So this week I decided to do salads. I ate like crap over the weekend because of Ohayocon and needed to get back on track. So Tuesday through Friday my lunch was a salad of Earthbound Farms’ Half & Half (half spring mix, half baby spinach) topped with grilled chicken strips from Aldi, feta cheese, and raspberry vinaigrette from Meijer. It was amazing! I may have finally found something I can repeatedly do for lunch, at least for a while, and not get tired of it. The funny part is today. I made my usual Whole Foods trip to restock on a few things for the week and picked something up for lunch. It was their chicken Caesar salad. I had chicken salad, again! Great way to end the week, though. 
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Something in me wants to keep being a “good blogger”. To that part it means posting regularly and only being positive. Well, after reading the post that’s up on Bonzai Aphrodite, I don’t think that anymore.
I’ve come to realize posts can be short and mainly a pic and not need to go up on a regular basis. And being honest and posting the bad with the good is very important. I’m doing this mainly for me. I don’t mean to sound selfish, but that’s what a hobby is. It stops being fun and starts being a job when you set deadlines.
I’m very grateful for all of you who read this. But I would probably keep writing even if no one was reading. Seeing that people do read my ramblings does make me feel all good inside, though.
So all of this is to say, expect some very different stuff. Shorter posts. Possibly weeks without a post. Who knows. But I do hope you’ll keep stopping in to see what’s going on!
I’ve held off for as long as I can. This week is all about that amazing fermented drink, kombucha.
On Saturday I started my day as usual with a chia kombucha. That stuff is awesome! It’s kombucha with a ton of chia seeds thrown in. It took me a little time to get used to the texture that the seeds add, but now I look forward to it every week. It combines all goodness of the kombucha (the B vitamins, the probiotics) with the amazing nutrition packed into those little seeds (omega-3′s among others) into one tasty drink.
I used to make it my lunch, but now that I’m drinking it before going out and doing a lot of stuff, it’s not enough to get me through the day. So I picked something up from Whole Foods for lunch. Trust me, this is part of things. Because when my hubby got up we went for an early dinner to Red Lobster. There I ate way too much and took home half my dinner.
We headed over to our friends’ place to play some D&D. I figured why not take a kombucha with me to drink. It might help with the overfullness I had going on. So I grabbed the Gingerade from the fridge before we left. OMG. That was one of the best decisions I had ever made! Between the ginger and the kombucha, my stuffed feeling went away and I felt a whole lot better. Gingerade may be my default backup kombucha for the week. Sorta my emergency bottle, “In case of overeating”. I try not to overeat, but when we decide to go out it’s sometimes hard not to. But that’s for another day.
I always buy GT’s Kombucha mostly because it’s the first kombucha I had and I’m afraid to try anything else. When I first ventured into the world of kombucha, it’s what Whole Foods had. Also, to be honest, I love the stuff. I don’t want to try any others. If I try another, it’ll probably be my own.
Yes, you can make this stuff at home. And it’s not that hard. I plan on using Bonzai Aphrodite’s awesome post about it. I just don’t have the space to let it sit and ferment or the fridge space to keep it cold. One of these days…. :sigh:
My first experience having olives I can’t remember, but I remember my mom telling me about it. We were at Ponderosa and I would not let up until she put some black olives on my plate. Evidently I thought they were grapes and was determined to have some. Either I didn’t notice the difference in taste or I liked it. This began a life-long love of olives. When I got older, my sister and I would sit and put them on our fingers, play a little, and then eat them off our fingers.
Over the years I finally ventured out from my can of black olives to check out the various types out there. My favorite, at least right now, are Kalamata. I love all the flavor that’s packed into that little olive! I’ll buy a container of them and just munch on them. Of course it helps that they’re packed full of those good monounsaturated fats among other things. Love them to death!
Today didn’t go quite as planned. I almost didn’t post this, but I felt that just because I had a bad day doesn’t mean that I shouldn’t post.
The day started off fine. My wonderful oatmeal and glass of kefir.
Then I got to work and had my wonderful Oolong. Once that was gone, there was the sweet, sweet water.
I had packed a lunch, leftover bacon mac and cheese from dinner and some sauerkraut on the side, but I decided to make a run over to Jo-Ann Fabric’s for some stuff on my lunch break. I was running out of time and I listened to a stupid idea my brain had…
I ended up deciding to stop by Wendy's and get the Asiago Chicken Club meal, grilled, with a sweet tea to drink. I should have just stuck with what I packed. Bleh.
I picked this up on the way home and split it with the hubby. It was soooo good!
Dinner was late and simple. It also wasn't as processed as I initially feared. I looked at the ingredients on Tyson's chicken strips, and it's all food. No chemicals, no unpronounceable words. Just food.
Tomorrow I’m going to have what I packed for today and keep dinner simple. Also I’ll probably throw a bottle of wonderful kombucha in there to hopefully balance things out again.
I was talking with my friend Sunday about how our tub drain isn’t flowing all that well. I mentioned that I dumped the last of our white vinegar down there to try to clear it up. It helped, but it still ran slow. Then she told me something I never would have thought of. Salt and Coca-Cola.
Yes. Pour salt down the drain followed by Coke. She swears it’s better than Drain-o. So when I got home I told my hubby and tried it out. I’ve got some salt that I haven’t needed for a while and we keep some bottles of Coke around for our non-Pepsi drinking heathens friends. I would recommend trying to get as much salt down the drain before pouring the Coke in. But it does work quite well. Try to be patient and let it do it’s magic before you follow it with hot water. It should help to clear up any drain without having to use something stronger.
Meatless Mondays were started back during World War I. People were encouraged to eat meatless on Mondays and wheatless on Wednesdays to help the war effort. It was revived again during World War II for the same reasons. Both times people were pleasantly surprised at how good they felt by eating less food. It was revived in 2003 by Sid Lerner when he saw how many illnesses could be prevented by eating less meat. See the Meatless Monday website for more!
Another successful Meatless Monday. Unfortunately I forgot to take pictures of my awesome breakfast. Again. Next week I’ll remember to take a picture of it and you’ll probably be sick of seeing the same oatmeal and Kefir. But for now you’ll just have to take my word for it.
At work I had my usual Oolong tea and water to drink throughout the day. Lunch was wonderful. I halved some kalamata olives and took the last two pieces of my flax seed bread with me. Spread the garlic hummus on the bread, top with olives, enjoy the amazing wonderful flavors!
Dinner was simpler. I picked up Campbell’s Portobello Mushroom soup. OMG was that awesome! It was thick and rich and full of slices and chunks of mushrooms. I also had some tater tots because they sounded good and I like having at least something in common with my hubby’s dinner.
Did you go meatless today?
For a couple of months now I’ve been using a natural, icky stuff-free shampoo from Whole Foods. At first I was still doing the whole baking soda/apple cider vinegar routine once a month. But then I got lazy. My scalp had been itching like crazy lately and I figured it was just because of the weather. So last night I did the BS/ACV for the first time in a while.
OMG does my scalp feel better! My hair looks better. It hasn’t been nearly as itchy all day. There is barely any crud under my nails when I do give in to the urge to scratch. I think I need to get back to having the shampoo be the back-up to the BS/ACV instead of the other way around.
How did I forget how good this feels!?
As I mentioned on Thursday, Whole Foods had a Buy One, Get One Free sale on GT’s Kombucha yesterday. I could not pass that one up!
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I decided to splurge and get 12 bottles. Luckily that equals a case. So on top of them being BOGO, I got the case discount! 12 bottles of awesome kombucha for $18?! Awesome!
I figured I could get 4 bottles of each type: chia, enlightened, and original. I got pretty close.
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They only have 3 types of the chia: grape, cherry, and raspberry. They were out of the grape by the time I got there. So I got two of each of the others. Also, I thought I had grabbed a Trilogy (one of the enlightened) but it turned out to be another Gingeraide (an original). At least I pushed myself and got flavors that I haven’t had ever or for a while. I figure for at least four weeks, I won’t have to buy any kombucha. The chia only lasts so long.
Did anyone else go and stock up? Anyone else loving kombucha as much as me?!
On my way home from work I made a little stop at Whole Foods and left with this beautiful sight:
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But more about that tomorrow.
Today is Friday! And Friday means Foodie Friday. Yes, I know. Last week I started the whole Fermented Friday. But I realized very soon after that by doing that, I put a lot of pressure on myself that I was not ready for or wanted. So I’ve decided that it’d be better to simply focus on food. I’m going to highlight one food that I’ve had in the past week and squee about it!
And with that said…
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This is possibly the best sauerkraut I’ve ever had. And I’ve had a lot. What with being half German and all. I’m proud of my heritage. But this brings sauerkraut to a whole new level. It’s not pickled like most sauerkraut, but fermented instead. It has to be refrigerated all the time because of the wonderful probiotics alive inside.
This brand is Bubbies, but I plan to keep an eye on the refrigerated section for other brands. Look for words like ‘active cultures’, ‘probiotics’, and no vinegar in the ingredients. It’s so crisp and crunchy. I could eat it straight out of the jar as a snack it’s so wonderful!
Is there anything awesome you’ve had this week?
