Neverending Meal Planning!!!

Is anyone else having trouble trying to come up with meal ideas.

Since we are trying to only eat takeout food once during the week THAT means I'm trying to meal plan CONSTANTANTLY.  OMG, this is making me crazy, especially when I'm also trying to diet meal plan.  The photo above is my new obsession of quinoa with vegetables and two over-easy eggs.  Can't seem to get enough of this stuff.  BUT, that's a lunch thing when I'm home.  I need more ideas for to-go food besides a package of lunchmeat.  I want, need to have it easy to grab and go.  I spend so much time on planning dinner that I don't want to think too hard on the lunch options.  But I regress, my problem right now is being creative in dinner planning.  I'm also trying to not eat so much red meat but I left with a lot of chicken and I don't want to have chicken every meal.  I also do try to do salmon once a week too.  Tonight we are going to have crab cakes, tomorrow night spaghetti with salad.  I think Friday we will do peel-n-eat shrimp at the cabin which leaves Saturday night.  I have so many cookbooks you would think I could just cook something out of them but I just don't use cookbooks anymore, which is why I'm getting ready to purge most of them.  I'm just rambling here about food that seems to be constantly on my mind.  You know it's the role of my marriage that I have, the meal prepper and I don't want to do it anymore.  It just makes me want to eat all the time. 

I haven't been, actually, I've been really good last week and so far this week.  But you know what the damn scale has not budged one damn ounce.  I am eating about 1200 calories a day and it is the same every single day I step on it.  What the hell is up with that.  Goodness I have gone off on a tangent.  

I have got to get a move on with my day.

 

Clayton Update and NY's Resolutions?

Life with this poor guy is getting better, thank goodness.  I was able to send a video of him to our vet yesterday and this morning will go in and pick up some more meds for him and see what the vet thought.  I don't know if there is anything we can do or do I need to bring him in for an exam, or maybe some laser treatment.  I'm very afraid he has another kind of cancer possibly in his neck/throat area.  Why I question this is that our whining-barking dog has ceased whining or barking.  He occasionally does it but before these recent episodes it was constant, bark to get up on the couch, bark to get down, bark to go outside, bark to go inside, bark to beg for food...now, crickets mostly.  I do know the area where he is most in pain when it happens is the neck-shoulder area.  Poor guy.  Of course when he's good and better he's real good.  Sunday evening it was steak night and he was begging for a bite and barking for his after dinner treat, running, yes RUNNING to the laundry room where treats are.  It's like nothing is wrong with him all of a sudden.  Yesterday I was giving him his pill in cheese and I thought he was awake but clearly he wasn't all the way awake and he snapped, HARD on my thumb.  Then he yelped and had a spasm.  It's all very confounding what is going on with him, hence the video to the vet.  I need more video.

Yesterday I finally went back to working out.  We (Af and myself) tried it in November with her trainer but that was short as the trainer was possibly exposed to Covid so we all went into quarantine until negative tests were had.  Now the new year has begun and it's back to what I know I must do.  My body is KILLING me and I have a doctors appointment at the end of the month!  It is painful and because I have the issues with my knees, hips and being so overweight, it will be a long process.  I have to push through.  I also decided to give the damn NOOM app another try.  Last time I paid for it and good grief the text messages and emails NAGGING me set my teeth on edge.  I have enough of that with The Hubby and my own conscience going on.  This time I'm just using the free version to log my food, watch what goes in my mouth and My Fitness Pal with the trainer.  I know I can do this.  Yesterday when we were done with workout I went home to have lunch because I KNOW that fast food is a weakness for me and I'm trying to avoid.  During workout I remembered I had a frozen pack of quinoa with chopped veggies in the freezer.  I decided to over-easy a couple of eggs and top the quinoa and let the ooey-gooey drizzle over the quinoa.  OMG, so very yummy and satisfying.  I will do it again today and tonight will be salmon and chard for dinner.  Last night was roasted chicken breasts and broccoli with a 1/2 cup of dressing.  It's going to have to be a meal at a time.  Tomorrow night I will have pot roast, onions, carrots and maybe a small potato.  

It's all about planning the stuff.  Typically on Thursday nights we have some sort of takeout, high end food.  We might do Saffron, Mediterranean Cuisine.  They have a chicken dish with a saffron rice that I cannot get enough of.  Of course I will then have to think of Friday and Saturday night.  OMG, meal planning is getting old but I've done it for a few years now, nearly 45 for that matter.   

Never-Ending Meal Planning

This pandemic thing has amped up my grocery shopping and cooking life like no other.  First of all I feel like I am CONSTANTLY thinking about food.  It's mostly because I don't go inside a store so I have to order and then pick up my groceries, sometimes I have them delivered.  What this means is that I'm in a never-ending meal planning mode.  Yesterday I cleaned out my deep freezer and tossed out most of the bottom of the freezer.  Hated to throw out corn on the cob but it clearly had freezer burn.  I just needed to assess my "stores" in there.  Lo and behold I did find a final fruitcake which we delved into this morning.  There was also a bag of huge blackberries that were good so I made a blackberry cobbler and apple pie because we had guests last night.  I haven't made a good pie in awhile.  

This morning I'm again meal planning, shopping for the week.  I'm having my book club on Wednesday night and the next Wednesday night my birthday girls.  They are small groups, very small and we will dine on our patio with heater going if needed.  It's just time to see them all.  I decided to cook a pot of veggie soup one evening and chili for the next.  I also have to plan on meals that are pretty quick for The Hubby because he goes to dance classes/lessons 2-3 nights a week and needs to be out of the house fairly fast.  All this going on I'm also still working at the office a bit and dealing with my Daddy's house-estate and all that is involved in that.  I've not spent a lot of time at the house this week.  I did go on Sunday and Wednesday to hopefully gather up the last of his stuff to have Salvation Army take it all away on Wednesday.