cleaneating – The High Heeled C*ntessa

FML… this is me, starting over, after I just wrote almost an entire blog and then accidentally deleted it and couldn’t recover it. This single action sums up my week in a nutshell.

Yes, this also sums up my week perfectly. Alphabet soup is my go-to when I’m under the weather or in need of some comfort food. This is Amy’s organic brand, but to be honest, I prefer Campbell’s from concentrate…. it tastes like childhood and home.

I’m staying in tonight, and so happy with my decision to do so. I am mentally and physically exhausted and need a night of no-drinking, going to sleep before 1am, and some alone time with my thoughts. It was a long week (as every week spent working a corporate job seems to be), and I need some serious beauty sleep, as I am currently looking haggard AF. At the start of each work week, all I look forward to is making it to Friday again, with the intent that I will use the weekend to catch up on sleep and relax for once. That never actually happens though, since I also have to use the weekend to run errands, clean the house, and have a social life. Then I end up feeling as exhausted as ever by the time Monday morning rolls around again and like I need another weekend just to recover from the weekend. It’s truly a vicious cycle. I start to feel extremely unhealthy and ugly when I don’t take care of myself the way I should (i.e. drinking water, NOT drinking alcohol, getting more than 6 hours of sleep each night, etc.).

I drank way too much this week, ate really crappy, didn’t get enough sleep, and therefore needed this night of solitude as a means of repentance (not that I can undo the basket of sugar cookies I devoured, or the 6,000 calories in alcohol that went down my throat over the course of the week). I went over to a friend’s house on Wednesday night for dinner. We grilled squid skewers and skewers of baby potatoes. She also made a delightful beet and dill salad:

Night Vision: The squid and potato skewers on the barbie

The finished squid skewers, hot off the grill, and the awesome beet salad

As is par for the course, I consumed excessive amounts of wine, and then some half-assed blueberry martinis I tried to make. I woke up on Thursday with only 3 hours of sleep under my belt and spent the day at my work desk wanting to die and eating sugar cookies in a futile attempt to feel normal again. Will I ever learn my lesson? Probably not, if I haven’t by now.

Last night, I had another friend over and also consumed more wine than I should have as well as more cheese than I should have in such close proximity to hitting the hay. I can’t consume alcohol or heavy food before bed, because my metabolism goes into overdrive and my core temperature skyrockets to the point that I wish I could crawl out of my own skin because of how hot I get. How is it that a person can be sleeping in just their underwear, with NO covers on, when it’s only 45 degrees outside, and still wake up boiling hot? It’s uncomfortable… I can tell you that much; and it greatly hindered my ability to get quality sleep last night, so I’ve been looking shitty all day.

I started this week with every intention of cooking and eating healthy, but that plan went down the toilet as soon as a tin of cookies arrived at my work desk, courtesy (cough *SABOTAGE* cough) of one of the service companies we use. That coupled with my alcohol intake and lack of sleep has me feeling rather unhealthy as I sit here typing this.

I started my week with a broiled salmon fillet, some mashed potatoes (<— not particularly healthy, but damn good), and steamed spinach and kale.

9B5A3A6C-7FE2-4F76-A888-5E016C0416B6 — The only nourishing thing I fed my body this week

For the Salmon:

Start with one or two large salmon fillets; make sure there are no bones before cooking (skin on is fine, as it will come off when cooked)
Heat the over to 375 degrees
Generously oil a baking sheet with some olive oil and place the salmon fillets skin-side-down on the baking sheet
Drizzle and brush more olive oil onto the tops of the fillets and squeeze fresh lemon juice over them
Sprinkle generously with salt, pepper, and granulated garlic
Cut another lemon into round slices, and place a couple of slices on top of each fillet
Bake for 15 minutes (give or take depending on the size and thickness of the fillet
Serve with a wedge of fresh lemon and sprinkle with fresh parsley

For the Mashed Potatoes:

Start with a sack of yellow or white potatoes, or use 3-4 large Yukon or Idaho potatoes; potatoes should be scrubbed thoroughly and cut into halves or quarters depending on their size
Boil the potatoes in a large pot of salted water until they are penetrable with the tines of a fork (usually 20 minutes of boiling)

I like to use the baby potatoes when I make mashed potatoes, as they don’t need to be cut up or peeled. I like to include the skin of the potato when I mash them, as it creates texture, flavor, and the skin is full of nutrients

After the potatoes are cooked through, reserve about 1/3 of a cup of the potato water (you can ladle it out into a measuring cup if needed)
Drain the potatoes (apart from about 1/3 of a cup of the potato water which you will mash them in)
Add a generous amount of butter (I’d say about 2 TBS.), salt and pepper, and granulated garlic and give them a good mashing
If they are to dry (which they really shouldn’t be if you added enough butter and left in enough water), feel free to add some cream or even a dollop of sour cream or creme fraiche
Make sure you taste test them to see if they need more seasoning!

One of the ultimate comfort foods… you really can’t go wrong with some good mashed potatoes, unless of course you’ve f*cked them up and they aren’t good ;p

I can’t wait to wake up tomorrow feeling refreshed having slept for 10 hours straight. I want to go off on a political tangent right now about the state of the world, but no one needs that since we’re all inundated with tragic news 24/7 these days. I guess when times are bad and it seems the entire world is falling apart, we have to make changes and make a difference where we can, and that means starting with ourselves (queue Michael Jackson’s “Man in the Mirror”). I’ve been trying to be more conscious of my plastic use as well as my use of palm oil products (hello Nutella …. looking at you). I can’t change the world or reverse climate change or animal extinction as a single person, but I can certainly do my part to help.

I am currently avoiding doing laundry because I am lazy, the basement is cold, and I hate putting clothes away when they’re done being laundered. I not only have to wash my own clothes, but I also need to do bed sheets, towels, and throw blankets… the amount of laundry I should be doing right now is overwhelming. Oh well… I’ll have all week to do laundry since I will be completely and utterly alone the entire week. Or, I can just be a dirt bag who keeps re-wearing the same clothes over and over without washing them. Nothing new there…

Since my boyfriend will be in Italy and not driving or moving the car at all this week, I will be responsible for re-parking on the necessary days. I had my “second” lesson on learning how to drive stick shift today (the first time was on the Porsche and the tire blew out…not a good first time). I don’t know how well I’m going to be able to handle parking the car, but I am going to try my best…. I’ll only have to move it a couple of times and only a few blocks max to find parking. It shouldn’t be too hard, but it IS HARD for me. Not everyone can be good at everything, you know? Teaching me to drive stick is like taking the average man and trying to teach him ballet in one day, or taking a person who lives on take-out and barely knows how to boil an egg, and asking them to make homemade pasta and sauce from scratch. We all have our strengths and weakness, and given my poor peripheral vision and lack of basic gross motor skills, driving with three pedals and parallel parking on the streets of Brooklyn certainly are NOT my strengths.

We went to the Jacob Riis beach in the Rockaways since there is a huge empty parking lot… the highlight for me was clearly the beach and not learning how to drive with 3 pedals

Anyhow, onto the topic of food! I know I said I’m trying not to eat meat this year, but since most of the people in my life do eat meat, I still occasionally cook with it (** and will make an exception for steak tartare). I usually only cook meat once every two weeks or so – the rest of time I’m making pasta or seafood dishes. When I do cook with meat, I splurge to make sure it is the best quality possible – in today’s world of global warming and factory farming, I feel it’s important to do our part where ever we can. For me, this means buying meat, eggs and poultry that I know was raised humanely on small-scale farming operations and is free of hormones and antibiotics.

Small farms are the way to go
Farm fresh!

I’ve had a bottle of amarone in the apartment for the last month and have been saving it for a special occasion, and/or to accompany a nice steak. If you know me and my affinity for good red wine, especially amarone, you’ll understand how hard it has been for me to keep my hands off that bottle for the last 5 weeks :p

Wine steward Peeps approves

I wanted to cook this on the grill, but seeing as how it was 20 degrees outside, it sadly ended up being cooked in a cast iron skillet

I decided to make a nice steak, not only to accompany the bottle of amarone (yes, I choose food to accompany the wine instead of the other way around), but also to celebrate. My boyfriend was off Friday night, and since he normally works, that was celebration enough. We decided to toast 2019 and send off 2018 with a big “F*CK YOU.” 2018 was not the best year and ended on a rather down note… but here we are, a fresh new year.

Polenta with sauteed mushrooms, a poached egg, and Gorgonzola cream sauce

Dessert was a panettone bread pudding since we have had not one, but two panettone cakes sitting in the apartment since before Christmas. Neither me nor my boyfriend, nor anyone else I have ever met actually, seems to like panettone. I’m not really keen on the orange flavor many of them have or the abundance of liquor soaked raisins. However, I made it into a rather delightful pudding with chocolate chips and served it up hot with vanilla ice cream. It was pretty damn delicious as a pudding, but required 8 eggs and like 4 cups of milk/cream!!!!

The only way to eat panettone – in a hot bread pudding.

UPDATE AS OF 01/14/2019:

I was unable to master driving stick shift in one day this weekend, and therefore am unable to park the car, which now has a ticket 🙂 I stalled in the MIDDLE of an intersection MULTIPLE times before I started crying and freaked out and had to switch seats with my boyfriend. I need a lot more practice…..

Now that I am home alone for the next 7 days, I will also probably be living on a diet of soups, salads, and random grains…. that’s what I usually eat when I have no one to cook for. Case in point, my sorry dinner tonight, that I consumed while sitting in a bubble bath, because I’m classy like that:

Tag: cleaneating

Saturday Night In and Seafood

Learning to Drive Stick and a Very Aptly Named Steak