What was the first thing I did when arriving back in Cali yesterday?  Well, hang out with my roomie & drink Pisco Sours, and then I headed to two grocery stores for some good food fixin’s.  I have quite the recipe list this week – some are inspired by recipes I ate during the past two weeks while in Chicago, and others, like tonight’s, are adaptations of recipes I created while in college.

This recipe, unlike many recipes I do, involved two steps.  The first, a delicious Chipotle sauce I created since 1) Lawry’s no longer sells Baja Chipotle marinade in my town, and 2) because I needed it to be gluten free.  As such, I created my own sauce & used quinoa instead of couscous.

Using some of the ingredients I had in the fridge, and knowing I’ll be able to freeze some of these meals for future eating this summer, I spent about $75 on groceries this week.  And the really exciting news?  I didn’t deviate AT ALL from what was on the grocery list – what I needed for recipes is all I bought: no chocolate, no sweets, no snacks.  I was proud of myself.

And yes I do realize that $75 seems high for one perso, but the 4 meals I have planned to make, will end up making about 18-22 meals at the end of the day.  Since I technically only need 14 for the week, that leaves a number of them to be frozen – and lets be honest, I’ll probably freeze closer to 8/10 of them, and eat other random eats I have around the house occasionally throughout the week – so really, I’m saving money AND time for future weeks this month!

Chipotle Shrimp over Quinoa (serves about 4)

-Chipotle Sauce

• 14 ounce can fire roasted crushed tomatoes
• 1 1/2-2 tbsp chili powder mix (with cumin, cinnamon, oregano, pepper, etc)
• 1 tbsp cumin
• 1/2 tbsp oregano
• 1/2 onion, diced
• 2 garlic cloves, minced
• 1 tbsp EVOO
• 1/2 cup water
• 1 tbsp brown sugar
• salt & peppa (to taste)

Put EVOO in a large sauté pan with onions and garlic.  Cook on medium-high, until onions start softening.  Add the spices.  Then add the tomatoes, brown sugar and water.  Simmer for about 10 minutes, and then add in the ingredients for Chipotle Shrimp.

-Chipotle Shrimp

• ~1 pound cooked shrimp (tails removed)
• 1 green pepper, sliced
• 1 red pepper, sliced
• 1/2 onion sliced
• 1 14 ounce can diced pineapple
• chipotle sauce (see above)

Add the above ingredients to the chipotle sauce, and cook for 10-15 minutes on medium/medium high.  Stir regularly (to prevent burning/sticking).  Once cooked through, serve over cooked quinoa, and enjoy.

*I cooked about 1 cup dry quinoa in the rice cooker with 1 1/2 cups of water – it was the prefect amount for about 4 meals

It was seriously phenomenal.  And I have three delightful leftover meals in the fridge – I can wait to dig in later this week!  Yes, I am the leftover queen!

Mmm.  Mmm.  Good.  (It was lunch today too )

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On a side note…I’ve been struggling with getting out of bed early to run/exercise.  I keep hitting the snooze button, and next thing I know, I’ve slept for 2 extra hours!  With three big races coming up that all start early, I know I need to change that quick.  As such:

How do you get yourself out of bed in the morning to go for that early morning workout?