of banana peels and garlic.

this morning started off with a brand new recipe first thing in the morning, bright and early. or maybe the sun hadnt come up yet, so it was just early. anywho, breakfast this morning was banana smoothies. or at least it was supposed to be. the trouble started when i went to get the bananas out of the freezer, where i had put them yesterday morning according to my 'morning prep' instructions. note to self: next time, peel the bananas BEFORE putting them in the freezer. so after one feeble attempt to peel my hard-as-concrete bananas with a big knife, i put them into the fridge to thaw and moved on with the recipe using option B - fresh bananas and some ice cubes. (i just love it when recipes anticipate my mistakes ahead of time)

i dont claim to be any sort of smoothie expert, and its been a while since i've actually made a smoothie, but it seemed to me that what i ended up with this morning resembled nothing smoothie-like -- more like very thick banana yogurt garnished with large chunks of ice. (magic bullet, you are beginning to disappoint) but it was pretty tasty as far as very thick banana yogurt goes. i'm hoping for a slightly better outcome when i try it again on Thursday morning.

i think i'm going to have to pick up some almonds and raisins for a morning snack - i had to raid my lunchbox around 10 for an apple to make it until lunchtime, and even at that i started watching the clock like a hawk around 1130. what i was really craving was pretzels, but i unfortunately had none.

lunch today was my first major deviation from the plan. what i was SUPPOSED to do was to make some extra pasta last night and whip up a pasta dish with mixed vegetables and balsamic viniagrette for lunch today, but that seemed like a lot of work just for a lunch, especially when we had SO much good mac and cheese and lime-butter corn left over from last night. so lunch today was leftovers, and we're moving the balsamic viniagrette pasta dish to one of the open lunches on the weekend.

i had a small internal battle over whether or not i REALLY wanted to eat my afternoon snack of baby carrots and hummus. but then, since i sent the same snack with my husband this morning and decided i would feel bad if i came home with a container full of hummus and he came home with his empty again, i ate the hummus. still not my fave. but made more edible by the presence of baby carrots.

dinner tonight might have been a little ambitious for a tuesday night, since Mark was playing basketball until 7 and i was jazzercising from 630 to 730, but we pressed on nonetheless. i was supposed to make shrimp scampi on a bed of oven-baked rice with a side of roasted garlic asparagus and sauteed pears for dessert.

i started the rice first, opting to use my rice cooker instead of baking it in the oven, since i did not have an hour to sit and watch rice cook in my oven, and i was much more comfortable with the idea of leaving the rice cooker on when i wasnt home instead of the oven. i also prepped the asparagus so i could just put it in the oven when i got home.

the shrimp turned out beautifully. i was thoroughly impressed with myself, especially since i had never even dreamed of making anything shrimp related before this week. and even Mark, the great non-vegetable eater, liked the asparagus. he even had seconds. maybe thirds. i guess its true that he'll eat pretty much anything as long as its smothered in garlic.

and the pears for dessert were... edible. not great, not awful, just edible. i made about twice as much as i should have though, and a lot went to waste because we were kind of full, and they just weren't good enough to be worth over-stuffing ourselves with.


i have no idea what i'm supposed to be doing tomorrow. i'm exhausted. this whole cooking real food all the time thing is pretty tiring. no wonder ive never done it before...