I’ll do a more comprehensive recap in the next few days, but I want to quickly note what happened last night as it has been pretty typical at least once a week.

Having finally figured out the perfect Spanish [brown] rice recipe from scratch a few days ago, I threw together another batch and happily watched my rice cooker steam away while I made a cold sofrito and fresh guacamole.  I was on a role!  At my 3 year old’s demand suggestion, I broke out the masa harina and we even made our own tortillas.  Things were going well. 

First speed bump:  I went to put my pre-soaked beans into the pressure cooker.  But…there were no pre-soaked beans.  The only can of beans in my pantry was a can of baked beans from a cookout earlier this month.  (Left over because they went over the 5 or Fewer rule and I took something else.) I didn’t even bother to read the label and just decided that I would stick to rice, carne asada and guac in my tortilla. 

Second speed bump:  I didn’t have enough vwg to make seitan carne asada.  Having no beans was bad enough (no way I was putting baked beans anywhere near my now-legendary-in-my-own-mind rice) but I pretty much had based this entire meal around making my favorite mock meat.  I live in Saxapahaw, and vwg is not one of the few items ever stocked at the petrol station/general store.  Since I was already out of bounds with the baked beans, I just shrugged and reached for the box of emergency Vegan Grillers stashed at the back of the freezer.

After dinner I was rummaging around the freezer for a frozen banana and found a couple of bags of frozen, cooked beans.  Damn!  I had completely forgotten that the last time this happened - not having my own beans, that is - I spent a weekend cooking up three different kinds of beans and freezing them in 2 cup allotments.  Thawing out frozen cooked beans wouldn’t have taken any longer than pressure cooking pre-soaked beans. 

I would have thought that by now I’d be immune to mistakes, but nope. A couple weeks ago, I almost accepted a potato chip at happy hour when the bag was offered to me, but realized in time that I was doing experimonth. Somehow both of my actual mistakes took place with this realization fully in effect. Yesterday, I got an iced coffee when out at a work-related lunch, so that I could be good and stay on my 5 or fewer. Yet somehow I spaced and added Splenda instead of sugar (and I wasn’t tossing out a $3 coffee over the wrong sweetener). Then today, when I stopped home between meetings for a 5-minute lunch, I accidentally put the wrong mustard on my chicken-wrapped-in-lettuce (and didn’t have time/patience to wash everything off and re-do). Other than those two slips and my pre-planned brunch #1 (of 2), I’ve been faithful. It hasn’t been too difficult, and has made for some interesting conversations. Plus, I’ve found the best peanut butter ever, and for this month I have not felt guilty at all about eating peanut butter and honey straight from the containers, which I usually feel is a bit decadent (honey is expensive). With no cheap sugary alternative, I’ve relied on honey and pineapple for most of my sweet cravings, and they’ve done me right for the most part.

This beef soup took two days to cook and will taste even better tomorrow.

Kale & mushrooms with garlic and sesame seeds cooked in sesame oil and soy sauce

Thank goodness they translated so I know there’s only 4 ingredients.

And I appreciate that they use the tasty salt.

$17.50 spent at the Farmer’s Market this morning. Looking forward to making some roasted cauliflower and roasted asparagus this week.

Although it feels great to get up early and cook eggs for breakfast, I don’t always have time for that. My very first thought when I woke up this morning was that I wished I had something I could take to work with me for breakfast so I could sleep a little longer. (Granted, a piece of fruit would work as a “five or fewer” grab-n-go breakfast, but I’m trying to cut back on sugars too.)

But the omelet I made for myself this morning was rather tasty and didn’t actually take that long. And at least I didn’t have to make lunch too — I’m planning on eating last night’s pork and squash leftovers for lunch today.

Less is more! The packaging on these sausage links made them a no-brainer. Interesting that products are advertising with phrases such as “Only 5 Ingredients” — as if they know we are doing this experimonth.  :)

While I’d been doing pretty well at this when eating at home, I’ve found it’s a lot harder to adhere to these rules on the road.

I went to Tennessee this weekend to celebrate a friend’s graduation and wound up eating out at restaurants every meal. I know I could have done a better job of planning ahead by bringing some good snack foods with me just in case, but I didn’t. When the best option on the menu at the first restaurant was still sure to be loaded with lots of questionable ingredients, I granted myself a bye for the weekend. So instead of doing as good as possible under the circumstances for each meal, I just gave up and ended up eating pretty poorly. The first exception was a quesadilla, and then a hamburger, and before I knew it I was eating cake and sushi too. What’s worse is that not only did I fail at eating “five or fewer,” I failed at eating “primal.”

I’ll try harder the next time I travel and hopefully do better. At least I’m being honest…

I went to the Durham Farmer’s Market this weekend and it was a very unpleasant shopping experience, with the exception of running into a couple of friends. Way too crowded, impossible to do any real price/quality comparison, and full of extraneous non-farm craft stuff that got in the way. 

In contrast, a trip to the korean grocery store on 15-501 was a pleasant shopping experience as have been recent trips to Compare Foods on Avondale/Roxboro (I’m still amused that the salon in there always has at least one person getting their hair done). For the most part the stores seem less expensive too, and a friendly customer at the KoGro helped me figure out which kind of seaweed to buy to make a good soup stock. 

I’m going to try the farmer’s market again during their Wed afternoon hours and see if it’s a better experience, because I really like the concept and want to support them.  They all seem like good people and they even put recipes from local chefs focused on local farm ingredients on their website.  I just can’t stand the crowds.