meal prep

day twenty-five: the great mayo meltdown ’16

Posted on by thedingismything

Got a little bit of bad news yesterday. Both of the offers we submitted for houses last week were rejected. Seriously, who are these people making all-cash offers over asking price? How are we supposed to compete with that? Who has half a million dollars in cash just lying around anyway? And if you do, why the hell would you want to live in Reseda, of all places?

<<deep breath>>

As you might infer, I’m a little disappointed. But, I also was expecting it, so it wasn’t completely devastating. I took the news pretty well, and tried to muster up enthusiasm for going back to square one and checking out the latest on Redfin and Zillow. That lasted about 10 minutes before I was just over it.

I take solace in knowing that it’s not just us who find it difficult (read: impossible) to buy a home in this market. Still, it makes me feel pretty crummy. I’ve had some pretty sharp peaks and valleys when it comes to my self-worth and self-confidence over the years. I can honestly say that nothing has made me feel as much of a miserable failure in life as this home-buying process has.

When I finally left the office, I had one of those commutes where every asshole on the 5 freeway decided it was ok to cut me off. I hit every single red light. I had to stop at the store, and a shithead stole my parking space as I was about to pull in to it. Got in the shortest line behind the s-l-o-w-e-s-t old lady who, of course, paid in cash – with exact change.

You can imagine I’m reaching the end of my rope here.

The Husband said he would handle dinner for us. He was taking a stab at a salmon cakes recipe out of the Whole30 book. The note at the bottom of the page said it paired well with the tartar sauce recipe, made from their basic mayo.

For any newcomers, the Whole30 basic mayo was the first Whole30 recipe I made and it was a smash hit. I was so happy with it. Easy to make, tasted great, saved my lunches for the first 10 days. I haven’t made any since I ran out of my first batch, so while he made the salmon cakes, I took on the mayo so we’d have a nice little sauce on the side.

One egg, one-half teaspoon of mustard powder, one teaspoon of salt and a quarter of a cup of olive oil all went into the standing mixer. I flipped it on, and it started to combine.

And then, it just kinda did nothing.

I seemed to remember it looking a little less liquidy the first time. But oh well. Let’s just keep going.

Started to drizzle in my one cup of olive oil. Little bit at a time. Little bit. Little. Bit.

Only difference was MORE of the liquid. Not thickening. At all.

Do I stop? No! Persevere! Keep going! It will start to emulsify.

Have I mentioned it’s 7:45 p.m. at this point, the salmon cakes are just about ready, and we’re both starving?

Entire cup of olive oil is mixed in. It’s the same consistency. Much more yellow than I remember it looking the first time.

At this point, a person in their right mind might step back and think, “OK, clearly this isn’t working out. You’re hungry and tired and very stressed out. Just stop and enjoy the cakes by themselves.”

I wasn’t in my right mind.

I went back to the recipe and saw the direction that said your egg needed to be at room temperature in order for this to work. Forgot all about that. No wonder. A tip said that if you’re pressed for time (story of my life) you can put the egg in a bowl of hot water for five minutes and then it would work.

Second egg comes out of the fridge and goes into a bowl of hot water. I remove the first failed batch from the mixer and pour it into a mason jar. All I can think about at this point is that a bottle of olive oil costs $15 and I just wasted about $3 worth. I can’t throw this away. I can save this somehow.

I start the second batch. Egg is warmed to room temp, everything else is good to go. I’ve re-read the complete instructions for the recipe about four times. It’s now 8 p.m. and the salmon cakes are out of the oven. The Husband, the most patient man on the Earth, is waiting for me to get this mayo right.

I add the first ingredients. It looks slightly thicker this time. I’m hopeful.

I crank the mixer up to top speed and begin to slowly drizzle in the olive oil.

Same. Exact. Results.

Not thickening. Not getting lighter in color. Not working. Not happening.

And I start losing my mind.

There is ugly crying, and then there is what unfolded for me last night.

My face got hot, tears welled up in my eyes and streamed down my face. I’ve wasted $6 worth of olive oil, about 45 minutes, made my loving husband wait for mayo that never happened, ruined dinner by crying, and above all, I can’t buy a house.

At that point, realizing that my brain had long stopped working, The Husband literally handed me my plate of three salmon cakes, turned off all the lights in the kitchen and walked me over to sit down and fucking eat. And I cried the entire time.

I think it’s fair to say that our home offer rejections affected me more than I realized. I rode that bus way past Discouraged, past Disillusionment, straight into Crazy Town.

After we ate, I went back and poured the second failed batch into the jar with the first one. It’s in my fridge as we speak. I’m going to find a way to use it if it kills me.

P.S. The salmon cakes came out really good, in case anyone is wondering. And I married the greatest man on the planet.

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Wouldn’t that have just been perfect with a little mayo?

 

Note: This is a re-post from the Tumblr version of this blog. It originally ran on April 21, 2016

whole30: day two.

Posted on by thedingismything

I’m happy to report that my second day of Whole 30 was about a million times better than the first. I wasn’t hungry at all. Literally, not for a minute all day. I was able to prepare in advance a good size breakfast for this morning. It made all the difference in the world.

Also, I know it’s only been two days since I ate a handful of frosted sugar cookies at Easter dinner (oh – did I forget to mention the cookies?) but I already feel a difference. I feel skinnier! I have like, no bloating going on. My rings slide on and off with ease. It’s a little amazing how I didn’t even realize how bloated I felt a few days ago until I compare it with how great I felt today.

A little rundown of today’s meals:

Brekkie was a Whole 30 compliant chicken sausage, sweet potato hash, and a fried egg. Quick note: I made a PERFECTLY fried egg for the first time in my life today. Mark it on your calendars. The trick? A really good nonstick pan and a tiny little rubber spatula. Highlight of my day.

Mid-morning snack was a large banana and some mixed nuts, without peanuts. Insert your favorite “that’s what she said” joke here.

Lunch today was super easy because I was able to enjoy leftovers from last night. The Husband made some delish baked chicken breasts that was perfect to slice and throw on top of a green salad mix. Because I’m not a maniac, I made my own salad dressing out of olive oil, lemon juice, salt and pepper. I also microwaved a sweet potato, and that helped keep my inner hunger demon away all afternoon.

That being said, I still let myself snack on some fresh strawberries and pineapple before leaving the office.

Finally, for dinner, I was excited to have a chance to try out one of the recipes from the Whole 30 book. I made their chicken meatballs, although I actually used turkey because we already had some on hand. Can I just tell you how good they came out? I mean, really, really good. And it was the simplest recipe to follow. A pound of ground turkey, an egg, chopped onion, minced garlic, salt, pepper, oregano, and I used just under a quarter-cup of almond flour to thicken the meatballs a bit. Brown them in a pan a bit before transferring to a parchment-lined baking sheet in the oven. Cook ‘em for about 8 minutes and then let them set for a bit before devouring them.

Here’s the part where you get to learn from my mistakes. When browning the meatballs in the pan, use a really good quality nonstick pan. I thought I could outsmart the recipe by using an oven-safe pan to brown them and then just stick the whole thing in the oven. Even with a generous amount of olive oil in the pan first, they stuck. Big time. M-E-S-S-Y. For my second batch, I just followed the instructions and used my best nonstick pan first, and they browned up real nice, with zero sticking.

Because of my mishap with the first batch, they looked a little funny and misshapen. But boy howdy did they taste go-oo-oood.

For a side dish, I sauteed together some red potatoes, mushrooms and green beans, and used savory seasonings so they complimented the meatballs really well.

And because yesterday taught me how important it is to prep for the next day’s meals, my game plan for tomorrow is already laid out. I’ve got leftover potatoes and another chicken sausage for breakfast, I’ll use up my leftover meatballs and veggies for lunch, and The Husband is making a Whole 30 chicken cacciatore recipe from the book. Much excite. Very cacciatore.

Note: This is a re-post from the Tumblr version of this blog. It originally ran on March 30, 2016.

whole30: day one.

Posted on by thedingismything

Ordinarily I would do my Monday Morning Quarterbacking today, but since it is DAY ONE of my Whole 30 experiment, I’m changing it up a bit. Instead of looking at what went right or wrong this weekend (because honestly, who does everything right on holiday weekends??), I’m going to focus on my first day of Whole 30 and how I appear to have failed miserably at prepping for it.

Admittedly, this half-Jew with no children took part in some serious Easter celebrating yesterday. While I only had two small pieces of candy all day (That’s actually a total lie – You’ll see later…) I did eat Easter brunch and Easter dinner and I didn’t hold back on the ham or the bacon or the lasagna.

That’s right. I said it. LASAGNA, bitches. And it was delicious.

Moving on.

Here we are at Day 1. I’ve read a lot about how I can expect the next week to play out. According to the book, today I should feel ready to conquer the world. By this weekend, I should hate anyone and everything in sight. Apologies to The Husband in advance.

I expected the first week to have a lot of trial and error. But less than a day into it, I’m noticing a lot of errors. I’m chalking it up to one more benefit for people to read my blog: so they will learn from my mistakes.

Back to all the Eastering on Sunday. Because most of the day was spent with family, my meal prep game wasn’t at its strongest. My goal was to get enough done that I could make it through Day 1 with minimal challenges. I started with breakfast.

Breakfasts are always the hardest meal for me, since I’m up at O’Dark Thirty to work out before having to be at work by 8 am. To prepare for this morning, I spent some time last night chopping veggies that I can keep in a container in the fridge and take out only what I need to mix in with some scrambled eggs. Five-minute breakfast. There you go. Easy-peasey, right?

Wrong.

Yes, I did enough prep to make a simple, fast breakfast. But, I used only two eggs and ended up hungry by the time I got to work. I brought a banana as an emergency afternoon snack, but ended up having to eat it mid-morning. By 11 am, I was counting the minutes until noon so I could eat my lunch. Lesson learned: Tomorrow, I’m going to try three eggs and/or adding some sweet potato to fill me up early in the day so I’m not ravenous and eat all my food before noon.

For lunch, I usually take leftovers from whatever dinner we had the night before. Because that wasn’t really an option for today, I knew I had to come up with something easy. I used the protein salad recipe from the Whole 30 cookbook to make a little tuna salad to bring to work. That meant taking time Sunday night to make the infamous Whole 30 Basic Mayo recipe. Everyone I know who has done Whole 30 has sworn by it, and now I know what they’re talking about.  I don’t think I’ll ever go back to store-bought mayo again.

A few tips for anyone wanting to give it a whirl: I mistakenly started to blend the ingredients in a mini food processor that’s really more like a chopper. WRONG. You have to drizzle olive oil into it slowly, while it’s blending, so make sure you’re using a food processor or KitchenAid mixer that you can leave open on top and pour the oil in. I had to transfer my mayo base to a mixing bowl midway through. Also, the book says you can use an immersion blender while you’re adding the oil. Don’t. Seriously, just don’t. I learned the hard way that it’s near impossible to hold the immersion blender with one hand and do a good job of mixing everything while slowly pouring olive oil with the other. Even with The Husband as my handy sous chef, it was hard to do. Use a standing mixer – you’ll have a much easier time.

Making the mayo was the hardest part of meal prep last night. Once that was done, I was able to mix the tuna salad and package up veggies for our lunches in plenty of time to sit down and watch Madame Secretary while enjoying my last York Peppermint Patties I’ll eat for the next 30 days.  (Told you I ate more than just two pieces of Easter candy.)

Maybe my favorite part of Day 1 – and so far, the only thing I seem to have done right – is when my boss brought in leftovers and set a bag full of goodies on my desk. Desserts and pizza. No joke. I brought it downstairs to the kitchen, ignored how magical that pizza smelled, and ran back to my desk and started eating my tuna salad. Suck it, pizza.

If anyone else is starting up Whole 30 or looking for some meal inspiration, I’ll be posting recipes and tips and stories about what I’m sure will be many more kitchen mishaps so you can learn from my mistakes. Like my immersion blender blunder. My shoulder is still sore.

Note: This is a re-post from the Tumblr version of this blog. It originally ran on March 28, 2016.