Week Three: The First Big Cave

I caved during Week Three. Oh yah, I caved. I totally saw it coming too. It was impossible not to see it coming. Did I do anything to brace myself? No. This was more than settling for the pasta with pesto cream sauce at a restaurant with practically non-existent vegan-friendly options. This was a willful, conscious decision to say "screw these kinder and healthier choices...temporarily."

Yes, I caved. And it was delicious.

The week started off swell. Monday 3.0 was a Leftovers! day for me while Rob the husband cheered on the Canucks. He even took the time to send me pics of his Rogers Arena veggie burger...

How adorable is that? Adorable or whipped. Or both.


Tuesday 3.0: Scarlett Roasted Vegetables (p. 267) / Scrambled Tofu (p. 283)

This veggie dish was probably one of the prettiest meals we've had thus far thanks to the beets colouring the rest of the veggies during roasting.

I subbed in dates for dried apricots, which made the dish really sweet, and I was surprised at how much flavour it had considering it was really only seasoned with lemon. I've never been the biggest onion fan, and although I've been more open to them in the last couple of months, the onions in the dish combined with the sweetness of the dates flavouring the other veggies did not appeal to me at all. Rob, on the other hand, really loved it, because he digs that sweet onion flavour that I can't stand. This is definitely something I'd consider making for a holiday dinner get together even though I personally don't really dig it, because I can see it being something most people (who aren't onion-haters like me) would enjoy. And it's pretty to look at.

Good thing I also made the Scrambled Tofu, because otherwise I wouldn't have been eating much on this evening.

This is one of those dishes, like the Clean, Mean Burritos, where you can take a lot of liberties and use up whatever veggies are in your fridge (or your Fridgesmart). I used mushrooms, napa cabbage, snap peas, and spinach. With this dish, if you try really hard, you can imagine you're eating really rubbery scrambled eggs (you know, for those who miss having scrambled eggs in the morning). Or you can just appreciate and enjoy the tofu scramble for what it is. This would work well for any time of day, and because it's so simple and versatile, I can for sure see myself repeating this one on a regular basis.

So Monday 3.0 and Tuesday 3.0 got the week off to a pretty good start. But then came Wednesday 3.0.

Two words.

Bake Sale.

Not just any bake sale. A Valentines themed bake sale organized by the cheerleading team for which I am the teacher sponsor. Which means that all the goodies get stored in my classroom first thing in the morning. Which makes my room smell like icing when I walk in. Which I do not get desensitized to throughout the morning. Rather, I stare longingly at all the dairy and white sugar (Nasty foods to avoid  #'s 2 and 3 respectively) adorning the back ledge of my classroom while making sure other students don't try to sneak any samples.

Then it gets better.

Because some cheerleaders are in my morning class, they sell a cupcake to a student, who then proceeds to pull it apart into two pieces before eating, revealing its identity as a MARBLED RED VELVET CUPCAKE.

I still don't cave. I spend the morning thinking of that cupcake, and the way the icing pulled apart like a hundred little fluffy, soft, delicious, sugary angel hands reaching out towards each other.

At lunch I wander between the school foyer and cafeteria, running change between the two selling stations and making sure all is going swell. And then I think that because this bake sale is for a good cause, it would be a very good idea indeed to just give them $20, buy a platter of stuff, and send it to work with Rob the next day. Realtors love cupcakes after all.

So I give them $20 and load up a platter of sugary, dairy-laden awesomeness.

And then it happens. I cave and eat 2 cupcakes and a brownie. 2 sugary, dairy-laden cupcakes and a sugary, dairy-laden brownie.

I knew all along I was going to. Was I disappointed in myself? Not really. Low expectations = minimal guilt after all. No guilt, actually. I was still meat free (Nasty food #1) for two weeks at this point, and I was still miles ahead of where I was a month earlier in terms of making healthier and kinder diet choices.

The rest of the bake sale items did in fact make it through the night at our house untouched, and arrived safely the next day at Rob's office, where they were consumed by 9:43 am.

So yah, caving for a good cause (which, by the way, is a trip to a cheer competition in Anaheim) isn't all bad. I'll just keep telling myself that.

Hopefully I'll still feel this positive next month during the Cheerleading St. Patrick's Day Bake Sale, when I know I'll cave again. Crossing my fingers that they'll have the marbled red velvet cupcakes...those sold out before I caved this time around.