Week 5: Eat well

I learned a very important lesson in my first week at work, which is that 10 hour days don't leave a lot of time for working out, cooking, or almost anything else. I also discovered that a 30 minute lunch break means that if I want anything even remotely healthy, I'm going to have to bring it myself. In my first week, I found myself scrounging for things to take to lunch because I hadn't planned ahead for the week and didn't have the energy to prepare great meals after work. I vowed that week 2 of my new job would not be a repeat of week 1. Instead, I would cook on the weekend and have a bunch of food ready to go for my lunches throughout the week!

On Sunday afternoon, I got busy and prepared four great dishes. One was a green-packed stir-fry (recipe here) from Heidi Swanson's awesome cookbook Super Natural Cooking. This cookbook is seriously amazing. Everything is healthy, relatively easy, and completely delicious. As an added bonus, Swanson is an accomplished photographer, so the pictures of the food are drool-worthy to say the least. This stir-fry was definitely a winner, and I will be making it again (and again, and again). Also from this cookbook, I made a new granola recipe. I love granola in the morning, and I think that homemade is always better than store-bought. I have a tried-and true recipe, but I figured I'd try a new one. This recipe was packed with awesome stuff like coconut and macadamia nuts, but I think next time I make it, I'll dial back the sweetness by a lot.

For my next few recipes, I turned to a new cookbook that M got me for Christmas. This one is called Vegan Eats World and it is by one of the authors of Veganomicon, one of my favorite cookbooks. (FYI, I'm not vegan, but I do enjoy a meal full of veggies!) I tried the brown basmati biryani and also whipped up the Coconut Black-Eyed Pea Curry (Lobia). The rice was good but a little dry - next time, I'll add some veggie stock while it's cooking. The Lobia was utterly delicious. It was quite spicy, but I think I liked it that way. If you don't like spice, cut the cayenne back by about half. (Recipe here.)

Having these things ready to go made a huge difference in how well I ate this week. Hopefully this is one resolution I can keep up with all year!