Week 4 Becca

Rebecca

Okay, so today was rough.  As I have already alluded to in prior blogs, I have Lupus. This past Thursday my doctor changed ALL of my medicines and I have been having a really rough time with it.  In addition, when they did lab work, they found that I have an infection and also put me on antibiotics. That’s a total of four new chemicals entering into my body. My body freaked out.  Since Thursday, I have been battling a fever, nausea, sleeplessness, and itchiness. 

That being said, this week’s Meatless Monday was exceptionally challenging for me. First off, I didn’t even get out of bed until 12:30. The time for breakfast had long past by the time I got myself out of bed, dressed, and ready to prepare food.  As I mentioned, due to the recent change in medicines, many foods have been severely upsetting my stomach.  I have really been trying to keep a low profile in regards to food.  I figure eating something is better than eating nothing at all (I basically couldn’t eat a real meal all weekend, so while my meal selections today may not be the most nutritious, they were a great improvement compared to days prior). For lunch I had a sizeable bowl of white rice. It really filled me up.  It was just the meal I needed. I seemed to handle it well. Dinner was not as successful as I hoped it would be, but I did make a conscious effort.  For dinner, I searched Pinterest for recipe ideas (at the suggestion of fellow classmate). I found a recipe that I thought I could stomach—Creamy Spinach Spaghetti.  The recipe called for 3 garlic cloves, an onion, a bag of spinach, 1 cup ricotta cheese, 1 cup milk, and spaghetti noodles.  All in all, the recipe was a bust.  I followed all the directions, but my final product ended up looking nothing like the picture.  Still, I attempted to consume the food. The sauce was so bland. I couldn’t take it.  I even tried adding some mozzarella cheese on top to give it an additional kick. Still, it tasted like a plate of nothingness.  I was so disappointed. I do not recommend anyone to try this recipe. It looked appetizing but tasted like garbage. As a side, I decided that I was going to buy organic asparagus, since I noticed Wegmans had it in stock (it must be in season again).  Now, my whole life, my mom has boiled asparagus.  However, my boyfriend convinced me that he loves it oven roasted.  I told him that I had never made it that way before, and asked him to look up a recipe.  He looked on the internet and found one recipe that said to drizzle in olive oil, and place in the oven at 425 degrees for 12 to 15 minutes. I timed it out so that the pasta and asparagus were finished at the same time.  Even after the disappointingness of the pasta, I was still excited about my asparagus. After all, it had been almost a year since the last time I consumed asparagus.  That is, until, I bit into it.  The asparagus was so mushy and stringy.  It was a texture I just couldn’t handle—not crisp at all. I had to spit it out.  I suggested that we look up another recipe online to make sure we did cooked it long enough.  Another recipe I found said 425 degrees for 25 minutes.  So, we put the asparagus back in the oven. I figured maybe the additional ten minutes would help to crisp the vegetable.  Nope. They just burned. I was beyond frustrated.  I had spent 13 dollars at Wegmans for a horrible dinner.  The only thing I actually enjoyed from dinner was my beverage.  I bought V8 Fusion juice, peach mango flavored.  The juice is infused with 8 different vegetables.  It was super delicious.  After dinner, I was admittedly still hungry. I was so over the day.  All I wanted to do was treat myself.  I convinced my boyfriend to take me to dairy queen for an ice cream snack. I know it was definitely not the healthiest option, but at that point, I didn’t care. It was delicious.

I was successful in going another week meatless, but it was definitely a struggle.  I have decided that using Pinterest for recipes.  I am going to stick to sites where recipes are rated.  I think that is my best bet for the future. This ensures that the recipes I intend on making actually end up working.