Bento box lunches

I decided to get lunches packed up for the week so last night I soaked 1 cup of cashews in water so this morning I prepared this red pepper, tahini dressing/dip. In my blender, I added 1 red pepper,, my soaked cashews, 2 tbsp of nutritional yeast, 1 tbsp of tahini, 2 tsp of onion powder, a touch of salt (Himalayan), 1 clove of garlic and the juice of 1 lemon. I blended that up, and added water until I got the right consistency of a dip/dressing. For my lunch I grabbed a can of tuna in water, and mixed it with this dressing, and added a minced green onion and some cilantro. I added half to one bento box and the other half in another.

I will enjoy the tuna on some sourdough bread, which I think I'll lightly toast, and top it with some sauerkraut. I also have some Kimchi, and in one bento box I have a kale slaw with more of the dressing, and in the other bento I have a mix of carrots and cucumbers to dip in that dressing/dip I made. Very much looking forward to these lunches! I tried a little of my tuna and it's really good. It's a great way to avoid mayo and have more flavor.

For my hubby I decided to marinate some chicken thighs, I added them in a ziploc bag and added in some olive oil, chili powder, onion powder, a little cumin powder and a touch of cayenne for a little kick. For supper I'll cook up some of that chicken and pack it up for his lunch over some rice, and I can pack up some veggies with that dip for him as well. I also took out some root vegetable soup that I made a while back from Joyous Health's new cookbook, so I can enjoy that for lunch today and I should have enough to bring some for lunch on another day.

Thought I would also update you on the de-cluttering. I'm happy to say that it's all done!!

So we donated 6 large garbage bag of clothes, and 11 boxes of stuff. We dropped it off on Thursday since we were out and about for a few appointments, and on Friday I ended up finishing tackling the basement, so I have an additional 2 boxes for donation, which I can easily drop off before I get groceries done next week.

I feel so much lighter and better now that we have less clutter in here. I can't say I'm fully done though, I do have way to many magazines that I have gathered up over the years, but I have been going through them and only keeping recipes that I would like to try out and recycling the rest. I don't buy any more magazines so I can catch up on the pile I have, and I do also have to many books on my bookcase, so now that I have done all this work, I can take more time to relax and read and donate books that I don't plan on re-reading.

I'm glad I have also had time to do some spring cleaning. I know it's not spring yet but we are approaching it and I can't wait to have warmer weather! Well time for some lunch, and I'll wait 2 hours before I get my workout in. I'll be hopping on my treadmill for some fast walking, some incline, and some running.

De-cluttering, Cooking and Baking

The start of the year I still had quite a bit of vacation days left so I decided to take more time off work to get some de-cluttering done. I have come a long way, just 2 more areas to go through and I'm done! One area will take me quite some time, the basement. We don't have a finished basement so we have a lot down there. Including the things/clothes that I have decided to get rid of. This has been a project I have wanted to do for a while and I'm glad I was finally able to tackle it. I did some here and there but over the past weeks, I have tackled it one room at a time.

I must say, I feel so much lighter with less clutter around. I still have more to go, and there's a few more photos I want up on the wall as well. The way I have been tackling this, I will have it done in no time! It's a lot of work but it's worth it!

I had yesterday off, so I decided to do more of a spring cleaning since my in-laws are coming down for a visit. That to felt great to accomplish. They are staying with us for a few days, then I should have some time to tackle the last two areas I have. Including to drop off my things/clothes for donation so they are no longer in our basement.

I of course still take time to be in the kitchen. For snacks for the week I tried Joyous Health's dark chocolate superfood bars

I then added this to the freezer for a few hours, then took it out to cut it in bars and added them back to the freezer. This is very tasty!!

I also tried a recipe from the Pioneer Woman and you can get the recipe here.

Yes these do look a little more like pancakes instead of muffin tops lol However they were still very tasty! I'm pretty sure it's because I used frozen blueberries, the extra water flatten them more out. The only thing I changed was I used coconut sugar instead of white sugar, and I didn't have enough confectioner's sugar, so I added in some coconut flour and it turned out really great. I think next time I'll just use coconut flour, it's sweet tasting and healthier then confectioner's sugar.

And because we loved the sweet potato pad Thai, I had to make it again! I changed one ingredient though, I didn't put cauliflower in but I did add scallops for some protein, and it turned out really good!

This is my new absolute favorite meal! The dressing is so delicious!

We also had a craving for pizza, which I haven't made one in a while, but since I'm avoiding meat as much as possible, I decided to get whole wheat Naan bread to make individual pizzas

This one is mine and I added onion, mushrooms, red pepper, and the base is BBQ sauce, and topped with goat cheese and this feta mozzarella cheese I saw in store and wanted to give it a try. Hubby had the same except instead of shrimp he had shredded BBQ chicken. They turned out really good!
I had enough left overs to make another, but this time I had mine vegetarian. 


My in-laws left early this morning to try to make it in time to watch him play hockey. My dad will be joining us as well. Other then today, I'm not sure what else we will do while they are here, but I'm sure we will have fun. Looking forward to seeing them!