Tuesday, May 11 -- Week 19, Day 4

I have no excuse for the last couple days, so I'll not even bother to make any. This week has some really odd things coming up, so there will be more adaptations than usual. I didn't get groceries on my normal day, so that threw a bit of a kink into today's menu, not having the necessary ingredients. Today was a mish-mash of a couple different days. (See? I made excuses anyway!)

BREAKFAST:

Original:

• 1/2 cup grapefruit juice
• 1 oz cheddar cheese melted on 1 slice pumpernickel bread
• 1/2 cup skim milk
• coffee or tea

My adaptation:

• 1/2 cup apple juice
• 1 oz cheddar cheese melted on 1 small bagel
• 1/2 cup skim milk

Mmm... How appetizing does that look?? Our broiler isn't working, so I had to microwave it. Great flavor - wish I could have broiled it. Bagels are the ONLY bread we had in the house today. And I'm not ready for grapefruit juice just yet.

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LUNCH:

Original:

• 3 oz. boiled knockwurst with 1 tsp. prepared mustard
• 1/2 cup sauerkraut
• 12 oz. light beer

My adaptation:

• 3 oz. turkey kielbasa
• 1/2 cup green beans
• water

I don't know much about knockwurst, but I think turkey kielbasa is a suitable (and tastier?) substitute. I didn't want mustard, and it has no nutritional value that I know of anyway. I also don't like the string-texture of sauerkraut, so we had green beans. (See what I mean about more adaptations than normal??) And beer? Gross.

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DINNER:

Original:

• 3 oz broiled flounder
• 1/2 cup steamed spinach
• 1/2 cup steamed sliced carrot
• tossed salad with russian dressing
• melon mousse
• 1/4 cup skim milk
• coffee or tea

My adaptation:

• 3 oz sautéed cod
• 1/2 cup sautéed kale
• 1/2 cup corn
• small baked potato with spray butter

This is where things started to get really dumb. I was bouncing all over the week's menu with this. Dinner was supposed to be a veal-vegetable medley over pasta, but I didn't have any of the ingredients for it yesterday. We did still have cod in the freezer from a meal we ended up not eating last week, and there was a flounder meal earlier in this week that we didn't eat. So I used cod instead of flounder, and used the rest of the flounder menu. Kind of.

The cod - again with the broiler. I just coated it with some cornmeal, salt, and pepper, then sautéed it in a little olive oil. I've never cooked fish for myself before, so I had no idea what I was doing. I think it was probably done. I didn't love it, which doesn't surprise me. It didn't have a whole lot of flavor, and the texture will take some getting used to. I will never become a fish lover, but I could probably tolerate it for a little variety now and then. And I can't deny the health benefits of it!

The spinach - we still had an entire bunch of kale that didn't get used two weeks ago. It was still surprisingly fresh. So here's where I went wrong with that: I didn't steam it. I sautéed it in bacon, garlic, and lemon juice. But I figure if it takes a little bacon to get me eating more vegetables, that's a sacrifice I'm willing to make. ;-) It was ok. I should have skipped the lemon juice. That was an odd match. And I was very surprised by the texture. I was expecting a pile of mush, but it actually had a substantial texture to it- a good solid bite of food. Almost felt like meat. I only ate half of it though.

Carrots - I hadn't shopped yet. Didn't have any. Realized pretty late, so threw a bag of corn in the microwave. Very high in sugar, I know, but at this point in the day, I was only at somewhere around 600 calories, so I had plenty to spare.

Didn't feel like a salad today. :-(

Didn't have the ingredients for the melon mousse, which is a shame, because I was actually looking forward to it! Maybe I'll be able to squeeze it in next week.

Forgot the milk.

So after dinner, I was at a grand total of 805 calories. I had also biked 5 miles, so I figure I was running low on calorie intake. I had a big bowl of ice cream. :-) I think I ended the day somewhere around 1300. I said it was a big bowl, didn't I?

So this brings me to my newest thoughts on the subject of this diet and groceries: These ingredients are KILLING our budget. So, new plan. I will follow the diet as closely as possible for 5 days a week, giving myself 2 days to use up leftover ingredients. I will still stick to lo-calorie on one of those days, but the other will be an off-day. I will stick to this diet for 3 weeks. I will use the 4th week each month to recover our budget. This is the week that I'll coupon shop for whatever. It will give me freedom in my cooking. I'll still try to keep it low-calorie and healthy, but we cannot sustain this kind of grocery shopping regularly and long-term. Rather than give it up altogether, I think this may be a workable solution. So that's the plan. We'll see how it goes.