October Needs to Chill

Usually October is one of my favorite months, cooling temps, pumpkins, holidays to look forward to, turning leaves – what’s not to love? But this year we got off to a bad start between scary family health problems, urgent road trips, work stress, missing a half marathon, and blah! I will say that long runs and running in general are great for dealing with stress. But maybe being a little tired and cranky from marathon training during all this hasn’t helped. Yesterday my mom went in for a minor but scary surgery and I spent some time over the weekend and the last couple of days helping her prepare and recover. Clearly this was not stressing her cat out at all.

And we’ve been having a dog party here dogsitting her active dog while she recovers the last few days. Dinner and breakfast time is a competition of who can eat the fastest.

After Sunday’s long run, I was feeling wiped and had a simple comfort dinner of soybean spaghetti in a miso broth with veggies.

I had a plan to create this lovely, savory pumpkin salad dressing last night and the recipe looked great on paper. But it wasn’t – it was bitter flop! So instead my meal salad got a simple balsamic dressing and hopefully I can make the recipe work next time.

Lunch today was a simple salad with seeds, nutritional yeast, and kale chips with my mom to check in on her recovery.

And tonight was also a total simple comfort meal after a long day at work and the gym using a new product – Tofurky Lightly Seasoned Slow Roasted Chick’n.

I kept things really simple sauteing the chunks with fresh broccoli and a little tamari.

The texture nice, hearty with a savory pepper flavor and great in this simple oil free saute. It would also be great mixed into a salad, stew, sandwich, or just about any savory dish that needs a hearty protein boost. A very hearty protein boost at 27 grams per serving!