Fat Mommy to Fit Mommy

This week, I started focusing again on what exactly I am putting in my body. I tried to arrange my schedule so that I spend an hour or so in the afternoon preparing dinner. This has been very helpful and has made dinnertime less stressful - however, in order to do this, I've had to give up my afternoon nap.

Not so good. My 6 month old daughter Luci typically goes to sleep at 8pm. However, she wakes up to eat at midnight, and then 4am and every half hour after that until 8am. Of course, at 8am, I'm up getting my other kids ready for school.

Moral of the story - I desperately need that 30 minute nap. Either that or I'm going to have to up my coffee consumption from 1 cup to 3 cups per day! Which I don't want to do.

I don't know what the solution is. I suppose the first step would be to buy a deep freeze, so that I can prepare meals further in advance. I'm also going to have to suck it up and start eating chicken again.

You know how hard it is to eat healthy when you dislike a good amount of food? Here are some of the foods that I cannot stand:

All fish/seafood. (yeah, lucky me. i WANT to like fish, but i really cannot stomach it)
Cottage cheese (i do sneak it into my lasagna though)
Tomatoes
Onions
Cheese (i like cheddar and mozza only, fresh parmasan is all right)
Yogurt
Peppers (i use them for cooking/flavour, but don't eat them)
Avocado (i actually vomited the first time i ate this)
Milk
Anything "meaty tasting" - yes, i dip my steak in ketchup still, unless there is a fantastic peppercorn sauce handy
Anything with too much of a grainy texture. uh huh - whole grain bread, i don't like. i don't mind whole grain buns - something about the chewy texture makes this ok with me. maybe it's the different roles of bread and buns. beats me.
Ethnic food - i don't like thai, greek, japanese, east indian... yeah. i try, trust me, but nope. and really, i don't even like true chinese food - ginger "beef" (yes, i am not convinced it's really beef) is as far as i'm willing to go down that road.

That's just a sample. I am truly a picky eater. I think it's partially because I grew up in a house where plain food reigned supreme - my dad did not like heavily seasoned or flavourful food. a typical family meal would be fried ground beef (ketchup being the seasoning), plain baked potatoes and boiled green beans.

Nowadays, I like seasoning, but I still find that my taste is pretty plain. When I cook holiday meals for my family, they often grumble when they find that I've added some rosemary to the mashed potatoes, and they won't go near the lemon dill sauce that I make for the asparagus. And it is considered blasphemy that I actually SEASON my turkey before putting it in the oven.

Anyway - if I had to rate this week of eating, I'd give it about a 4/10. Next week needs to be better. Next week my swimming classes start. Despite my good intentions, I did not swim this week - I instead came down with a horrible cold. I have no intention of spreading it around the pool, for one, and for two, I don't want to get any sicker!

Here is a recipe for one of the better tasting dishes that I grew up on. Of course, the rosemary is my addition...

Pork Tenderloin with Stuffing

Stuffing:
5 slices white bread (you can use whole wheat, but it changes the texture)
1/3 cup butter or margarine
pinch of salt
pinch of pepper
1 TBSP poultry seasoning (this is the secret ingredient)

Melt butter in microwave. In a large bowl, tear up bread into medium pieces (about 10 pieces per slice). Add salt, pepper, melted butter, and poultry seasoning. Toss with hands.

Slice pork tenderloin down the centre lengthwise - but only cut about 1/2 way through the meat (this will open the meat up a bit but don't slice in half). Cover with wax paper or plastic wrap. Use a meat tenderizer and flatten meat to about 1 cm thickness.

Scoop stuffing onto meat, and fold edges of pork around the stuffing. Secure with twine or use toothpicks. I'll post a photo the next time I make this, but basically, think of a hot dog bun (the pork) and a hot dog (the stuffing). Terrible imagery for such a lovely meal but oh well.

Spring outside of pork with rosemary seasoning. Place in a casserole dish (I actually use a square stoneware baker). Cook in a preheated oven at 375F for 25 minutes. After 25 minutes, flip over and cook for 25 more minutes. If you have a good meat rack to place in the dish, you won't need to flip.

Slice and serve - each tenderloin typically serves 4 people. I usually make extra stuffing as it is extremely popular.

All right. Time to start thinking what to feed 4 kids, plus me and my husband for lunch!!!