I don’t feel well, so my plans for making a gourmet meal fell through. I had to force myself to eat. Which, let me tell you, is atypical.
I made a salmon melt with some brussels sprouts on the side. On the monkey plate, because it’s just that kind of day.
Look at that punk smiling at me. I bet he feels fine.
Okay, I think I’ll go crawl into bed now.
I think tonight’s dinner cost me approximately -2 cents. Nice, right?
Here’s my version of Heidi Swanson’s Lemon-Scented Quinoa. I just had quinoa on Saturday but I can’t help that I crave grains that are not really grains.
I was going to make something more complicated but I had a bad day and I decided I could have WHATEVER I WANTED as a reward for making it through. And instead of pizza or brownies or something, I had quinoa. And chickpeas. Served with a delicious tahini-based dressing, some roasted broccoli, and brussels sprouts.
I hope my kids are more normal than this.
I’m not going to bother uploading the brussels sprouts picture because a) you’ve seen it before and b) WordPress is ON MY LIST of annoyances because it won’t upload my images.
Here’s what we had last night, which I didn’t post because I hate Sunday nights and I also got really involved in The Tudors again.
Spinach/apple/cheese paninis with homemade potato chips (more potato-y than chippy, sadly), and some fruit. I actually ate two of these sandwiches because I was hungry and they were amazingly good.
That reminds me that I want some cherries. I used all of the money that I saved on my cheap dinner to buy ridiculously overpriced cherries, which will be my financial downfall this summer. At least I know in advance.
My feet hurt so I’m going to stop typing with them.
No. Not really. But I wish.
The tulip festival in Wamego was awesome because I came home with:
I took a picture of it, but it also captured my shadow and my pants, and I’m just not sure if I’m ready to take that step here. But it’s made out of typewriter keys.
On the way back, we stopped by our storage unit to get spring clothes and to frantically search for my spring and summer shoes, which I was sure were in there… somewhere. Matt looked through about 894 boxes and couldn’t find them and I was sad (read: secretly excited to have an excuse to buy all new shoes). Then we got home and I immediately found them in the closet. Oops.
There was more cheeseless pizza for lunch, and maybe a cookie or three. They’re big, too. I’m ashamed. Then, my mom and I ran errands and I tricked Matt into walking three and a half miles with me so that I could buy earrings.
Then I made this totally American dinner:
Turkey burger on one of those square bagel things I love so dearly, sweet potato fries, baby brussels sprouts. Also, another piece of cake for dessert.
Now, I need to go entertain my mom before she reorganizes the whole apartment.
I’ve never made eggplant parmesan before, and I’m not even 100% sure that I’ve ever had it. But for whatever reason, I was resolved to make it tonight. I read a few recipes and got a little overwhelmed, so I just made something up. I sliced up a small eggplant into 1/4 inch slides and let them soak for 30 minutes. Then, I dipped each one in egg whites and then in a mixture of whole wheat breadcrumbs, parmesan, basil, and garlic. Then I baked them on a cookie sheet at 400 for about 20 minutes, flipping after 10. I pulled them out and added a little mozzarella and a little more parmesan and stuck them back in for about 5 minutes.
I also made a really simple garlic and basil marinara to top the eggplant, along with some lemon garlic baby brussels sprouts. And Matt made some garlic bread. Do you see the theme? Luckily, I’m not leaving the house.
I ate more eggplant than this, I just kept my first serving small because I wasn’t sure how it would taste. My eggplant was good, but Matt’s wasn’t. I gave him larger slices, and they were super bitter. I thought that soaking them would cut the bitterness, but I guess I was wrong. The smaller rounds tasted fine, but the larger ones were majorly bitter. Any suggestions?
I was having breathing problems again today, and after running a ton of errands, I’m pretty much ready to crawl into bed and get a solid fourteen hours of sleep. Plus, Matt just changed seized control of the remote, and there’s no reason to stay awake if I can’t watch the America’s Next Top Model marathon on VH1.
Oh yeah. I also had something new with lunch:
That’s right, I’ve never had a sandwich.
No, just kidding. This sandwich was new, though. At People’s this morning, I picked up some agave nectar for a recipe I want to try sometime soon. I keep reading about it and how awesome it is, so I decided to give it a shot for lunch, and I made a grilled almond butter and agave sandwich. It basically looks like honey, but it’s muuuuuch sweeter. I’ll have to remember to cut down on the amount next time. Anyway, there it is with half a pear with cinnamon. I left the cinnamon out and later accidentally sprinkled it in the marinara sauce. And by sprinkled, I mean, dumped. Oops. Matt didn’t even notice.
I can’t wait to post my dinner here one day and be able to say “Today, I felt awesome!”
Sadly, today is not that day. In spite of being a walking health problem, I try to be active and positive and have a good attitude and things like that. That can be hard to maintain when you’re happily exercising at 5:30 in the morning, surrounded by other (clearly insane) people who exercise that early, listening to, I don’t know, Galaxie 500 or something and wondering if it’s weird that something slow like that can get you pumped before it’s even light outside, and then suddenly you are almost passing out on the stair climber thing and you have to wade your way through weird tunnel vision to go lie down. In the gym bathroom. Luckily, there was a bench, so it wasn’t on the floor or anything. But, still. Ewwww.
So, that was my morning. And, like an idiot, I just came home and rested and got ready for work like nothing happened. And then, suddenly I realized that sort of fainting at the gym was probably, I don’t know, not a good thing. So I called my doctor’s office and the nurse said “Jenny, what happened?” in a very mom way and they told me I needed to come in. I had several new experiences, including an EKG and a chest x-ray, and several old experiences, like a peak flow test and some other lung tests. I left with a prescription, several more appointments with medical professionals, a mandate to cut back on my exercise for a few weeks, and a crazy bad headache from having to breathe in and out so many times.
I came home, worked for a few hours, tried to be fine and then completely crashed at about 3 in the afternoon. I woke up, luckily, in time for Carolina’s sweet sixteen game, which I’m still enjoying now. I made a delightfully comforting pot of chili using a new recipe from Cooking Light. I’m working on my food photography. How am I doing? Here’s some Three Bean Chili:
With some plain yogurt because I always forget to buy sour cream.
And, because I had a headache, roasted brussels sprouts:
All together, with a mini bagel and my 89th glass of water today:
I have some more yogurt that’s going to expire, so I’ll probably have that in a little bit. It’ll go nicely with my special new tea:
I know - the fussy title also made me nervous. But it’s really, really good. This is my third cup today.
My allergies are back IN FULL FORCE and yet I still insist on walking to work. Outside. If there was a 1.5 mile tunnel connecting me to work, this would be a whole different story. But there’s not. And so, tonight I look like I have a substance abuse problem because my left eye is red and sort of closed. It was bad last night, too, but I took some Benadryl before bed, and that seemed to carry through for much of today. Though I did spend most of my reference desk shift this afternoon inadvertently winking at people walking by.
I just got back from Target, where I went to buy eye drops but came home with sixty dollars worth of cleaning products, shirts, tights, and things in jars. Before that, I made what was supposed to be Tilapia with Citrus Vinaigrette but turned out to be Tilapia with salt and pepper (and a gross messy pan). Here it is with roasted brussels sprouts and whole wheat couscous:
It’s strange to me that I can probably eat a pound of brussels sprouts. And that I crave them when I have headaches. So, from now until the end of allergy season, at least, I’ll be wanting brussels sprouts. Then it will suddenly be 115 degrees every day and I will actually be burning, so I won’t notice the headaches as much.
Our apartment is so small that the whole thing still smells like fish and I’m paranoid that it’s gotten into all of my clothes and tomorrow when I have to give a presentation to the department heads, I’ll stink and I’ll be just like that girl we always made fun of on the bus in third grade (I still feel bad about it). Anyway, so I’m spraying everything frantically with some kind of “odor neturalizer” I happened to pick up tonight.
I’m going to tend to my eye. And spray one more time.
