WIAW 35

Normally I show a fairly typical day. Usually I’m either working from home, or going out on a job in the afternoon, after lunch, so I can easily photograph my meals at home. A year ago, I was carrying lunches and eating in parks or coffee shops between calls – but my work has changed, and I do more at home, now, or just go to the clients in the afternoon.

One result of this is that it looks as if I never leave the house… which isn’t quite true…

So this week I decided to follow an atypical day – though one I hope will be more typical in future! I have written about going out in the evening to a gathering at a friend’s house, and bringing dinner with me for that. This time, though, I was going out to a meeting of an organization some friends are in, and I was not going to be able to eat at my normal dinner time. You may have noticed that I never show snacks – well, that’s because I very rarely eat between meals. I never really did, routinely – even when I worked in an office, my coffee break was just coffee (or sometimes, finally, my  very late breakfast…) If my meals go off schedule, though, I’ll plan a snack so I don’t get too hungry and crash before eating, which can happen to me.

So – yesterday I had an experiment for breakfast. I got some coarsely ground cornmeal from a local farmer, and tried making polenta. It’s still coming out a bit too chewy, so I’m going to have to play with it more – and cook it even longer… and it didn’t hold together when I reheated it, so I had a pool of cornmeal mush, or Romania mamaliga, or… Tasted good, anyway. I microwaved it with my egg muffins, made with a little sausage and some leftover kale chopped fine. It is nice to have a breakfast I can just heat quickly.

Fall is definitely here, whatever the calendar says, and yesterday was quite cool. I’m back to hot soup! I’d cooked a batch of chicken legs a couple of days earlier, so I had both broth and cooked chicken in the fridge. Put the broth in a pan with chopped vegetables and an herb cube, added the chicken when the vegetables were cooked, served… had crackers on the side (that I didn’t get a picture of.) So far, so typical…

I was leaving the house a bit before 7, so around 6, I put a snack together. Not much – I wasn’t really hungry – but I had some cheese on 2 rice cakes, so I had both protein and a complex carb, which carry me best. I’d finished the coleslaw or I might have added a little of that, or an apple would have been nice… but neither of them would work alone for me.

I got home after 10, quite ready for a meal but not starving. The fastest thing to make was eggs… so I thought – omelet. I tend to use the term quite loosely – I don’t differentiate in my own mind between a French omelet, an Italian Frittata, a Spanish Tortilla, and a bunch of eggs thrown in a pan over something… What I actually made here was closest to a Spanish Tortilla de Patatas – eggs with potatoes. I had a couple of little new red potatoes, so I zapped them in the microwave while I tossed some sauteed celery and leftover green beans from the freezer into the pan, and beat a few eggs. I then sliced the barely-cooked potatoes, put them in to just start to brown, and poured the eggs over them. When they were mostly cooked, I flipped them to cook the other side, and slid them onto a plate. (Since speed was a factor, I also skipped setting up a tripod… and I’m sorry, the picture is a bit more blurry than I realized at the time…)

If I do join this society, or start other evening activities (which I hope to do, as my migraines are improving) I won’t always, or even usually, make something fresh when I get home. I may have leftovers, or put something in the slow cooker. I also may be changing my schedule, as my work schedule has been changing… I now normally eat dinner at 8, because for a long time I routinely worked until 6 or even 7, but if dinner moves to 7, it will be easier to have the real dinner at 6 or earlier, and the snack at night. (Right now, I’m just not hungry enough for a full meal that early.) My whole day is gradually sliding a bit earlier, so we’ll see how this affects meals.

Joining Jenn at Peas and Crayons