Home Alone

Well, I'm alone this week! Not exactly... my dad left today, is coming back tomorrow, leaving the next day, and my aunt is coming to stay with me during the weekend.
I'm pretty excited... planning on cooking for her and dragging her to see TWILIGHT! 3rd time's a charm (for me-- page has already seen it 4 TIMES!).
I actually enjoy being home alone. the only annoying thing is that I can't drive, so it's the bus and walking in this terrible weather.
Breakfast: For some reason I just haven't felt like oats as much, although I plan to have them tomorrow.
I had 2 pieces of toast with 3 tsps of peanut butter total... I know I'm a moron, but how many tsps in a tbsp? is it 4? I might just look it up. Anyways, there was half a sliced banana on the toast.
I also had 1/2 cup of cottage cheese with blueberries and wheat germ.
Plus Chai tea because I was tired, which I had with STEVIA! I can't believe that this is all natural... not that it doesn't taste natural... but why doesn't it have calories?
Snack once again was carrots, but with celery this time. I find that I just need something to munch on, and this does the trick.
Lunch: leftover eggs and tomatoes over brown rice with more string beans. And an apple.

I got home from school on the bus and it was gorgeous outside, but way too slippery for me to even consider running (I saw my friends' running, but I was afraid they might accidentally fall and kill themselves). Instead, I went home and worked out on the elliptical. That's 3 days in a row that I've done the same machine! Normally I HATE machines... but since I'm getting a workout, I won't complain, although I wonder what caused this sudden change. Because I was finding it a little hard to read actual books, I took some cookbooks and leafed through all the pictures. The time went by super fast! I did 40 minutes doing not exactly intervals, but every five minutes I would go up a level until I was almost on the highest level. I burned 380 something calories. Then I felt I hadn't cooled down, so I walked for 11 or so minutes on the treadmill. Then I did some upper body weights and some bicycle sets.
When I got back I had a pear.

For dinner I couldn't wait to cook! What's awesome about home alone is that I can cook whatever I want... weird vegan things my parents would find strange, make pancakes, whatever!
I decided to experiment with some more Western-style tofu and make a kind of oven-baked tofu, like oven-baked chicken, which is the healthy version of fried chicken.
This was mainly because we have buttermilk in our fridge that I would like to get rid of... I didn't end up using all of it, though. I combined a couple recipes: one from Running with Food and an Ellie Krieger one. I was stupid, though! I took Ellie's idea of using grape nuts and crackers, but I didn't crush them first, so of course they wouldn't stick to the tofu! I dipped the tofu in a combination of buttermilk, mustard, honey and egg whites, but because the coating didn't stick, it became more like a crunchy topping, that was still pretty good.
And this was the most exciting part of the whole evening: KALE CHIPS! I have heard so much about these, but I've always been skeptical. I just baked them for a little under ten minutes with olive oil, salt and pepper, and they actually tasted exactly like potato chips! I haven't even really been craving potato chips, but if I had been, this would have satisfied that craving. I wonder if I could eat them with some vinegar to bring back salt 'n vinegar memories...
I ate the chips and tofu with ketchup.


I really wanted to bake a potato or something, but we don't have any! :( I thought my usual brown rice would make this seem to Asian, which was the opposite of what I was going for, so I resorted to canned butternut squash, which I heated up with cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, maple syrup, and salt. The problem was that I always overdo the ginger, which gave it a slight bitter aftertaste... but no big deal.
What a fun dinner! Very unlike the things I usually cook... I used to cook very mushy, soupy food-- mainly bean-based soups and stews. There's nothing wrong with that, but this is more interesting. I've gotten back in the groove!
And because I didn't really have any substantial snacks today I thought it was justified to satisfy my sweet tooth: hence, a nice bowl of the last of the vanilla frozen yogurt and some more Purely Decadent Snickerdoodle.

Good night!
The house is quiet.