Omelet meal prep, Halloween eats and Books

It looks like meal prepping is having a moment. Beautifully laid out containers of prepped and portioned meals are all over the food blogs, Instagram and other forums. Of all the food trends out there (looking at you, cake pops, bacon everything and salted caramel), meal prepping- preparing several well-balanced meals in one go- is a pretty useful one. Given access to a fridge and freezer, making several portions of a meal at once can save time and money and make it easier to eat in a healthier way. All while making one feel very wholesome in a domestic goddessy way.

I am not typically into large scale meal prep, preferring to make a fresh meal every evening with extra servings for lunch the following day. Breakfast is another story. The dash to school and work starts at an ungodly hour in our household and it is useful to have breakfast prepped and ready to go. No two people in our little family like the same thing for breakfast. V eats granola every single day- I make it in big batches every couple of weeks and can share our house recipe if anyone is interested. The kids rotate through a few simple breakfasts- pancakes, oatmeal, idli with ghee, avocado toast, boiled egg, smoothies, cereal with fruit. All of these can be made ahead or made in a couple of minutes. As for me, I like eggs for breakfast.

I'm sharing a very simple omelet and veggies meal prep that I have been doing pretty consistently for a few months now. Omelets don't sound like a typical make-ahead dish but in fact they hold very well in the fridge. You make omelets while a tray of vegetables is being roasted and portion the combination into containers. It makes for a filling and nutritious breakfast/lunch that can be warmed up and made piping hot in a minute or so in the microwave oven. For the final touch, I choose from Sriracha sauce and Valentina hot sauce that I have tucked away at my desk for dousing purposes.

My sister gave me a spice mix called "R-Pure omelette masala" that I love and use in this recipe all the time. But basic salt and pepper work beautifully if you don't want to go hunting for a special spice mix.

For the masala omelets

6-8 large eggs (depending on whether you want 1.5 or 2 eggs per serving)
1/4 cup  minced onion
Handful of cilantro, minced
1 small tomato, minced (optional)
Minced hot pepper or red pepper flakes to taste
Salt and pepper (or omelet masala) to taste

Beat the eggs until frothy. Mix in the rest of the ingredients. Make 4 omelets in a non-stick pan using a little oil.

For the roasted veggies

Raid the crisper tray in the fridge. Any combination of cauliflower, cabbage, broccoli, potato, carrots, onion, peppers, mushrooms etc. will do.

Dice the vegetables and spread them out in a single layer on a baking sheet, season liberally with olive oil, salt and pepper, and roast at 425F.

I use the convection setting on my oven for 12 minutes. Then I turn the oven off and leave the tray in there for another 5-10 minute for perfect roasted vegetables.

Let the omelets and roasted veg cool down for a few minutes, then portion into four containers and store in the fridge for up to 3 days.

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Some simple Halloween treats from last week...

Clementine "pumpkins" (celery for the stem)

Corn and black bean salsa

Lila had a hankering for pumpkin pie around Halloween. I found this recipe for impossible pumpkin pie- it was impossibly easy. You just put a bunch of things (all stuff I already had on hand) in a bowl, stir (or get your kid to stir, better yet), pour into a pie dish and bake.

This pudding-like pie turned out perfectly delicious and not too sweet. The recipe is eggless. I'd definitely make it again.

My adorable weightlifting instructor went all Pinterest mom on us and made us post-workout Halloween treats: white chocolate covered strawberry "ghosts" and peanut butter chocolate oat "bats" with blue tortilla chip wings. So sweet!

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On the subject of my last post, I picked up a library copy of Lean Habits For Lifelong Weight Loss: Mastering 4 Core Eating Behaviors to Stay Slim Forever by a Canadian nutritionist, Georgie Fear. The four core eating behaviors endorsed in this book are to eat 3 meals without snacking, mastering your hunger, eating just enough, and eating mostly whole foods. No surprises there. Truly, there are very few surprises when it comes to losing extra weight. We all know what to do, more or less, but just because something is simple doesn't mean it is easy. This slim book (written in tiny font for some reason) has very practical tips to build solid habits, although each person will have to do their own work to figure out, for instance, what is "just enough food" for their own needs. The book suggests building each meal with 2-3 cups of vegetables, adding a certain amount of protein, some form of healthy fat, and carb-rich foods if there is room, depending on how your body can handle them. The book also has chapters on emotional eating, drinking enough water, not drinking liquid calories (soda, juice, sugary coffee drinks), getting enough sleep and so on. 

Continuing with the Read Harder 2018 challenge...

For Task #10 A romance novel by or about a person of color, I read a graphic novel, Bingo Love, written by Tee Franklin with art by Jenn St-Onge. Two teenage girls meet at their grandmothers' church bingo game in 1963. They are quickly inseparable and in love by the time they graduate high school. But the time isn't right for their romance; they are forced apart for the next several decades, marrying men and raising families before reuniting as grandmothers. The art in this slim graphic novel is incredible and the romance is sweet but the story-telling felt rushed and underdeveloped.

Task #15 is A one-sitting book, which makes me think of genres like kid lit and graphic novels. But for this task, I read a novella, The Uncommon Reader by Alan Bennett. If you read more than 30 minutes in a sitting, this is a one sitting book but I, ahem, read it over three nights. Such is the reading life of a tired parent. I enjoyed this book very much and highly recommend it. The Queen (yes, the one in England) stumbles upon a mobile library in a corner of the palace grounds and makes a new friend in a kitchen helper named Norman who is an avid reader and frequenter of the mobile library. In a matter of days the queen becomes a voracious reader, much to the chagrin of her advisers. Book lovers will love this cheeky and funny little novel which celebrates the pleasures of reading. “Books are not about passing the time. They're about other lives. Other worlds.”

Task #18 was A comic that isn’t published by Marvel, DC, or Image. Now, I don't know a thing about comic book publishers but I am guessing this task was designed to encourage reading beyond the superhero comic genre. I chose Anya's Ghost by Vera Brosgol. Anya is struggling with high school, resentful of her immigrant Russian background and feeling quite blue one day when she falls into an old well and meets and befriends the ghost of a teenager from nearly a century ago. Again, I thought the artwork in this graphic novel was absolutely terrific and the story was just okay for me.

Task #23 was A book with a female protagonist over the age of 60. Here I turned to the tried and true beloved elderly spinster (what an archaic term that is) Miss Marple and read A Murder Is Announced (Miss Marple #5) by Agatha Christie. Because sometimes you just need to read an Agatha Christie and this is a terrific one that somehow I hadn't read before.

Happy Diwali to everyone who is celebrating it this week! We are deferring our celebration to the weekend when we will be sure to light a row of lamps and make a nice meal.

Do you prep your meals in advance? What are you reading these days?