I get up at 5:00 am and mentally kick myself for not preparing my lunch the night before, as I have to leave the house early for work. Nevertheless, I do a little journal writing and a little yoga before taking my shower.
For breakfast, I make oatmeal by processing soaked oat groats, 1/2 chopped apple, and sunflower seeds. To this, I add cinnamon, raisins, and 1 tsp honey, and place it in a pan. I pour a little soy milk over the top (this is where I wish I’d had the foresight to make almond milk the day before, but I’m out of soaked almonds and the noise would be too much this time in the morning) and heat it just to warm in a saucepan. This is a really good breakfast, having the taste and texture of cooked oatmeal.
While eating breakfast, I make lunch: a sandwich of 2 pieces Ezekial raisin bread with almond butter, honey, and banana. (Hey, if it worked for Elvis, it works for me!). I throw together a fruit salad in a small airtight container using the other 1/2 of the banana, the other 1/2 of the apple from breakfast, some chopped pecans, and some frozen berries. Feeling like I’m going to need a little “green” in my diet, I pour some frozen peas into another container, add some chopped zucchini, and drizzle roasted red pepper dressing over the top. I know the peas will thaw, and I will have a really nice little pea/zucchini salad by lunchtime. Just to be sure, I add a couple of raw power bars to the bag.
This proves to be a lot of food and I end up bringing the fruit salad home with me, saving it for dessert.
For dinner, Rich has decided to make a pasta and meatball meal for Aidan and himself, using a a meal-in-a-bag of from Trader Joe’s and adding some soy meatballs that we all like. While he is cooking, I spiralize two zucchini, creating spaghetti noodles, add broccoli florets (blanched for 1 minute in hot water, then drained and cooled quickly with cold water), and black olives. I add a small bit of warm water to the rest of the red sun-dried tomato paté I’d made a few days ago to give it a “spaghetti sauce” consistency and mix it with my “noodles.”
Honestly, I am beginning to truly enjoy the fresh, alive flavors of this food. Rich gives me a taste of a broccoli floret that he has sautéed before adding it to his pasta. It is flavorful … well, at least the sauce is, because I can’t really taste the broccoli, which seems overcooked. And I realize, in this moment, that the food I have prepared for myself is really feeling like comfort food.
Verdict: I’ve always been the kind of cook who makes things up on the fly, to good results, and it feels good to me that I am beginning to feel comfortable enough with this new way of eating that I am creating good food with what I have on hand. In the beginning, all the detail to recipes seemed overwhelming and, while I definitely want to continue trying new things, it’s so much more fun to make my own food, in my own way. I guess you could say that I’m gaining confidence.
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