First Dishes

As Daniel put it on Facebook, "We have ignition!"

Our stove works! Hallelujah! The plumber came back early Saturday morning (6:30 AM) and finished hooking up the propane tanks. After letting the gas fill the pipeline over the morning, the burners lit around noon. On Sunday, I made roasted Brussels sprouts.

Bru-sselly Sproouuts...

Yesterday, since I was working from home, I started a pot of corned beef and cabbage around noon-time and let it go on low for 4 hours. I also made a platter of bacon in the oven, and boiled some eggs for my particular type of egg salad:

Mel's Egg Salad
 
- 3 eggs
- 3-4 large celery ribs
- 2 thick (1/4") slices onion
- 1 tbs capers
- pitted olives if you have them around (I didn't)
- yellow mustard
- smoked paprika
- yellow curry powder
- kosher salt
- black pepper

Hardboil the eggs. I like everything fully cooked, some may not. I dice the celery and onion into small dice (I would say maybe 1/8" to 1/4" cubed?).  Add capers, olives. I squeeze yellow mustard over the whole thing until it is sufficiently moistened for my taste. Add smoked paprika, curry powder, salt, and pepper to taste. I like a lot of smoked paprika.

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Notice I don't use mayo.  I usually don't keep homemade mayo around, and I hate (HATE) storebought mayo. Bleh. So I usually do without. My friend Mark says this is NOT egg salad and is an abomination. Meh, I'm the one eating it, so neener-neener.  Oh yeah, sometimes I like different mustards - Dijon or the grainy brown one are good, too.  I adore sweet-hot mustards, but not here. And I am curious what that spicy Chinese horseradish mustard that you get with won-tons would taste like in here?

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Today also marks, I think, the start of a Whole30 for me. After losing 15 lb, it is REALLY frustrating to gain 8 of them back. ARGH. It doesn't matter a whit that people say, "Oh you're not fat", because, honestly, the only opinion that matters is the one staring at you in the mirror.  I'm strong, I'm happy, but I hate (HAAAAATE) the feeling of my pants being tight, the 'backfat' under my bra line becoming more obvious, the gut. (HAAAAAAAAATE).

So far, here's what I've eaten today:

Breakfast: half of egg salad from above, hot tea, iced tea, water, supplements

Snack: pile of salami

Lunch: corned beef & cabbage,  cut carrot & celery sticks, one cucumber stick, iced tea, supplements

Projected snack: "Just a Handful" Trader Joe's pouch of cashews, more tea

Projected dinner:  sausage and leftover Brussels sprouts, fruit?


My homeopathist warned that since I wasn't processing carbohydrates, maybe I might have to cut out all fruit and even some vegetables to drop a few pounds. I'll try Whole30 first, but intermittent fasting isn't too bad either.... ugh.