schneefink | Entries tagged with food

So, uh, looks like maybe this is the year of me making DW posts even when I don't think I have much to say. But this is my journal, so there.

We made an apartment New Year's resolution to make weekly meal plans, or at least plan every meal at least a day in advance. Currently none of us are working (though Christina starts next week) so we have a lot of time to cook and eat together. The plans help a lot, they make it easier to shop in advance and make the whole process less stressful, and we have more time to actually look through our cookbooks and try out new stuff. We're eating very well! Yesterday we made falafel burgers, today we made rice casserole with apples, and tomorrow we wanted to make scalloped cauliflower and Brussel sprouts but we have too much of the rice casserole left over so we'll make that next week. We're generally eating very healthy, so as balance we also had chocolate pudding with blueberries. Balanced nutrition is important! I'm no longer in danger of being underweight, and I'll just have to make a few adjustments because I'm a bit low on iron.

DD and I are currently watching more live TV than we have in months: The Good Place, Star Trek: Discovery, Critical Role, and we've finally started watching Nirvana in Fire 2. Originally we watched The Good Place and NiF 2 both together with Christina, but she's away this weekend and then starts to work next week and we got too impatient.
On top of that I also regularly follow podcasts, and this week I've been better when it comes to studying (pudding and NiF 2 are good incentives), so I'm having trouble keeping up with my AO3 subscriptions. …of which I have over 600 so perhaps that's not surprising, ahem. There's a lot of good stuff out there. And there are books I want to read. Studying comes first though (at least on my good days, of which there are more and more, small steps.)

When our roommate Eva told us last week that she is moving out in July, because she is dropping her study program in Vienna for health reasons (the right decision for her but sad for us) we decided to do something together this Sunday. Originally we wanted to a) visit the museum for magic boxes (what's the English term for those boxes with a bunch of magic tricks in them?), but it turned out we were all too lazy on a Sunday morning, and b) play a board game; but then we found out that Eva has never read or seen Lord of the Rings so of course we had to watch the first movie. It's been a while since I watched it, it was fun.

For lunch we made delicious spinach strudel with field salad, then we had ice cream, and because I still had lemons left over from when I needed lemon zest for muffins last week I decided to make homemade lemonade, which for some reason I'd never done before. It was great! We definitely have to do that more often.

Yesterday I went to lunch with friends and then went swimming with LB, it was beautiful. Tomorrow Eva, DD and I will watch the second Lord of the Rings movie, DD will make brownies and there will be more lemonade. Tuesday is movie night with LB and friends and there will be home-made pizza. I feel pretty lucky :)

I had a week where I felt like a turtle in a shell all the time, I just wanted to stay at home and do nothing. Ugh. Happens. There were a few things I didn't do, but fortunately nothing immediately time-critical, and fortunately I had events with friends planned over the weekend, that helped. Not sure yet if I'll have to default on my Yuletide story.

The weekend: D&D on Friday, Thanksgiving dinner on Saturday, Disney movies on Sunday :)

Latest D&D things:( More spiders, and time travel )

Saturday: Lio and Maria's friend Kelly is from the US, but has spent most of the last few years in Europe. She wanted an authentic American Thanksgiving dinner, so on Saturday we first had pumpkin-carrot-turkey soup and then stuffed turkey with cranberry sauce, pumpkin pie, mashed potatoes with gravy, brussel sprouts with chestnuts, corn fritters, sweet potato casserole, ginger-glazed carrots, and a salad with apple and cucumber and fennel and pomegranate. It was amazing. It took me an hour to finish my very full plate and then I felt accomplished *g* Now I understand better why Thanksgiving is such a big deal in the US, if the food is always like that. I made the sweet potato casserole and it was actually quite easy and turned out well, I might have to do it again. I forgot to write down the amount I needed before going shopping so now we have quite a few more sweet potatoes at home.

On Sunday LB organized a Disney movie night, we saw "The Emperor's New Groove" and "Mulan." I hadn't seen either in years, it was fun. Before the movies we cooked pumpkin curry, pumpkin goat cheese and fig tart, and cheese baguettes. LB invited around ten of his friends, we had a good time and we already made plans for more movie nights. We definitely have to see "Nightmare Before Christmas" before, well, Christmas.

New week, I'm still very tired but I feel a bit better so fingers crossed I'll actually be able to accomplish things. Climbing today, and tomorrow is an event I'm invited to at the company where I'm currently in the middle of the application process, I'm almost optimistic.

Crossposts: http://schneefink.livejournal.com/184191.html

The thing about eating more and more regularly is that the first notable consequence is that I'm hungrier. That means even more preparing and cooking! I haven't gained any weight yet, I've even lost a bit more and am still underweight according to BMI. Not by much, but still. Maybe it'll help that now I can go running again (infection from dental surgery is pretty much healed), muscles add weight.

I am making some progress cooking more! Deciding to eat mostly vegetarian helped: there's not as much choice and that makes picking what to cook a lot easier. I'm a big fan of onions, tomatoes, and zucchini, and you can do a lot with that. Mushrooms are also good, and spring onions, and sometimes other vegetables (I'm not the biggest fan of peppers, for example. And potatoes are side dishes.) Mixing various vegetables in a pan and eating it with couscous is easy and good. This week I twice made stuffed eggplants, with improvised stuffings, that turned out very good. Today I made a casserole with potatoes and tomatoes, also improvised: it tasted good, despite the fact that my first casserole form exploded in the oven (fortunately not in very dramatic fashion, the oven is fine and I could save over half of the casserole. Could have used another spring onion probably.) I like cooking without recipes, it makes me feel like I really know what I'm doing.

Yesterday I went to a concert of my old choir. The topic was "Austrian music", it had everything from folk music in several languages to "Der g'schupfte Ferdl", "Birdland", and "Rise Like a Phoenix." I can't get "Auf einem Baum ein Kuckuck" out of my head. I enjoyed the concert, and I decided I definitely need to look for a new choir this fall.

Stanley Cup Final game 5 tonight! The Penguins are leading the series 3-1 and could win it all, and on home ice. Aaaaaaaa *flailing* I don't quite believe it'll happen, sounds almost too good to be true. (I'm convinced the Sharks will score first tonight. Just seems like the kind of thing that is inevitable.) But it would be so great.

Crossposts: http://schneefink.livejournal.com/165836.html

Yesterday I went to the zoo again, because why not? I saw the seals being fed and the big male one jumping from a cliff multiple times, I had a fantastic view from the underwater window to see a polar bear dive and play with a truck tire (soo beautiful, and strong), I saw emus preening their feathers, and a presenting peacock running away from his albino rival.

( Health, eating, food )

Crossposts: http://schneefink.livejournal.com/164026.html

Sooo much good food during the Easter holidays. Each year, but this year especially. I want to talk about food because food is delicious.

On Thursday my grandparents were still in Vienna so I ate with them at my parents' place, we had an excellent fish.

Friday I made pizza. I wanted to put zucchini on it but accidentally grabbed a cucumber (the sign said zucchini!, in my defense), so I put cucumber on one half just for fun. It actually wasn't bad, but next time I'll definitely pay more attention, and also maybe add some champignons. I have no idea what the comparative nutritional value is of home-made vs. frozen pizza, but it feels healthier because I know I put fresh vegetables on it.

On Saturday my parents invited the Syrian refugee family currently living in their parish to cook and eat together, and I was invited for lunch too. The food was fantastic, minced lamb meat over potatoes in the oven with tomato slices on top, green salad with couscous, and flat bread with hummus. Most of it was cooked by the mother and daughter, with my mom helping out (and dad occasionally but there wasn't really space), so hopefully mom can repeat the recipe once they buy the necessary spices. LB and Bashar, the father, made the fruit salad, and LB said he suspects Bashar never did that before, or anything in the kitchen ^^ Cultural differences. We later learned that the older boy had a kebab stand in Damascus, so he at least can cook something.

For Sunday breakfast my mom gave me hard-boiled eggs and traditional Easter pastries. For lunch/dinner I "only" had rice with tomato salad, one of my favorites because it's quick & easy & good.

Then at midnight I suddenly got the urge to finally make a recipe I'd been planning for several days: Maple Praline Bacon. It turned out fantastic. I left the bacon in the oven a bit too long (still shorter than in the recipe), but it hardly mattered. I ate three that same night, brought the rest for brunch the next day, and I have two strips of bacon left over that I will cook right after dinner. And then maybe go shopping for more bacon tomorrow.

Today I met with my parents for brunch. We had a huge ham and Italian mayonnaise salad, different pastries (klassische Pinzen und Osterlamm und Mohn- und Nusspinzen) and several different normal bread rolls, painted hard-boiled eggs, marzipan potatoes, and of course my maple bacon. Fortunately they gave me some of almost everything to take with me, otherwise I would have been even sadder that so much was left over, but I couldn't eat another bite.

And now dinner, probably soup with cheese dumplings. (Tbh half the reason I wrote this was to motivate myself to eat dinner because I've been having difficulties regularly eating lunch and dinner on the same day, not sure why. I'll figure it out eventually, hopefully before I lose too much weight.)