Week 4 Andrea

Andrea

Meatless Mondays Week 4 3/31/14

            For my fourth Meatless Monday, unfortunately my schedule went back to normal, meaning I have less free time or time at home during the day. I still tried to do my best in adhering to a completely meatless day, while still trying to be creative. For breakfast I had a small glass of organic cherry juice that my dad has been drinking, and I made 2 scrambled eggs with diced green and red peppers and a little bit of cheddar cheese. I topped it off with some black pepper and salsa, and served it over a slice of wheat toast. Since I leave for school before lunchtime, I made a smoothie with a banana, ¾ of a cup of organic unsweetened almond milk, a scoop of vanilla protein powder, about a teaspoon of flaxseeds and cocoa powder, and a tablespoon of peanut butter to drink on the way to school. It’s a recipe I’ve made before and it’s delicious and filling! For a snack I packed baby carrots and the leftover hummus I made last week. When I got home around 7 p.m., I was starving so I snacked on some cashews and raisins while I whipped up a quick side salad of field greens, chickpeas, mandarin oranges, craisins, grapes and feta cheese with a reduced calorie/fat sesame ginger dressing that I bought at Aldi’s. I love Thai/Chinese flavors so the dressing provides those tastes and flavors that I enjoy so much. The main course of stuffed shells with tomato sauce was actually made by my mom. With all the parsley I had leftover from last week’s quinoa salad, I chopped and sprinkled some of that on top of my portion. Afterwards, I had my favorite cup of Tazo mint tea and a slice of cherry pie for my dad’s birthday which was made with reduced sugar filling – still so delicious!

            I’d say my dinner was most affected because my parents were having a meal that my dad requested for his birthday, but luckily it didn’t have any meat in it, so that worked out well! Even if the main course did have meat, it wouldn’t affect either of my parents because they know that I am following an assignment. Again, like past weeks, going meatless on Monday didn’t really impact other days of the week, especially since I actually had all of the ingredients that I used for my meals. For next week’s dinner I hope to find another interesting recipe to make ahead of time so I can come home at night and be able to eat almost right away (since I’m usually pretty hungry at this point).