This week a friend asked for a list of quick Trader Joe’s balanced meals with fresh or pre-packed components. (Hi, Jana!) She specified chicken, fish, and pork. I thought you might find these useful as well! (Yes, the picture has nothing to do with healthy dinners. But pick up one of these Trader Joe’s Corn Cookie mixes before they are gone!)
Chicken Ideas:
TJ’s Schwarma Chicken Thighs; frozen jasmine rice packet, arugula salad with part kit.
Marinate chicken thighs or tenders in half a bottle of their Honey Aleppo Sauce, roast the marinated chicken thighs ON zucchini slices in the same container. Serve with a frozen jasmine rice packet. Other things to marinate chicken: their gyoza sauce. Their Carolina gold bbq sauce.
I’m an “adult”: Chicken Drumellas, steamed broccoli, baked Alexia French fries. Dip in sriracha barbecue sauce.
Fish:
Argentinian frozen shrimp, cooked in their organic vodka sauce on the stovetop. Crumble on feta. Serve over rice or just as is. You can also use eggs as a cheat“shakshuka” this way.
Bake their BBQ Salmon on Cedar-y thing. Served over “sushi rice”: frozen rice packet, doctored with a little rice vinegar and sugar. With chopped cucumber, and if you feel fancy, some pickled ginger.
Take any of their frozen fish, slather in their garlic spread, and bake. Or you can do half-half with mustard. I just got the new Bronzino filets and plan on doing this.
Pork:
Marinate Pork Tenderloin (I’ve been loving that honey Aleppo.) Then bake in the oven. While that’s happening, take one of the boxes of cubed pancetta, crisp up in the pan, add a bag of the shredded Brussels sprouts. Cook until soft. You probably want a spoonful of some sort of vinegar to balance it out, or a bunch of lemon. Note: I marinate everything in a ziplock!
Trader Joe’s Quick Chili: sauté ground meat of your choice, a bunch of cumin and salt, a container of chopped onions, a jar of salsa (I like either their hatch chili or pepita) a can of fire roasted tomatoes. Simmer for thirty minutes while you finish up something else. Top with unexpected cheddar or pepper jack.
Hit me up if you have similar requests, and I’ll help you out.
A week ago I was ambling around on one of my daily outdoor adventures when I came across this formidable creature, mere miles from my front door. As I don’t actually live in farmland, but in suburbia outside of Boston, I was pleasantly surprised to make his (her?) acquaintance, for a few short minutes on a hazy summer evening.
Last month, I started a new session of MBSR – mindfulness based stress reduction, a scientifically rigorous program of meditation and yoga in an eight week course – with my best friend who lives a thousand miles away from me. In a way, that’s one of the wonderful things that has come out of this pandemic – Zoom brings us opportunities for close experiences with people who live far away from us. In many cases, what were only accessible as in-person experiences in the past, have come smack into our living rooms.
One of the prompts in the course this week was thinking about what we are like when we are at our most relaxed. For many folks, this can be a difficult question – when have we even last been relaxed? This question takes a little bit of digging. When I’m relaxed, I’m warm, adventurous, at my most curious. I win things. (What do I mean by this? It’s not that I think I’m luckier, per se, it’s that I find myself open to opportunities – I notice things better. I’m better prepared to act.)
What are you like at your most relaxed? I’d love to know.
Good Things this Week:
I have a bit of a backlog of good things – meals, small adventures, lots of dog photos. We’ve made it to some days of serious heat. It’s been well into the nineties most days over the past few weeks, but I’ve still been making a point to be outside as much as possible, racking up my miles in my virtual race across Tennessee and back. (West to East, now East to West! The long way!)
Here are some glimpses of summer:
Bertram and his best friend Sawyer.
In my walking quests, I’ve discovered the joys of the mid-walk snack: specifically these salty and delicious parm cheese crisps from Brothers Market in Waltham. (I used to get the big box of house made cheese crispies from Whole Foods, but had to stop because they were too easy to snack on ALL day in the house.)
Bertram has been taking advantage of porch life by holding court at the top of the stairs to cool off after walks. We finally had a reprieve this weekend – so walks were (to his delight) much longer together.
On the hottest of days, he has changed his tune about “bath-like” water receptacles and actually fallen in love with his new dog pool. (affiliate link!)
I’ve been hunting around the neighborhood for particularly spectacular specimens of plants, flowers, and trees. Here are some of my favorites:
Good Things in Food:
And then, there was food. Because I’ve been questing on my 1270 mile race, I’ve had to be more diligent about feeding myself, and having things prepared. I’ve been trying to keep up with summer vegetable prep. My weekends I tend to batch cook or chop, so that I have things ready to go to mix and match during the week.
Very good news? Trader Joe’s Dolma and Giant White Beans in tomato sauce are BACK in stores! I picked up a few cans to re-stock, and am going to try out the new quinoa dolma to see how I feel about them. Will report back.
Every weekend I’ll sit and do a meal plan like this one; alternating between a paper version and an Evernote file – usually the same or similar template to keep things simple. (This was a particularly meat heavy meal plan, but usually there are two or three days where I eat primarily veg heavy.)
Here are some of the standout meals over the past few weeks:
Pork chop bowl over white rice, with a tomato basil salad.
A version of this bowl: miso mayo white fish, over seasoned rice with rice vinegar, cucumber salad, and furikake.
A fresh ear of corn, a gift from my neighbor.
Golden tofu, seasoned dandelion greens, and an egg.
This year, I’ve committed to writing more, and it’s been working.
Aside from this blog post, this week I wrote about leadership goals, running project management at Ompractice as we grow – with Agile methodologies, agile sprint planning, and the sprint retro. Personally, I wrote about documenting and codifying my Ideal Week.
While the bulk of my writing remains unpublished, I’m thinking of this writing a little bit more like book writing than blogging.
The end goal is to build a bigger body of work on topics that I’m interested in, both for myself, and to share with others. While I love blogging, I want my thinking to be better organized, more structured, and edited to reflect developing insight over time.
I know this to be true about myself: writing is the best way for me to clarify and organize my ideas. It’s a process. Whenever I start a new project, I sit and brainstorm on paper. Then I take to the road for a long walk, or the shower, with a structure to ruminate upon. Back to my desk, I make more notes, and edit accordingly. Sleep on it, and edit again. Rinse and repeat.
But like many things that are obvious – knowing something that is true, and consistently committing to put it in practice are two separate things. This year I wanted to make sure that my desire to write actually turned into work written.
Fortunately, writing begets writing, so here we are. Like my run streak (it’s been over a year), one of the keys to success for me was to build daily doable habits. So this is what I’ve been doing loosely: writing about work during the work week, writing about life on the weekend, posting on this here blog, and then adding good things to my notebooks in between.
The two biggest shifts that has positively impacted my writing habit: scheduling the time for it, and reducing my actual time spent on my phone consuming social media.
{Assorted Good Eats:}
You’ll have to imagine them, because most of the week my phone was away from me on the charger, and I only took a handful of blurry unlit snaps of my meals. (That gorgeous spread above is what I was eating a year ago in Istanbul!)
Chicken marinated in Trader Joe’s Amba (fermented mango sauce). You can find it in the fresh case by the pesto and hummus, and it’s a phenomenal marinade or all purpose sauce for any meat or fish. I can’t recommend it enough.
Whole Foods Matzah Crack. If you go by your local Whole Foods this week, I recommend picking up this seasonal treat: matzah coated in a sweet and just slightly salty caramel/toffee, and dipped in dark chocolate. Smitten Kitchen has a good recipe if you feel like making your own.
Trader Joes’ Braised Beef with mashed potatoes and cruciferous crunch salad. This beef (with demi glaze) is one of the best things at Trader Joe’s.
Lot’s of good meals on tap for this week. This is what my lightweight meal planning looks like most often. I also keep a spreadsheet when I’m inspired to do things digitally.
{Good Things}
I cleaned and re-foiled the grill to get ready for grilling season. All that’s left is to hook up the new gas tank, give the grates a bit of seasoning, and I’m ready to go.
I cut the cord! After far too long overspending, and time wasted with the television just on in the background, I finally got rid of cable tv, and switched from Comcast to wildly faster fiber internet with FIOS. I’ll still have Netflix, Hulu, and the occasional live TV access when desperate, but I’m decently sure that I’ll be using it far less than I have been. And while I do enjoy watching live sports, I *love* listening to sports on the radio. The only thing I anticipate missing is the clicker to my Xfinity box.
A pup walk with my friend Teri. Teri was in town for the Boston marathon (which she CRUSHED with solid training, and a 10 minute PR), and I was delighted to get the excuse to head into town with Bertram for an active recovery walk with her on Wednesday evening. Normally I don’t bother reaching out to people who are visiting for the marathon – they usually have enough on their minds! But I was SO delighted to get to see her, and the weather was beautiful.
Great reading this week: Cal Newport’s Digital Minimalism (I opted appropriately, for the hardcopy), my friend Anna’s forthcoming book Shadow Magic, Ben Horowitz’s Hard Thing about Hard Things (Audible), Karen Wickre’s Taking the Work out of Networking, some Essential Jim Rohn, the last in the Discovery of Witches series (Audible), and got started on a galley of Sarah Gailey’s upcoming Magic for Liars.
Passover Dinner: this year we had a smaller dinner at my Uncle Allan and Aunt Roz’s house than normal, with many family members spread across the country and unable to come home for the meal.
This didn’t keep us from some of our favorite traditions: reading from several different Passover Story Haggadahs (Haggadot?), singing songs, opening the door for Elijah, Miriam’s cup, and some sephardic traditions including the Moroccan Bi Pilu (going around the table and blessing each participant with the seder plate over their heads.) Our youngest participant was just shy of 27, so the four questions were a collaborative effort.
In addition to our regular updated Silverman Haggadah – which I’ve always enjoyed for it’s Retro late 50’s artistic style, we read from the Gateways Haggadah, a pictorial version of the Passover story, which is written to support families with children of all abilities and disabilities, and is meaningful to our family. And this year, some new readings from the HIAS Haggadah, connecting the Passover story to today’s global refugee crisis. Ex: the section about the modern ten plagues of the refugee crisis: violence, dangerous journeys, poverty, food insecurity, lack of access to education, xenophobia, anti-refugee legislation, language barriers, workforce discrimination, and loss of family.
For dinner, we ate traditional seder plate fixins, two types of charoset from my mother – “New England Style” with a lot of apple, and “Turkish Style” with spices and dates, hard boiled eggs, a terrine like gefilte fish with plenty of horseradish, matzah ball soup, Moroccan mini meatballs and peas (we do kitniyot), my aunt’s Tsimmes, green beans. And for dessert: fruit, macaroons and a berry crisp my mom made.
Looking forward to:
My birthday gift from my mom: a generous MFA museum membership with reciprocal privileges at top institutions!
Spring planting in my potted garden! Fresh herbs, flowers, and vegetables, I’ve missed you.
It’s a little astounding to me that we’ve reached March already. Spring was peeking out, and then we got a snow storm – there was almost a foot last night here, and I’ve finally dug myself out and acquired pet friendlier ice melt, so my day is a success.
A part of my regular routine this year has been sticking to a “weekend template”. At some point, I realized that 90% of what I do each weekend is the same – home chores, errands, business work, and if I add in dedicated time for weekly creativity, I get to enjoy more of the things that I love to do on weekends: creative dates with myself, sketching, reading, etc.
I also set aside some time this weekend to do a little recap on my month before writing out my March Intentions – and then proceeded to get very little actually done because I was under the weather. That’s how it goes sometimes.
{Good Things}
This was the first week in a while that I found myself scratching my head at what I actually did this week when I sat down to write. (One of the reasons I do this exercise: we tend to forget things that we’ve completed and keep hold of things that were unfinished. This is good for keeping track of things in progress, not great for gratitude and appreciating the good stuff.) But despite feeling that I did nothing, I actually got quite a lot in.
Gave Blood – the last few attempts at doing this were a resounding failure (due largely to dehydration), so I was thrilled that hydrating well this time around gave me a quick 7 minute bag fill. If you have the capacity and ability to do so, this is a quick and easy way to help save lives. Also: my favorite part about giving blood is that somehow, the conversations always turn to food? (I have no idea..) But while I was there, several of us had a long conversation about using dried fruit in home made meatballs. While I’m a raisin hater, I can concede that a golden raisin in a meatball is probably a good idea. (Also, I ended up eating oreos and two bags of cheez-its’ because my decision making capacity was strengthened by blood loss.)
Fitness, this week:
Monday: a mile outside, Ompractice Yoga Nidra with Amy.
Tuesday: OrangeTheory
Wednesday: Foundations with Traci at 7:30 on Ompractice (60 minutes)
Thursday: Yoga for Tight Shoulders and Neck at 12:30 ET with Niki on Ompractice (amazing!) and another OrangeTheory!
Friday: a “rest day mile”
Saturday: was feeling a little run down, so ended up doing another rest day mile and a 20 minute Peloton ride.
Sunday: “recovery mile” outdoors.
Do yoga with me! A quick note because I’m so proud of this work we are doing and would love to see more of you on the mat with me: annual memberships on Ompractice are only $149.99 right now – unlimited live yoga and meditation classes with teachers who see you. (That’s less than two months cost of a regular studio membership!)
This was a StitchFix reject – didn’t love the shape, and it was a little too short for my long torso – but loved the color of this vest! If you want to try out StitchFix, here’s my affiliate code and we both get a $25 credit.
Creative Date: because of my schedule and generally being under the weather, I took myself to see Free Solo on the big screen. The film documents Alex Honnold’s (successful) attempt at Free Solo’ing El Capitan (ie: rock climbing up thousands of feet with no rope). We all know he made it, but I had to practice ALL of my meditative skills to keep from losing it during this film. If you can watch it on the big screen, do!
Food Shopping Special: I took myself to Russo’s in Watertown for some extra fresh vegetables and little treats. They always have a delightful assortment of hard to find vegetables, fruits, and goodies. And beautiful flowers! I get most of my plants there in the summer.
{Good Eating}
For the past week, I’ve been ravenous. It’s taken me 20+ years to realize that yes, this is a cyclical hormonal shift that happens pretty much the same week every month. Funny how that works. Fortunately, there were plenty of good meals coming out of my kitchen. Here’s some of them:
A cafe au lait at George Howell. Somehow the perfect beverage before the snow storm.
Tikka Masala Chicken and Tofu with arugula and lime salad. I keep a jar of Patak’s Concentrated Tikka Masala Curry Paste in my fridge to make quick flavorful meals out of leftovers. I had some tofu and some leftover roasted chicken that needed eating, so I heated them up with some curry paste and a little bit of yogurt.
Hodo Soy Moroccan Tofu Cubes over rice with arugula salad. I’m not a frequent soy eater, but last week I went to the grocery store hungry, and told myself I could purchase anything as long as it was protein rich. So I came home with a lot of tofu. These were a little bit on the bland side, which was disappointing!
Shan-a-Punjab takeout. On Thursday, my parents came to spend time with their granddog, and we ordered Indian takeout and I introduced them to their first episode of Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat. (How often is too often with Shan-a-Punjab deliver? Asking for a friend.)
Trader Joe’s Chicken Piccata over herb and cucumber salad. This is one of my favorites from the fresh case – not too lemony, not too salty. While it’s technically convenience food, I really enjoy these for lunches.
Snack: Black Forest Ham on Lucky 7 Bread – I ran out of the St. Mang Rubius cheese I was spreading on the bread in the earlier part of the week, but ended up just going french and making myself a beurre jambon with my salted sweet cream butter from my Walden share.
Vietnamese Noodle Bowl with Lobster. I picked up Andrea Nguyen’s Vietnamese Food Any Day cookbook, and before getting to cook a recipe, found myself craving my favorite Bun. I grabbed her Nuoc Cham recipe, and made these PERFECT rice noodles. (This was my FAVORITE DISH ALL WEEK.)
Mediterranean Chicken Bowl with Baba Gannoush and Labne. Trader Joe’s has Shawarma marinated chicken thighs that are delicious. I cooked some up and made a salad bowl with eggplant, a cucumber and herb salad with tomatoes, and a bit of Samira’s olive labne. Also wildly delicious.
Fish Curry with Cabbage and Herb Salad. When I order from Shan-a-punjab, I usually order the side of masala sauce to make a new meal later in the week and extend my gustatory joy. I opted for a fish curry, which I served with a lime punched cabbage salad that I adapted from Niloufer King’s My Bombay Kitchen.
And for your weekly Bertram (part deux) – here’s the little buddy with a sleepy lip, not interested in getting up in the morning.
This weekend I found myself slightly under the weather – likely a factor of working out in a group fitness environment several days a week… and having a co-founder who has a toddler! On the plus side though, my immune system is as fortified as ever, and illnesses these days are really only days of feeling a little under the weather, rather than anything more sinister. After a generally chronically ill childhood and teenage years, I don’t take this for granted!
{Good Things}
I found myself resting more this week – after a couple of full months, this week had packed days of hard work on Ompractice, coupled with more intentional downtime. More reading, a little bit more time in front of the television, and delivery instead of a night out. As I get older, I continue to double down on my self care practices to make sure that I have the energy to do the work I want to do in the world. It’s *so important*.
While keeping the relaxation intentional, I still fit in daily workouts, a combination of some higher impact fitness classes, relaxing yoga classes, and my daily mile streak.
Fitness, this week:
Monday: a mile outside.
Tuesday: OrangeTheory
Wednesday: OrangeTheory and Foundations with Traci at 7:30 on Ompractice (60 minutes)
Thursday: Yoga for Tight Shoulders and Neck at 12:30 ET with Niki on Ompractice (amazing!) and another OrangeTheory!
Friday: a “rest day mile”
Saturday: OrangeTheory – I’ve been going to the 9:15 am class, and it feels good to get it done!
Sunday: “recovery mile” outdoors.
Out of the house
A quick trip to Boston Landing – for a pit stop at the new location of Cambridge Naturals, and a cup of coffee at Kohi. In addition to a FULL STOCK of pretty much every natural food product I’m ever on the hunt for, I was delighted to see the wildly overpriced but delicious Coconut Cult yogurts at Cambridge Naturals. I resisted ($27.99 will do that to you – hello two dollar coastal mark-up), and instead filed away the note to self, and grabbed myself a Topo Chico for the road. At Kohi I picked up a Cortado (They have Tandem Coffee!) About two dozen banana breads were coming out of the oven just as I arrived, and the place smelled like heaven.
A Target trip – notable because I had a definitive shopping list and left without making ANY extraneous purchases. Can you believe it? (I could barely believe it myself.)
This post on building Willpower: we’ve been blogging some longform articles on Ompractice this month! Chris did the heavy lifting on this one, but it was a collaborative effort! 10 concrete tips on how to build and strengthen your willpower.
A manicure – after months going without, I finally have been working on making my hands presentable again. I took myself to a Miniluxe treat on Friday night, getting my favorite “Rodeo” color. (Side note: I always thought it was Rodeo – like the cowboys… until I realized one day that it’s supposed to be the classy Ro-de-o drive. I choose to be cowboy classy.) My first trip back since having to pause my $65/month unlimited mani membership because I couldn’t make the time for trips. Locals, this is a *steal*.
Watching: On the plus side, more downtime means more progress towards my 52 new to me movies this year. (Preferably without a cell phone in hand.) In preparation for the newest theater release, I caught up with How to Train Your Dragon 1 & 2. Both very cute!
On television: I finally succumbed to Russian Doll on Netflix. (I’ll join the chorus: it’s SO GOOD!) And a few minute into the Oscars, I decided to actually turn it on and watch – despite having avoided it for many years. Aside from the rotten best picture vote, I was happy to see some of my favorites win awards – including Olivia Colman for her role as queen Anne in The Favourite, Into the Spider-verse, and Ruth Carter for the costumes in Black Panther, and Hannah Beachler for the Production Design in Black Panther. I’m so excited for Bao – I haven’t watched it yet, but it’s at the top of my queue!
Creative Date:
On Saturday, I went for a museum tour at the Davis Museum at Wellesley – actually the home of my first museum internship (I worked in Development), and where I spent four years on the Davis Museum Student Advisory Committee. I hadn’t been back for years, and was thoroughly thrilled at the updates. For anyone local to the Boston area, the museum is truly a gem. One of the missions of the director of the Davis is to update the museum to better represent the diversity of the student body – and this is clearly seen in both acquisitions and the exhibitions on view. We went on a tour of women artists, and I spent another hour wandering through the galleries.
There’s a phenomenal new exhibit – Art_Latin_America, including a wide selection of protest and propaganda art, that I highly recommend visiting! Here’s a peek at some of the art:
Next museums on my list? Thanks to some great Twitter suggestions this week, here are some next ones for my list. I’ve been to many of these, but most it’s been over a decade! Who wants to join me?
A few suggestions that I’ve been to recently: the Whaling Museum in New Bedford (I went this summer!), and the Seacoast Science Center in Rye., NH. I’m also trying to work my way through some of the Historic Houses and Trustees Properties. And many thanks to all of you who chimed in. You know who you are!
Three other smart suggestions I’m bookmarking: getting a museum membership high enough to provide reciprocal membership at other museums (it’s.. possible I have that already.) This resource to look up participating museums: NARM – the North American Reciprocal Museum Association. And the Highland Street Foundation which sponsors free museum Fridays in the summer.
{Good Eating} I found myself eating a lot of leftovers this week.
Algerian Jewish Beef, Onion, and Coriander Stew. From Clifford Wright’s Real Stew – a cookbook I’d highly recommend. This was INCREDIBLE. Here’s the recipe: I used ground beef instead of stew meat, and canned diced tomatoes, but everything else stayed the same!
Chocolate “Dessert” Hummus. Okay… don’t hate me. I bought two different kinds – Joseph’s and Boar’s Head, and they are both great, and I’ve been eating them after dinner, with a bunch of collagen hydrolysate stirred in as a end of the day protein boost.
Chicken Lady Chicken from David Lebovitz’s My Paris Kitchen. I marinated this gorgeous bird for three days in the wildly flavorful marinade, and then roasted it in the oven. The recipe calls for spatchcocking, but I wanted to cook it in my Breville toaster, so upright she went. Recipe here. Giving into a meme, I served it with generously buttered noodles with parsley. Meme – worth reading the tweets: https://www.eater.com/2019/2/11/18220148/generously-buttered-parsleyed-noodles-meme
Hodo Sesame Yuba Strips and a soft cooked egg. I was surprised to see West Coast tofu maker Hodo in my local Whole Foods, and couldn’t resist. These were nutty and good.
Barbecue pulled chicken and Turkish beans over a bed of kale. A bit of a cultural mashup, this made for a satisfying dinner.
Trader Joe’s cauliflower gnocchi deconstructed Turkish Mantı with ground beef, yogurt garlic sauce, and urfa pepper chile butter drizzle. This was a genius move on my part – hitting all my favorite flavors of one of my favorite dishes, but with my favorite TJ’s vegetal freezer item: the cauliflower gnocchi. 12/10 will make again.
Shan-a-Punjab Takeout butter chicken, raita, garlic naan, and potato naan. A masala chai, and kheer for dessert. (I have to restrain myself from ordering this three times a week.)
A somewhat disappointing stir fry with soba, tofu, and tahini. (What I should have done was made the Otsu recipe from 101 cookbooks…alas.
Brunch: lucky 7 grain toast with Bavarian Rubius cheese, applegate maple chicken sausage, and some soft eggs. (At the top of the post.)
A bowl of mac and cheese. I don’t think I actually managed to take a picture of it, because I was hungry, tired, and under the weather. I stirred in a spoonful of Trader Joe’s Garlic Spread-Dip (which is basically Aioli), because, why the heck not?
The Second Lunch is a (mostly) food blog by Sam Tackeff about recipes, food writing, ingredient hunting, travel, healthy living, fitness, and everything in between.
Please do not steal! Email me at sam [at] thesecondlunch.com – if you’d like to use one of my photos, and I’d be happy to share my terms. Thanks!
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