B-Well Report: Making a meal of it

I resurrected the cookbooks on the weekend and made a Bill Granger sticky date pudding with butterscotch sauce.  A bit old hat now, I know, but it was eagerly and appreciately devoured by my little tribe with delicious curls of Streets Blue Ribbon ice cream.  Which is more than can be said for the slow-cooked lamb shanks.

I was such a great family dining moment, with all of us round the table, our faces glowing with shared pleasure, that I thought it would fun be to make a new pudding every Sunday during Winter. While this may sound like a Very Bad Idea in this forum, in fact, the promise of something special to cook and share with family helps me apply discipline during the rest of the week. A bit like the practice of sitting down to eat and using the good china and proper utensils. Making food a celebration and attaching some degree of formality to it, rather than something to snatch on the run.

The same applies to my dire habit of eating a sandwich at my desk in front of the computer I am shackled to for hours and hours and hours every day. I could certainly make more of my lunch break than I do, without dropping crumbs into the keyboard or crunching audibly on a Pink Lady.  (Then there is the eternal problem of what to pack in each child's lunchbox that will be nourishing and actually eaten, but that's another challenge.)

Imagine how much more impressive a food journal would sound if each meal read like a menu from a best-selling cookbook... and not a forensic list of week-old fridge left-overs.

Chicken paillard with rocket and cherry tomatoes
Pasta e fagioli

Crips skin salmon with sweet chilli dressing

Orange sweet potato, labne and rocket salad

Pumpkin roasted hazlenut and feta salad

Peach melba

 
That's going to be my approach this week.  ...and I think we shall have two course dinners on Sunday (exercising portion control, of course).  The recipe books might be getting a workout at last.
 
With thanks to Debra and Jeanne for pricking my conscience and helping to maintain my enthusiasm for making subtle lifestyle changes, or at least contemplating them.