Lonely Love Day

Happy Valentine's Day everyone! Hope you all had a lovely day (see what I did there?). I should've really prepared for today but it didn't work out so I had no valentine at all :( but one of my gorgeous friends was handing out valentine carrots (she'd bought a bag of carrots and wrote 'Happy Valentine's Day' on them) and I got one. I felt loved then.

I've been playing with food ideas for the day of romance, so for breakfast I wanted to curl my bacon strips into a heart but, in my house, when we freeze bacon, it's cut into little square bits for ease of use. So a curly heart was not going to happen. I got out my heart shaped cookie cutter to try that before and after the bacon pieces had cooked, and I eventually gave up when I ended up with globby shapes of nothingness (delicious globs at that).

It's been two weeks already?

Did anyone miss me? Christmas-and-New-Years time somehow just flew past my head and I haven't had a chance to stop and write about the fabulous meals I've made, meals I've enjoyed, and most importantly, meals I've spent with family. Or about how drastically my daily life has changed in the last 13 days. So I'll just do a round up of all the stuff that's been going on.

I think it was on the 17th where I decided that enough was enough and my body just needed a break from the unnecessary stress I was putting on it. More, but still not enough food to cater for every bit of my body was just wearing it down, so I decided that from then til the Sunday (the 23rd), I'd not stress about what I ate (of course, I'd still be super paleo and stuff, but if I wanted a bite of bacon when I'd already had breakfast, I'd have it, for instance) and I'd do an entire week of yoga instead of super-crazy-hardcore pilates which was getting to my back and neck. The idea of it was to completely chill my body out and see if stress was the reason why my body was in the weird formation it was in. By the end of my very calm week, I'd definitely seen some change in how I thought and how my body looked and felt, but the only bad thing I got from it was that I didn't want to push myself through another pilates workout again! Stretching and moving slowly is so much more fun than double leg lifts. I've definitely dropped down on how often I do pilates now. Since that week, I've had a ton more energy and I'm so much more relaxed, it's crazy. Having that big week of calm really did change my outlook on bodily stress and I think I'll carry my little experience with me for quite some time.

Baba Ghanoush

I can't say I'm impressed. However, I also can't say that I've had baba ghanoush before, so I have nothing to compare this to. I'm still not impressed.

I really wish I put in the effort to use the barbecue to cook the eggplant.
I wish I roasted the garlic.
I wish I had some spices, or at least the knowledge of which spices, to add to this dish.
I wish I added some salt.
I wish I had some salty pita bread in the house.
I wish baba ghanoush could be made with the eggplant still piping hot from the oven/barbecue to keep all the delicious smell in.

So obviously my baba ghanoush lacked a bit of flavour. But I can always add a bit of flavour later, right? Next time I have it (I'm thinking with eggs in the morning), I'll add a ton of flavour to it - I'm thinking salt, olive oil, cayenne - but if I make it again, I'll definitely smokey up the eggplant. Some smoke would make a difference I reckon!