The great thing about this meal plan is that it is realistic about people having actual things to do all day, like a job and not wanting to be near a kitchen (or even have access to a kitchen).
So here's how my day tasted:
Breakfast: Overnight Oats with Blueberries and Chia Seeds
These are pretty similar to what I usually have for breakfast: yogurt, granola and berries. I stuck to this recipe and it still turned out pretty good! The chia seeds help hold this together and makes this more of a pudding (which means no spilling!) if I were to do it again (and I likely will), I would use blackberries or raspberries instead.
Delicious Level: pretty good, just sweet enough to satisfy my sweet tooth, just filling enough to keep me happy until lunch.
Lunch: Kale, Chickpea and Fennel Salad with Orange Vinaigrette
This salad was a great office lunch and the fennel with the orange vinaigrette is a brilliant combination. I've never used fennel because in my mind I always categorized it in the 'onion' category and so it has never come home with me, as cool as it looks. I was actually a bit nervous what it would be like eating it raw. Conclusion: I need more fennel in my life! It is light and refreshing and delicious. I definitely will be adding this into the permanent rotation. If I were to make this again, I would add more chickpeas.
Deliciousness Level: revelatory
Snack: Diced Tomatoes and Feta with Balsamic
Okay, so this one didn't quite pass the 'transportable' test, and I probably could have found a better container for it. Balsamic and tomatoes, while delicious, are not a very office-friendly snack, and not a great pre-workout snack either. Also, I didn't have any basil, since that was the one ingredient that I just could not find in non-mushy sad little wimpy bunches. Anyways, after this snack I still had pretty low physical energy going into my training session after work. It was really my mental enthusiasm that powered me through the workout today. All in all, tasty, but not the most resounding success so far.
Deliciousness Level: A classic combination, but maybe best left for cocktail hour and not taken to the office.
Dinner: Napa Cabbage Wraps
Dragging myself home after the gym, it's late, I'm hungry, I'm tired. This is exactly why I don't like to cook elaborate dinners, ever. I was already dreading having to come come and still have to DO things to be able to eat. But, here I am closing in on 9pm and i'm chopping and whisking, and going back and forth from my phone to the fridge to the counter and circling back again.
Eventually things started coming together, and in actuality, it only took about 20 minutes to get everything together from start to finish (and that's counting my non-sensical mad scientist method of food preparation)
Something I've noticed for this week is that I'm already whipping up another citrus vinaigrette.
I've never really been much of a vinaigrette maker, but I think I'm getting the hang of this!
Okay, substitutions: I still don't have basil, since I was not about to go on a food shopping adventure, starving, on my way home from having just worked out. It's only the second day, it wouldn't be good form to immediately derail after just starting this thing. Instead I just used some mint leftover from yesterday, and it worked pretty well! Also, I was reading off the pdf recipe instead of the one with pictures, and it never actually says to put tomatoes into the wrap, so I ended up adding those later.
The arugula salad was a bit…much. I didn't exactly measure it out, I just used two handfuls, so maybe it was a little more than two cups worth, or maybe I'm just not used to the taste of arugula, but it's a little bitter, even with the dressing and tomatoes. But not terrible either.
The wraps were…..amazing. Probably one of the fanciest meals I've ever put together (definitely the fanciest I ever put together on a weeknight after the gym). It was actually pretty simple since I didn't have to actually cook anything, just chop everything up into small bits. It probably took longer to keep checking the recipe to make sure I wasn't missing anything!
Deliciousness Level: arugula salad was okay, chicken wraps were a party in my mouth.
Snack (aka dessert): Navel Orange
I actually couldn't find clementines at the store, so I just got an extra orange instead. I'm sure buzzfeed had the idea that this would be sliced and arranged beautifully on the plate with the peels artfully decorating the whole thing. Or in in my case, carnage:
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