What A Dump!

I was cooking all day yesterday yet the only thing that made it into my lunch today was a poor excuse for dessert. Oh well, it was still a pretty good meal:

• smoked turkey and lite havarti cheese with lettuce and red bell pepper on a whole wheat tortilla
• 2 blood oranges
• broccoli florets
• vegan butternut squash muffin

First off, I should just let it be known now that as long as they keep selling blood oranges at Trader Joe on 72nd Street, I'm going to keep buying them. It's not so much the taste, because, let's face it, they aren't nearly as delicious as a cara cara orange at it's peak. It's more the color and the convenience of the blood oranges. They look so great in my lunch box and they are small enough for me to fit 2 into a compartment. So, I hope you aren't sick of seeing them because I think they are going to be making a lot of appearances. Moving on...

This pitiful muffin is one of a dozen that I made last night in an attempt to use up the butternut squash we got in last month's CSA box and some other stuff I had lying around. I can't even give you a recipe for them because I basically just dumped a few cups of squash puree into a bowl and proceeded to dump a whole bunch of other stuff in there too. Instead of applesauce I used pineapple pulp that was left over from a pineapple I juiced last weekend. I used about a 1/4 cup of maple syrup instead of sugar because I thought that, combined with the pineapple pulp, it would be sweet enough. And, in case the maple syrup and pineapple were sweet enough I threw in a fist full of raisins. Yay! No sugar. I'm so righteous! Oh, I also put in about a cup of cooked steel cut oats because I made a huge pot last week and have been slowly trying to eat my way to the bottom. So, there, oatmeal. More fiber. Now I was getting smug. Still no butter, eggs, sugar, or oil. I'm so perfect and healthy. I rounded it out buy putting in a half teaspoon each of baking powder and baking soda and then 3 cups of white whole wheat flour. Oh yeah, I also put in all the different spices that make up a pumpkin pie mix (ginger, cloves, nutmeg, and cinnamon). Anyway, I won't bore you with any more details because as I've already revealed they were...bleck! Well, not totally inedible obviously, but really no "treat" at all. I'll continue to eat them through the week because I'm a mosochist who can't stand to throw away food (especially experimental food I busted my hump making).

These muffins remind me of when my brother first became a vegetarian and my mother (always the embracer of new things) wanted to be supportive when we visited him in Northern California (yes, that's code for hippie town). He would make us eat all kinds of bland and insane mung bean twig cake or sprouted pistachio stew. Yes, these muffins I made taste like every bad vegan food joke you can think of. Major fail.
I packed breakfast too. There is brown sugar on the bottom of the oatmeal (that's cinnamon on top). I think I put the sugar at the bottom of the container in an attempt to hide it from you. But I just outed myself. AND, I put too much cheese on my wrap (well, too much for someone who is supposed to be reducing). So there, now that's out too. My lunch was too fatty and sugary even though I intended on it being wholesome and virtuous. Story of my life!