Day 2

Lessons learned.

I'm still getting used to cooking. I can't remember the last day I actually cooked all three of my meals at home. I either eat something out for at least one meal or skip the meal entirely (usually breakfast).

The last two days I've been forced to think about and make my food. I am not conditioned for it. I'm so used to caving to my sense of overwhelm when it comes to cooking and opting for something less mentally challenging like my coffee shop or a drive-thru window.

This got the best of me yesterday.

I decided to have tuna salad over greens for lunch about when I should have been eating it rather than when I should have been prepping it. I have ADHD and it's difficult for me to stay focused on one task at a time so I was also clarifying butter, potty training my toddler, trying to clean up from breakfast, trying not to think about the mess in my living room, and lord knows what else at the same time. It felt like making my lunch was taking forever and the longer it took, the more tired and cranky I got.

I was going to mix my tuna with some smashed avocado to make it creamy, but all of my avocados were rock hard still. So I decided to try to make the blender mayonaise from the book recipes.

It was an epic fail. I ended up with an eggy oily soup. I was so hungry I ended up pouring it over my tuna and eating that over my mixed greens, cucumber and chopped red pepper.

It was a very dry salad. I choked it down becuase I was starving and super tired.

Dinner wasn't much better. I knew ahead what I wanted to make, but I needed to pick up a few ingredients first. My errands got the best of my time so at 7:30pm when I finally got back in my car at trader joes to drive home, the last thing I wanted to do was be on my feet another half hour to cook a meal. But I forced myself to do it and we finally sat down to dinner at 8:30. Rather late for young kids, or adults for that matter, but better than the alternative which would have been to give up and go to Burgerville - what we usually end up doing after hours of procrastinating and having no energy left to cook.

Dinner was delicious though!

I made thai style lettuce wraps. Here's the link to the recipe.

I had to modify it quite a bit.

Here are my mods to the ingredient list:

• 1 head fresh 
• iceberg lettuce or prepackaged lettuce for wraps A few leaves of romain I had left.
• 3 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 thumb-sized piece galangal or ginger, grated
• 1 red chili, minced (or 1/4 to 1/3 teaspoon chili flakes) kids won't eat it.
• 2 shallots, sliced finely chopped red onion
• 1/2 cup firm tofu, cut into matchsticks (if not vegan, try 1/2 cup cooked, shredded chicken or pork or 1 to 2 cups cooked baby shrimp) ground turkey
• 12 carrots, grated or cut into thin strips
• 5 to 6 shitake mushrooms, thinly sliced
• 1 egg (omit if vegan)
• 1/2 cup shredded napa cabbage
• 3 spring onions, sliced
• Approximately 2 cups bean sprouts, plus extra for topping
• 2 tablespoons lime juice
• 2 tablespoons soy sauce coconut aminos
• 1 1/2 tablespoons fish sauce (or 2 tablespoons soy sauce if vegan)
• 1 tablespoon oyster sauce (if vegan, use vegetarian oyster sauce or 
• vegetarian stir-fry sauce)
• 1/4 teaspoon sugar
• 1/3 cup fresh thai basil or mint, chopped if leaves are large
• 1/3 cup fresh dry roasted peanuts cashews, roughly chopped
• Fresh bean sprouts 
• 2 tablespoon coconut/sesame oil for stir-frying

• Another thing I learned is that asian groceries have WAYYYY more variety when it comes to vegetables. I stopped at Fubonn and got pea greens and love them! They have the spongy texture of spinach, but the flavor of sweet snap peas. I also picked up baby bok choy, napa cabbage, shitake mushrooms, and sprouts. I'm looking forward to trying more of the mushroom and greens varieties.  

Day 2 summary:

I learned to plan ahead a little more and to start cooking before I'm hungry!