On a roll

That's what I'm talking about...and that was only after one meal! The star of the show? Cheesy macaroni-cauliflower bake. I had about 1/3 of the missing casserole with salad and a side of roasted beets. It looked like this (2x).

If you have family and friends who like comfort food or good ole' grandma-made-it style cooking, this recipe will really work for you. Normally I just use the packet of cheese powder that comes with the macaroni, but this time I got a little crazy and used nutritional yeast. Nutritional yeast is better for you - it packs the B-vitamin and protein punch to make this meal quite healthy.

Cheesy Cauliflower Macaroni Bake

1/2 lb macaroni
1 whole cauliflower head
1/2 c nutritional yeast
1/2 c milk
2 tbsp smart balance or butter
1 c shredded cheese
1 tbsp flour or cornstarch
1/4 c breadcrumbs (optional) 


Boil the noodles until al dente. Steam the cauliflower in a large pot or in the microwave. Mash with potato masher until a coarse texture like rice is achieved. Add the nutritional yeast, milk, butter, and flour to the cauliflower. Mix until coated. Add noodles and continue to coat all the noodles. Mix in 3/4 c cheese and pour entire mixture into greased casserole dish. Top with remaining cheese and breadcrumbs. Bake 350 for 30 minutes covered. Uncover and raise oven temp to 410. Bake an additional 10 minutes until browned.

Otherwise, food has been pretty boring. We're attempting to clean out our pantry, which houses food products that we both brought with us a year ago when we moved in together. These delicious (but less-than-healthy) options include Tuna Helper, multiple jello and jello pudding choices, odds and ends of baking chips, and other boxed goodies.

Pistachio pudding with cool whip...

Angel food cake with peaches and cool whip. Yummm.











Like everyone else, I like these foods. They don't make me feel too great though, so I'm trying to limit consumption to this short period while we're using them up. After this, there will be no more stacks of jello pudding as high as the shelf (Mark my words, fiance! Just watch!)

Otherwise, it's been hot and I've been terribly busy. I promised myself that I wouldn't let work affect my mood anymore, and this week I'm doing better. I have been having a lot of these...

Tropical Green Monster (Spinach, Pineapple, Banana, Mango, almond milk, protein powder)

Spilled purple nurple (blueberries, spinach, banana, almond milk, protein powder). Evidently it was too early for motor function.

Crystal Light cocktails -- vodka and various flavors of crystal light with some lime wedges. It's too hot for anything else!

As for real food, I haven't been doing too shabby. I'll admit that I've either been at catered events or gone out to eat quite a few times recently. I was either at work events or out with friends, so I didn't take pictures. To give you some idea, I order very similarily to how I normally eat. I had a hummus platter with a cup of veggie soup at one lunch. I had veggies, fruit, cheese, and crackers at another (stayed away from all of the creepy meat-roll-up style food), and I had a thai green vegetable curry at another. Otherwise, it was the usual. I ate a lot of leftovers, so I'll only show you the highlights:

Mahimahi crusted in cashew flour and baked. Served with swiss chard in ginger-oyster sauce.

I tried to eat the last piece of lentil loaf, served with 3/4 c noodles. All covered in marinara and cheese...
But, in this epic battle of (wo)Man v. Food...

Lentil loaf won. I couldn't even touch my noodles...so the fiance was more than happy to take care of the rest for me. He was also more than happy to take care of this...

That's the remnants of a watermelon. He ate 3/4 of it! No worries, when we went to the store, we bought two! Watermelon is my major source of sugar and hydration for the next week!

This week is black bean week in our house, but instead of showing you the ridiculous amounts of black beans on rice I eat, I picked a few better pictures:

Black bean salad. There are rice and beans on the bottom, I promise.

And again, all stirred up for lunch the next day.

I got 'creative' (errr....?) and made nachos on some pretty tri-color chips. These were actually made with fajita fixings from a meal of the fiance's - he actually ate the rest of the beans!







Finally, I made some Brazillian feijoada stew. It's basically black beans stewed in veggies and pork with a whole orange. It's so good. I remember it from my childhood. My mom made the vegetarian version all the time. I got my vegetarian recipe from Diet for a Small Planet by Frances Moore Lappe and just added pork. I actually fish out all the pork and keep it seperate. I then eat the dish without the pork (but including all the drippings and such). I promise others in this household are happy to eat the meat for me.

Finally, here are some of the beautiful pizzas we had at dinner the other night. This place uses all natural and as many local ingredients as possible...and they fire grill their pizzas. So good!

Otherwise, it's pretty much been the regular grind. I have my big race on Sunday and then we'll see what happens for the rest of the summer. Here's my exercise to balance all of this food!

Eating Requires Activity (ERA): Thurs swim 2000m + group power; Fri off; Sat 3 mile run + 850m outdoor swim; Sun 30 mile bike + 6.5 mile run; Mon swim 2200m; Tue 5 mile run; Wed off; Thur 1800m swim + 11 mile easy bike.