March 10:
7:30 AM: perogies with tomato, onion, and habanero cheddar
11:00 AM: egg salad, spinach, and special reserve sandwich
4:00 PM: salad (from a kit) with kale, lettuce, cabbage, carrots, onion, cheddar, bacon, and spicy applewood dressing
I'm still really struggling to cook regularly in my tiny little kitchen. That problem will only get worse when the hot weather hits. And between now and then, when we're likely to have a lot of lovely weather for being outside, I want to have the time available to spend outside, not in my kitchen. So I'm backing off from the pressure to do much cooking for a bit. When the commercially prepared bread that I like is on sale, I've been buying it. (That's what all of my sandwiches of late have been made with.) Today I bought salad kits because they were on sale. I also bought some instant noodles. I can add shrimp and veggies to them to make a pretty decent meal. (A little high on the salt side, I'm sure. But I need more salt during hot weather, and I've been fighting valiantly against the urge to give in and purchase potato crisps.) Yesterday I purchased a huge bag of perogies (because I like them and they were cheap). I'll add onion and tomato and cheese to them. I cannot afford to get takeout every time I'm too tired or too frustrated with my kitchen or don't have enough time to cook. And I really need to start making more time to write and more time to hike with Shelby. If this means spending less time in the kitchen, so long as I'm still keeping to a reasonably healthy nutrition profile and not blowing my budget, I'm okay with this (at least for now).
4:30 PM: chocolate caramel pecan pie
Not homemade. And not what I meant by "keeping a reasonably healthy nutrition profile". I went to the further away grocery store today. Some things that I wanted are significantly less expensive there than at the closer stores. But being surrounded by a multitude of tempting food choices immediately after a 4.5 km hike is an experience not without its dangers. I managed to say "no" to most of the temptations not on my shopping list, apart from this pie, and a dark chocolate almond beverage. Knowing I'd soon be returning home, after another 4.5 km hike, to a messy kitchen, and a refrigerator and freezer that would both be stocked to the gills (and therefore challenging to navigate) for the next little while, and a long task list, I decided the best course of action for ensuring I made it out of the grocery store without completely destroying my diet and my budget or bringing home more food than I could possibly squeeze into my freezer was to allow myself the one beverage and one dessert purchase. And then I chose the temptations with the lowest percentage of sugar and the highest amount of iron. I think I did okay.
10:00 PM: zucchini, black bean, and sweet corn burritos; chocolate caramel pecan pie
The late evening pie was definitely too much food. But I had to defrost the entire pie on account of there being zero room in my freezer. So now it's taking up space in my refrigerator that I'll need for other things I definitely need to cook tomorrow. So... uh... yeah. It's one pie. When it's gone, it's gone.
