Day 2: in which I actually cook 3 meals on my stove!

It was so nice to have a day where I was able to work from home most of the day: I was actually able to cook 3 meals at home.  I haven't had the luxury of doing that in quite some time. 

Breakfast was again, steel-cut oatmeal with walnuts, almond milk, cinnamon, and maca.  I managed to hold off on having breakfast until 10:00, but did have some coffee with almond milk around 8am.

I belong to a website called the Daily Challenge, and every day they give you a healthy challenge that involves either exercise, food, good habits, or relaxation (you can check it out at challenge.meyouhealth.com ) and today was a food challenge.  I was supposed to eat a food that is high in potassium, and most of the choices they suggested were fruits, but they also mentioned potatoes or spinach, so I decided on potatoes, since we had some in the house.  Now, I get this challenge in my inbox at 7am every morning, so all morning long I'm fantasizing on how I'm going to cook the potatoes.  Here's what I did, they were so yummy:

Cut 3 medium sized potatoes into 1 inch cubes.  I left the skin on.
Cooked potatoes in a skillet with olive oil, about half way through cooking added 1/2 an onion, sliced, a handful of raw cashews, cumin, ginger, cardamom, curry powder, and a couple tablespoons of water.  Served with salt to taste.  Sooooo good.

For dinner I knew I wanted something with protein, and we had a small bag of red lentils in the pantry.  I didn't really know how I wanted to make them, and I didn't have the ingredients for my favorite lentil soup with chard, so I just started with cooking the lentils in water and followed my muse.  Once the lentils were getting soft, there was still a lot of water, so I knew it was going to end up like soup.  I added a Knorr vegetable bullion cube, the other half of the onion (chopped this time) and a whole big clove of elephant garlic.  If you've never used elephant garlic, you don't know what you've been missing.  You only have to peel one clove, and the amount of chopped garlic you get would make any Italian proud- they are huge!!  I didn't want to go the curry route again, so I added about a tablespoon of Herbs de Provence and sliced 2 carrots and threw them in.  And then I also dumped the rest of a bag of red quinoa that wouldn't have been enough to use for anything else (less than 1/2 cup.) What resulted was a savory, comforting, sweet-tasting concoction that I call "stoup," something between a stew and a soup.  It was so tasty and satisfying, and there's leftovers for tomorrow!!

Then, it was off to the yoga studio for the evening session of the Yoga Studies Program.  During which I had my choco-chai (chai tea from a tea bag, with unsweetened chocolate soy milk added.)  And on the drive home I had some Mary's Gone Crackers.

So, Day 2 was another success!  I'm not feeling tired or grouchy, and I know I can do this.  On the drive home, I passed the Circle K, and realized that there was probably nothing in there that I wanted.  What a freeing realization!  Tomorrow will be an interesting day, I'll be at the yoga studio from 8:30 in the morning until 7:30 at night.  I'm planning to pack some stuff, and I'll probably pick up some hummus on my way in.  I'll let you know how it goes!