Week Twenty Six: Baking and Aching

 Wow-what a week!

I've decided to make Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays my down days. One hour eating windows on my down days, four hours or less on my up days during the week, and on the weekends, I open up my windows wide for seven to eight hours. I prefer six or seven-hour windows on the weekends, but that isn't always possible- especially this past weekend.

But let's start at the beginning.

Mondays are always hard because I'm coming back from a nice open and filling weekend. I get hungry earlier, but water usually staves off pangs when they come. 

I drink a lot of water on Mondays! 

When I got home, I made a colossal chicken cobb salad. I should have stopped there, but I found myself eating food 'just to get rid of it.' I did that a lot this week too, which is very bad any day, not just down days!

Tuesday was better, though I still had to remind myself I wasn't a trash can and that I didn't need to finish something off if I really wasn't craving it. I really should have consulted the Fast, Feast, Repeat book again to refresh my resolve, but instead, I bought myself a treat I'd wanted for weeks.

There's nothing wrong with getting myself something I'd been craving, by the way- I just didn't need to buy two big boxes of it!

Wednesday was a little more challenging as a down day, and though I'd eaten my one meal in one hour, I supplemented that meal more than I should have. It's so much harder when you don't have good things prepared ahead of time! Maybe this weekend I could do something about it.

Thursday went well, though I'd eaten until more than satisfied and had a half meal later on before my window closed.

Friday was better than Wednesday, yet I still couldn't help supplementing with little extras.

Saturday was awesome! I made my breakfast near noon and enjoyed my first meal immensely. We were so excited about spring coming that we bought many different herbs and greens for fresh future salads and seasonings. 

I defrosted a pork loin for meal-making that night. I'd made two different meals; I made Green Soup for my down days during the week, and since my husband and I were the only ones eating that night, I used the rest to make pork tenderloins in a creamy wine-rosemary infused sauce with buttered carrots, green beans, and buttered noodles. 

Making two meals at once isn't easy. I'd been out of practice for so long I was hurting by the end of the night. We packed up the soup when it cooled into single-serving containers, so all I had to do was put some rice in a bowl (which was already cooked and in a gallon bag in the fridge), add the soup, and I had a meal that would only be a few minutes in the microwave. 

Down days handled!

Then came Sunday. I had ideas of what I'd wanted to do, and so did my husband. But the gears were missing a few teeth. 

I had to re-pot the plants, and since it was still cold out, all of them wound up in my sunny sewing/writing room. By the time I was done, I'd needed a break. I still had so much to do!

My husband bought a pasta sheeter, and I bought a book on making pasta by hand, along with a small, ridged pasta board and the pasta flours we'd need to make dinner that night. Yes, I had soup in the fridge, but this was his famous Radiatore Soup; it's a cream-based soup with sauteed grape tomatoes, spinach, and chicken in a wine-and-herb-infused broth, with Radiatore pasta nuggets.

You need an extruder to make Radiatore pasta. 

He wanted me to use the sheeter, but I wanted to make the Radiatore by hand. I hadn't made pasta before. It looked easy enough, so I thought I'd give it a go. However, my husband also wanted fresh rolls and loaf bread, and since I'm the bread expert of the house. I'm the only one who can shape them correctly. So now I'm not only responsible for making the fresh pasta right before it goes in the pot, but I'm also supposed to shape the bread dough for both dinner and for sandwiches during the week.

Image by PublicDomainImages from Pixabay 

I shaped three loaves, a dozen large buns, and about two dozen dinner rolls. My husband also needed about a pound and a half of pasta made. The rolls and bread were done with perfection- I can shape bread dough in my sleep. 

But the pasta? A lot of trial and error. The dough was too soft, so I added flour, re-kneaded it, and let it rest. Twice. It took me about thirty minutes to get a pasta-making rhythm going, and by the time the pasta was done, more than two hours had passed, and my shoulders were aching.

Because of me, dinner was late. I ate, although my window should have shut over thirty minutes ago. 

Oops. 

It didn't help that my husband joked that my pasta looked like giant mealworms. Thanks, Hun.  The soup still turned out well, but the next time I need to prep a lot of stuff, I'm using the pasta sheeter!

Maybe I'm weird, but I still would like to make fresh pasta next week—this time with the sheeter.

This morning I still ache a bit. I didn't even know I had that many muscles in my neck and shoulders! I'm confident that this week will go well because most of the food I'll be eating has already been prepped and ready to go. There's nothing like homemade soup with a sandwich made with freshly baked bread.

I'll also take another look at the book and see where I can improve and change my eating habits. In the meantime, I'm gaining muscle from my Ache and Bake weekend!