What I Ate Wednesday 10-18-2017

I tend to enjoy reading “What I Ate Wednesday (WIAW)” posts or watching WIAW vlogs and I decided I’d like to start sharing posts of my own! One of the things I’m working on currently is more consistent meal planning to cut down on food waste as well as to save money from eating out. I’ve done meal planning in the past but I’m trying to be more dedicated with it now. Not only is this helping to save money, it’s more nutritious eating and healthier all around. Overall it’s just a big fat win. I’ve been using the Knock Knock What to Eat pad to plan our meals which has been working well. It’s $15 on Amazon right now but I found it at my Books-a-Million store for $6.50.

I’ve been staying on top of planning lately and I’ve tried out quite a few new recipes in the process like this vegan Chai Butternut Squash Soup last week that was absolutely fantastic. I had my doubts but I was truly blown away by how amazing this was. 

I’m trying to incorporate better snacking food into my diet. I’ve been avoiding bringing home snacks like chips, crackers, and in my husband’s case, peanut butter. This leaves a hole in our pantry because snacking food or “lunch accessories” are pretty important. Some ideas I’ve had are: homemade scotch oat cakes, fresh veggies and vegan ranch dressing, frozen yogurt – I really like the So Delicious Coconut Yogurt – berry bites, roasted chickpeas, homemade pita chips and hummus. Brady and I would also like to shift towards eating more vegan food and less dairy but that’s going to be implemented at a fairly slow pace. 

What I Ate Wednesday 

Breakfast

I made these spinach hand pies for dinner on Monday night and I have been dreaming of them ever since. I have long been on the hunt for a pie recipe reminiscent of the savory pies that are sold everywhere in Australia. This is the closest I’ve gotten and it’s pretty amazing. I used our fresh picked spinach from the farm instead of frozen spinach and they turned out even better than I had hoped. I can’t recommend this recipe enough. 

They flattened out in the fridge overnight but they were still insanely delicious and addictive the next morning. I can’t look at these pictures for too long because I start craving.

Lunch

I ate breakfast around 9 and went out around 11 to run some errands. I had to go to BJ’s to pick up some kitty litter which was right next to a Bed Bath and Beyond. I was really hoping that they’d finally have some Bundaburg ginger beer in stock to sooth my Aussie homesickness and I was in luck! I don’t know if it’s only back seasonally or if it’s now a permanent part of their new world market area but I’m just so excited. There were so many international goodies in this new section and it was hard to know what to pick. I left with one of the large cases of ginger beer, some REAL made-in-Australia Tim-Tams, and I went a little British and picked up a package of Digestives.

When I got home around 1 pm I had a very nutritious lunch of Tim-Tams, Digestive biscuits, and a bottle of Ginger Beer.

Dinner

I usually have a small snack in the afternoons to tide me over til dinner since Brady works late on Tuesday/Thursday evenings. It’s hard to eat dinner after 8 pm because then we go to bed within an hour or two of eating dinner. I was getting pretty hungry around 7 so I decided to just make dinner then and it would still be good for when Brady got home.

I started by cutting a cauliflower into small florets, then I seasoned them and stuck them in the oven. Then I cooked and sauteed my beet greens from the farm with some onions, garlic, and crushed red pepper flakes. If you haven’t already, you really need to give beet greens a try – even if you don’t like beets – because they cook like spinach and they’re just so delicious. With the last few minutes before the cauli was done baking, I warmed up a tub of Panera Autumn Squash soup that I’d picked up from BJ’s. The meal was accompanied by yet another bottle of ginger beer – I really need to pace myself…

The Autumn Squash Soup is in my top 3 favorite items from Panera but that was not the star of this meal. Nope. It was the cauliflower. Phenomenal! It was so good that when Brady came home and ate his, he put down his plate and was like, “Meagan that was amazing! What was in that?” It’s always nice to be complimented on good food. 

If you want to give them a go, this is more or less how I pulled it all together.

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So that’s pretty much my What I Ate Wednesday. It wasn’t the healthiest of all days but it was pretty tasty. I hope you enjoyed this post and let me know if you try out the roasted cauliflower!

 

If you don’t live close to where you grew up, what’s your favorite nostalgic food that you wish you could have right now?

Do you have any meal planning tips?

 

 

Linking up with Running with Spoons for this post.