In the spring of 2010, my husband and I had the urge to paint our house. We were tired of the off-white and hospital colors left by the last owners and we wanted to finally make the place our own. We assumed that painting wouldn’t be too difficult. Of course, our house has lots of room but, if we did one floor every weekend, we’d be done within one month. Well, that was funny (or not!). At the end of the first weekend, we had about half of a floor done and we realized that we might have underestimated how difficult painting was. After the first week, although we were extremely excited about the new colors, we were dreading painting, which made us delay a lot of the work. But now, after two years of on-and-off painting, we finished the staircases and hallway, and we are finally done!
You might wonder what painting has to do with food. Well, painting is actually one of the worst time for us, to make good food decisions. I don’t know if it’s because of the fumes or because we need to get a reward for the hard work but, for the past two years, every time we’ve painted, we’ve eaten poorly. I was determined not to fall into that trap for our last painting project.
Last week, we did get food delivered from our favorite Chinese restaurant in town, Red Lantern. It is mainly our favorite place because they offer “premium white chicken” for an extra dollar but, also, because they have super fast delivery. Now, I can imagine some of you rolling your eyes at the idea of ordering Chinese food. We normally get sesame or General Tso chicken, which definitely would not be a healthy choice. The breading, the thick sauce. It’s tasty but it’s not good for us at all. Well, last week, we made the effort to, at least, not get anything breaded. My husband picked the bourbon chicken, and I went for the chicken and vegetables. I never want to pick this as it’s in the healthy (aka boring) section but every time I get it, I remember how tasty it really is! There is a very light sauce, no breading, and tons of vegetables! Also, the two meals we ordered really turned into 4-5 meals as we could never eat it all in one sitting.
This weekend, we didn’t do quite as well.
On Saturday evening, we were both exhausted and wanted greasy food BADLY! I ended up driving to a local burger joint to get some take-out. I convinced myself that a hamburger with lettuce, mushroom and tomato would be good enough until I noticed that carrot cake was their special dessert of the day. How could I ever resist carrot cake?!? So we backtracked a bit that night but it was well worth it. 🙂 On Sunday, I decided that we’d eat a little bit better. I threw the ingredient in the bread machine and made a loaf of bread with tons of Herbes de Provence. Yum! I also thawed some pulled pork I bought at the Cheese Shop a few weeks ago. I still had some of the coleslaw I made earlier in the week as well. So, with these three elements, I made a deconstructed pulled pork sandwich. Toasted fresh slice of bread, a thick spread of pulled pork and a side of coleslaw. Not super pretty but definitely tasty!
So there it is. Two weekends of lazy eating. BUT, I am starting this week fresh, with fully painted walls, no more schoolwork, and a long list of delicious recipes to try! Wish me (and my tummy) luck! 🙂
The Hungry Quebbie 