I really didn’t expect people to be so disappointed that I was stopping my menu plan posts! But I stand by my decision because I think this way will work better for me. Why will it work better, you ask? Well, for one, I’ll have made all the meals so I can write about how they turned out. And having made the meals, I’ll also have photos to post with the recipe links. Yay for that, right? Finally, doing it this way allows me to skip over the boring nights with leftovers or frozen pizza. Anyway, I hope you will find these posts to be a suitable substitute for the meal plans.
So! This week was my first week back on Weight Watchers. One of my pet peeves is when people talk about weight loss all the time, so I promise I will not bore you with the details of my Weight Watchers plan in these posts. But I thought it merited mentioning this week because a) it’s my first week back on plan and b) look, I’m eating real! actual! food! (Another pet peeve? Diets that make you eat processed crap. Because that’s totally sustainable, right? Mmm, isn’t that 100 calorie pack of stale pretzels satisfying!?)
Anyhoodle, off of my soap box and onto my meals:
Edamame Pate Sandwiches // These were so flipping good. We had them for dinner one night and then I had the leftovers for lunch the next two days. They tasted so fresh and they were really filling too.
Tofu Dengaku with Celery Root Puree // This was good, but it didn’t knock my socks off. My husband was even less enthused, but mostly because the celery root for the recipe cost $9. Yikes. Too bad celery root is one of my favorite pureed veggies. If you’ve never tried it before, you must! (But maybe when celery root is on sale.)
Sauteed Brussels Sprouts and Shallots // Brussels sprouts are so tasty when they’re sauteed. And adding shallots? Ooh, even better. We had this with the Parsleyed Israeli Couscous.
Parsleyed Israeli Couscous // This was good, but it wasn’t good enough to be a keeper. I feel like I have about a dozen recipes that are very similar to this one.
I also took the time to eat some healthy snacks this week. Typically, finding that time for snacking is difficult for me, so I’d eat more for dinner (and then want dessert because I was so hungry by the end of the day). I’m making a real effort to take breaks from work 2-3 times a day to eat. Here are some of the snacks I’m really digging right now:
Homemade Fruit Roll-Ups and Champagne Mangoes // (I’m sorry, but “mangoes” just doesn’t look right to me. Mangos looks better! But my spellcheck is informing me that this is wrong.) Champagne mangoes were on sale at Whole Foods last weekend, so I bought a bunch. I made fruit roll-ups with some and ate the others. I love regular mangoes too, but champagne mangoes are a real treat when they’re available. They always seem to be perfectly soft (never hard!) and perfectly sweet (never tart!). Using them in the fruit roll-ups meant that I hardly had to add any honey because they were so sweet on their own.
Food Should Taste Good Sweet Potato Chips + Frontera Chipotle Pumpkin Salsa + Fresh Fruit // Have you had these chips? Oh, they are so good! You know how sometimes chips are supposed to taste like something and they really just taste like chips? These actually taste like sweet potatoes. I’ve been eating kiwis all week long too. I like to cut them in half and scoop out the insides–no muss, no fuss.
Concord Grapes + Honeycrisp Apple + 1 tbsp. Justin’s Maple Cashew Butter // CONCORD GRAPES ARE THE MOST DELICIOUS GRAPES ON THE PLANET. Forgive my shouting, but it’s true. The first time I had them was at the farmers market in Madison. It was such a revelation to me–”Oh, this is what grapes taste like!” When I was at Whole Foods last weekend, I could smell these before I could even see them. And once I saw them, well, I knew they had to go into my cart posthaste.
You can post anytime you want on diet stuff. The pictures you took are really motivating and the food looks delicious! I like the honest comments about how it tasted too. I really want to get myself back on track when it comes to healthy cooking, so this is inspiring!!
Thanks! I guess what I mean by saying it bugs me when people talk about weight loss all the time is because to me, it’s more important to focus on being healthy. The number on the scale is important, but it’s not everything. So I don’t want to post every week sharing how much weight I lost or how many sizes I’ve gone down because I’m more about just feeling better and eating nutritious (and delicious!) foods–and hopefully the weight will come off too. But I will definitely keep posting healthy meal ideas.
Good luck with your cooking too!
I love Israeli Couscous! Great week you had.
All of the food looks so delicious nut that sandwich looks awesome!!
Your food always looks so tasty and interesting to me. I’ve never tried celery root before and I love mangos–I just wish that red line would disappear!
I never tried celery root until last year–we were at a restaurant and the side I wanted to order was out, so they subbed in celery root puree. I thought it would be gross, but it was SO GOOD. It’s like mashed potatoes, but with just a hint of celery flavor.
I’ve never tried edamame before but heard it’s really good. Thanks for posting a recipe with it! I may just have to try this.
You can buy them in the pod for snacking in the produce sections of a lot of grocery stores now. They’re really good! But for cooking (like this edamame pate recipe), the frozen ones work better.
Yummy…I love Brussel Sprouts! All of these look so good.
I love them too! I think a lot of people hate them because they don’t cook them right. Now that they’re in season, I want to make them all the time!
I have never tried champagne mangoes before – I’ll have to search those out. That sandwich looks really tasty. It’s amazing you can lose weight with all of that great looking food!
They pop up occasionally at Whole Foods (and they used to sell them once in a while at a fruit market we went to in Madison), but they’re not available year-round. They’re SO sweet, it’s hard to believe you’re eating something healthy.