January 2015 – Page 3 – Life as Lauren

Guys. It’s Monday. I feel exhausted. What are the rules about taking naps in your office? Also, remind me not to watch Gilmore Girls in bed. Because “just one more episode” is never really just one more episode, is it?

Anyway, in other weekend news, we finally got to try the new deep dish pizza place in our hood. And we walked there. Seriously, it’s that close and it was that nice outside. In January! I’m not complaining.

There happened to be a kids birthday party going on while we were there so it was incredibly loud and we spent most of the time being distracted by kids running up and down the ramp into the bar, slapping themselves in the face with pizza slices and hanging on the railing near our table but all distractions aside, the food (and local beer offering) was great! And the personal deep dish pizzas could not have been cuter.

Saturday was blissfully relaxing. We slept in, lounged on the couch and went to the grocery, then I took myself to yoga before our extreme evening plans of gumbo and Boyhood. I give the gumbo two thumbs up. Especially since Joey made it while I did that post-yoga vegetative state thing on the couch.

And about Boyhood, it was good. The concept was really interesting and cool and different. But we both felt like nothing really happened. I don’t know, I’m trying not to let the “cool concept” thing sway my opinion of the movie because I’m not really sure the plot itself was all that captivating. I think this year’s movies might just be kind of meh.

Sunday started with waffles! Wait, not just waffles. CHOCOLATE WAFFLES! Yes! We don’t pull the waffle iron (that I had to have) out very often because it always seems so time consuming and I never seem to pick a good recipe but this one was a winner. I mean, how could it not be?

Afterwards, we brewed beer. Our homebrew store closed, (noooo!) so we tried a new place and the kits are different but we decided we’d at least give them a try. But I think it might be time to try putting a recipe together ourselves and this might just be the push we need. We’re trying a saison for the first time and I’m pretty excited. I love saisons! Oh and I also fit in a run while beer was on the stove, then came home and spent an obsessively long amount of time writing this chalk wall sign.

Sunday night was spent at my parents’ for a late birthday celebration for my dad/Christmas celebration for my niece and nephew. Guess who mislabeled their presents? My nephew seemed less than excited to unwrap a Frozen tea party set.

Happy Monday! If anyone needs me I’ll be pulling a George Costanza under my desk.

Let that long title serve as an indication that this post is going to be equally lengthy. I’m sorry, but keeping it concise has never been my strong suit.

Well, we did it! Fourteen days, 86 meals, a million dishes to wash and more salads than I thought it possible to consume and we have officially made it through the 2015 Food Lover’s Cleanse. And here’s the thing: food lover’s cleanse > juice cleanse. Because fact: food > juice. Always.

Anyway, I’m renaming it the “cook every single night for two weeks, pack a lunch every single day, make (almost) everything from scratch, cook things you’ve never cooked before and not go crazy in the process” challenge. And to that challenge, I say SUCCESS! And actually, even though we spent A LOT on groceries, cooked something new every night and had to add breakfast and lunch recipes into our lives, I felt it was all very manageable. And somehow, magically, the cooking was very quick and simple and didn’t dirty that many dishes. Dare I say, the clean up at the end of the night was much easier than usual?

To sum it all up, here’s what I loved.

Trying new things. Recipes, techniques, cuisines. It’s exciting to know I can indeed cook a bone-in turkey breast and an entire chicken. Who knew it was so easy? Also, it was nice try a new recipe source that wasn’t the same three blogs or Cooking Light. I have a new found love for Bon Appétit.

Having a partner. Actually, full disclosure, Joey’s been sick all week so I did all the Week 2 cooking (and cleaning) myself and dang, doing it single handedly is harder than sharing the responsibility with someone else. But, it was nice to have someone share in the grocery shopping, meal prepping, cooking and general commitment to the cleanse.

Lunch salads. I like the idea of having a salad for lunch and re-using dinner leftovers to make that salad. I just don’t think I need to do it every single day 🙂

Being told what to do. I know I run the risk of sounding like a total follower here, but it was so dang nice to have someone else do all the work. I get really caught up in making weekly meal plans that are “just right” and contain the “correct” balance of meat, greens, grains and expense. It was so awesome to just leave it up to the professionals, give up total control and do what they said.

Chocolate bark. Wait, I’ve said that before, haven’t I?

Cleanse complaints? My one and only complaint was the breakfasts. They were all really tasty, but some of them were significantly less filling than my normal oatmeal breakfasts. A 150-calorie chia seed parfait is not going to get me from 7:30 AM to lunch time. Oh and I guess the cost was kind of hard to wrap our heads around, but considering we spent $0 on going out to eat, we’re calling it a fair trade off. Also, Joey’s complaint is no breakfast burritos being on the meal plan…

Favorite meal: Unanimously, the pork tenderloin with barley pilaf. More of that please! Though I’ll definitely be adding the scrambled eggs, roast chicken, butternut-tahini purée and a few of the other dinners to my usual rotation.

Now, please enjoy a pictorial recap of the past 14 days. And have a good weekend!