Jan 4
Breakfast: Leftover deep-fried eggplant, leftover mac & cheese.
Lunch: Leftover eggplant with minty tomato sauce, leftover dijon beef stew and egg noodles. My daughter joined me for lunch today, also having some leftover stew and noodles. She'd meant to be at her new school building all day, helping her theater teacher unpack and set up her new classroom, but apparently this task took far less time than anticipated, and by 10 am she was already texting me to come pick her up. It was nice to have her hanging out with me all day, though, sprawled across my bed working on her AP US History homework while I worked on my laptop, both of us listening together to Book of Mormon and Hamilton on the stereo.
Dinner: The pan of mac & cheese I made last week was so huge that we did something tonight we hardly ever do: have leftovers for dinner. But if we didn't eat it soon, it was at risk of going bad. I warmed up the last several squares of mac & cheese, and made a side salad of romaine, arugula, basil & mint, with a little bit of leftover stewed tomato added to the dressing for color and tomato flavor. Nobody in my family commented on the oddness of having cooked tomatoes in the salad; I don't think they even noticed. We also each had a few slices of orange.
Snacks: 4 cups of coffee, 2 regular, 2 decaf, with half and half. Assorted dark chocolate pieces. Glass of red wine. Incidentally, this fairly crappy wine is from a giant bottle that was given to me by our auto mechanic for Christmas. Mister Rogers' Neighborhood.
Encouraging side note: despite the continued appearance of chocolate and alcohol in the daily post-holiday diary, I have dropped four extraneous holiday pounds since Jan 1, simply by regaining some semblance of self-control. Related encouraging side note: my husband and I have committed to a new habit of going for short walks together daily (often after dinner), even when it is cold and dark and we don't feel like it. I've noticed that, when we reenter the house after 15 or 20 minutes, we are often in better moods and somewhat invigorated.
Jan 5
Breakfast: leftover eggplant with minty tomato sauce (a double helping, since this is now the next leftover I desperately need to use up), leftover split pea soup. Whatever nutritional value eggplant has, I am well-supplied with it.
Lunch: Another double helping of eggplant with minty tomato sauce; chunk of dark chocolate; hard-boiled egg. I felt slightly queasy and over-full after this lunch, a feeling that lasted all afternoon until yoga class really did me in (yoga can make me nauseated and dizzy under the wrong circumstances). Too much eggplant? Too much oil?
Shopping (a hellish trip to the Safeway with chaos and dysfunction at the checkout line): Multigrain Cheerios, Thai jasmine rice, large can of chick peas, 2 boxes Melitta #4 unbleached coffee filters, teriyaki turkey jerky, large can of tomato puree, Kettle sea salt chips, grapeseed oil, garlic and chili beef jerky, brown cage-free eggs, quart of half-and-half, unsalted butter, frozen lima beans, organic whole milk, package of bobby pins, 6 Safeway-made bagels (assorted flavors), bananas, 3 bunches green onion, 3 smallish eggplants, about 3/4 lb. snow peas, fresh ginger root, 1 white onion, 1 organic red onion, 1.5 lbs. organic white mushrooms, organic romaine hearts, bag of organic russet potatoes, lemon juice, $101.
Dinner: Madhur Jaffrey's sweet-and-sour eggplant (I can't find this exact recipe online, but here is an adapted version); white rice; frozen lima beans; salad of romaine lettuce, mint, hard-boiled egg, and tomato dressing like yesterday's. Yes, after making myself sick on eggplant, I ate more eggplant. I have rules. Also, this eggplant was much better than the last couple of recipes, even though it involved deep-frying again. The spice rub of turmeric, coriander, cumin, garam masala, amchoor powder and salt was delicious. I might try this recipe again without the deep-frying-- I wonder if one could simply use the spice rub and then poach the eggplants.
Snacks: 4 cups of coffee, 2 regular, 2 decaf, with half and half, and one with whipped cream. 2 squares of Trader Joe's dark chocolate, marking the end of my Christmas chocolate. 1 glass red wine.
Breakfast: Leftover deep-fried eggplant, leftover mac & cheese.
Lunch: Leftover eggplant with minty tomato sauce, leftover dijon beef stew and egg noodles. My daughter joined me for lunch today, also having some leftover stew and noodles. She'd meant to be at her new school building all day, helping her theater teacher unpack and set up her new classroom, but apparently this task took far less time than anticipated, and by 10 am she was already texting me to come pick her up. It was nice to have her hanging out with me all day, though, sprawled across my bed working on her AP US History homework while I worked on my laptop, both of us listening together to Book of Mormon and Hamilton on the stereo.
Dinner: The pan of mac & cheese I made last week was so huge that we did something tonight we hardly ever do: have leftovers for dinner. But if we didn't eat it soon, it was at risk of going bad. I warmed up the last several squares of mac & cheese, and made a side salad of romaine, arugula, basil & mint, with a little bit of leftover stewed tomato added to the dressing for color and tomato flavor. Nobody in my family commented on the oddness of having cooked tomatoes in the salad; I don't think they even noticed. We also each had a few slices of orange.
Snacks: 4 cups of coffee, 2 regular, 2 decaf, with half and half. Assorted dark chocolate pieces. Glass of red wine. Incidentally, this fairly crappy wine is from a giant bottle that was given to me by our auto mechanic for Christmas. Mister Rogers' Neighborhood.
Encouraging side note: despite the continued appearance of chocolate and alcohol in the daily post-holiday diary, I have dropped four extraneous holiday pounds since Jan 1, simply by regaining some semblance of self-control. Related encouraging side note: my husband and I have committed to a new habit of going for short walks together daily (often after dinner), even when it is cold and dark and we don't feel like it. I've noticed that, when we reenter the house after 15 or 20 minutes, we are often in better moods and somewhat invigorated.
Jan 5
Breakfast: leftover eggplant with minty tomato sauce (a double helping, since this is now the next leftover I desperately need to use up), leftover split pea soup. Whatever nutritional value eggplant has, I am well-supplied with it.
Lunch: Another double helping of eggplant with minty tomato sauce; chunk of dark chocolate; hard-boiled egg. I felt slightly queasy and over-full after this lunch, a feeling that lasted all afternoon until yoga class really did me in (yoga can make me nauseated and dizzy under the wrong circumstances). Too much eggplant? Too much oil?
Shopping (a hellish trip to the Safeway with chaos and dysfunction at the checkout line): Multigrain Cheerios, Thai jasmine rice, large can of chick peas, 2 boxes Melitta #4 unbleached coffee filters, teriyaki turkey jerky, large can of tomato puree, Kettle sea salt chips, grapeseed oil, garlic and chili beef jerky, brown cage-free eggs, quart of half-and-half, unsalted butter, frozen lima beans, organic whole milk, package of bobby pins, 6 Safeway-made bagels (assorted flavors), bananas, 3 bunches green onion, 3 smallish eggplants, about 3/4 lb. snow peas, fresh ginger root, 1 white onion, 1 organic red onion, 1.5 lbs. organic white mushrooms, organic romaine hearts, bag of organic russet potatoes, lemon juice, $101.
Dinner: Madhur Jaffrey's sweet-and-sour eggplant (I can't find this exact recipe online, but here is an adapted version); white rice; frozen lima beans; salad of romaine lettuce, mint, hard-boiled egg, and tomato dressing like yesterday's. Yes, after making myself sick on eggplant, I ate more eggplant. I have rules. Also, this eggplant was much better than the last couple of recipes, even though it involved deep-frying again. The spice rub of turmeric, coriander, cumin, garam masala, amchoor powder and salt was delicious. I might try this recipe again without the deep-frying-- I wonder if one could simply use the spice rub and then poach the eggplants.
Snacks: 4 cups of coffee, 2 regular, 2 decaf, with half and half, and one with whipped cream. 2 squares of Trader Joe's dark chocolate, marking the end of my Christmas chocolate. 1 glass red wine.