A lesson I finally learned this Sunday....

....That whole "dedicating one day out of the week to doing all your cooking for the week thing" does not work for me. I used to think that it could but as of this past Sunday I've realized that cooking every day or every other day is much better for both my schedule and my sanity! Not only do my cooking fests take hours and hours and hours (I'm talking at least 6 :\) , I get crabby when Wednesday rolls around and I'm still eating Sunday's sweet potato chili. I love cooking/preparing new things and I am happiest when I can make at least one new thing everyday. I would much rather spend 30 minutes to an hour everyday or every other day preparing my meals instead of sacrificing ALL of my downtime on Sundays to do so. Anywhoo, here's what I made THIS past Sunday :).

Green smoothie:

a handful of mint leaves, 2 cups "power greens" (a mix of baby greens-kale, spinach, and chard), 1/2 of a lemon, 1 avocado, 1/2 of a large cucumber, 1 cup frozen strawberries, 1 date, 1 tbs flaxseed, 1 cup almond milk, ~3/4 cup water. There's a bunch of green leaf lettuce in the picture but I ended up not adding it to the smoothie.

I also added about 2 tsp of agave syrup b/c I had a feeling the smoothie would not be sweet enough on it's own.

I thought it would be fun to put it in a large coffee mug :). The mug definitely was not large enough to hold all of my smoothie! I think I did 1.5 refills. Yum :).

 I decided to try my hand at Polenta! I'd purchased a bag of corn grits  (i.e. coarse ground cornmeal ) a while back and thought it was time to put it to use. The recipe was a combination of one I found online and of the "Basic Italian Polenta" recipe that was on the bag haha.

 

I know, not the most enticing picture but man, it was phenomenal! I will defnitely continue making polenta on a regular basis!

Sunday dinner: "Savory-Basic-Italian Polenta" topped with vegan pepper jack cheese (thank you Daiya ) and "stir fried" veggies (the kind that goes from freezer to , pot of water on the stove, to plate).

Cooked Millet

Mushroom and kale gravy to go with the millet. Recipe here. This has become one of my favorite things to make!  

Quinoa salad! Quinoa, chick peas, carrot, red and orange sweet peppers, olives, onion, apple, sunflower seeds, spices-cumin, paprika, garlic, lemon juice. I belatedly added raisins and more olives!

Oat bar (yes, again)! I'm just so in love with this recipe.

Updates: my stove/oven is functioning again! It turns out I WAS right! Nothing was wrong with the actual stove, the gas had somehow gotten turned off in my apt building's basement. Go figure.  Also I almost succesfully stuck to my "no veggie left behind" rule.On the day I let myself go grocery shopping again, I was completely fruitless and the only veggies left in my apartment were two carrots! ( I also had 3/4 of a bag of brussel sprouts in my freezer...but those just aren't going anywhere for a while).