Food, glorious food

On Monday, I got sick. Again. So, no appraisal at the gym on Tuesday, and no workouts this week; just bedtime, bedtime, and more bedtime. I’m currently on antibiotics (not so clean eating, I guess), and waiting for my fever to leave, though the guy seems to like sticking around. He’ll just have to suck it up once I evict him; who likes a fever tenant anyway? 

As a result of my health, then, this week has been all about the food. And my oh my what delicious food we’ve eaten this week. Our shopping list included another round of absolutely glorious groceries, and we’ve become quite the shopping experts, dancing from aisle to aisle with our colourful A4 paper of vegetables, meats, and healthy carbohydrates. As I’m typing, I’m eating an exquisite snack of ricotta, banana, and peanut butter. And that’s just a snack.

While lying in bed and cursing my yet-again-arrived disease on Monday night, Ariz made Provencal Salmon Burgers. Oh. my. god. It took about an hour and a half to prepare the damn things, but once they were finished, I declared it the best meal on our diet so far. Herbes de Provence (substituted by fresh rosemary and thyme by us), capers, olives, salmon fillets, Dijon mustard, and onion all blended together in glorious unison (yes, we own a blender now), and creating a flavour explosion so strong I seriously needed to re-think the word “taste”. Yes, I am a salmon lover, so I might be biased, but goodness me, those things were good. 

Here’s the recipe: http://www.cleaneatingmag.com/Recipes/Recipe/Provencal-Salmon-Burgers.aspx

Then there were two particularly delightful breakfasts among many others. One was porridge, with frozen raspberries, almonds, cinnamon, and some maple syrup. I don’t understand how healthy food can be so astoundingly delectable; well, I can understand it, but the little fat kid in me is wondering why all these fruits and vegetables are so much tastier than mud cake and hamburgers. 

Heavenly porridge breakkie:

Next, Banana Morning Tarts. Yum, yum, yum. Homemade tarts, and no ordinary tarts, mind you; these were made out of blended walnuts, whole-wheat pastry flour, whole-wheat regular flour, frozen macadamia oil, milk, lemon juice, and a bit of baking powder. The result? Little, alien-looking tartlets (we haven’t gotten around to buying tins yet), which were part tarts, part cookie, and part bread. All the gorgeous nuttiness went really well with the filling of: banana, maple syrup, greek yoghurt, walnuts, and cinnamon (yes, we’re suckers for cinnamon, and it’s all over the recipes!). Melted on my tongue like nobody’s business.

Finger-licking tartlets:

Tartlet recipe: http://www.cleaneatingmag.com/Recipes/Recipe/Sweet-Savory-Tarts.aspx 

Last, but certainly not least, I had shrimp this week. And I liked it. Which my mother will tell you is unbelievable. I had a serious shrimp fetish as a kid, but since about twelve I haven’t been able to stand the little things. This week, though, we made broiled shrimp. Over rice. With peas, garlic, lemon juice, and soy sauce. And it was mouthwatering. I ate the whole thing, shrimps and all, and even found myself enjoying the taste I’ve detested for so long. Thank you, clean eating. 

Here it is, shrimp saviour:

Of course, I haven’t been entirely, entirely good this week either. But I’ve been sick, and still am, so I’m going to excuse myself with that fact (terrible, really, considering bad food makes you a lot worse than good food), and not share anything about my misbehaviour. Though there might be, just maybe, a tiny bit of Crunchie lying next to me on the bed. Or maybe the fat kid in me just wants there to be. Either way, I’ll do some extra sit-ups when fever packs his bags.

‘Till next time. Thanks for reading :)