Food. I eat food.
And it depends on the day. Because sometimes I do a whole lot of cooking and sometimes I am PMSing and lazy and I eat french fries and poutine. And pizza.
You’d be amazed at how many things I enjoy “normally” just because I ask them nicely to put it in my plate, container, cup or bag.
A reader wrote me today asking if I could do a post about what I eat in a day and include recipes. Well.. I won’t include the recipes here because I ate a lot in one day and it would just be a gigantic post but I can write the ingredients. And even though I’m not really a recipe follower and I just kind of toss things in, taste, add this, do that – I will try to create a separate blog post for each food item to link to later.
Today was a good day to ask though. I pretty much stayed indoors, cooked and wrote this post just for them. And not that you care, but most of the produce is organic.
Let’s get started.
BREAKFAST
I didn’t get the e-mail until after breakfast otherwise I would have taken a picture of it. But I’ll just talk about what normally happens.
Often we start the day with a smoothie.
What goes in the smoothie is up to you. Here’s a list of ingredients I have put in ours overtime:
- Chaga tea (we’ve harvested chaga to last us a while so we make our own)
- Plain kefir yogurt (our yogurt comes in glass and we get a deposit back)
- Blueberries
- Bananas
- Spinach
- Kale
- Avocado
- Cooked broccoli
- Oatmeal
- Chia seeds
- Flax seeds
- Mango
- Vegan protein powder
- Vital greens
- Cocoa powder
The list goes on and on. I pretty much put anything and everything…
Other breakfast foods are:
- Oatmeal with dried cranberries
- Plain kefir yogurt with blueberries
- Pancakes (like this picture of Quinoa pancakes)
IN BETWEEN BREAKFAST AND LUNCH SNACKS:
My boy is a machine and loves to eat. So I’ll always have fruit on hand, or dried nuts. Or leftover breakfast.
LUNCH:
Today I made a spaghetti squash with a medium spicy, homemade tomato sauce.
The tomato sauce I prepared a week ago-ish. I stored the sauce in mason jars and froze them so I would have them for the week or whenever.
Ingredients: 1 can of diced tomatoes. In the summer I use fresh. 1/2 a red onion. Garlic. Chili Flakes. Little bit of coconut sugar. Heirloom carrots. 2 bunches of baby bok choy. 1/2 a head of broccoli.
The spaghetti squash I cut in half and baked in the oven 30 minutes before I wanted to eat it. I used nutritional yeast as a “parmesan.”
IN BETWEEN LUNCH AND DINNER SNACK:
I made us popcorn. In a pot.
And then I made these snacks too.
The flatbread is gluten-free. I make my own gluten-free flour using Sweet Rice Flour, Brown Rice Flour, Tapioca Starch and White Rice Flour.
Ingredients: 2 cloves freshly chopped garlic. Handful of dried rosemary. 1/2 of plain yogurt. Bit of water. Fry in 1 tbsp oil in a pan. The sauce beside them was leftover tomato sauce from lunch that we dipped the flatbread in.
I made both the baked chips and the fried fries simultaneously because I can.
If ever anyone wondered, I just use a cloth napkin to soak up the grease rather than the typical paper towel.
And then finally,
DINNER
Again the curry was prepared prior to this meal and stored in glass jars in the freezer. I served it over plain, white jasmine rice.
Ingredients: 1 cup each dried black beans and chickpeas that I soaked and cooked beforehand. 1 can coconut milk. Potatoes. Sweet Potatoes. Broccoli. Carrots. Yellow curry. Homemade veggie broth. Dash of salt.
People often think it takes a lot of time.
My meals take me about 30 minutes to prepare from start to finish. Some of course take longer or I have to prepare some things in advance.
I have shared before that I don’t often buy canned or packaged goods at all.
The only things I can think of off hand that I do still purchase are:
- canned tomatoes
- coconut milk
- tamari sauce
Everything else is bought plastic and package free and in bulk. With my trusty glass jars.
What do you eat?
Zero Waste Ottawa 
Hi Mailyne,
Great & fast way we stock up on food for the week / month:
If you have a pressure cooker (it’s so worth buying!), cook chickpeas / beans or any other lentils on a fairly free morning / afternoon / night – it will take max 10 min! Or if you cook all of them one after another – 30 min 😉
Cool & freeze them in big reusable bags / boxes – they will last forever.. This way on a busy day / night we can take them & toss with spices / veggies or in tomato sauce, make quick bean chili, chana masala or use it as a base for soup! Very versatile, quick, easy zero waste meals 🙂
Sometimes we also keep rice in the freezer and make congee! Frozen rice loses its hardness and is perfect for quick & easy congee with veg after a busy day 🙂
Love this! Thanks for the tips ❤
What do I eat? like juicy fruit like right now it is tangelos and tangerines because they are food and juice in one package and easy to throw in my backpack and go. My go to favorite is cucumber/tomato salad with avocado and tahini dressing and sometimes brown rice or quinoa. Sesame seeds are my main bulk staple. I believe they are magical. I am a bit of a simple eater, but I still am not ZERO waste. I buy canned olives occassionally and imported out of season tomatoes in plastic as well. In the summer, I practically live on fruit especially mangoes. In the winter and fall, Japanese sweet potatoes are a favorite with salad and for snacks: like you, zero waste popcorn I pop in a pop with everything from curry to nutritional yeast added! I like eating a lot of raw food because I look and feel so much better especially emotionally. I would estimate I am about 80% zero waste. I shop at outdoor farmers market 85-90% of the time. I am aiming for 100% with better planning. It is easy because I live alone and earn a high income. I spend a LOT of money on organic food. I LOVE these parts of my life and freedom! I have no excuses for not being the best version of myself, but I still have work to do! Thanks for a lovely AND honest blog!
P.S. I traded my fancy SUV in 1.5 years ago as part of my zero waste and minimalism path and bought a hybrid. It was the best decision I have made in reducing my carbon footprint and expenses. I meed to do more though.
Thank you for taking the time to share, this post makes me feel happy and also inspired 🙂 I want to try your go to salad. I think YOU should share recipes with me.