welcome to MY weekend

It's one day long and that day is Wednesday. People with two weekend days off generally use one day to relax and the other to be productive, not necessarily in that order. Not me - I have to figure out how to relax and effectively use the daylight hours I'm not at work in the same day. On the agenda for tomorrow:

grocery shopping
renewing my drivers license
possible clothes shopping adventures, if there's time and I have the spirit (I loathe clothes shopping with the same intensity other women love it)

I would also like to play my piano, read some of the magazines that piled up over the past few months, and play on zillow.com to keep my eyes on the prize.

Speaking of which - this has been a pretty good week so far. I'm gathering my team of sales reps and they seem to be responding well to me and my ridiculously optimistic cheerleading emails (on the hour, every hour). We doubled our performance metrics in two days and that makes me feel like I'm where I'm supposed to be, which is a happy feeling after all the time I spent second-guessing myself. I know this isn't going to be a rose-scented bubble bath, but things are shaping up and I feel like this is going to be a good thing. I'm also simply amazed to see how effective positive feedback and stupid motivational 3-sentence emails can be.

I tried to get harissa again on my way home from work and the closest I got was "Have you checked the Italian Market?" No. I will do that tomorrow, and hopefully, my lady at The Spice Corner will have this elusive North African condiment. So we had Garlic Tofu with Spinach over Pasta tonight. It was way better than I thought it would be, even with the store-brand marinara. It was kind of like vegan Spaghetti-n-Meatballs, but there was no mistaking those browned chunks as anything other than tofu. They tasted fine, but the texture left a little to be desired.

so does this picture, but it was the best one.

Anyway, I should probably share the menu before I start another glass of wine - I decided to start relaxing tonight so I could be more productive tomorrow. It works in my brain.

1. Chili sin Carne al Mole from Vegan with a Vengeance. Personally, I'm just impressed with myself for remembering that "sin" means "without" in Spanish. I am currently intrigued by Mole sauce chilis. The one I made this past week really did not have as pronounced a cocoa flavor as the recipe led me to believe, so I hope this one doesn't disappoint. Of course, it has about six times the amount of the other recipe, so I'm pretty sure I'll notice it this time.

2. BBQ Pomegranate Tofu with Coconut Rice also from VwaV. A serious hankering for this recipe was actually the impetus for starting my menu in VwaV.

3. Chickpea and Spinach Curry also from VwaV. I'll admit - this was actually more sheer laziness than an ardent desire to make this again. I had chosen my two cookbooks for this week and I was going to be goshdarned if I picked up a third. It is a very tasty recipe, though, and I get to squish whole tomatoes with my bare hands.

4. BBQ-Flavored White Beans with Sausage and Spinach from Vegan Express. I think every menu I plan that contains #2 will also contain this recipe because it's a great way to use up the leftover sauce and rice. It's a really great way. Also, I mentioned previously, this is probably one of the fastest recipes I have and I'm counting on at least one day busy enough to need it.

5. Seitan Chow Fun also from Vegan Express and also due, more or less, to laziness. It's been a while since I've made this one, though, so it works out.

Cheers! (I'm practicing for an upcoming birthday...)