epicurious/Romulo Yanes
I've eaten out so many times this past week in celebration of my birthday, I feel like I've forgotten how to cook. As regular readers know, I don't eat very much meat and I have a diet based on lots of vegetables and legumes. I am also very careful about the amount I eat. Five restaurant meals and lunch at my mother's in as many days has been a real eye opener for me.
In that short time, I've gotten used to larger portions and consequently I'm always hungry. Even though I brought doggy bags home from some restaurants, rather than eat the whole serving, I still ate more than I would at home. I've also been having massive cravings for salty things, because of course, restaurant chefs probably use more salt in a week than I would in a year. And I'm not even going to think about how many pounds I gained. Six meals. That's all it took.
It made me realize all over again the importance of regularly cooking your own meals, regulating your fat, salt and sugar intake, monitoring your portion size and eating less meat. The photo above is of the delicious dinner which I ate on my actual birthday. Venison (wrapped in bacon!) with gnocchi was the one meal I ate entirely. Below is the photo of what I cooked yesterday on my first night back in the kitchen. Even my husband was relieved to be eating beans.
