August What I'm Craving This Month

I think my food posts are getting monotonous.  Like July's, this has many garden-related food photos, and I am starting to wonder if I have posted everything I eat and should stop my series.  I love reading other people's food posts though, so maybe I'll just try to be more interesting next month!

I did an Instagram post about meal prep, so I didn't include those pictures but you can see those here.

This was my fancy meal of the month, on a work trip:  salmon, risotto (mostly covered by the lemon slice), asparagus, a single piece of cauliflower with a yummy sauce, and single slice of tomato.  I think it goes without saying that this was not enough food, but it was really good!

I also got a soup with my fancy meal, and this was possibly the best soup I've had in my life.  It was called honey carrot, and I could tell it was made with real cream.

Roasted garden eggplant with Italian seasoning (bonus that the seasoning was the free packets from Papa John's)!

Roasted garden bell peppers.

Raw garden mini-sweet peppers.

I continued to refine and perfect my roasted pumpkin seed recipes.  I like both sweet and savory flavors, and I've tried several seasoning options (e.g., cinnamon and sugar, cumin, curry powder, garlic salt, etc.).  I've also learned you really don't have to clean the seeds much at all because the pumpkin "gunk" will bake off in the oven.

Roasted butternut squash topped with cinnamon is on point, and also very easy to make (i.e., wash it then shove it in the oven at 375* for 45-60 minutes).  Also the same recipe I use for baked sweet potatoes!

A new recipe I tried this month - protein powder pancakes, made with just protein powder and water  The batter drifted to the side of the pan and ended up like this.  They were edible with good toppings (i.e. peanut butter!), but I did not make this a second time.

I love fresh juicy peaches.

Continuing my omelet game with all garden veggies in this one (onion, kale, and tomatoes).

I began craving cottage cheese with salted tomatoes after some runs, probably for the sodium, so I had this for breakfast on several occasions.

A plate full of health here:  garlic crusted tilapia, cinnamon topped baked sweet potato, and roasted eggplant, bell peppers, and tomatoes.

A new smoothie addition I tried this month was homegrown pumpkin!  I had a cooked pumpkin in the fridge and added some cubes of it to a smoothie along with frozen mango, snickerdoodle protein powder, cinnamon, and almond milk, and it turned out really well.

Sweet potatoes with cinnamon never get old.

Our pear and apple trees both produced this year!  The Asian pears were extremely good, but all of the fruit was tiny.  I would typically eat 6 pears at a time (probably equivalent to 2 from the grocery store).

Blueberries were 99 cents at the Aldi produce sale, so I bought 24 packs knowing we could freeze them if needed.  Albani mowed through them; blueberries are her favorite fruit.

I made a switch this month that I've needed to make for awhile, and that was to plain Greek yogurt.  I eat Greek yogurt nearly daily, but I'd been eating the flavored types which contain sugar or artificial sweeteners, or both.  I began buying large containers of plain Greek yogurt to use when making tuna salad, and decided I'd start eating it instead of the flavored kind.  I add in chia seeds, cinnamon, and fresh fruit, blueberries here.

Cantaloupe was also on produce special for 99 cents, and I love this fruit.

Roasted yellow potatoes, roasted squash, and garlic roasted salmon is a winning meal.  Potatoes of all varieties are such great runner fuel with nutrient-dense carbohydrates and lots of potassium.

Random post-long run craving of a baked sweet potato topped with plain Greek yogurt and cinnamon.  While this is something I eat often, it's not usually something I want at 8:00 a.m., but on this day it was.

Sushi is also not something I eat often, and when I do it's a basic California roll for the win.

Few things beat watermelon in the summer!

This was a lentil quinoa bowl with chicken from Panera, and it was delicious, although I was hungry again about 90 minutes after eating it (may be related to running 14 miles that day vs. it not being filling enough).  The spoon sitting on the plate was GIGANTIC, but it doesn't look nearly as large in this photo, which I was disappointed about.  I even put the apple by it for comparison, haha!

This was a black bean quinoa bowl that I made myself...not a pretty as Panera's but it turned out well.

I have been trying to increase my healthy fat intake, which means more avocados.  I didn't get a photo of it, but I've also been using more coconut oil on my cooked veggies, and it has a great flavor to it.

One of the many perks of meal-prepping on weekends is that after a long day of work and running, my 10-year-old can make her own dinner from the fridge.

Orange Leaf to celebrate a Friday long run and a monthly mileage PR in August!