Wednesday 29 August 2007

Veggies for tea, salad for lunch

I had a terribly un-CRON pub lunch yesterday; I was on my own, I could have gone home and made a big salad or steamed some chard, but... no. I was in a bit of a f*ck it mood; I wanted something yummy and prepared by someone else for me. Gluttony left over from the bank holiday weekend, I guess. It's so easy to slip back into habits that aren't as good as they could be.

So I ate my little pot of chilli hummus, my 4 or so olives, my 3 tiny quail's eggs, my half apple, and my cheese and my (white! French!) bread in the sunshine and I enjoyed every bite, more or less. But I did keep thinking, I really shouldn't be doing this...

Last night I cooked for friends; we got the BBQ out again, and we grilled sweetcorn, and halloumi, and huge field mushrooms. I made a tomato salad with cinnamon basil, and a runner bean and leek salad with non-fat yoghurt and mint dressing, and picked lots of leaves from the allotment. Someone bought over a veggie pizza but it was easy enough to get away with just eating a small slice and it was thin-crusted, and I didn't eat any of the bread that the others were eating with their burgers - no burger either, obviously. One piece of halloumi, one mushroom, a whole ear of corn, and a lot of the salad for me. So a healthy veggie meal, if not CRON. And one with a very small footprint in terms of food miles, from metres (end of the garden) to one mile (the local farm shop) - oh, via Cyprus for the halloumi, I guess. Shame having the BBQ sort of cancelled out the eco-purity, but...

This morning I drove up to London and stopped off to fill P's fridge with veggies. I've had salad for lunch with cottage cheese, and lots of leaves, and tomatoes, and beetroot and lots of veggie goodness. I was still really craving bread to go with it though. :-(

Now I have to spend this afternoon writing the tasting list for tonight's wine tasting and drag 12 bottles of rose wine in a suitcase from East London to West. I'm not really looking forward to that bit. :-( At the tasting I will attempt to eat as little of the cheese I have instructed P to buy from Neal's Yard as I can, and hold out for steamed chard and broccoli when we get home. Unfortunately a bit of the f*ck it mentality is still lingering... if I can't CRON seriously, it does feel like deprivation (we all know how many piles of veggies it takes) and I think this has been my problem recently - not enough time to sit down and do it properly, so I have a bite of something here, a bite of something there, and before I know it I want a plate of cheese and bread for dinner and not my steamed greens and brewer's yeast.

EDIT. Oh bloody hell and buggeration. There is artisan cheese in P's fridge and I just absent-mindedly ate a (small) piece with the rest of the lunchtime salad greens. Dammit!

5 comments:

Deborah said...

ah, the comfort food. Why can't we retrain ourselves to new comfort food?!?!? And what's so comfortable about it anyway?!?!? I feel good only for the hour or so afterwards and then really bad emotionally as well as physically.
Stay strong, you will get back to it, just as I will. Right!?!
;-D

Schatze said...

Sara - Thank you so much for the really sweet comment!

What about alloting yourself a certain amount of cheese a week, like an ounce or two? Maybe even a certain number of bits of bread. That way you can still have a little bit, really enjoy it, and maybe not feel quite so bad and it's planned to fit in with your numbers.
I don't know if you'd feel right about that or not, but I don't like to see people upset over food.

Those grilled veggies and salads sounded wonderful, by the way! You are my inspiration for creative produce dishes.

Schatze said...

OOh Sara, I'm so upset I'm shaking. My blog just got "flamed"...

Sara said...

Christina - I just read that post on your blog, and personally I think it was overly agressive and it's very unfair on you and what you have been writing recently. I certainly don't read your blog and think "lies!" or "OMIGOD she's starving herself again and trying to pretend she's not". I'd comment gently if I did! I hope people would do the same for me. Don't let it put you off blogging one little bit, or from enjoying / getting back to enjoying food healthily. Yes, your calorie level is low - but better low with fruits and veggies and lean meats and fish than low from slim-fast / "diet" meals, better low with real food.

Schatze said...

Thank you, you are a sweetheart! I Excellent post today, too.

Live til 120? Will my retirement money last that long??? ;)
I too want to live as full and happy a life as possible, and healthy food is necessary to...you know..BEING healthy. Whether I live to 70 or 100 or more.