Mother’s Day

I hope all of the moms who read my blog had a great Mother’s Day today!

Sorry I’ve been kind of quiet here for the past week. It’s been a combination of work and personal stress.

As some of you likely know, due to some issues from my childhood, I don’t have much of a relationship with my family. Mother’s Day has just been a big reminder of that. The person in my family that I was closest to was my paternal grandmother and she passed away a few years ago, so I don’t have a whole lot of contact with them now. In fact, if it weren’t for me contacting them from time to time, who knows when we’d talk at all.

Anyway, I sent both mom and my sister a dozen roses each that were delivered on Thursday, but hadn’t heard a peep out of either one of them. I finally broke down and called mom this afternoon and her only response was, “I meant to call yesterday (already 2 days after the flowers were delivered), but it was storming and then I forgot.” How does one forget when there is a dozen roses sitting on the table?! Sometimes I wonder why I still even bother anymore.

So, that’s kind of where my head has been the past 72 hours. On the upside, I haven’t emotionally eaten over it (I’m notorious for that), and I’ve even gotten in some workout time. I should have gotten in a wog today, but I just didn’t get it done. I’ll try and get one in tomorrow instead. This will be my last somewhat unstructured training week since my Sprint triathlon training plan starts next Sunday.

I did get in a bit of cooking this weekend though. I’m really hoping to get into the practice of doing some bulk cooking on the weekends so I have food for lunches during the week. This weekend’s recipe was something I just kind of made up as I went along and it turned out pretty darned tasty, IMO. To save myself some calories, I completely skipped the whole breading of the eggplant part. I’ll definitely make this one again, but I think next time I’ll augment it with some mushrooms and perhaps even some artichoke hearts.

Here’s a photo followed by my recipe. (I forgot to take the photo until after I had cut it into the servings.)

* Exported from MasterCook *

Eggplant Parmesan

Serving Size : 4

2 pounds eggplant, whole
1 1/2 cups classico Spicy Red Pepper Sauce — (1/2 jar)
4 ounces part skim milk mozzarella cheese — shredded
Italian seasoning — to taste

Preheat over to 375 degrees. Peel the eggplant and cut into 1/2″ slices. Spread onto a baking sheet or parchment paper and sprinkle with salt. Let stand for 45-60 minutes and then pat dry with a paper towel. Spray a 2-quart casserole with non-stick cooking spray. Spread 2-3 tbsp of the pasta sauce in the bottom of the casserole and top with a layer of the eggplant. Lightly cover the eggplant layer with some more of the pasta sauce and then some of the cheese. Continue layering until you have used all of the ingredients. Top with the Italian seasoning. (I use Paul Prudhomma’s Pizza & Pasta Seasoning.) Cover tightly with aluminum foil and bake for 35-40 minutes or until the eggplant is tender. Remove the aluminum folk and bake for an additional 10-12 minutes until the cheese on top is bubbly and browned slightly.

Per Serving: 172 Calories; 6g Fat (33.3% calories from fat); 11g Protein; 17g Carbohydrate; 6g Dietary Fiber; 15mg Cholesterol; 380mg Sodium. Exchanges: 1 Lean Meat; 2 Vegetable; 1/2 Fat.

Hope everyone has a great week! Until next time …