Wednesday 2 February 2011

Dreadful eating Part 2

During one's pregnancy, one is supposed to be eating the best they've ever eaten. The most healthy. The most nutritionally balanced eating. Can I get 1/2 a point?

If I were to score myself on that criteria, I might squeeze my 1/2 point through to the judges.

My diet of 'whatever random stuff is around' continues. It isn't not healthy, exactly, just a bit...random. With a LOT of chocolate thrown in somehow also. Well, not somehow - my little trip to the Hotel Chocolate factory store that I had discovered was very nearby my house might have something to do with that. That fateful day a few days after Christmas I went there and got loads of 30%- and 50%-off Christmas stock...I am still eating 'Tiddly Reindeer' as we speak. I generally have a habit of eating any junk in the house just to 'get rid of it', as I rarely have any junky stuff around - but then when it 'somehow' does arrive in the cupboard, I am forced to 'get rid of it' again! A bit of bent logic, admittedly. I'll be 'getting rid of' this giant bag of fancy Christmas chocolates for the next 2 months, I reckon. *Shame*.

I don't think I have had any cravings either, per se. I did once just want to eat a giant plate of broccoli, covered with melted process cheese. And that scores pretty highly on the health scale of things. With my other pregnancies I had wanted pineapple like crazy, and had one incident in a pub of asking to order both a tuna sandwich and a big plate of nachos together. No eating of chalk or glue or any of that nonsense. Although thinking of it that might seem more appealing that some odd things I have been eating...

Tonight I had tortellinis, chopped up sugar snap peas, and leftover Christmas turkey chunks, all boiled in the same pot - then added pesto. Weird, but not too bad.

My dinnertime concoctions have become increasingly creative. My Supa Neggs have been an emergency lunchtime staple for some years now (reminder: boiling soup with poured in eggy bits swirly cooked around), but I have expanded the Supa repertoire. The Supa Dinner Collection now includes Supa Cabbage, Supa, Kale, Supa Bits of Old Turkey from Christmas with Bits of Raw Zucchini, Supa Tuna, and Supa Veggie Sausages among other delights. It is actually quite a logical cooking technique; 1 can of brothy soup (chicken noodle, scotch broth, minestrone, etc), one OXO cube, 1/2 litre additional boiling water, and then simply insert random vegetable material and protein chunks that happen to be about. A few drops of Tabasco and I'm set for a tasty evening feast! The one version that did unfortunately backfire was with the addition of cous cous, as I had underestimated the absorptive qualities of those little devils dramatically. Even after preparing the cous cous as I normally would (by prepare I mean packing up what was left of the kids dinner into a pot to be added to my soup later), those tiny pasta-y sponge-balls soaked up most of the liquid portion of my soup altogether, and it ended up more like a bitty vegetable bits pasta pate. You know what? I had it anyway.... did I mention my standards have become less than gourmet lately?

That reminds me of an attempt I had made a few years ago to make minestrone. My husband and I had got to the point of a lovely broth with all the right vegetable bits etc in it, and all it needed was the little noodles. I have never considered myself much of a chef, but back then when I was a youthful cooking-naive lass, I was not enlightened to even some pretty simple basics that I do know now. Simple basics like: cook the noodles before you add them to a painstakingly created soup. Erm. So I had my big bag of teeny tiny alphabet noodles, and poured in about 1/4 of the bag. As they all disappeared to the bottom of my vast pot of soup I thought 'Hey, there's barely ANY in there, they've all gone....I'll add some more then...' so I added another 1/4 of the bag. Well those of course disappeared also. 'Hmmm, that won't do, I'll add some more...' and ended up deciding to add in the entire bag. Tick tock tick tock 10 minutes later. Do you know, dear scientists, what makes a teeny tiny rock hard alphabet noodle bigger and nice and soft to eat? Soaking up the water it's in, naturally. So as it happened I helplessly watched as our soup became consumed by those devilish noodles. The lovely minestrone, all gone. What was left we named Minestragne [like a lasagne], and there was lots of it. LOTS. For the next few months we had Minestragne stuffed in zucchini, Minestragne and eggplant cheesy bake, Minestragne any way you like it. I am not sure my husband nowadays would humour a Minestragne incident with edible consumption; now, more like inedible bin-fodder. His palate has since developed and his quest for economy is not as great as mine is. Me? I'd be eating Minestragne breakfast lunch and dinner, thank you. A girl's got to get by. Delicious!

I think the strangest meals are derived from the kids leftovers, that I revamp and augment into my dinner later on. I was on a Supa streak last week, and in keeping I thought it a possibly edible idea to take the container of kids leftover dinner bits (cubes of potato, some chinese noodles that were once my dinner the night before, steamed kale, and yellow peppers), and add a can of Cream of Tomato soup. How did it look? Dreadful. Sad. Strange. How did it taste? Ummmmm...not bad...? It was alright, really. Sort of. Will I do that again? No.

So that's my 1/2 a point. What I am eating IS balanced - there are proteins, veggies, and starches involved. I do take my vitamins every day as I should, even the omega 3 ones where there is no proof they have any real benefit at all. I lose points on the junk consumption front - the chocolate mountain issue I have got myself into, and my weakness for Fruit Gums - and I lose points on eating 'the best' possible food. By any judgement no one would say that, for certain, as it often involves an OXO cube laden with MSG. That's why they make vitamins anyway, right? Everything I need, right there in that little pill I take every day - the rest is just bulk.

So, Judges: Your scores, please!



1 comment:

  1. I'm impressed you don't just end up eating the kids food as is! I don't think your eating habits are too bad, just original and creative.....Although I have been know to eat microwave popcorn for dinner...

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