Pasta and "pasta"

Phew! I did it. I had pasta for lunch today! For some reason, pasta of any kind has always been one of my ultimate fear foods. In my ED mind, pasta = carb overload!!! = unhealthy = Blobs of fat piling up with no nutritional benefits. I would thus always choose other "safer" and "natural" starch options like potato, winter squash, oatmeal...

Also, I had this really weird conception that pasta wouldn't fill me up and satisfy me, that it will cause me to be hungry too easily (Ironically, while I hate the bloated filling of satiety, I also worry that I won't be satisfied...). But I knew pasta was something I really had to conquer, because truthfully, I used to love all kinds of noodles, and being scared of pasta would be severely limiting my social life (how many times have you been invited to a dinner of spaghetti? Or joined friends for pizza? Asked to go to an Italian restaurant?)

And to conquer this stupid, irrational fear, what can I do but to face it? And so I did. Granted, I made sure to buy whole wheat pasta, and created my own sauce, but taking this baby step still filled me with this inexplicable joy of accomplishment and triumph. I cannot wait for that day when I'd be able to order a whole serving of pasta in a restaurant with my friends, and be able to eat and enjoy the whole thing!

Anyway, my choice of pasta sauce was classic and simple, but with a bit of twist. This is what went into the sauce:

* 1/2 a can of tomato sauce
* chopped green capsicum/bell pepper
* chopped red onions
* diced tomato
* dash of red chili flakes
* salt and pepper to taste
* and the twist: about 1/2 cup of yogurt stirred in the end

Here's how it looks like:


The yogurt made a whole lot of difference! Its cool tangy-ness blended well with the acidic hit of the tomatoes and chili, and also added a touch of creaminess to the whole dish.


I enjoyed this dish with a salad of romaine lettuce, cucumbers, celery, and carrots dipped in a soysauce/vinegar/wasabi dressing...


Also some yogurt with half a grapefruit...

And guess what? I was totally satisfied. That just shot down my previous fear that pasta is not filling. The greatest thing was, I wasn't bloated at all. I didn't feel stuffed, but was very satisfied and contented after the meal and didn't crave anything else afterwards. Huge breakthrough for me. I find that when a meal is well-balanced, and you hit all food groups, you will reach this level of mental and physical satiety and avoid annoying food cravings and obsessions. No wonder diets never work but make you think about food all the time!

Afternoon snack was another bowl of pumpkin and banana "ice-cream":


Just frozen cooked pumpkin and banana blended together. The pumpkin was especially hard this time, so I added a splash of almond milk to make it blend better.

Got creative come dinnertime! I knew I wanted eggs for dinner, but I didn't want to make the same old omelette again. I wanted to experiment! I had leftover eggplants in the fridge starting to get old, so I decided to incorporate that into my egg dish...I had no recipe as my guideline; just basically chopped up things I wanted to get rid of and "went with the flow"...

So first I sliced an eggplant, salted and peppered it, and grilled it up on a pan...

Then I layered them onto a dish...

Added a huge dollop of tomato sauce...

And then chopped up some red onions, red capiscum/bell pepper, and shitake mushroom...


cooked it in the pan until soft and fragrant...

and piled them over the eggplants with several dots of cucumber-chive cream cheese spread...


Then whipped up 2 whole eggs and 2 egg whites with salt, pepper, and Italian parsely...


and poured that mixture over the whole dish and finished it off with a scatter of chopped green onions, and baked the whole thing in the oven for about 10-15 minutes until set.


Here's how it looks out of the oven!


Again, so colorful and bright!

Okay, so it looks good...but did it taste as good? I was a bit apprehensive as I dug into it, seeing that it was a "on the whim" creation. But it was fabulous! How can I describe the taste? It was like...an eggy lasagna. The tomato sauce and the cheese really rocked the whole dish, the eggplant was meaty and almost like lasagna noodles, and the egg on top binded the whole thing together like a baked pudding. Yum! I think I'll call it...Eggplant-"pasta" egg pudding. Okay, that sucks. Do you have any better ideas? I must have exhausted my creative resources. Haha!


I ate the entire thing with a bowl of cooked broccoli and cauliflower and baked pumpkin skin (so crunchy, just like chips!)

Tralala~ I'm feeling quite optimistic today, having challenged ED! Hopefully I'll maintain this will and determination and courage to challenge ED every single day!

Oh and last pic, just had to share with you guys since it's so pretty...is my bowl of fruits this morning:


Kiwi, dragonfruit, pineapple, apple...Lovely!

So tata, everyone, hope you have a lovely successful day too. I'm now off to make myself some mega oatmeal~