Monday, April 4, 2011

Not Doing My Usual Fast Food Thing

[Guest post by hubby.]

It's been four days since wifey and the toddler left to visit Germany. They arrived safely, and everyone is in good spirits considering everything that's been going on. My father-in-law is an admirable gentleman.

Except for an outing to a sit-down restaurant where my brother treated the teenager and me to lunch, I haven't had fast food (besides, the restaurant wasn't really fast food). That's not a big deal for many folks, but it's quite an accomplishment for me as I've eaten so much fast food when left to my own devices.

I put together the dinner pictured above a couple of nights ago - just a simple salad and Trader Joe's pesto flatbread.

The recently delivered CSA box contained familiar goodies:
  • Pink lady apples
  • Gala apples
  • Ruby grapefruits
  • Hass avocados
  • Collard bunch
  • Broccoli
  • Asparagus
  • Red beets
  • Butterball potatoes
  • Leaf lettuce

I've already eaten two apples as well as the bunch of leaf lettuce. For yesterday's dinner, I put together bibim bap ("mixed rice" in Korean), consisting of brown rice, bean sprouts, julienned white radish, boiled sweet potato shoots, boiled spinach, and toasted sesame seeds, all mixed together with some gochujang (red pepper paste) sauce. Those four veggie items came already prepared in one convenient container box from a local Korean grocery store.


For a few minutes, I thought I wasn't going to be able to handle the spiciness from the gochujang, but I was okay. It reminded me of when I first found out how much both wifey and the teenager could handle spicy food years ago. The brief conversation went something like this:

Me: Wow! This [don't remember what the food item was] is really spicy! [I proceeded to pour a glass of milk.]
Teenager: No. It's not spicy at all.
Wifey: Yeah. This really isn't spicy.

I was stunned, in awe, and so humbled. Haha!

Returning to yesterday's dinner, I separated and washed the leaf lettuce from the CSA box.

And I ate the leaves like I did with red leaf lettuce while growing up, by dipping them in gochujang and eating them after every spoonful of bibim bap. The dinner was really good and so much better than, and preferable to, any fast food meal.

The real cool thing about eating healthier these days is that I'm not just eating healthier food for the sake of it; I actually truly enjoy the taste. Such a big difference compared to how it used to be for me.

Oh! It just occurred to me why I had bibim bap for dinner last night. It's wifey's favorite meal.

~Grateful Hubby