day two: lunch and issues of time

I ate a very late lunch at 4pm, but it was amazing. I never understood why cookbooks had salad recipes. What's so hard about throwing some vegetables and dressing over some greens? Well, after the warm mushroom salad I had for lunch -- I might never go back to regular non-recipe salads again. I baked cremini mushrooms in Wollersheim wine with a little garlic, and then mixed it all in with more Harmony Valley greens and some freshly chopped parsley, oregano, mint and sage. Cooking with fresh mint is new to me, but the flavor it adds to things is so beyond perfect.

The most difficult thing so far hasn't been my chocolate withdrawal (only two days in, I know -- but I eat A LOT of dark chocolate!!), but rather the time and timing involved with actually cooking my meals. As a grad student/teaching assistant/reference librarian/waitress, I rarely have time for sleep, much less cooking and doing all the dishes that cooking calls for. Today I worked the reference desk, taught a Photoshop class and rushed home to make/eat my mushroom salad before heading back downtown for a 2.5 hour long lecture. Most days like these, I grab a LUNA bar to tide me over. But only two short days into this project and I will never look at LUNA bars the same again. The ingredients are all processed and untraceable and Martha doesn't have any recipes that come close to recreating my favorite convenience snack. Which all makes me think that they are something I will for sure eliminate from my diet altogether, even after this month is over.