Monday Meals: Too Much Take Out

We had a lot of takeout this week and it was a little disappointing.  Both the food and the fact that we ordered out so much.  By Sunday I told Scott that I was done with eating out unless it’s really special and we make it count.

Meaning it’s got to be a restaurant that we know serves quality food and it’s worth the effort and the money to eat there.

Why spend money on crappy food?  This is what I was asking myself by the end of the week.

Most of us probably need to ask ourselves that more often.  Crappy food does nothing for us.  It doesn’t nourish us, it causes havoc on our digestion, and we pay money for that.

That’s just silliness.

This past week also made me realize that my body is over crap food.  When I eat it, my body reacts right away, like, “Ugh why are you doing this to me? We were eating so well and it was soooo good!  This is horrible.”

I usually end up eating an apple or something to try and make my body feel better.

This week the goal is to only eat out once or twice.  Most likely that will be on Sunday because we are traveling down to Boulder for the day. Boulder has more variety of options for food and I’m excited to see what all is available to us!

On to eats!

BREAKFAST:

Sauteed fresh corn and cabbage

Veggie bowl!  I cut the corn kernels off of the cob and sauteed that in ghee with some chopped purple cabbage, shredded carrot, and some chopped onion.  Seasoned with salt, pepper, and chili powder.  Very yummy and colorful breakfast!

Sweet potato and chicken sausage

I prepped some sweet potatoes for the week.  I peeled and chopped two very large sweet potatoes, tossed them in a little olive oil and roasted them at 400 until they were just shy from being tender.  Then I used them for breakfasts for the rest of the week.

This sweet potato bowl has roasted red pepper chicken sausage.  Everything was heated up in a skillet in a little lard and seasoned with salt, pepper, and garlic powder.

Having the pre-roasted sweet potatoes on hand makes things so much faster and easier to create breakfast during the week.

Scrambled eggs, sweet potato, bacon

Lots of scrambled eggs, more sweet potatoes, and a few slices of bacon.  Easy and filling!

Fried chicken and nectarine slices

Probably the saddest breakfast!  A large piece of fried chicken and some nectarine slices.  I had some leftover fried chicken in the freezer that needed used up.  I didn’t eat the coating, it’s tasty but a little too heavy.   This was the end of the week and I was running out of foods!

Plantain griddle cakes

I had some plantains that needed used up as they were getting a little too ripe.  I tried my hand at making some pancakes with them.  I’m on the right track with the batter, I just need to tweak it a little bit more.

Having these for breakfast, while delicious, my body needs a little bit more in the mornings.  Protein and fiber from veggies or fruit.  This didn’t fill me up for long and by noon I wanted to gnaw my arm off.

grain free ham and cheese handpie

Ham and swiss hand pies with grain free crust.  I need to work on this a bit more to get the crust right so that it isn’t quite so dense and can be rolled out.

There is a French bakery here that makes the most amazing ham and cheese croissants.  I tried to make clean eats version but it still needs a lot of work!  Also, I’m not at all saying that this compares to French pastries in anyway because it doesn’t.  I wanted to experiment and see if I could make a hand pie turnover thing.  Close but not quite there!

DINNER:

Takeout Pho

Last week I mentioned that we were going to have pho for dinner and we did.  It was so yummy!  I get the chicken pho with chicken broth.  The chicken is a little on the sketchy side so I try to avoid it and load up with onions and bean sprouts instead.  It was delicous!

I had the leftovers for breakfast the next morning and that wasn’t so delicious. It turned sweet and a little strange. I’m going to stick with a smaller portion next time we order out.

takeout fried rice

I also got some fried rice which was actually amazing.  It was full of flavor and not in the slightest way greasy. Now I know they used a less desirable oil to cook this in but for a treat I was pleased with it.

grain free pizza

 

This was my big kitchen fail of the week. I attempted to make a quick grain-free pizza.  I’m not sure what happened but the crust turned out awful.  It smelled and tasted like cooked shrimp.  EW  I added baking soda and vinegar to this dough hoping to get a little more rise but I think that might have been the issue.  Those two things didn’t react well with the other ingredients and so we had a very horrible tasting pizza.  Ugh.

takeout pizza

We tried to remedy that with takeout pizza which also wasn’t the best.  We tried a new pizza joint in town that was rumored to have great gluten-free crusts.  After researching, I learned that it’s a pre-made crust (from a company in Loveland but still, not house made) and is frozen.  It’s smaller in size and costs $3 more.

For my money I would be getting a frozen pizza crust that isn’t even the same size as a regular pizza AND it costs more than the regular pizza.

Sorry but I’m not that dedicated to the cause.

Gluten doesn’t give me digestion distress, it only causes me to be a little bloaty and feel sluggish.  These are things I actually can live with if the pizza is worth it.

This pizza is not worth it.  We got the regular crust and just were not impressed with the pizza overall.

Chicken and mashed potatoes

Roast chicken (sort of) and mashed potatoes and turnips.  I learned a lot from this meal.

1. You can cook a whole chicken in a slow cooker and it won’t take nearly as long as you think.  This chicken was ready in about 5 hours.  Sure the skin won’t be crispy but the chicken is tender and has a more intense chicken flavor to it.

2. My body hates turnips.  As soon as I ate them my stomach bloated up like an inflated balloon, and I was gassy the rest of the night.  TMI? You’ll live.

I haven’t had a reaction like that to a vegetable before so that was definitely an interesting experience!  But no more turnips, ugh.

Lemon pepper shrimp zoodles

Ham and cheese hand pies were not enough so I made us something else for lunch. I had a craving for seafood so I busted out the shrimp.

Spiralized three yellow squash.  Roasted some chopped tomatoes at 400 degrees.  Coated some shrimp with olive oil and lemon pepper seasoning and roasted those at 400 until done.  About 10 minutes.  Caramelized some onions in some ghee, added the squash noodles, more ghee and lemon pepper seasoning.  At the end I added the tomatoes and topped everything with the roasted shrimp.

Delicious and totally what my body needed!

Chicken soup

I used the leftover chicken and broth from the earlier in the week to make soup.  Broth chicken, shredded carrots, chopped onions, celery, and potatoes all went into the slow cooker and cooked all day long.

It was comforting and tasty way to end the week!

 

Despite all the take out, this was a great week!  I experimented in the kitchen, sure there was a huge fail, but shit happens.  I learned that I can cook a whole chicken in a slow cooker which is perfect for when I don’t want to heat up the whole kitchen.  I discovered that turnips hate me and not to ever make shrimp pizza again.

This week I’m busting out the meal plan and making sure everything is ready to go!

 

 

2 thoughts on “Monday Meals: Too Much Take Out

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published.

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.