Co-op haul, sleeping through one dinner, making the boy cook the other

Friday night before co-op pick up is usually the time to clear out the fridge the best I can.  I honestly hadn't expected to cook on Friday, because Thursday was crockpot lasagna night, and that usually has lots of leftovers.  Sadly everyone really liked the veggie lasagna, and it was mostly consumed on Thursday and I had to do some quick thinking on Friday to come up with what to feed folks.
Any I grabbed those last potatoes that had been hanging around, some onion, the last zuchini, one of the big green peppers and a few of the sweet peppers and several eggs and a vegan apple sage sausage for a Fritatta.  It made a lovely quick dinner.  I was only sad that I didn't find the mushrooms until after dinner when I was doing the fridge clean out.
The co-op haul consisted of a basic share, an asian veggie pack and a bag of granola.
In this I got:
Bok Choy
Asian Cabbage
Celery
Green cauliflower
5 cucumbers (okay I actually traded my lettuce for extra cucumbers, which is why I have so very many)
7 peppers
honey dew
7 red potatoes
broccoli
5 bananas
3 avacados
6 tomatoes
2 mangos
blackberries
basil
green onions
ginger
garlic
9 small onions

 Leftover from last week was
cucumber
8 peppers
3 bunches of celery
sweet peppers
3 heads of lettuce
onions
garlic
8 apples
6 mandarin oranges
10 tangelos
2 lemons 3 bananas
mushrooms

The leftover bananas immediately got consumed Saturday after we got home from picking up our produce in banana walnut pancakes.  They were yummy.
Saturday night we had a bithday party to attend and so ate there.
Sunday morning was another Fritatta, using onion, peppers and one of potatoes.    Lunch was eat out, since it was meeting time for the husband and then we had to make our excursion to Costco for mostly non-food items this time.
Sunday night everyone had a lovely stir fry over some asian noodles.  I slept through dinner, since I hadn't been sleeping much of late.  I did get to enjoy the leftovers and they were yummy.  The sauce was honey and crushed red pepper and the veggies were bok choy, onion, peppers,celery, orange slices and I think some ginger.  It was very yummy as leftovers.
Monday was a pesto on spaghetti noodles and salad with each person's choice of dressing.  I made the boy fix it as I had car trouble that left me waiting for AAA at the school.  Then by some miracle the car decided to work when AAA showed up.  Very embarrassing.  I borrowed the car to take the girl to girl scouts, and dinner was ready when I got home.   Tomorrow, the car goes to the shop, since AAA and the husband both inform me that it is likely a loose connection.  But it really messed up my schedule.

Sunday - Breakfast, Lunch, Game Night

For breakfast we had had the sweet bread that came in our bread pack from the co-op, a fried egg and half an orange.  It was probably not our healthiest breakfast to date, but it was very yummy.  The bread had lots of dried fruits in it and was very good.

Lunch was yet more of the salad left over from Friday.  Finally finished it off though.  I might have made a bit too much of it.  But goodness we are getting a lot of lettuce from the co-op these days.  We are really not salad people.  Other ways of eating lettuce just doesn't use that much of it.  We are more prone to use it on sandwiches, as lettuce wraps and such.  I just can't figure out what to do with so much lettuce, but make salad.
We had the veg soup I made for Saturday, that we didn't get home to have, with it. The husband blended it in the Vitamix and we topped it with a bit of Field Roast vegan apple sage sausage.

Dinner was our game night at friends.  It will be last one for a couple of weeks.  But we made lemon pudding. by using a teaspoon of lemon extract instead of a half teaspoon of vanilla and then I layered some lemon slices on top.  I think next time I will add some lemon zest to it to add a bit more zing.  Maybe try a different starch.  The flour is not as effective with the almond milk as the corn starch is, and we avoid the corn starch when visiting this house hold.  So my pudding wasn't as thick as I would have liked.  The husband made walnut meringue cookies with the egg whites leftover from the pudding making.
We also took our usual hummus and a couple of the cucumbers to dip in it. 

Co-op again - Sort of like a mini Christmas every week

Yeah!  I love my co-op day.  We volunteered again,in the rain, then went to have breakfast with a friend.  We brought the eggs and used an onion and spinach from our co-op shares as well.  They provided the potatoes and tortillas. 

This pile of food represents a basic basket, a juice pack and bread pack.  We were also supposed to have a Hostess pack with more food geared towards entertaining for the Easter Holiday, but there was a bit of a mix up with the delivery and we decided to be nice and be the ones to go without.  Mainly because we are not really expecting any company for Easter and we just wanted the variety of produce.  Then after we ordered the boy was asked to house sit for some friends, which means he will be gone for most of the week. 

As I mentioned before getting home we used an onion and a bunch of spinach that was in the juice pack.  But we have:


3 bunches of asparagus
kale
broccoli
2 pineapple
3 cucumber (got extra cucumber from the friend we had breakfast with as they don't eat it)
1 beet
1 carrot
4 potatoes
1 butter lettuce
parsley
celery
onion
8 key limes
8 oranges
ginger
3 grapefruit
5 bananas
lemon
3 apples
1 loaf of hot cross bun bread (not sure what it is, but seems to be a sweet bread)
1 baguette
3 9 grain bread loaves

I still have from last week
2 heads of butter lettuce
2/3 of a head of cauliflower
5 lemons
7 apples
4 oranges
1 grapefruit
1 onion
3 garlic
1 banana
some celery

Not sure about the interviewer, but the birds like the girl child

Lunch today was leftover salad and home made bread from last night.  My daughter had an interview at the Zoo for a volunteer position, so we headed out on the train right after lunch and ended up at Spaghetti Warehouse for dinner.  I felt sort of bad that we were out so late, because I had made a soup in the crock pot for dinner, but it will be lunch for tomorrow.
Before I forget what I put in it:
2 potatoes
the carrot
last week's celery
fresh parsley
fresh basil (grow this myself)
half an onion
last week's 2/3 head of cauliflower
half a bulb of garlic, cloved peeled and put in whole
a carton of Trader joes Hearty Vegetable Broth
Water to cover

I think I will blend it and maybe crumble some vegan sausage over it for lunch tomorrow.

Lentil burgers and the last of the potatoes

I told you, you would see those lentils again.  For the lentil burgers I just added the lentils from last night, some eggs and the last tiny bit of grape nuts cereal, about 6 crackers, and a lot of oats to the mixer and let it mash it all up a bit.  Then I made some patties and coated them in a mixture of flour, salt and pepper.  I baked them in the oven at 350 until fairly firm and crispy on the outside after coating the cookie sheet in oil.
The boy made the side of rosemary roasted potatoes.  I just didn't feel like trying something new and fixing the chayote.  I can be boring that way.
I used the butter lettuce for my "bun"and put mayonnaise on the patty itself with some sliced tomato. Everyone else went for some bread.

I will admit that I only ate about 2 of those peices of potatoes because that lentil patty was very filling.  The girl, otherwise known as the bottomless pit, actually filled up and not only avoided a 2nd and 3rd helpings of food but didn't finish her burger.  She said she liked it and packed one for lunch.  I am glad she liked it, cause I made 15 of them.  8 were frozen to be consumed next week by the boy, while the rest of us are out of town. 

Tomorrow, I am going to ignore my menu plan and have a leftovers night.  We have lots of lettuce, 2 lentil patties, a couple servings of lentil stew as well,  a couple servings of potato leek soup, some rosemary roasted carrots, lots of rosemary roasted potatoes and a sweet potato to eat up.  I baked the potato this evening cause it was looking a bit iffy, so I cut off the iffy part and baked the rest.
We also have lots of muffins in the house.
I figure the spaghetti sauce can wait until Friday.  And that should use up the bell pepper and tomatoes nicely.  I did break down and buy some onion just for the sauce.  It was real onion or the dried stuff.

The Meal Designed for Leftovers

 Tonight was lentil stew and acorn squash.  Both were made with plans for the leftovers for future meals.
The lentil stew was just 2 lbs lentils, a chopped bell pepper, a chopped giant carrot, a heaping spoonful of pre-minced garlic, a 14 oz can of diced tomatoes and a 28 oz can of tomato sauce, the last of my dried minced onion, and water.  It went in the crock pot and water was again added later in the day as well as some salt and pepper to taste.

All 5 of the acorn squash went in the oven.  I just cut them in half and scooped out the seeds and cooked them face down in 9x13" baking dishes with an inch of water for about 40 min until the fork  would easily pierce the skin.  I then cut the 2 halves in half and sprinkled those with cinnamon and drizzled with a bit of honey for each of us for our dinner.  The rest of the squash was pureed and made into muffins and bread (5.5 cups of puree made 18 muffins and 2 loaves of bread, but the husband thinks he might have done better to have stretched it to more cause they are very moist).  Think pumpkin walnut muffin, with acorn squash puree instead.  These will be breakfast and desserts for days, maybe even weeks to come.  I think the loaves will be frozen.   

The lentils will be used tomorrow as an ingredient in another dish.  You will be seeing them again.

Reworked Leftovers - Stuffed Bell Pepper Edition

Last night's lentil stew was mixed with equal parts brown rice and stuffed into bell pepper halves and topped with tomato sauce and baked at 350 degrees until the peppers were nice and tender, which was nearly an hour.
For a side we cut up 2 apples, a pear some strawberries and tossed with some blueberries and the juice of half a lemon and called it fruit salad.

There is lots leftover for lunches.  I will confess to having two peppers (BTW, that is a salad plate you are seeing, so while a large pepper, we are not talking something too huge).  I had a larger breakfast that usual and missed lunch, and was starving by dinner, which ended up late.

In other news I finally made it to the gym for the first time in two months.  I got my release from the doctor yesterday and couldn't wait to get back to some activity.   I met up with a friend and we spent a full hour in the pool.  Not swimming, but walking.  I am working up to my activities again after all.

I also weighed myself since I was at the gym and access to a scale.  I continued to loose some weight and am down a whole 27.5 lbs.  About 8.5 since my surgery in early December.  Which means that while I have lost an average of half a pound a week since joining the gym, I have been loosing a bit more than a pound a week since I went dairy free.  My weight loss did pick up after going vegetarian, but not as much as it has since going diary free as well.  Of course that 27.5, does include the fibroid that was removed, which does skew the half a pound a week average.  I think before going vegetarian, I was only loosing a pound a month.

I would like to keep my weight loss average at about one pound a week.  With the gym I want to ton, build my stamina back up and get myself active again.  I think it would be nice to take up running again.  That would be much easier on my knees if I weighed just a bit less.  And I think some other activities would be fun too.