fftf: what we *really* eat, part 2
food trucks, chocolate tahini pudding, dining al fresco
Hi friends,
Here is part two of my “day(s) in the life” food diary. Catch up on part one if you missed it. I wanted to include days where we were eating mostly at home because those seem more interesting, but over the days when I happened to be documenting this, we were eating out a lot! Figured you probably care more about what I’m actually COOKING, so - Friday & Tuesday are my main focus days here, in which I went into more detail, but I also included the brief food overviews of Sat, Sun & Mon so you don’t think I’m just trying to pick the “good” days to showcase! Here we go!
This post got really long, so you may have to click “view entire message” to expand it if reading in your email!
Friday, March 7th
8:30am, a breakfast of odds and ends! My husband/Baba (dad) joins us, which is a weekday treat!
Baby Amal eats: papaya from last night, leftover sweet potato pancakes, a few bites of smoked salmon (from Whole Foods, wild); defrosted frozen blueberries and a few bites old oatmeal (cold)
Jazzy eats:
one piece of Dutch baby pancake from yesterday with maple syrup; for the second piece she just licks off the maple syrup and then asks for more, which I say no to, so she abandons the rest of the pancake.
2 sweet potato pancakes, which I have to warm up twice. She is in a phase of being VERY distracted during mealtimes these days, but she also has 5 million requests during them, which sometimes drives me up the wall!! sigh
Co-opts half of her baba (dad)’s bagel with cream cheese, then says: “I want salmon on it,” she then eats half, including the salmon, woohoo!
Asks for passionfruit chia pudding (this time no yogurt, just passionfruit and chia); she finishes the little bit left
Water
I eat: the leftover oatmeal I made for Jazzy days ago, with yogurt (it’s finally gone now, phew!), 1 small bite plus the Dutch baby slice of which maple syrup was licked off; Jazzy’s leftover half bagel with more salmon added; 1 cappuccino (husband makes for me most days :) + 1 small cup black coffee (pour over I make for myself)
My husband eats a full bagel with cream cheese and smoked salmon, plus his usual two cappuccinos.
At 10:30am Jazzy asks for a snack. Inside, I’m like: DIDN’T WE JUST FINISH BREAKFAST?!, WHICH TOOK YOU LIKE 2 HOURS TO EAT! OMG! I keep that in and give her a cracker - she proceeds to eat a few (maybe 4-5 long ones?) and we also pack some to take on the go.
Our outing today is a grocery shopping trip to Whole Foods. We walk there (about 20 mins each way) and I shop in the massive basket of our double stroller. I feel good when I do this bc I love to walk, but also sometimes hate that I still insist on doing this bc it takes so long/feels like a lift. Our Whole Foods also has a brand new playground next to it, so we stop there first, which is fun but adds to the lengthiness of this trip. Jazzy eats all the crackers we pack.
Our Whole Foods outing takes a while, per usual, so nap is very delayed.
At 1:50pm we are home and I am very hungry, so I eat about half a Marin Breakfast cheese with crackers; almost the whole container of zippy two-bean salad from Brothmonger, a large handful of blackberries, and a small glass of coconut water.
Jazzy eats 5 small mandarins (which she peels herself after I start them), more crackers with a few bites of the Marin Breakfast cheese, some blackberries, and we share a piece of honey mamas chocolate. She also has “fefal dink” (special drink), ie, coconut water with Miralax (stool softener) bc we are still working through a toddler poop withholding issue. (If you know, you know! If you don’t know, you don’t wanna know💩)
DINNER: We decide to do a little family adventure and take the girls on the bus for the first time to a new food truck I’ve been wanting to check out.
At 4:45pm we get ready to go, and to prevent hangry-ness, I fill up Jazzy’s travel snack holder thingy with my latest grocery store produce discovery: organic “sweetest batch” blueberries - massive and so delicious! They are more expensive, but the dregs of winter produce in PA make them a worthwhile extravagance these days.
For dinner we eat from Sahar’s Food Lab food truck. We try one of everything: “Poulet Yinza,” a stewed chicken dish, a hummus + smoked tofu + salad dish (surprisingly our favorite!), a Persian meatball dish, and some tahini-based chocolate pudding. I brought some raspberries for the baby, but Jazzy steals half, so I end up spoon-feeding her the very soft meatball. Jazzy eats all the blueberries but won’t touch anything else, except (of course) the chocolate pudding. I am *mostly* fine with this, resigned to the fact that I didn’t have to cook tonight so, whatever. And there’s tahini in it. On the way out, the owner/chef - who seems very cool and who we had a nice chat with - comes out and gives us another chocolate pudding for free, which is so nice and I’m happy about bc I didn’t get to eat much of our other one!
Back at home after the girls are in bed, I eat about half of the free chocolate pudding with some blackberries added. It tastes kind of healthy and very homemade, so I feel less bad that this was Jazzy’s dinner.
Saturday, March 8:
Breakfast: Jazzy eats some sweetest batch blueberries while she waits for me to make eggs/omelet. I give Amal a mango pit to hold her over/keep her busy while I make eggs; Jazzy eats the other parts of the mango.
I make us a very nice breakfast of some stewed tomatoes, sautéed mushrooms, and scrambled eggs, topped with sprouts and goat cheese. Jazzy picks at the eggs.
I am off to a baby shower this day. For lunch, my husband reports feeding Amal a whole banana and some yogurt.
For dinner, we eat Thai takeout at a friends’ house where we get an invite! I don’t eat very much because I am distractedly trying to have an adult convo while also making sure the girls are eating and behaving… we get back home and I realize I’m still hungry. Jazzy also asks for dinner now, so I feed her an orange and half a piece of Ezekiel avocado toast. I eat 2 pieces of avocado toast & some blackberries with yogurt1.
Sunday, March 9:
Breakfast: Baba (dad) feeds Amal a whole banana and then mango seed; Jazzy eats a little of the extra mango. Jazzy asks for blueberries- eats some.
I make 2 scrambled eggs and a little spinach for Amal; she eats a few bites; she had too much sweet fruit first and is thus not as interested in more eggs - only wants more mango that Jazzy didn’t eat.
I make myself eggs and mushrooms with spinach and 2 pieces Ezekiel toast with Avocado and balsamic, to share with Jazzy- she eats a little, tells me she doesn’t like the mushrooms but tries them.
2:30pm: Amal eats some cooked sweet potato, avocado and some orange pieces. Jazzy has shown a sudden interest in nuts (woohoo!), and I have just finished cleaning our pantry and putting everything in labeled jars, so I take a little time to show Jazzy all the different kinds of nuts, and we put together a little snack for her of some cashews, goji berries, and cacao nibs. She also has a mandarin or two.
Dinner: I make Keema Matar - our favorite Pakistani ground beef dish with peas - and we all eat this with naan (we get it from various local Indian restaurants and keep a supply in our freezer).
Monday, March 10:
Every other Monday(ish), I go visit my Nonna with the girls. This Monday is a Nonna day, so after a quick breakfast that I forgot to write down, we go to Nonna’s house and eat Lebanese food take out that she picks up for both lunch, and she gets me extra to take home for dinner.
In case you were wondering, my go-to Lebanese food order from Pittsburgh restaurant Kabob G is: Fattoush salad, tabbouleh and baba ghanoush with half cucumber slices/half pita (you have to ask for the sub of cucumber), and a bunch of kefta kebabs a la carte, which we eat with the baba and tabbouleh. Oh - and an order of Sleek with caramelized onions - it’s a black eyed peas dish with spinach and bulgar wheat and theirs is very delicious! And great for kids.
Tuesday, March 10: A VERY GOOD FOOD DAY
Normally on Tuesdays I take Jazzy (and Amal) to our Waldorf School “Morning Garden” parent/child class from 9:30-12pm, but on this day we don’t have school, so instead make a plan to hike with friends! It’s a gorgeous day outside!
My husband makes me a cappuccino first thing, which I drink while with the girls / starting breakfast. He also makes Jazzy half an everything bagel with butter. (Our fav Pittsburgh bagels come from Three Brothers; whenever we go - usually every couple months? - we get a dozen and freeze for later.)
I feed Amal cut up blueberries and Jazzy whole blueberries while I rush to make pumpkin muffins in the morning so we can bring to share with our friends; I don’t exactly follow this recipe and double it. (Not enough pumpkin so I add a mashed banana; want to experiment with half almond flour half regular - end up doing 3 cups NOT-packed almond flour, 3/4 cup Einkorn bc that’s all we have left and 1 cup plus 1/4 Renan wheat flour. Cook them on 375 to get done faster, probably overcooked slightly. Texture is good! Not sweet enough and need more flavor but definitely edible.)
I pack up some mint tea in a thermos and muffins to share with our friends, and then we eat those around 10:45am when we get to our hike.
Along the hike and after, Jazzy eats snacks from our friends - granola, a few crackers, apples, a few sesame sticks. Back at our car, we both eat another pumpkin muffin and finish the mint tea in the hatchback. She isn’t actually eating the muffin but won’t let me take it away; at home I let her finish the muffin in the sun on the porch while I unload the car. I think she finally eats it, except gives me the browned edges, before I put her down for nap.
I nurse Amal and then give her about half a muffin and then put her down for nap.
Once alone, I snack - finish the last of the bean salad from brothmonger (finally!), I eat some sprouts in the leftover bean salad dressing, finish Jazzy’s bagel from breakfast, a few cucumbers and baba ghanoush from Kabob G from yesterday; make a cup of black tea (Portland breakfast) and a few choc chips; finish Amal’s other half of muffin.
At 6pm, I make dinner - F is going to soccer, so just me and the girls; main entrée is sautéed warmed up Keema (I added spinach) from Sunday night, but first I chop up one medium eggplant2 into small cubes and sauté it in a lotttt of olive oil with cinnamon and cumin - one of my favorite combos. I let Jazzy & Amal split a muffin to hold them over while I cook the eggplant. It turns out delish and perfect for the baby. I also put together the rest of the fattoush salad for myself from Kabab G and add olive oil and some feta. Jazzy gets a small cup of apple cider.
We eat outside for the first time this year because it’s so warm and beautiful! We are all very happy about this! Jazzy eats almost all her bowl of keema (!!) without prompting! also some eggplant. She even asks to try my salad (which never happens) and takes a few bites! At one point while eating the keema she even takes a big clump of spinach out and says “dis is Kale!” and then puts it in her mouth! I am SOOOOOO happy but I keep it to myself.
(Just so you know - this level of eating a truly solid dinner and trying everything available happens like… *maybe* once every 2-3 weeks? Many nights she picks, eats a few bites, eats just the bread or fruit, or barely eats anything. But the nights like these keep me remembering that my efforts/offerings are worth it, even when they don’t feel like it!)
Amal eats a lot of eggplant, a little bit of keema, then I start to feed her some prune jam I made (it’s the last one in the freezer from 2 summers ago3). Even though Jazzy said “sumpin weird in it” and didn’t eat this jam last night, tonight she eats all of what is supposed to be for Amal, so I have to go get more. I ask if she’s all done with her keema now and she says an emphatic YES now that she’s moved on to the prunes and is having fun trying to keep them from Amal - or she wants to feed them to Amal with a spoon… she’s been trying to feed her lately which is sweet but semi-dangerous so we are trying to stop it to not much avail.
Amal gulps down water like it’s her job with my help with the open cup, and has a bit of prunes which she also seems into.
Wow, this is the best dinner we’ve had in a WHILE. Is the key eating at 6:20pm? We’ve been in a bad habit of eating dinner late. This is SO MUCH more enjoyable. It’s 7pm by the time we’re done and then I begin the bedtime process.
After bedtime, while cleaning up, I eat another leftover half muffin and make some mint tea (leftover leaves from the morning) with ginger trimmings in it, which I drink while typing up these eating notes for the day!
Whew, that’s it! Thanks for reading if you made it this far! See you in 3 weeks!
Love,
Jess
Blackberries and my favorite East Coast sheep’s yogurt (and often granola) was my #1 craving during both my pregnancies and is still one of my favorite, most satisfying foods. For those wondering, this is my favorite Bay Area sheep’s yogurt - OMG it is SOOOOOOO GOOD - perfect texture and perfect balance of tangy and creamy. I have strong opinions on yogurt if you couldn’t tell.
I normally don’t buy eggplant out of season, but at this point at the end of winter, I am desperate for any different/exciting produce, and they had some good looking eggplants at whole foods this week so I bought them.
Funny backstory on the prune jam: Two summers ago I did a CSA with Who Cooks For You farm, with a fruit share. The fruit share was usually peaches but at the end of that summer it had been plums - oblong shaped plums and truthfully they didn’t taste great, and for several weeks I was getting 2lbs of them! I ended up making jam to use them up, but didn’t love it. I put some spices in and wasn’t sure if I messed up the spices or just didn’t like the plums or what. Into the freezer it went… sometimes I freeze things when maybe I should really compost them because actually we just don’t want to eat it😬. We got through all of last summer (a full year later) and the jam was still there in the freezer. Then, this fall/winter, when Amal was having constipation issues and I was told to give her prunes, I realized that those plums I didn’t love had been PRUNE plums! No wonder I didn’t like them! But now, we desperately needed prunes for our baby pooping issues and I suddenly had a full supply of homemade, locally grown prune product! LOL, I was glad I hadn’t thrown it all away!!