Monday and Tuesday in a Nutshell

SORRY I HAVEN'T BEEN POSTING! Now I can post to my heart's content because all my final papers, tests, projects, etc, are OVER! This calls for a celebration... anyways, last night and the day before I was working on my English project, which was actually a research paper on the history of the whale as food-- it included lots of weird recipes, as well as some politics and social history. I really liked the way it came out, so I might even post it on the blog, if people don't find it too boring. Anyways, I'll do Monday and Tuesday before I blog today.
Monday
Breakfast-- gingerbread, blackberries, a tangerine, and Greek yogurt with a sprinkle of grapenuts.

Lunch-- A Caprese sandwich with spinach and hummus to get the spinach to stick... unfortunately, I also added some balsamic, and since this wasn't sturdy bread, when I unwrapped it it kind of fell a part. Guess it's a good thing I take my lunch photos in the morning.

Snack-- A sliced apple, some Greek and Black's, another tangerine, some graham cracker sticks, and a spoonful of peanut butter, with some chai and soy milk. This was incredibly satisfying, but actually pretty light.

Dinner-- Good old comfort Chinese food:
Bok choy and mushrooms
Spicy eggplant, green peppers, and smoked tofu
With nutty brown rice.
Dessert-- grapes


Tuesday


Breakfast: can't get enough gingerbread! This time with this new "skyr" that I bought at Whole Foods-- it's basically Icelandic yogurt... I think the only difference in ingredients is some vegetable rennet. It tasted a bit more substantial, even though it was fat free... a bit like fromage blanc. It's too expensive to have all the time, but every once and a while would be nice. Also had blackberries and a banana with peanut butter.





Snack: Tuesdays I always need a snack because I have all my classes and thinking is tiring. I had a Kashi bar (Trying to use these up).
Lunch: Leftovers! And an apple
I got a pretty good workout yesterday. In yoga we did a Power Yoga video, and then I went home and ran a mile on the treadmill, then did 40 minutes on the elliptical. Sweating feels so good!
My snack was, of course, cottage cheese and grapenuts with blackberries, strawberries, and almonds.
Dinner: My dad made pineapple fried rice, but the problem with fried rice is every bowl I have, I get hungrier! I don't understand why that is... I always feel like I need to have different components to a meal, because I eat more slowly that way. Either way, this rice was packed with vegetables and protein, but it didn't really fill me up. I tried to have some kimchi on the side, but the flavors totally clashed.
The rice had: a combination of all our leftover rices: white, short-grain brown, and brown basmati
eggs
A tiny bit of shrimp
Green peppers
Fresh pineapple
Red onions
carrots
Flavorings: fish sauce, a kind of Thai seasoning (not curry)

Dessert: 2 tangerines (only 1 shown) and some hot chocolate

Week 1's meal summary

This is about to be a really boring post.
To summarize junior year, it's awesome! All my classes are great, and not taking history makes a huge difference with my workload.
AP Bio: the teacher explains everything as though you were having an everyday conversation, and we go into molecular structures in ridiculous detail. It meets 7 times a week, so I'm still getting used to that.
Math (TSTDM= Trigonometry, Statistics, Something else that starts with a T, Discrete Mathematics... it's a mouthful). The teacher, Mr. Khan is Indian-British, who stops every few minutes to ask if we understand or to say something like "Pi is WILD. It ain't rational... it will haunt you in your sleep."
AP French-- honestly, I'm probably the most disappointed with this, because the class size is too BIG... 21 people is way too huge for a language class, and there are annoying senior guys who can't even use the present tense, but find it necessary to say stupid things as often as possible... god, don't I sound like a killjoy, but it's true.
English-- MY FAVORITE! The Moby Dick elective is insane... never before have I been in an English class where everybody participates voluntarily, and everyone has something different to say.
Adv. Drawing/ Painting-- the most relaxing class to have last period. We're doing gesture painting as opposed to drawing. The teacher is also my
Art History teacher-- art history is also a really laid back class, and Mr. Wildeman calls people "dude moneys" and things "dongles."

Breakfast has been oatmeal every day this week, and here are sample photos.
Some possible stir-ins have been fruit compote, trail mix, banana, berries, coconut, peanut butter, etc.


A sample school lunch:

Dinners
Night 1-- Eggplant, squash and roasted pepper gratin with goat cheese and brown rice. And salad.

Night 2-- Red lentils with coconut milk, served with brown rice, sauteed vegetables, yogurt, and cilantro. Stirfried watercress.
Night 3-- I went straight from swim practice to piano, so we picked up food from Greek town: vegetarian moussaka for me, chicken for my mom, a Greek salad, and a spinach cous cous soup. The moussaka from artopolis is SO GOOD. It was an excruciating workout that day, so this incredibly caloric (probably) dish was great for me. It was a huge wedge of creamy cinnamon-spiked custard layered with eggplant, carrots and SWEET POTATO, served with rice. YUM.
Night 4-- Vietnamese-style claypot shrimp with glass noodles, celery, and onions, spinach and pepper salad with sweet and spicy dipping sauce, basmati rice. And corn.
Night 5 (AKA tonight)-- Swim meet tomorrow, so pasta gorging time: spaghetti with a sauce of eggplant, olives, squash, peppers and cherry tomatoes. Sadly, this was so bland that we had to add feta and sherry vinegar. We also had spinach salad and a caprese of cherry tomatoes and buffalo mozzarella... it was just from Trader Joe's but it was incredible, almost like fresh cottage cheese but less lumpy... I bet it would be great with fruit and a drizzle of honey.


I must confess that I haven't been doing any cooking, and as you can see, my mom has been going all out (my dad's not back yet). Actually, we haven't been eating until really late because she's usually in the kitchen for a long time, realizing she picked a complicated recipe that seemed really easy. I don't remember what she used to cook, but it used to seem so effortless... she really doesn't need to make such elaborate food (not that I don't appreciate it). The thing is that when I'm in training, I'm really more focused on getting food fast than being a gourmet.
PRACTICE HAS BEEN SO HARD. Every day I dread it, but once it's over I feel so strong, no matter how tired my muscles are. He makes us do IM order sets with shoes on, lunges around the pool, laps where we spring, then get out and do up-downs, etc. The other day a few people were 4 minutes late and we all had to do 40 up-downs as punishment. Yesterday we had to kick vertically while holding poles above our heads, and we also had to hold our breath for 10 lengths (breaths between lengths, of course). Today we did kicking sets and for some reason, I lapped people in my lane! I never thought I could kick before, but I'm starting to get the hang of it. Tomorrow is my first meet, and I've been put in all my favorite events. It's also my piano audition (lesson went fine), so it's going to be a tight fit.