Pack it up, pack it in

This is my second week of packing breakfast and lunch to take to work, and already I feel like I am doing better with my eating. They serve pretty healthy food in the dining hall, but I always end up eating too much. When I'm packing my lunch I do much better with portion control.

I tried two new recipes this week. On Sunday night I made roasted cauliflower and quinoa salad and took the leftovers for lunch on Monday. The salad also had raisins and slivered almonds, a little olive oil and a bit of red wine vinegar. It was pretty good - the cauliflower was the best part! - and the leftovers were also tasty. Monday night I made lemon couscous, with whole wheat couscous, raisins, slivered almonds, chickpeas. The couscous came out pretty dry, so I added an extra drizzle of olive oil at the end and that helped. It also packed well for lunch on Tuesday. The flavors were all good.

I'm planning to make panzanella again for dinner tonight and take leftovers for lunch one day. I'm loving the fresh basil in my garden, and can't wait until my tomatoes are ready. I have one teeny tiny one so far! Speaking of my garden, this year I have two tomato plants (both full-size, one yellow), cucumber, lettuce, basil, rosemary, chives, and parsley. I may try to find an eggplant or something else to plant in the small space I have left. I think I have room for maybe 2-3 more plants. I'm really hoping the lettuce does well, and my spinach experiment last year was a big FAIL. I wish I had room for a large garden, as I love to eat fresh, home-grown veggies!

I brought Siggi's icelandic yogurt again this week, but I had picked up some frozen fruit instead of fresh strawberries this week. It was OK, but definitely not as good. I did use a fresh banana, which helped. I think I am getting sick of this breakfast so I am looking for something new to try next week.

Last week I went back to running before work, since the heat makes it unpleasant to run after work (not that it has been warm so far this week - it's been really cool actually! - but last week was very hot). I haven't actually run before work this week because I just switched to summer hours, so I would have to get up at 4:45 am to run before work and I haven't worked up to that yet. I'm off today and will be running with Joel when he gets home. I had planned to run during the morning but Joel didn't run last night (it was raining) and asked if I would run with him. 

My plan for dealing with running during summer hours will be to run on my day off (Wednesdays) and then on Fridays, when I will be going in to work at normal time (I work 7:30 am - 6 pm Mon/Tue/Thu and 8:30 am - 4:30 pm Fri). This week that didn't work out because I had to leave work at 5 last night to go to my sister-in-law's birthday dinner, so I am going in again on Friday. That's fine. I'll make it work.

Off to look for inspiration for next week's meals!