What is healthy eating? For me, it has always been a hard concept to grasp. How do I look at a piece of food and decide that it is something I should put in my mouth. I often feel that my eating habits are my downfall so almost two week ago I decided to try something new. Vegetarianism. I've always thought about becoming a vegetarian but I’ve never made the conscious decision to go for it.
I was talking to a friend on the phone last week when he accidentally told me something a mutual friend said about me. He said this person commented that I never ordered healthy foods whenever we ate out I always chose the unhealthiest food option on the menu. I was a little stunned when he said that to me. Instead of getting angry I decided to use that information to evaluate myself. I knew when I go out to eat I often order the burger and fries, or a steak and a dessert with a rich side dish and a vegetable rarely graces my plate. When I woke up Sunday morning I made up my mind to not eat meat for the week. I told very few people of my decision because I didn't want to hear their judgments or condemnations. Plus, I didn't know how long it would stick and if it was the right decision for me.
In preparation for my new interest I spent several hours pouring over my cookbooks trying to find tasty ways to prepare vegetables. Was that an oxymoron? Was there such a thing as a tasty vegetable? All I could think about while I was reading the cookbooks was that it would never taste as good as a cheeseburger. Or Ice cream or cookies or bacon. When I was looking for recipes I concentrated on recipes where the vegetable was the star. I didn't want to give up meat to load up on carbs or fats.
The food party started on Sunday with a trip to two stores and for fun I dragged a friend along for the ride. We started out at Costco where I grabbed several items, kale, almond butter, broccoli, quinoa tabolui, water softener salt and cat litter. I know the last two items are not food but they were a pain in the ass. I couldn't lift the water softener salt off the pallet at the store and I had to use my limited supply of charm to get a stock-person to help me put it in the cart. Also, when I was finished I had 200 pounds of salt and 40 pounds of cat litter and the cart and it was frickin heavy.
After I heaved the heavy load into my car I cajoled my companion into joining me for shopping part deux at Walmart. The first thing I discovered was that Walmart was not the best place to go when you are looking for healthy foods. They have aisles upon aisles of cookies, candies, boxed meals and frozen pizzas. Basically, all the bad food was tempting me from many sides so I had to don my iron will and not put a box of cookies or ice cream into my cart.
When I got home on Sunday night I spent three hours preparing food so I could start the week out on the right foot. The first thing I wanted to make was a
zucchini muffin thing. It wasn't exactly a muffin but they were supposed to be made in a muffin pan. I used a cheese grater to grate two large zucchini and onions. I also added garlic, salt and pepper, cheese, egg and some breadcrumbs. I was very proud when I looked down at my dish and at the last minute I decided to grate up the final zucchini and add it to the bowl. Unfortunately, that was when disaster struck.
clank..clank..clank
Yep, that was the sound of the mixing bowl falling out of my hand, hitting the chair and falling upside down on the kitchen floor. Disgusting. I almost burst into tears to see an hours worth of work and several days worth of food upside down on the floor. FUCK! The food couldn't be salvaged as it was wet and stick and properly stuck to the floor. With a look of disgust on my face I got the little broom out and scoped it all into the trash can. At least I had one remaining zucchini left and I was able to remake the dish in a smaller quantity.
After I finished the second batch of the zucchini mixture I made a last minute decision to bake it in a flat glass pan and not in a muffin pan. I made this decision primarily because I didn't want to crawl on the floor looking for the muffin tins. When that was in the oven I moved on to my next task. Kale Chips. Sounds yummy right. Okay, not really but I was willing to give it a shot. I took the fresh kale out of the package and put it in a bowl and I added some garlic, oil and salt and stirred it up. Then I placed in on a baking sheet and put it on the oven. Super easy dish.
While those two things were cooking I started on my lunches for the week. A friend,
Layla, gave me a bean soup recipe several months ago that I made for a company function and it proved to be tasty. The dish included one can of the following items: corn, black beans, pinto beans, rotel tomatoes, and diced tomatoes. It also has one packet of ranch dressing and taco seasoning. I put it all together and let it simmer on the stove for about an hour.
About this time I looked around and realized that the ENTIRE kitchen was a disaster. Things were everywhere. Ingredients were open all over the counters and food particles were on the floor. Gross. I shook my head and checked on the two items in the oven. I flipped the kale over so it could cook on the other side and shut the oven.
While I was waiting for the the food in the oven I cut up some strawberries to add to my lunches. A few minutes later the timer dinged and the kale chips were ready. Hmm...it looked weird. The kale had dried out, which was the idea I guess, and they looked like fall leaves. Really, they looked like perfectly shaped fall leaves.
At that moment the roommate came out of her cave room and walked in the kitchen. The look on her face while she asked me the next question was priceless. "What the hell is that?" I replied that it was my dinner and shrugged my shoulders. I held up a leaf and offered her the first bite but she declined. I popped the leaf into my mouth and I felt it crumble up into tiny pieces as I chewed and I told the roommate that it was yummy. It wasn't entirely yummy but I still ate it. I filled my plate with leaves and walked into the living room. The roommate watched me the entire way and couldn't stop laughing. Apparently, me saying my dinner was a plate of kale was too much for her to take. I could see where she was coming from. It looked odd and not anything at all like dinner.
But that was the point. I was trying to move out of my food comfort zone and try some new things. Sometimes they work and sometimes they don't. The zucchini dish turned out pretty well. However, I did wish I had cooked it in the muffin tins so all the edges got crunchy but it had a nice flavor and it was filling. I think I would try that recipe again with a few tweaks.
After I finished eating it took me an hour to clean up the kitchen. Damn, cooking was hard work. Plus, I had to mop the floor from the zucchini disaster. The last thing I did before bed was prepare the ingredients for my breakfast smoothie. Since I'm not a morning person I thought it was a good idea to measure out all the ingredients into a glass so I only had to pour it into the blender in the morning. Then I went to bed.
Monday morning started as usual. My alarm rang for 45 minutes while I ignored it and stayed in bed half asleep. When I finally rolled out I had to rush to get to work on time. After my shower I wandered into the kitchen to make breakfast. I took the glass out of the fridge and held it over the blender.
Nothing happened.
I tried to shake the glass but it was stuck. Guess what happens when the last ingredient you add to the glass is almond butter and then you add refrigeration. Right. That shit was stuck. After some prodding with a knife I got most of it out and into the blender. Then I took the container of frozen bananas out of the freezer. Oops, apparently I could have done a better job freezing the bananas. They were all stuck together and I had to chisel them with a knife to get them out of the pan. After my initial difficulty the smoothly tasted pretty good.
I think the first week went pretty well and I was happy with my decision. There were several more food adventures but I will include them in an upcoming blog post. I find that making my mind up to start a new adventure is often the hardest part but once I've made the decision I can usually stick to it. Its been 13 days and so far so good.
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