Saturday, April 14, 2007

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:

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

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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.

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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.

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

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. . . 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!

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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!

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

i did buy the quorn for Ana , taste great!

love the food photos.

hope you feel less stress soon.

Jen said...

Hi Catherine,

I hope life returns to a more manageable pace soon!

If you want to know more about Quorn, the Center for Science in the Public Interest has some interesting information here:

http://www.cspinet.org/quorn/

Basically, what Marlow foods markets as a "mycoprotein", likening it to your friendly backyard mushroom, is actually a strain of mold cultivated in vats. If anyone has mold allergies, they should not eat this product. It's a classified allergen, and tests (and experience) have shown that a significant percent of people who eat Quorn products have allergic reactions. (Plus most of their products contain egg, so vegans will want to avoid them.)

I wrote about my experiences with Quorn (from pre-vegan days)

http://vegtriathlete.blogspot.com/2006/05/beware-of-quorn.html

Sorry to post something so negative, but given the potentially life-threatening reactions people can have to this product, I felt like I had to say something. Of course, some people do fine with it.

Take care!
-Jen

jenny said...

That soup and those quesodillas look amazing!! What did you put in the quesodilla for cheese?

Anonymous said...

I am impressed, Catherine! You sound crazy busy, and yet you still have time to cook beautiful looking food and blog about it. I hope that things calm down a bit for you soon--I know how stressful working that much can be!

Courtney

bazu said...

I hope you're feeling less stressed now! Sucks how sometimes life gets to be a bit much.

I actually love quorn- and wish it was vegan. I love how they just randomly came up with a fungus that is so meat-like. Now, can they come up with a fungus that resembles cheese, I wonder. lol.

Anonymous said...

hi! they all look so yummy and made me hungry!

peace,
stonielove

KleoPatra said...

Like veg*triathlete, i also have heard odd things about Quorn and so i have stayed away from Quorn, even tho i don't have allergies. It does look good though, i have to say.

I love the duckies in your soup. That is just TOO cute. I remember when i was little, i used to love picking the letters out of my Alphabet soup... if there'd been ducks, that'd've been the MOST, to say the LEAST!

GREAT PEANUT BUTTER COOKIES!

Sorry things are so hectic for you! Hang in there...

Anonymous said...

Mmmm, love your peanut butter cookies. I ate one of Andy's =)