WIAW 151

So I spent the weekend making (and eating) test versions of this wonderful idea I had for a  fluffy pink dessert thing for Valentine’s Day – and making another version, and making another version, and…  Well, it was fluffy, and kind of pink, and not wonderful at all. Not awful, just incredibly boring… So you’re not going to see it… (and I’m going to stop wasting perfectly good strawberries.)

Then I jumped to the not scintillating but hopefully very useful recipe I’ve been using to cook brown rice in the pressure cooker in half the time the rice cooker used to take… so the internet went down…  Came back and I got it up, but I’ve felt for several days that I’m just spinning my wheels.

Fortunately I was sustained in these endeavors by fast, easy, and tasty meals…

Poking around at recipes from last year, I was reminded of the Chocolate Protein Shake I made – which I haven’t made for quite a while. Don’t know why – it feels so decadent to have a chocolate milkshake for breakfast, and was just what I needed! Well – I haven’t been having protein shakes as much lately in general – the convenient and not too expensive source of unsweetened, unflavored protein powder stopped selling it. I don’t want artificial sweeteners in artificially flavored Caramel Mocha Fudge protein powder – I just want to add my own fruit and flavoring,  thank you. So when I am near the store that carries it, I get some and hoard it, so I have it for use when it’s really just much more convenient – an early morning, or traveling…  but that shouldn’t stop me from ever just enjoying it for its own sake!

And I drank my shake with nice, fresh, hot, homemade corn muffins – always a pleasure.

I’ve started doing grain bowls for lunch quite a lot. I’ve seen people call them Buddha Bowls, by the way – but I’m used to that term being used to specify a vegan (or at least vegetarian)  meal, and many people have used them for meat. Since I have meat here, I’ll just say grain bowl.

I had a base of cooked brown rice, and a little leftover chicken – not enough, so I added some peanuts. Then I threw on some frozen peas, and a piece of roasted red pepper, also from my freezer. (I froze that, I bought the peas.) I keep thinking I want to make sauce to use for these – but I also keep enjoying them without any sauce, so…

Dinner was also pretty thrown together. I had cooked, shredded pork shoulder, and a red cabbage, so I sauteed the cabbage, added the pork and a splash of orange juice, and microwaved potatoes. I have yet to get an attractive picture of cooked red cabbage – but it does taste good…

I have chicken in the slow cooker right now, so cooked chicken, and chicken soup are in my future – just in time, since it’s supposed to snow again!

Dancing over to Laura’s for Jenn’s What I Ate Wednesday roundup…  It’s fun to see what other people eat! (That’s what started me on grain bowls for lunch…)