies.  I would be lying if I claimed that I chose the veggies before I noticed the roast recipe.  (thank you Jamie!)  By the way, this is still local meat that I am eating until my freezer empties of the good stuff and I have to start buying lower quality meats (budget decision). 

One part of the recipes that I found interesting was that I wasn't supposed to peel the garlic before cooking it.  I thought I could partly follow directions by just cutting off the hard bottom so it would be easier to eat.  Wrong!  The garlic ended up drying out, and as you can see on the right hand side of this bottom picture it turned brown and nasty.  So, when it says do not peal the garlic, do NOT peal the garlic.  

Back to loving veggies.  A little olive oil, rosemary and cooking time is all I needed :)

2 priorities, 1 compromise

So after one day of self-loathing due to my bank account I realized I need to make more sacrifices than I currently am.  In the past (such as a few days ago..) buying local produce and local meat would be a no-brainer.  It lacks the chemicals that other produce carries, and supports local producers.  However, student loans and a line of credit do not support such prime food choices. 

I was stressing about it all day, so in order to help myself make a reasonable decision I watched four episodes of "Till Debt Do Us Part" on SLICE.  I realized that because I have no income right now, I need to sacrifice something.  This is hard for me because I make decisions based on health first, but today I had to give myself a reality check.  Stressing over money is not healthy, so I am backtracking to more affordable meat and fresh produce until I can bring more money in.  

Therefore my two priorities here are debt control and healthy eating.  My compromise is to continue buying quality cuts of meat, and fresh produce but at affordable prices.  I will ultimately work back up to buying only from local producers as my level of income and debt reduction increases, which may take more than a few years, but is worth the effort.  

Ahh, decisions.  It's so relieving when one is finally made ;)