My friend Ben

When I lived in Los Angeles, one of my co workers invited us to his house every Monday night to watch Alias. He cooked, and made some really good food. He was always telling people what a great cook he was. We agreed with him.

Until the night he made a salad that featured avocado slices that were hard to spear with a fork. To be fair, the man had a colostomy bag, and did not eat vegetables very often due to the issues they presented upon their exit, so I don't think he ever purchased an avocado before.

So last night when I made guacamole, I cut around the pit of one of the avocados and met considerable resistance. It took quite an effort to get the seed out, so I put that one in a baggie and stuck it in the fridge...

This morning as I was getting ready for work, I tossed the avocado in the lunch bag along with my ham sandwich, nectarine and yogurt. I figured I'd have it with lunch.

Since I was running late, I popped two multigrain waffles into the toaster and made a peanut butter sandwich with them with a drizzle of honey that I ate in the car on the way to work. I washed down my morning handful of vitamins with a 1/2 glass of milk, and rushed out the door. (I don't think I'll be doing this very often, because the fish burps from the Omega3 pill was disgusting. The banana from the cereal hides the flavor more.)

At lunch, I pulled out my sandwich and yogurt,and sprinkled a little salt onto the avocado, and nearly busted the spoon trying to get it out of it's shell. I instantly thought of Ben.

I discovered that only part of the avocado was still hard. The rest was very tasty. (Makes me miss living in Hawaii where the avocado tree grew right next to our dorm and we'd charm the guy from Fiji to climb the tree and pick them for us!)

Tonight, my hubs and I are going to see Wall-E. For dinner, I may do another tofu stir fry, as it's really fast and I want to perfect the recipe I found.

I did notice today that my pants are not snug around the waist. Progress? We shall see.

That's it for Culinary Adventures with Ben for today. Someday I'll tell you about his attempt to grill bacon...

He likes his frittata

So last night, the hubs and I had a frittata. I used 4 eggs, a cup of lima beans, a cup of mushrooms, a 1/4 cup parmesean cheese and I sliced an avocado for the top after it cooked. The bottom was very brown, but the top was fuffy and delicious. We polished off the whole thing. With three bites left on his second helping, he says, "did you put lima beans in here?" hee-hee.

I went to bed a little early last night, only reading the prologue and first two chapters of The Golems Eye before I conked off. Dov said he came to bed around 12:30, but I didn't hear it.

Even going to bed so early, I woke up at 5 minutes to 7 and had to rush through breakfast and lunch preparations. I had my usual banana and honey bunches of oats, and had to use the Lactaid milk since I'm out. I'm moving to 1% next time. Although, I've heard about raw milk and have been tempted to try it, since the pasteurization process is what creates the lactose problems and both Dov and I could drink it. He'd probably drink more. Being asian and super thin, I worry about him getting osteoporosis because he doesn't get enough calcium.

For lunch, I had a honey ham sandwich with salad sprouts and lettuce, a little mayo and lots of mustard. I also had a peach and a peach-flavored yogurt. I didn't really look to see what flavor yogurt I grabbed this morning, but it was still pretty good.

Melissa and I walked to the Magic Dragon so she could pick up her lunch and then back to our normal route. Tomorrow, she'll be watching her son's tennis match, so I'll be walking by myself.

For dinner tonight, we bought a flank steak, and last night I chopped up a green onion and a large clove of garlic and put that plus the steak plus two tablespoons of soy sauce, lemon juice and peanut oil in a bag with a half tablespoon of crushed black pepper.

I started up the grill with our Matchlight briquets mixed with regular briquets, which turned out perfectly. I put on a potato for each of us (since we had the yams last week) and made a guacamole dip with avocados and the lemon juice, some grape tomatoes and used the endive and baby carrots instead of chips. I crushed a small clove of garlic into it as well, and realized that's what my guacamole has been missing all these years...so good!

I think I need to go get a book with the carb counts for a wide range of foods, because not all the recipe books I have list the carbs.

Either that, or I need to break out my Cooking Light cookbooks for 1992-1994 again and find some more recipes. They had a really good shepherds pie using cornbread as the topping instead of mashed potatoes. Actually, using sweet potatoes wouldn't be bad either...

Anyway, that's for winter. For now it's anything that can get or keep me out of the kitchen!

The day after last night

So last night, my husband got home around 11:30 or so after fishing. (The sun goes down around 10pm or later, so after travel time and a stop at the store he got home very late.) I finished The Amulet of Samarkand around 11:45 or so, and when the alarm went off this morning, I instantly regretted not going to bed sooner...

For breakfast, I had multi-grain waffles from Trader Joes with a 1/2 cup frozen strawberries that I microwaved for three minutes. I also had a cup of tropicana orange juice. Dov bought it for himself (therefore we got the lots of pulp variety) but he can't mix citrus with anything else without instant digestive ramifications, so I'm the one who ends up drinking it, even though it's got the pulp. Even with all the pulp, there's no fiber. We're cleaning out the fridge...

I packed myself a ham sandwich on cracked wheat bread with salad sprouts and lettuce, a peach and a cherry yogurt. I'll have the yogurt for a snack at 3:30 or so.

We have a meeting tonight, so dinner has to be quick...we have flank steak in the refrigerator, but I'll marinate that tonight so it's ready for tomorrow.

I think I'll make a frittata tonight. I have eggs, cheese, spinach, mushrooms, peppers, garlic. I'll check out AllRecipes.com and see if I can get the carb count on that. Can't be very high...

Breakfast lunch and dinner...

This morning for breakfast I had a bowl of Honey Bunches of Oats, a sliced up banana and a cup of milk.

At lunch I had a peanut butter sandwich on cracked wheat bread and an apple, then walked by myself around the circuit Melissa and I normally walk when she's in. (She has food poisoning, and sounds like she wants to die...) The peanut butter is good, but I skipped the drizzle of honey this time, and I think I might add it back. There is no sugar in the peanut butter I'm using, and the sandwich was a little dry.

The receptionist in our building turned 20 today, and they offered me a slice of ice cream cake, but I said no. In the break room, they have cupcakes and blueberry scones. I'll be staying out of there...

I had boysenberry yogurt for my afternoon snack.

For dinner, I had leftover tofu stirfry from last night. Then I had about 1/2 cup of cashews while I was reading...Gotta work on the late night snacking...

What I ate today

So the tone of this blog is about to change...

My hubby and I have been trying to have a baby for almost three years now. We were referred to a fertility clinic two weeks ago.

I have PCOS, Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome. I'm having that diagnosis confirmed, but I'm 99% sure.

I met my doctor 2 weeks ago. The nurses were very nice, but they had to call the nurse practitioner to find a vein to take a blood sample.

They were testing to see if my cycle was coming. They found a cyst on my ovary that they figured had recently released an egg. It wasn't.

I was put on Provera, and my cycle showed up on Friday night. Joy.

Also, last week, I met with a nutritionist, and I'm learning to eat a diabetic diet.

I'm making small changes, and hopefully, I can get a little healthier.

I am writing down what I eat via this blog. Today is my first day to write what I've eaten.

Maybe it's a bad day to do that...because today I had a two hour glucose test.

I showed up at the clinic a few minutes early, and waited for the office to open. The nurse took me back immediately and they started pressing on my inner elbows and wrists to find a good vein. After 20 minutes of digging with the needle, they took one vial from my hand with a syringe. But they needed two vials, so they referred me to a lab.

I didn't get into the room at the lab until 5 minutes before I was supposed to be taking the second blood draw...Did I mention this is a fasting test? Yes, no breakfast, and now it's 9:00.

So they make me run my hands under hot water and pull out two vials of blood. Then they give me a super-sweet orange soda, and I had to wait two hours and have more blood taken out.

After the second blood draw, I ate a beef soft taco from Taco time. With mexi fries and a diet coke.

I had four donut holes as a snack at 4:00. And an apple after our staff meeting at 2:30.

For dinner, I made a tofu stir fry.

After dinner, I had a half a slice of chocolate cake from Whole Foods.

The cake was really good but way too sweet.