Good eats

About two weeks ago, Mike and I started living off a meal plan. Really, I committed to it and Mike is along for the ride. He goes off road a little but tries to make mostly healthy decisions.
Really, about six months ago I got the Centr app by Chris Hemsworth. I used it for the workouts about three days a week on average, looked up a few recipes here and there, and used the “calm” section for meditation to go to sleep.
Here I want to tell you a bit about some of the food we have tried. Overall, the food has been amazing and SUPER filling. There are a couple of dishes we’ve skipped because I don’t like mushrooms, but we’ve tried to replace those meals with healthy alternatives.

BREAKFAST
The first week consisted of two main breakfasts with a treat breakfast on Sunday.
The “Creamy Strawberry Smoothie” was good. Really, most smoothies are a hit in this house. I think the main take away was realizing that our smoothies didn’t have to be as thick as ice cream! This allowed us to actually drink and enjoy our breakfast as well as have more flavorful smoothies! Win win!
This was alternated with “Spiced Apple Pie Chia Pudding”. Now we REALLY liked this. It was so refreshing and surprisingly filling. It was easy to make, and you could even make it the night before without spoiling it! I wouldn’t really call it pudding though…Even though it was filling, it was light so you were ready for the day.
Sunday brought us “Chocolate & Raspberry Pancakes”. They were as good as they sound! It didn’t make a ton, but you definitely didn’t need a lot with how filling they were. We almost overlooked the raspberries but I’m glad we didn’t because they were so refreshing and really popped with the chocolate pancake. These were so flavorful that you really didn’t need much for syrup!

LUNCH
We didn’t have all of the lunches because most of our dinners had left overs, however, the few we had we delicious. I really enjoyed the fact that I felt full and not sleepy.
”Broccolini Salad with Tahini Dressing” I’ll be honest, I had never heard of broccolini before, and I was really excited to find out that they were tall trees! Tahini is a surprisingly versatile flavor. It took a little longer to make because we didn’t have the quinoa pre-cooked. Mike was very happy about how filling it was.
”Chickpea Salad Pita Wrap” This is my new favorite wrap or sandwich. It would be the equivalent of a non-vegan individual’s egg salad or tuna salad sandwich. The chickpeas were so fresh and eating it really made your pallet feel clean. Mike, “ugh. DE-LISH. Easy to make. Filling.”

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DINNER
”Gigantes with Tomatoes & Spinach” This made for really good leftovers. Most notably for Mike, he enjoyed it with “second breakfast” by adding eggs to it. It’s definitely a solid meal that just brings you home.
”Roast Cauliflower Risotto” I just love risotto. I’m not sure it can be bad. I enjoy learning to cook cauliflower better and differently. The roasted cauliflower added a nice flavor to the meal overall.
”Coconut Tofu with Spicy Peanut Sauce” At first, the spicy peanut sauce was to “peanut-y” but it grew on me. We skimped on some of the coconut because we don’t particularly like all forms of coconut but we’re fairly certain it did not detract from the flavor. Mike really did well cooking the tofu, he got a good “char” to it that was tasty.
”Pasta e Fagioli with Kale” Another good “second breakfast” item for Mike. The beans in this were huge!
”Tempeh Bibimbap” Our least favorite meal that we likely won’t make again. I think it was the tempeh though…we may not like tempeh. We’ll find out this week because tempeh is on the menu again. I was mainly excited about the kimchi and was surprised I liked it.
”Honey & Ginger Stir-Fry with Tofu” Probably the favorite dinner meal of the week. Mike, “DE-LISH exclamation point”. Goof ball. This was good at dinner, it was good as leftovers. Just yum.
”Sweet Potato Nachos with Lentil Chilli” This was rough. We like the idea of it, but we need to work on our chip making skills. It was filling though, and you felt better about eating than regular nachos. The time it takes to make the chips is a bit long but worth it…if you do it right.

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Mike:
I really felt nourished and fed. I didn’t feel like my body was fighting the food and trying to find the nutrients. It felt like it was truly energizing.
Ace:
I enjoyed all the different flavors. To everyone who said I was a picky eater, I’d have to say this shows you that you’re wrong. I just know what I like and don’t like. But the variety of foods this has shown us in such a short time, it’s been amazing. I enjoyed how each meal felt like it was the “home base” meal for a different country.

Here’s to food!
-M&K