Rinse & Repeat! or Waffeling!

Today and the last few days have been great. We worked a lot, at Escondida Resort and when I wasn't working I spent most all of time writing or sleeping and I spent the other hours shopping for vegetables and fruits and preparing us delicious, healthy meals. So yes, Tony and I are still only eating vegetables and fruits and we really are loving this new lifestyle change. Plus the pounds are melting away. And it is not water weight, because we are daily drinking a ton of water and eating as much vegetables and fruits as we want.

The other evening, at Escondida, while we working in the kitchen, Rob grilled these beautiful, delicious vegetables outside and they were so tasty it inspired me to try to grill us some vegetables. So the other day I picked up some vegetables when we went to the big H-E-B. for groceries. Here is a picture that I took of Rob's grilled veggies that Escondido's guests raved about.

Yesterday morning around 7:00, when Tony and I were drinking coffee, before going to work—the electricity went out. So I stayed home and Tony went up to the top of the pass to phone in the outage. Then he went to Escondida to see if their electricity was out, too. And they too had no electricity. 

Then Tony came back home and told me that the Bandera Electric was aware of the outage and they were working on it. And we should be getting our electricity turned back on around 9:00.

Then Tony went back over to Escondida to work. I stayed home, because I did not want to leave our dogs  alone without electricity.

Around 8:45, knowing that we would have power soon and I needed to go to work, I jumped into the shower to wash my hair. And everything was fine until I had lathered up, because suddenly there was no more water, because the pump had no electricity.

So  there I stood in the shower covered in shampoo and soap with no way of rinsing it off. So I dried myself off with a towel and then I waited for the power to come back on, so I could do a do-over—like the shampoo bottle suggests—Rinse & Repeat. And the good news is the electricity finally came back on around 9:30 and I went next door to work for a few hours.

This morning while Tony was next door working I was cooking and preparing our dog's breakfast for tomorrow morning and I decided to multi-task and that can be very risky for someone my age.  

Anyway while the dog's brown rice was cooking in my Instant Pot, the first thing I did was mix up a batch of black bean brownies using dates (sugar substitute), raw almond butter, vanilla, natural non-alkalized cocoa powder and ground chia seeds. Then I tossed them into the 200 degree oven for them to bake for 90 minutes.

With so much time on my hands, I finished preparing our dog's breakfast and then I put it into the refrigerator. 

Then I decided to make us healthy (non-alcohol) Bloody Mary juice to drink with our lunch. Here are the ingredients that I juiced together: tomatoes, red bell peppers, celery, lemon juice, Tabasco, Worcestershire sauce, salt & pepper.

After I put the faux Bloody Mary juice inside the fridge to chill, I cleaned the juicer and put it back where it belongs, on the counter.

Then I decided to try to cook the squash and zucchini like Rob did the other night. But I did not want to grill it outside, so I went hunting for my small, pink, George Foreman (dorm-sized) Grill, but I could not find it anywhere.

I was really disappointed about not finding it, so I got creative. I pulled out my waffle maker machine and decided to try using it to grill the vegetables.

Because the brownies were still baking in the toaster oven, I knew it would take at least 5 minutes to cook two sliced veggies at a time, on the waffle maker, so I decided to water-sauté a few mushrooms, because we are suppose to eat mushrooms everyday. 

When Tony came home for lunch I had just pulled the cooked brownies out of the oven to cool.

 And I had also just finished grilling the last of the vegetable waffles. And yes I know they don't look as pretty as Rob's beautiful, grilled vegetables with the grill marks. But I'm fine with it, because I like the little, square dimples pressed into my grilled veggies.

When Tony saw my dented grilled vegetables he teased me about using the waffle maker instead of grilling them outside, while I sliced up a Roma tomato and then we ate lunch.

Our lunch was totally delicious and we also had a delicious brownie for dessert, because we had to, because we are supposed to eat at least one serving of beans everyday. Here are pictures of the healthy lunch that I prepared for us today.

P.S. I do not recommend using a waffle maker to "grill" vegetables, because I think mine is ruined, with stuck on burnt veggies. I tried heating it up and let it burn-off, but I can't get it clean enough to use again. So I guess next the time we have company I will be cooking them pancakes instead of Belgian waffles.

Y'all have a great evening and keep on laughing!