inching towards week 10

I just had another food idea…this is turning into more of a food blog now that I’m eating and recovering. It helps that I’m not in constant excruciating pain, or dripping blood out of my nose. The snack/mini-meal that made me happy today was a quickie-bread pudding-like thing w/ mashed bananas and almond butter. I mashed a banana and ate half and pushed the other half to the side of the dish. Then I took half a slice of wheat bread and tore it into 3 pieces. Then I smeared a little less than a tablespoon of almond butter on the pieces of bread. Next I topped the almond butter w/ a teaspoon of thick honey, evenly divided among the 3 pieces. I arranged it on the dish w/ the mashed bananas, the bananas scooped on top of the bread, sorta covering it all. Next I added a splash of milk and microwaved it for 30 seconds. It was slightly warm and the milk was absorbed. I added about a 1/3 cup of milk and ate! It didn’t look awesome but tasted really good!

It’s been 2 months and although my doctor didn’t give the official go-ahead to run, I jogged a little to catch a train on Friday and to catch up to someone on Saturday. I’ll see my surgeon again in about a week, and I’m pretty sure he’ll let me get back to normal activities. I am itching to go back to ballet. I’m going to go back to classes and just do the barre and the center floor stuff and excuse myself for the hard stuff like jumps and such, this week. As long as it’s no impact I’m sure it’ll be okay.

It’s storming really badly and there’s been several severe rain, thunder and possibly hail warnings in this area in the past 2-3 days. It’s wicked humid and can get hot enough so that it feels unbearable and icky b/c the sweat won’t dry in the sick humidity. It’s storming now…lots of loud, rumbling thunder that vibrates through the house and lots of lightening.
I love watching the lightening…ever since some “Korean language camp for MK’s” I suffered through during the week of Easter break in 8th grade. It stormed one night and the electricity went out so all of us were gathered in the mess-hall type place called the Ark, probably after dinner and it was raining so bad that none of us wanted to trudge through the mud rivulets to get to our respective cabin-bunking areas. Hak was strumming a guitar, Hannah Lee totally into him, some telling scary stories to the little ones, the really little ones crying or clinging to their mothers who were volunteers or to the other teachers/adults. I don’t remember what I was doing, but I wandered over to a large window and just stared out at the night and the rain. And lightening struck! It illuminated the entire garden I was looking out into; everything was washed in a bluish-white light for a fraction of a second. Fascinated, I kept my post and a little later, another lightening! And this time it was a purplish light, it was so beautiful. I think my friend Esther found me and joined me for a bit and I explained to her the beauty of lightening. She watched w/ me for a while then got bored but I kept on staring out at the pitch-dark rain, waiting for lightening, and saw so much beauty that one night. Ever since, I loved watching the world light up in the middle of the night for barely a slice of a second, hoping not to blink, b/c I’ll miss it literally in the blink of an eye.

I’ll end w/ another food thing. I made a type of savory salmon bread pudding tonight. I greased the inside of a casserole w/ a touch of butter and lined the bottom w/ the heels of a loaf of bread, torn into itty-bitty pieces. I ripped the edges off of 3 and a half more slices of bread, tore it into bits and added them to the bottom. I then opened and drained a can of salmon, flaked it w/ some fresh-ground black pepper and spread it evenly over the bits of bread. I sprinkled maybe a tablespoon of parmesan cheese over the salmon and sprinkled about a teaspoon each of lemon pepper and garlic pepper over that. I then thawed about a cup and a half to 2 cups of a tomato and cheese soup that I froze a few weeks ago b/c it tasted more like sauce than soup, and spread that over the salmon. I tore the crust-less slices of wheat bread into more itty bits and evenly covered the tomato and cheese soup-sauce layer. I sprinkled sweet paprika powder on top for flavor and color. Over that, I poured a mixture of 1 egg beaten w/ a cup of milk and just a splash of chicken broth. I let it sink in, and b/c it wasn’t soaking into the bottom of the casserole, I poured more chicken broth along the edges and poked a butter knife through to the bottom in several places, easing the liquids down. I baked it for 45 minutes at 350 degrees Fahrenheit and b/c the center wasn’t set and still a little eggy, left it on 300 degrees for 15 minutes longer, covered it b/c the edges were getting crispy and it could be tough to eat. It turned out well, I never added salt to any of it b/c the soup-sauce had salt in it, the chicken broth was seasoned, and the garlic pepper and lemon pepper had salt too.
It was good. Probably about 1000 calories for the whole thing but it could easily be 6 meals for me. Yum…and nutritious too!!! I think it’s a good carb-and-protein balance, esp compared to the amount of protein I’ve been managing to consume. I need more fresh veggies soon or I’ll develop some sort of deficiency.
It’s late so I’ll go nite-nite! The storm seems to have quelled…