Steak, a Botched Italian Recipe, and a Week of Planning Ahead

Hello hello!

This is already the 7th blog post, and honestly I never expected this thing to make it even to the 3rd or 4th. I'm enjoying it, and it's increasingly coming together in my head how this should be done properly. The emphasis is on "properly." That's why I've come up with a few ideas that I'll gradually roll into the blogging process later on. That pesky perfectionism keeps rearing its head. I ate pretty well this week too, with loads of vegetables and healthy ingredients (of course there were one or two cheat meals again, but nothing disastrous).

Anniversary dinner

My wife and I celebrated our anniversary at the start of the week, so we thought we'd mark the occasion with a nice restaurant meal. We went to our usual place, like always (we've never been disappointed there — better safe than sorry). Dinner was a sirloin steak, cooked medium well. I didn't skimp on the sides: it came with cheddar mashed potatoes and coleslaw, and I ordered a loaded potato on top of that — a whole potato halved, skin on, stuffed with cheddar cheese, spring onion, and sour cream. Simply divine. I love it, I can't get tired of it. I'd probably eat this exact menu for the rest of my life. It was a perfect evening!

Sour cherry soup

My wife made an incredible sour cherry soup. There's nothing to embellish here, it was just really good — a few bowls disappeared. How was it made? Sour cherries, cream, milk. Done 😀

The Asian line

I made a nice Asian-inspired pasta dish. Only the usual went into it: chicken, vegetables (onion, carrot, bell pepper, spring onion), soy sauce, balsamic vinegar, and instead of spaghetti — by accident — I made it with thick, long vermicelli :D But it turned out pretty good anyway. LOL.

The Italian line

The Italian line couldn't be missing this time either. It's slowly becoming a habit — actually, I think it already is one. Well, it always was. I made the usual tuna and tomato pasta. The twist is that I'd seen a really good recipe on YouTube from an Italian chef. I figured I'd copy it. Yeah, of course it didn't work out. Or rather, it almost did, I just messed it up. The idea was that I added the ingredients to the pan bit by bit (olive oil, basil, garlic, a little tomato, olives, capers), with some pasta water going in along the way, and it started developing a serious aroma and a complex flavor. Then, when I was supposed to add the tomato sauce — just a tiny bit — what did I do? I added the whole box XD Because come on, this isn't a big batch, no way that's too much... :D So I ended up with a watered-down tomato sauce with a bit of tuna in it :D No matter. It was the mistake of my life, because a professional recipe almost came together — but I'll try again next time.

By the way, I even bought a fresh basil plant at the store specially for the recipe, figured it should be fresh. Since then I've transplanted it into its own pot and I'm nurturing it. They're really pretty. Let's hope they survive.

Oh, and I almost forgot that my wife and I had a good Italian pizza too: tomato sauce, Italian ham, mozzarella, parmesan, arugula. I don't think that's trash food at all, though I wouldn't call it healthy either. It's interesting how we don't consider pizza healthy, even though the toppings absolutely are. Something to think about.

The Greek line

The plan was to make a nice Greek salad with all sorts of good vegetables and cheese, the way the Greeks do it. It was a good idea. The reality? We walked into the local gyros place and got a gyros plate :D In our defense, it was insanely delicious and made from fresh ingredients, so it wasn't that unhealthy. I wouldn't call it junk food either.

New sections / strategic planning

So much for the week's food. What I mentioned in the intro is this: at my 7th blog post, a feeling has surfaced (which isn't much at all yet, quite the opposite) that I should slowly start structuring the blog's text better. I've been trying to separate the food part from my personal opinions all along, but now I increasingly feel that going forward I really need to split these two topics apart. So: food in one post, my thoughts in another — because right now they blend together too much.

Since I don't have a single reader yet, I can't get any feedback, so I'm relying on my own instincts. I don't think it'll work that way as soon as next week, but within a reasonable timeframe I'm going to do the split. I'll leave the existing posts as they are, but I might start separating the ones that come after. So there'll be a separate menu item (or some kind of clickable tab) for food and thoughts — or something along those lines.

There might even be more sections, because I don't just want to blog about what I eat — I also want to help people with my own experiences of life before, during, and after the surgery. That definitely needs to be separated out, as a kind of fixed information source that probably won't update every week, but will update. Past events don't change, after all, but there's still plenty to write about the future ones — meals, recovery, and so on. So there'll probably be three new menu items, and the blog posts won't be so densely packed; they'll come in a more spacious, readable form. Apologies in retrospect that this only crystallized in me now, but better late than never.

On the Twin app's development

I've mentioned before that my big goal is to develop a web app that primarily helps me, and later — once I've tested it properly — I'll publish it so it can be useful to others too. Development is currently underway. Mostly in my head, admittedly, since for now it's more just ideas that I'm noting down. What's already done is the financial module. I'm testing it continuously, and it's useful, because bugs surface immediately during actual use. The test phase has been running for about a month now. Long-term testing really is valuable, which is why I'm going to test every single module on myself.

Stuart Fails to Save the Universe

My God, I was so happy one random evening when I got an email from HBO saying Stuart Fails to Save the Universe had launched. I was like: whaaaaat?? I knew there'd be a Big Bang Theory spinoff, but I didn't expect it to already be watchable. So I started it that very second, and oh my, I love it :D I don't want to spoil anything, but it's reminiscent of the old series Sliders, just with the Big Bang Theory characters and humor... Masterful. Can't wait for the next episode! 😀

Summary

So here it is: the 7th blog post, and the 8th is coming up soon — even though I only started recently. Time flies, my God... I'd call this a successful week food-wise. I mentioned the one or two slip-up meals in the intro, but honestly I wouldn't even call them slip-ups — because what exactly is slipping up about a good Italian pizza and a good gyros plate? Right? Exactly :D

And I can still taste that steak. When will it be this time next year already? I'll probably note with some sadness that it'll be soon — because two blinks and another year has passed. So the answer to my own question is: soon...

I hope I'll manage to pull off my new plans with the blog posts, splitting them up so they're genuinely more readable — so that if someone does eventually read this, their eyes don't melt from the wall of text. The Twin app says thanks, it's alive and well, slowly being built, and Stuart probably won't save the universe (which is fine). Everything's going according to plan.

Have a good week, everyone, and see you next week! Bazingaaa