Maintenance: Week 1

It was very difficult to stay completely strict to the maintenance cycle plan this week.  With Sunday being Easter, my friends and I went to the Easter Brunch at the Claddagh, and later on was Easter dinner with a friend's family.  Dinner was pretty well on-key (shrimp with broccoli, carrots, and cabbage), except that I'd eaten quite a bit off for brunch (sausage, ham, omelette, sweets).  Plus there was the little sliver of cheesecake and 2... no, 3 chocolate chip cookies.  Oops.  Saturday, I had done pretty well though.  I ate the leftovers of my crab from Friday, then boiled up the shells to make a seafood stock.

Always keep the shells.  Always!

The stock was used later on during my Wednesday milk day to create a creamy onion soup that had just a hint of crab flavoring to it.  Monday, I had salmon, broccoli, carrots, and a fizzy mango drink.  I discovered this carbonated beverage thing that uses mango puree and sparkling water and that's it - no added anything - so it made a really refreshing fizzy drink.  I'd been craving a soda for a little while, so this is a great and healthy alternative!  I'm also drinking sparkling water more often than still water this week.

I don't remember Tuesday.  What did I have on Tuesday?  Was there a Tuesday?  Yeah, total blank.  Wednesday, as mentioned, was a milk day.  I bought some Kefir to try.  I couldn't figure out anything to do with it to make it tastier than the standard lassi, or throw it in soup.  And it wasn't cooperating - I couldn't get the right mix of anything to make it a tasty drink, so it became the onion soup, which was awesome.  Using my Creamy Onion Soup variation, I put the Kefir in place of the yogurt, 1/2 cup crab stock and 1/2 cup Herbal Soup in place of the plain water.  I didn't put the herbs in with the onion since I used them for the herbal soup, and I didn't use any honey with it.  I'm finding now that if you dice up the onions really finely, they produce enough of their own liquid that the honey isn't required.

Thursday was also a milk day, but I was just not feeling up to babysitting a vat of milk to turn it into yogurt.  We went out for Indian food for lunch and I ate it, darn it. I had some chai tea latte later on, but lunch was delicious - just a mix of the vegetarian options from the buffet.

I weighed myself this morning - no change!  So I'm holding steady, which is awesome.  Last night I cooked up some ratatouille (why didn't I think of THIS one before??) and shrimp in beurre blanc for today.  The only way this could have been better is if I had a glass of the white wine I used for cooking to sip with it.  It was so delicious!  Yes, there was butter involved with cooking the shrimp.  No, I didn't consume the butter.  At least, if I did consume some butter, it was just droplets.

Recipe will be available on the recipes page later this evening  now available! In the meantime, drool over this!