Tuesday

This week is turning out to be a bit unusual, not like most where I stay home all week and cook, cook, cook (and wash, wash, wash all those dishes !P )

Tuesday the perfect opportunity presented itself to make a day trip into Washington DC with 2 of our oldest kids, so off we went (after a breakfast of 2 eggs fried in butter and my 1 1/2 cups of vanilla cream sweetened lightly with stevia and a mug of tea). This necessarily meant straying from my usual foods, and trying some fun and delicious alternatives to our standard daily fare.

We lunched at Tryst in the Adams Morgan section of the city. They have a really exciting menu featuring many excellent sandwich, soup, and salad selections. I chose the “Build-Your-Own” salad with almonds, blue cheese, garbanzo beans, red onion, and Black Forrest Ham topped with balsamic vinaigrette (not the “no fat”variety commonly found, but made with good quality olive oil). I also had 1/2 of an “Archie”, a delicious sandwich consisting of prosciutto, fresh mozzarella, tomato, fresh basil, & crushed red pepper on thinly sliced french bread. Okay, I realized later, I could have forgone the top slice of bread, but just didn’t think of it as the everything was all melded together in one blissful, aromatic delight! Mmm, my mouth is watering as the memory of that wonderful meal still lingers on my mind…

We had a cappuccino at Mid City Caffe in the same neighborhood, where my eldest son was training as a new employee that afternoon. No sugar, just coffee and steamed milk, and it was very good!

Three Shared Treats

One major goal for the trip was to take our daughter to a particular authentic French bakery shop in Georgetown, Patisserie Poupon. With a keen interest in becoming a pastry chef, I wanted her to experience fine pastries in the French tradition, so I set aside my low carb guidelines for a small indulgence. It is important to note my rules for partaking in such treats: first, they are rare. Not “occasional”, but rare. I don’t have a dessert every day, not even every week. But something small and enjoyable, memorable even, once or twice a month works for me because I am satisfied by my “regular” diet!

Another important rule is that I be physically active when partaking. This day was spent walking  the streets of the city, some of which were an uphill climb. When I’m in town I either walk or bike everywhere, only taking the metro as my husband feels the need.

Rule #3 is that I do not over indulge. Easy to accomplish when you are well satisfied by consuming protein and fat before taking a nibble of anything sweet!

And last, I choose higher fat/relatively lower sugar/grain delights such as dark chocolate mousse or tiramisu. Not so much flour, more cream and butter is  helpful!

So here is what we shared between the three of us: chocolate mousse wrapped in a dark chocolate shell, mocha torte, and a dense chocolate torte with ganache & raspberry filling. It was fun sampling the three desserts, all of which amounted to a reasonable serving. I washed this down with a french press of Illy coffe with cream.

Later I had another coffee at Baked & Wired, sweetened slightly with simple syrup. Normally all I use is stevia or xylitol in coffee, but it was out of reach. We also shared a package of dry salami and some mozzarella sticks from Trader Joe’s.

The folks at home made brown rice pasta with meat sauce, and had snacks of cheese and home made cookies during the day. They seemed to fare well in my abscence : ) After all the day’s coffee, I decided on a glass of red wine to help me rest.

Wednesday

Back to normal, er, sort of today. We were out of eggs in the morning and so I had to settle for 1 very small brown rice pancake with a drizzle of molasses and about 2 Tbsp. of butter on top, and a small fried sweet potato patty (again, lots of butter :  ) ). We fried up a little bacon so I was able to have a piece of that for protein, plus had my heavy cream with vanilla and stevia.

At lunchtime a lovely daughter cooked up a pot of brown rice pasta and added a stick of butter, a generous  amount of olive oil, package of Trader Joe’s Quattro Frommagio blend, and a package each of 2 kinds of sausages. I concentraded on the biggest globs of cheese & extra sausage, trying to eat as little of the pasta as possible. This was washed down with a glass of rich, fresh milk.

Later in the day we shared some Black Forrest ham and had a salad with blue cheese, topped with olive oil & balsamic vinegar.

We’ll see what the next day brings!