Fatty Train!

So, the diet train completely derailed after my last post on the 10th and I'm basically hanging by a finger off the caboose (or maybe I am the caboose?)...  needless to say, I gave up.  Again.

Whatever.

I've been slacking with the meal planning lately and we basically ended up eating out or grabbing take-out way too much over the last few weeks.  It tends to be a January thing for us.  All that eating and meal preparation over Christmas & NYE leads to laziness and general slacking during the first few weeks of the new year.

My plans to do a true grocery shop were thwarted by a last minute guest on Sunday so I ran out to a few local shops and grabbed some essentials.  I threw together a quick meal plan in my head and so far, we've enjoyed good meals at home for 4 nights in a row plus lunches for work.  This is a pretty big deal!  As I type this, water is boiling on the stove and I'm about to cook some pasta to use up with left over meat sauce (from our spaghetti squash dinner last night...  more on that later) and we'll have a pasta/veggie bake with salad tomorrow night.

So what have we eaten this week?

Black sea bass with arugula & sprout salad on Sunday.  Monday was Welsh rarebit with salad tossed in D's avocado dressing (my favourite!).  Tuesday?  Meat sauce on spaghetti squash.  Perogies (alright, a freezer cheat) with beet salad.  Tomorrow will be the pasta bake and I've got grilled chicken breasts with a goat cheese, dried fruit & nut salad on the menu for Friday.  Add in a chickpea salad (already gone) and a black bean salad and leftovers with bean salad lunches are done.

Back to the squash...

I don't think I ever tried squash until I met D.  No really.  We were so not a squash family and to be honest, the thought repulsed me.  I've since come to love butternut squash soup (so easy, cheap & makes great leftovers/lunches) and just this week, I made spaghetti squash for the first time.  Loved it.  Will do it again as M inhaled his pasta alternate no questions asked.

I'd read that I had to bake it for a good 45 minutes before shredding but after a bit of googling, I found out I could make it in the microwave.  I NEVER cook with the microwave but we were late getting home & D was working late.  Basically, slice it lengthwise in half, seed & clean it out and put one half in a snug microwave-friendly dish (so it can't fall over).  Add 1/2 cup or so of water to the cavity and top with the other half.  Throw it in the microwave for 10 minutes (maybe more if it's a big one) and then it is done.  Seriously.  Amazing.  In that 10 minutes, I reheated the meat sauce I'd made the night before.  Dinner was ready in no time!

No point to this post other than to remind myself that meal planning works.  It's controlled what we've eaten and what we've spent.  Both pretty good things.