Hi Readers:

So, the other day I talked about one of my new quests – eating healthy, whole foods on a budget. This week is my first few days of the “budget”. I have not come up with an exact dollar amount, but I wanted to let you know how I was doing so far!

Here is what I bought on Monday:

It was $32 at the grocery store. In this picture are two cans of beans, one can of crushed tomato (hard to see in the photo, but next to the beans) a loaf of rosemary bread fresh from the bakery, mushrooms, eggplant, zuchini, a huge container of mixed greens, one bag of light babybel cheese (on sale – 1 dollar saved), light mexican cheese, three things of Greek yogurt, 1.2 pounds of turkey (I used half of this and froze the other half), an onion, cucumber, a tomato and a box of low sodium veggie stock. I do not know if 32 dollars was a good deal or not, but I did get a lot of fresh produce, and tomorrow is Thursday, and I do not need to go back to the store!

I used most of the things I bought for BIttman’s veggie and bean chili. Warning – the next photograph if not pretty but it is simply fantastic food:

I love this chili! I cannot wait to make it again 🙂

For breakfast on Tuesday, I had half of the banana whole grain muffin that my mom bought from Whole Foods on Monday. This muffin was soo good. I was totally surprised that I did not need a morning snack before lunch, too. Usually muffins leave me hungry, so I was really psyched that this muffin kept me going for a few hours:

For lunch on Tuesday I had the amazing salad that I made on Monday night with half of a chicken breast that my mom bought, and a lot of the produce that I bought at the market on Monday:

I also made a good dressing with a drizzle of EVOO, balsamic, 1/2 a teaspoon of dijon mustard, a oh so small smidge of kosher salt, and a few cranks of freshly ground pepper. The dressing was awesome on the salad.

Today is Wednesday. I had Kashi Go Lean whole grain hot cereal for breakfast.

Now that I have the consistency of the hot cereal down, I really like it. I love the whole grains that are in the cereal. If you decide to pick some of the Kashi cereal up, read the instructions. Unlike oatmeal you cannot just add boiling water to the dry cereal. You have to cook the cereal in the microwave with the water. The whole grains will not cook as quickly as regular oatmeal. 🙂 I recommend giving it a try!

For lunch I had a bowl of the veggie bean chili, and a piece of whole grain bread. After the chili and bread, I needed something else and decided to enjoy a really great pear:

After the food, I had a fantastic travel mug of tea:

The tea was from Starbucks, it was Tazo vanilla rooibos tea and it is amazing. Starbucks recently changed their tea a little bit – and the tea bags are now beautiful, and the tea is wonderful. (I always loved Tazo tea – but now it is even better!)

My afternoon snack was a Greek yogurt mixed with PB2, cinnamon and ground flax:

I love having Greek yogurt as an afternoon snack because it keeps me going on my train ride or car ride home without even the thought of food or being hungry, which is rare in my life. 😉 So, I was not hungry on my train ride home…. and then my friend Danielle got on the train with these…

Cupcakes – seriously!?!? OMG – holy yum. I definitely had one, as did Tim and Danielle. The cupcake I had was a cupcake made from pancake batter and the frosting was infused with maple syrup. I am not joking. This treat was amazing. Danielle is going to tell me the name of the bakery they came from tomorrow – I will post it when I find out 😀

For dinner tonight it is simple: chicken noodle soup. Still trying to kick the cold.

Hope you’re all well! See you tomorrow.