After my strange day yesterday, I was glad to hit the hay. I slept really well and was excited to wake up for…FIGS IN MY OATMEAL!!!! I just tried whole, dried figs for the first time recently in California, aaand I’m hooked I bought some at a farmer’s market we went to while there, and was very good and didn’t eat them before I got back to Iowa Well as soon as I got home, I cut some up, swirled them in my oatmeal and polished a whole bag off in like, three days! Oooo the crunch of the seeds! The chewy, sweet fruit! Fantastic! As soon as the last chunk of fig entered my mouth, I mourned for it. These were fresh (well, dried) California figs, sulfur dioxide free, and they had been soooooo good. Since then, I’d been looking around here for some comparable ones and just couldn’t find them anywhere! All the ones I found were hard, old and not so yummy – trust me, I try them out of the bulk bin at the grocery store every week to see if they’re new – they’re not!

But yesterday I went to a grocery store I don’t normally go to, and I found the most amazing, soft, fresh, fantastic…dried figs! I snatched them up and immediately started ticking down the minutes until breakfast this morning. You better believe they were the star of my oatmeal!! My bowl contained:

• ½ cup oats
• ½ cup milk
• ½ cup water
• 1 medium banana
• Splash of vanilla
• 1 teaspoon brown sugar
• Cinnamon
• 3 chopped figs

Ohhh so good. If you’ve never tried dried figs, you’ve got to find some. The seeds pop in your mouth when you chew and the flesh of the dried fruit is perfectly sweet…Sweet!

More fig oatmeal pictures, because I’m obsessed

For lunch today…well, I’m not sure what I’m going to do. I didn’t feel like taking anything that I had in the house! I usually try and pack leftovers and/or buy things specifically for lunch when I go grocery shopping every week. But, because of Easter, I never really went “for real” grocery shopping – I just picked up a few odds and ends yesterday. I’ll let you know what I chose later tonight!

Do you guys pack leftovers for lunch? Do you go out to lunch? Have your dining habits changed since the economy started crunching budgets?