the New Year's First Eats

January 4th, first Monday of 2010 and it was already go go go. Work was actually eventful, which I think is a good sign in ringing in business for the new year. I brought my lunch for work which consisted of a salad made with:

• lettuce
  
• tomatoes
  
• red bell peppers
  
• corn
  
• black beans
  
• grilled chicken
  
• homemade salsa and guacamole

I totally forgot to bring a lime wedge, but I made do (sorry no photo). I also brought extra salsa and guac for my tortilla chips, purchased from Fresh ‘N Easy. It’s starting to be a staple grocery store for me since it’s right below the gym I go to. I also brought a banana and an apple, but the apple was only consumed post gym time.

Around 5ish, I jammed and headed home so I could change for the gym and try to beat all the “new year’s resolution” goers…but alas, they beat me to it. The treadmill was a pain to get to, the weights I needed were impossible to find, so I had to alter my gym time routine. After the treadmill, weights, then a few extra miles on the bike, I did the best I could at stretching and utilizing some of my breathing skillz I acquired from my free yoga sesh yesterday at YogaWorks. I may have annoyed the people I was stretching with due to my heavy and yes, oh so loud, breathing, but I didn’t care. Hello, yoga is a state of mind, thank you! I made an appearance at Fresh ‘N Easy. I immediately gravitated towards the bag of lime flavored kettle chips and then after lollygagging for a few, grabbed a butternut squash soup for mom and an extra sharp cheddar cheese for moi. I hadn’t really committed to what to make for dinner yet, so I bought extra cheese just in case my taste buds were in the mood for a quesadilla.

Upon getting home, I realized I had some WAY overdue basil in the fridge that I needed to utilize stat, or else I’d be wasting foods. And in these tough economic times, there is no room for being wasteful. So I committed to a pasta dish for the evening and threw my chicken in the pan with a RIDIC amount of crushed garlic. (Sidenote: it pays to have parents and a gma who also love love garlic that they peel and grind/crush that shizz for you and bottle them up!) While the breasts were slowly cooking, I decided to Magic Bullet it up and put all my tomatoes with the basil together so the sauce would be all chunky. Alas, I think I put too much basil, to be non-wasteful of course, and a bit too much parsley that it was kinda potent and not so tomato-ey tasting. Oh yeah, and I over did it on the salt-age, so it was slightly salty as well.















Then I diced some onions and threw them into the pan after turning over the chicken. When they were a bit ready, I cut them up, threw them back in the pan and then doused it with the Magic blended goodness. In the end, there was still a bit of saltiness that I couldn’t dilute, no matter how much water I put, so I blended another tomato and just threw the pasta in the sauce to soak up the rest of the delicious goodness.

Oh yeah, I failed to mention that while this whole process was going on, I munched on the kettle chips, but only a few handfuls, and tried a bit of the butternut squash soup. At first the soup was sorta sweet, which I guess is to be expected. But then, I added some croutons for crunch and a dash of freshly grated parmesan cheese…hehe…lactose intolerance, you don’t bother me when I’m at home! A very delicious dinner indeed...Lastly, I topped it off with some cut up strawberries for dessert. I had to sift through them cuz the whole package was only $0.99 from Jon’s. And yes, it’s called Jon’s, not Von’s. Not a spelling error. They’re a pretty prominent store on this side of L.A., and cheaper too! Not too many greens in the meal, but at least I made it from scratch, right?!