Everything Sara Eats

One month into instagramming all my food and I have 170 pictures (which are almost all included below). It's been interesting to see patterns and keep track of things, but it does make me a little self-conscious about what I eat. I feel like I have to eat exciting food or maybe less snacks. I just hope I'm not boring people with all my tomato sandwiches. :)

I'm excited to see what this looks like when I'm done!

 


 

 

This week thanks to

Amazon!

They had a sale on board games, so I bought two that won the Spiehl des Jahres: Enchanted Forest and Legends of Andor.

I've already played Codenames (which was excellent), so these will be 2 and 3 of 10.

So thanks, Amazon, you're the best (at taking my money).

Complete: 33. Cook Meatless Mondays for 3 months

Another one down!

So...I actually miscalculated and cooked Meatless Mondays for 4 months. Do I get extra credit?

We ate the following meals

• Coconut Quinoa Curry
• 3-Bean Chili
• Lemon Broccoli Pasta Skillet
• Chana Masaledar (Indian-spiced chickpeas and onions)

• Onion soup with star pasta

• 7-Layer Burritos
• Waffles
• Veggie Sushi
• Veggie Curry
• Southwestern Chopped Salad
• Indian-spiced Lentils
• Cheese pizza with basil and tomatoes (we kinda cheated here: this is Costco pizza, but we added to it!)

• Crunchy Thai Quinoa Cashew Salad

• Pad Thai

My favorites were the 3-Bean Chili, Pad Thai, and Chana Masaledar. 

The biggest challenge was still being full after dinner. We learned quickly that we needed to make sure there was plenty of protein in whatever we had. I think it was a good experience, though! I feel like we eat a lot of meat and I feel bad about that. It's a bit cheaper and a bit more healthy, and I can sacrifice at least one night a week. :)

More progress

I've started the health tracking and consumption instragram and it's been harder than I thought it would to remember to document everything. I'm sure I'll get into the swing of things soon, though. I have people holding me accountable, so that helps. My co-worker ratted me out at a company dinner last night and I was kind of embarrassed, but it actually helped to make my picture taking less awkward, and now everyone knows for the future.

I made Spanish tortilla in celebration of the olympics and heck, it was delicious. I visited Spain when I was 15 and we had tortilla at every hotel. I fell in love with it, but I've been intimidated by the recipe and hadn't made it until now. It's kind of a potato and onion omelette, and the terrifying part is flipping the omelette once one side has cooked. It was pretty stressful, but we managed. I'm really glad I've made it, but I might not stop making it now, haha. I plan to make a smaller batch to make the flipping easier.

So delicious!

Items completed!

Dear readers, I am thrilled to announce that I have completed two items on my 101 list.

41. Go on a new factory tour

We visited the Jelly Belly Factory in Fairfield, CA. We didn't realize they had a factory shut down for most of the month of July. We showed up on the last day of the shutdown, so some things were functioning, but a lot of it wasn't.
Luckily, the tour incorporates awesome videos showing each stage up close, so we didn't miss too much. Some machines were working and we got to see the jelly beans in storage - crazy amounts!

This machine weighs out the amount for each package.

They press a mold into cornstarch to create the jelly bean shape.

Spider packing machine

Overall, it was a super cool tour and we got to wear sweet hats and went home with a free bag of jelly beans each. I'd super recommend it.

20. Go to a food festival

The Gilroy Garlic Festival is what I had in mind for this item. Like I've said before, I've been wanting to go to this place ever since I found out about it. I wasn't sure if I could swing it, so I left it open. However, Hubster and I were talking and we were just like, why not? If we don't go now, when will we?

And I'm so glad we did. It was delicious, entertaining, and so so garlicky. We watched the Garlic Cook-Off where 8 cooks from across America competed for the best garlic recipe. They threw garlic into the audience and Hubster caught me a bulb. :)

We had garlic shrimp, garlic ice cream, garlic butter roasted corn, garlic steak tacos, garlic kettle corn, pickled garlic, garlic bread, and a garlic peanut butter cup. Everything was great. The garlic ice cream was probably the surprise hit of the day.

Another cool part was the Pyro Chefs. They cook massive portions with lots of fire. 

It was a pretty crowded place, but it just warmed my heart to see so many people passionate about garlic. Totally worth the trip and I'd totally go again if I got the chance!