10 Meatless Days Pt. 1

As you can tell from my previous post, I had one heck of a weekend just FEASTING. But the feasting didn't end there... Not only did these girls leave me leftovers in the fridge, but they had graciously forgotten a small box of Chinese baked goods (char siu bun, the sponge cake, etc.) in there as well.

The good news was that it really helped me cut down on the groceries spending for the week. The bad news? Well let's just say that what meant to be a weekend of "cheating" from eating healthy turned into a week-long event! And the worst part is, because of my work events I couldn't even hit the gym. Not even once. I am so embarrassed!

To make myself feel better and to in a way detox my system from the yummy yet not helpful "junk," I decided to try out "10 Meatless Days." Right now I am in day 3 and so far so good. Went to the gym for the past two days, but I can definitely feel the lazy muscles. The only times I wouldn't be able to go completely meat-free are days when my work buys me dinner delivery (during 13hr shifts, yikes) so I'm skipping those days from my "10."

First dish I wanted to cook was some kind of substantial pasta dish using mushrooms. To stay in the healthy mode, I skipped on cream and used 1% milk instead. Also, instead of using lots of various cheeses I just stuck to a few sprinkle of grated parmesan. I used both cremini and shitake mushrooms as well as frozen peas and sundried tomatoes. Because I'm not always into creamy dishes, I did use a good amount of ground black pepper and chili pepper flakes.

Don't let the pictures fool you... Although they were indeed edible (could've been worse!), they are not recipe-writing-worthy. Next time when I can use the full-fat factor, maybe then... but these were no bueno. It could've been the peppers, or the tangi-ness of the tomatoes, but something somewhere just didn't click.
 
Second dish I made, however, was deeelicious! I splurged on some fresh shrimp (which was a pain and a half to devein and shell), to use for salad. I threw together baby spinach, romaine hearts, small radishes, garbanzo beans, corn, and fresh cilantro. For the shrimp I just seasoned them with a little bit of salt and pepper as well as some garlic powder. I also found this awesome cilantro dressing at Trader Joe's which went perrrfect with this salad (I found it a bit bland, but a sprinkle of salt fixed that!). 

This salad was not only yummy, but definitely satisfying. I also really loved the dressing, so I can't wait to experiment with it in other ways!

Next up is my shrimp and calamari sweet and spicy stirfry. I'm also thinking about fish tacos sometime next week... or even eggpant parmegiana... I have major grocery shop list planning to do!
 
(I know having seafood is in a way not 100% meatfree, but for a sucker for meat like me...this is a tough one!)