Category: Frugal Living

The point of these posts (as with all of my posts) is to keep a food journal. I’ve been getting completely off track with my eating habits and it’s starting to affect my health, mood, and wallet. So, I’m going to keep a food journal of sorts that will hopefully keep me accountable.

I’ve had some friends come to me with questions on how to make easy, yummy, and HEALTHY food. I don’t have any real recipes, in the traditional sense. I don’t use anything to measure or proportion anything. That’s where the fun comes in anyway! This may help. It may not.

I haven’t had a salad week in a while so I went with that idea for this week. Salads won’t be the -only- thing I eat, but they will be the majority and highlight.

My week will start with today (Saturday 01.24).

Breakfast:

I had some leftover brussels sprout hash with wild rice combo I made earlier last week and I made some quick scrambled eggs with scallions, shredded mexican blend cheese, and hot sauce to top it off and snazz it up a bit.

Lunch:

Love this one! I had just come home from a trip to Brighton Beach where I bought some tongue (it was already boiled and ready to eat) so I decided to make a Roasted Carrot & Tongue Salad (remember, this is Salad Week). I had everything ready to go so I had myself an amazing (if I may toot my own horn here) salad in about 10 minutes.

Ingredients: Roasted carrots (leftover from a couple days ago), fresh parsley, boiled tongue, fresh baby bella mushrooms, chickpeas, browned onion (leftover from a couple days ago), and green onions. Dressed with a teeny bit of olive oil, course sea salt, cayenne pepper, garlic powder, and my favorite ‘everything’ seasoning from TJs.

*What isn’t pictured here is the German strawberry preserves (I got from a European Gourmet food store at Brighton) I indulged in post-meal… I promise I didn’t eat the whole jar.

Snack: Not-so-healthy veggie root chips.

Dinner: I wasn’t really hungry after my snack. I did end up finishing up the tongue salad really late at night so maybe you can consider that my dinner.

Sunday (1.25)

Brunch: My roomies and I went out to brunch. I forgot to take a picture so I took this from the yelp page.

Bass fishcake, poached eggs, & a cauliflower salad.

The cauliflower salad was disappointing, but everything else was delicious.

 Dinner: Russian Film Club… Pelmeni & Chebooreki from my trip to Brighton Beach.

Monday

Breakfast: A banana and coffee.

Lunch: I was working from home for the next two days on account of the ‘blizzard’. I used my leftover bass fishcake as a salad topper. 

Salad: Lots of fresh parsley, orange pepper, green onions, and baby bella mushrooms topped with a part of the Bass fishcake I had for brunch the day before (it also had some chipotle aoili sauce on it). Coarse salt, smoked paprika, and my beloved ‘everything’ seasoning.

Also, a side of TJ’s root chips.

Dinner: With a glass of red wine. yum.Salad: fresh parsley, Persian cucumbers, cherry tomatoes, orange peppers, and red onions – dressed with a bit of balsamic + olive oil + garlic powder + cayenne pepper.

I made some buckwheat and roasted carrots and sliced up some smoked salmon on the side.

Dessert: Not pictured (I was too busy eating it).

Sliced Granny Smith Apple with TJ’s cookie butter. YUM.

Tuesday

Breakfast: Normally, I stick with fruit for breakfast on week days, but today I was working from home again and thought I would treat myself. 

No salad. Eggs scrambled with cheese and buckwheat (that I made last night) with a side of smoked salmon and a few pieces of leftover sliced apples and the rest of my raw walnuts.

Lunch: Remodeled leftovers. To the right salad: same as Monday’s dinner. To the left salad (cold): Cut up roasted carrots (from the other night), buckwheat, green onions, olive oil, smoked paprika, and ‘everything’ seasoning.

Snack: A banana.

Dinner: A cold brown rice medley salad.

Salad: Brown rice, black barley, Daikon radish seeds, cherry tomatoes, red onion, Persian cucumber, orange pepper, green onion, black beans, and blackened onions in a red chili sesame oil and soy sauce blend. Dressed with garlic infused olive oil, garlic powder, more soy sauce, cayenne pepper, dried dill weed, and coarse sea salt.

Dessert: A small bowl (without milk) of chocolate rice krispi cereal. Healthy. I know. I still have some left over from a sugar binge a while ago so I thought I’d better eat that than go buy a new pint of ice cream.

Wednesday

Breakfast: Back to the office I went… not pictured, but I had a couple slices of Old Amsterdam cheese (yum), a Fuji apple, and a coffee. [I’ve finally kicked my red bean for breakfast addiction!]

Lunch: A cold buckwheat and smoked salmon salad.

More roasted carrots (leftover), buckwheat, the rest of my orange pepper, cherry tomatoes, green onion, Persian cucumber, smoked salmon, and blackened onions in a red chili sesame oil and soy sauce blend. Dressed in more soy sauce, hot sauce, cayenne pepper, smoked paprika, a shit ton of garlic powder.

Snack: Dried cranberries and raw almonds.

Dinner: Vietnamese inspired warm salad… (kind of).

Brown rice, daikon radish seeds, black barley, black beans, Persian cucumbers, 2 sunny side eggs (I like em’ runny), topped with a bunch of ‘everything’ seasoning and hot sauce.

I also ended up eating more smoked salmon on the side.

**Here is where I dropped the ball completely. I forgot to take pictures.**

Thursday

Breakfast: Cold Pressed Beet Juice. TJs has them for $5 a pop… not bad.

Lunch: Something similar to my brown rice medley salad I had for dinner on Tuesday.

Dinner: 2 slices of Joe’s Pizza & a Whiskey Ginger. A lady can’t -always- be on her H-game (healthy).

Friday

Breakfast: 1 boiled egg, a handful of raw pumpkin seeds, and half a cucumber (half way through I realized it was going bad so I decided it was best I didn’t finish). Oh, and coffee.

Lunch: We had a long meeting planned for the day so we ordered Chinese take out. Shrimp fried rice & shrimp dumplings… it wasn’t the healthiest decision I’ve made as of late.

Dinner: I was still epically full from lunch (sleepy food coma was written ALL over me), but I had plans to go out so off I went to eat some Chicken meat balls in a pesto sauce and a glass of a Malbec blend that was quite tasty. The meat balls were delicious, but I could only eat 2. I wasted money and food. Bummer. It was at the Meat Ball shop in Williburg — pretty hoppin’ spot.

Yes, I like to eat with chopsticks. Only while at home… who wouldn’t want to get to play with their food?

A few tips:

* make a batch of grains to use in daily cooking (brown rice medley or buckwheat for ex)

* Browned onions will make -everything- taste better. Except for your dessert.

*Use your leftovers in new ways so you don’t get bored.