Friday Socks

Hooray for Friday! We're officially at the end of the second week of school. My students are solving analogies and drawing plot maps. It's still HOT and B and I are eating a lot of leftovers. I'm excited for the 3-day weekend!

Friday Socks by drywell

During the summer, lunch is a meal that maybe happens, maybe doesn't happen, maybe happens at 3pm, etc. I eat when I'm hungry and I eat whatever happens to be around. I do a lot of breakfast for lunch in the summer time and I do a lot of "grazing" all through the day.

During the school year, though, lunch is a big deal but it takes me a while to get into the swing of things. For the past 3 years, I have lost ~5 pounds in the first month of school and have had to take naps every afternoon simply because I forget to pack enough food for lunch. Not healthy! This year, I'm trying to be better right from the start. My teaching (and quality of life in general) really suffers when I'm not properly fueled.

This is my lunch box. Isn't it cute? It's actually almost too small for all the food I pack, but fortunately it's stretchy. Brian has a matching one in solid green. We are nerdy.

Here is a typical packed lunch for Mrs. Ellis:

Grapes for midmorning snacking,

Carrots and hummus for late morning snacking,

Leftovers (or a huge salad with a hardboiled egg) for lunch. Today I had leftover salsa verde enchiladas, based loosely off of Caitlin's recipe,

Nuts and dried fruit (almonds/figs!) for whenever I need a little snack,

Fruit for my drive home. Today, a slightly wrinkly peach. Usually, an apple. This might be the most important part of my packed lunch. If I don't eat something on my commute home (it's long and very traffic-y), I devour everything in sight upon arrival!

We get our CSA box today! As usual, I peeked at the list. I was disappointed to be getting broccoli again...

Healthy Food Blogger Confession Time: 

I don't like broccoli. 

It's not that I dislike the taste of broccoli especially, it's just not the first thing I grab at the grocery store. In fact, I basically never grab it at the grocery store, even though I know it's a majorly nutrient dense food. We got two bunches of broccoli in our last CSA box and they sat in the crisper until last night, when I peeked at the list for this week and realized, "Crap, I'm getting more broccoli! I have to eat what we have!"

I decided to roast it after seeing this recipe, promising the best broccoli of my life.

[source]

That won't be terribly difficult, I thought. A little pessimistic, I know.

So I chopped and tossed and roasted and, dare I say it, I'm actually looking forward to more broccoli this week. It might be the first thing I devour from our delivery. This was seriously good broccoli.

What is one veggie (or any food, really) that you know is good for you, but you never eat?
I used to refuse to eat spinach. I'm almost ashamed to say that now!

Fancy French Food

Even though I've been totally exhausted the last few days, I've still managed to do a lot of cooking. I've read in several places that the idea that coming home from work and chopping veggies relaxes people is a big cooking myth, but I honestly do find it really relaxing and often look forward to it on my drive home!

This recipe though, is best for one of those days when you don't want a ton of prep and then you want to take a nap before dinner (like me!). I bought a copy of Fresh Flavor Fast at a Scholastic Books warehouse sale earlier this summer and it is packed with great recipes (250+!).

I saw this recipe for Pan Bangat and was immediately intrigued. I love a good pressed sandwich. I was hoping pan bagnat meant something really fancy in French, but it actually just means "wet bread." Gross.  Fortunately, it's really delicious so I'm willing to overlook it's not-so-savory name.

Pan Bagnat
from Everyday Food: Fresh Flavor Fast 

Ingredients

• 1 rustic round bread loaf
• 3T extra virgin olive oil
• 2T white wine vinegar
• 1T Dijon mustard
• Salt and pepper
• 2 cans oil packed tuna, drained
• 1/2 English cucumber, thinly sliced
• 1/2 small red onion, thinly sliced
• 3T store-bought tapenade
• 1c fresh basil leaves
• 2 large, hard boiled eggs, sliced

Method

1. Split bread in half horizontally. Tear out and discard most of the soft interior from each half.
2. In a bowl, whisk together oil, vinegar, and mustard, season with S&P
3. Transfer 2T of this dressing to a small bowl and toss with the tuna. Toss cucumber and onion in remaining dressing.
4. Spread tapenade on bottom half of bread. Arrange basil, then eggs on top, season with S&P. Layer with tuna, then cucumber and onion mixture. Replace top bread half.
5. Wrap sandwich tightly in plastic and place on a baking sheet; place another baking sheet on top. Weight with a heavy skilled or canned goods. Let stand at least 1 hour at room temperature (or refrigerate overnight). To serve, cut into wedges.

B was concerned when he came home and saw this:

But was delighted to eat this. It's like a niçoise salad on bread!

He also ate the leftovers and said they were even better the second day. I envision this in heavy rotation on our meal plan!

Do you find food prep relaxing too? 
I actually think a lot of foodies do, otherwise why would we bother to cook such elaborate meals on the (relatively) day-to-day? If I didn't legitimately enjoy prepping for dinner, we would totally be eating frozen ravioli every night of the week! Am I right?

Fixin's

Woke up early this morning to watch last week's True Blood before going to the doctor's office for my TB test. Just another perk of working with kids. :)

I got in 4 miles on the treadmill with limited knee pain while Brian did weights, then we got down to serious lunch business. All I was craving my entire run was a huge salad, so that's what I made. It was so big I had to put it in a mixing bowl!

In the mix (or, as my Oklahoma grandma would say, "All the fixin's"):

• spinach
• romaine
• cucumbers
• carrots
• chickpeas
• cherry tomatoes
• sesame seeds
• feta
• Angela's better than bottled balsamic dressing (it really is!)

I'm not sure there is any end to how much I love chickpeas.

B and I  shared a mini fruit salad and peach but he wouldn't touch my salad! He says he doesn't like "rabbit food" after he works out. Whatever.

I have an appointment for a mani/pedi with my mom later this afternoon, but before that I'm going to see what I can whip up with these humble ingredients.

Any guesses? Here's a hint - it's Mama Pea approved!

Seventeen Pieces

My running schedule has been totally thrown off this week. I typically do three training runs during the week and then a long run on Saturdays, but between my sore knee and my cold and, I'll admit, sheer laziness, I only did two training runs this week. On Tuesday I did three miles of rolling hills on the treadmill, which totally aggravated my knee. Today I was supposed to do 5-miles, but pooped out around 4. I waited WAY too late to run so it was hot out and I drank more coffee than water this morning and... bleh. 

I have 10-miles on the calendar for Saturday, so let's keep our fingers crossed that it goes well! Fortunately, good eats the rest of the day made up for my lackluster cardio morning!

I was so hot when I came home from my run that I made a big fruity Green Monster and slurped down over half of it before snagging a picture.

(spinach, banana, apple, orange juice)

A week or so ago, my blender tragically bit the dust. I was super bummed because it was a wedding present and I have only used it, like, 5 times. I was griping about having to buy a new blender (and trying to compromise by making smoothies in my food processor, but it's just not the same!) and my uncle offered to give me this sweet Magic Bullet-style system that he found in his office's basement. 

I tried it today for the first time, and it works! My only problem is that my blender was two pieces but this sucker is seventeen pieces and now I need to find homes for all of them!

For lunch I had some leftover Italian Chicken Salad on a bed of spinach leaves. It was delightful. 

Italian Chicken Salad
adapted from The Kitchn

Ingredients

• ~3 cups shredded chicken (I bought a rotisserie chicken and shredded it, but you could oven roast 2 large bone-in breasts if you prefer)
• 1/4 medium red onion, chopped
• 2 medium celery stalks, chopped
• 1/2 cup slivered almonds, toasted
• 1/2 cup thinly sliced roasted red pepper (check out Emily's great post on roasting your own)
• 1/2 can chickpeas, rinsed and drained
• 4-5 artichoke hearts, quartered
• 5 slices bacon, cooked and crumbled
• handful of Italian parsley, chopped

For the vinaigrette:

• 2T red wine vinegar
• 1t dijon mustard
• 1/2t salt
• freshly ground pepper
• 1t sugar
• 1/4c olive oil

Method

1. Make the vinaigrette. Whisk together the vinegar, mustard, salt, pepper, and sugar. Stream in the olive oil, whisking until combined.
2. Combine all salad ingredients in a large bowl. Pour in vinaigrette and toss to coat.

Yum. This is one of my favorite salads to make. Red wine vinaigrette, chickpeas, bacon. Good stuff.

I would venture to say that dinner was equally magical. I made a batch of Ashley's Zesty Italian Veggie Burgers and a summery couscous salad. I topped my burger with mozzarella cheese, basil from our garden, tomato slices, and a little pesto. B was more traditional and had his on a bun.

These burgers were huge! I definitely could have made 8 patties instead of 6. The only changes I made were:

• No carrots. I realized I had eaten them all with hummus earlier in the day. Oops!
• I added an extra zucchini and a stalk of celery
• I used half yellow onion and half red onion
• No pepitas, so I threw in some extra sunflower seeds

I am looking forward to having one of the leftovers on a salad tomorrow already!

Tomorrow is also the second to last day before we leave for Hawaii! I have so much to do, mostly in the form of cleaning. I hate coming home from vacation to a dirty house! I need to finish laundry, run and empty and the dishwasher, and just do some general picking up.

Do you do a major cleaning overhaul before you go out of town or am I the only weirdo?