frazzled.

Okay -- it's time to come clean, here. I am officially frazzled. Dan's been out of town (on tour with the band) for a week now, I haven't been sleeping well (for a variety of reasons,) and I've been working something like 60 hours a week. Good times. This week is proving to be even busier, and although I have next weekend completely off, the band will stop back in town for 24 hours (Sat-Sun), before leaving for three more weeks.

Needless to say, I had a HUGE to-do list for my one day off (today) this week. Thankfully, my friend Ann drove me around last night so I could get my errands done, and "hit the ground running," so to speak, this morning. Today, I managed to get some laundry done, but not all of the cooking projects that I wanted to accomplish. In times of greatest stress, I feel best when I'm prepared -- and a big part of that is a stock of nutritious leftovers on which I can nosh over the course of the week. Here's what I got to today:


Peanut-peanut-butter cookies. YUM YUM YUM. (Dessert makes me happy!)


I'm not a big fan of the "mock meats," nor of heavily processed foods in general, but the veggie meat loaf recipe I wanted to try called for frozen beef-type crumbles. So, I tried these -- WAY less sodium per serving than the Boca brand, which was how I made my decision between the two. Conveniently, they were the same price.


Comfort food: garlic-mashed parslied potatoes, half a baked sweet potato drizzled with maple syrup and sprinkled with salt, veggie meatloaf (very tasty -- a VT recipe from this month's issue,) and sauteed kale with garlic and S&P.


I saw these corn-pasta duckies at the store and HAD to try them in . . .


. . . Chickpea Noodle Soup! Although I didn't use chickpeas this time -- I used TVP instead. It's still just as yummy. And those pasta duckies make me smile every bite!


This is another new recipe, this time from Cooking Light -- Mexican Tomato-Bean Soup with Corn Dumplings. The only change I made from the original recipe was using fire-roasted tomatoes instead of regular ones, and this soup is EXCELLENT! The dumplings are a bit fussy to make, but cook quickly. On the side is a quesadilla made with blue corn tortillas, sauteed mushrooms and spinach, and queso fresco.

The two projects I didn't get to were sushi, which I will probably make for supper on Wednesday night before I head to church choir rehearsal, and a pan of lasagna, which I wanted to prep and park in the freezer for dinner Saturday. (I figured since Dan's only going to be in town for 24 hours, I didn't want to spend a bunch of time cooking -- I wanted a quick, pop-in-the-oven-add-salad meal.) I think I'll make the lasagna Thursday night, (my one night off this week,) since I already picked up all of the ingredients.

I hope you all found some time to relax this weekend -- off to wash some dishes before I finally have my chance to relax a little bit!