Keeping Occupied on the Diet

My dinner, well it's not at a time when dinner is for normal people, it is my 4:00 meal. "Butt loads" of spinach (the technical term would be 3 cups), shrimp, a very small amount of cucumber, balsamic vinegar and 1 TEASPOON of olive oil.

Water, glutamine and supplements.

I won't buy these little shrimps again- Whole Foods had them on sale "large peel 'n eat shrimp"....large by whose standards? They were rather tiny by the time I warmed them. I like the BIG HUGE ones, they are like small lobsters, and well worth the price.

The boys are gone so I am reading one of my cooking magazines and bookmarking all of the wonderful things I will eat when the diet is over. It's a masochistic game I seem to play every time I am on a diet. Most people dieting don't want to go anywhere near pictures of fine foods, but this is my favorite time. I thinks it's a way of testing my own resolve and determination.

I never seem to have time to read my magazines, at least not until I am on a diet. Odd isn't it? 

I am not joking when I say I get almost every gourmet cooking magazine published. See the stack in my living room? I have a lot to read in the next 8 weeks don't I? So for the next few months I will go through all my magazines, mark the recipes that sound good and show them to David and Cooper. The promise of great food also helps them through my diet, since I don't cook for them during my diet as much as I normally do.

Virginia stopped by the other day "Oh boy you sure have a lot of magazines!" she said. Actually the hobby of looking at the foods and plotting what I will make really does help me, it's a carrot dangling at the end of a rope and the rope is just out of reach. I know that eventually it will all be mine for the taking. I think you see this same behavior in most competitors, perhaps the execution is a bit different, they dream of the pancakes, the waffles, the chips. I am not a pancake, waffle or chip gal. I am a braised lamb shank with fingerlings gal, or a spiced beef and crisp salad gal, I am a perfectly roasted chicken gal (and yes I like the skin).

I dream, and I imagine and in the end, I make some of my dreams, not all, but some of them come true.

This is what I was reading as I enjoyed my salad. And what did I find that I plan to make in 8 weeks?


Chicken Alambre

Keema Beef Curry

Curried Cauliflower Soup with Coconut and Chilies

Roasted Cornish Hens with Morels and Leeks

Poached Scrambled Eggs with Goat Cheese Sauce

Can you tell I enjoy full flavored foods? And if anyone makes any of these dishes, please let me know what you think, I woud love to hear how they turned out!