Having a shower can be dangerous… and bento-style Tuesday
I hurt my leg yesterday and so I was at home instead of work today. I worked from home – J emailed me some files I needed to work on. It was quite a productive day.
So what happened? (you can skip the next four paragraphs if you just interested in the food part of this post :))
It’s silly, really. Jac was at hockey. I was standing in the shower, the water was on. As I stood there a cold breeze blew in and I realised I’d left the door much more ajar than usual (I only fully close the bathroom door if we have house guests – when it’s just us at home I like to leave the door slightly ajar so the cats can come in and hang out if they want, which they often do. Billy Lee likes to sit and *talk* to me while I’m in the shower. I leave the door ajar but more closed than open to minimise cold air getting in).
Our shower is roman bath-style – there’s a tiled “wall” around the shower that’s just below (my) knee height. I stepped over the roman bath “wall” with my right leg and reached over to push the door shut. As I did so, my other leg, which was in the shower area, slipped on the wet tiles and I started to slide. In that moment my only thought was to prevent myself from falling.
It could’ve been a catastrophe – a fall in the bathroom with the water running, me with no clothes on and Jac away for the next couple of hours! I pushed outwards with my right leg and tried to stop sliding. I was successful in that I didn’t fall, but I was not so successful in that I couldn’t stop sliding entirely – I ended up slamming my right calf into the roman bath “wall”. It hurt like hell, let me tell you! I spent most of yesterday evening sitting on the couch with my injured leg elevated and iced.
There’s a swollen section across the fleshiest part of my calf – I call this my chicken drumstick – where I struck the roman bath the hardest. There’ll probably be a beauty of a bruise. Walking normally is out of the question; all I can manage is a slow, careful hobble. What a pain in the… leg. It could’ve turned out so much worse though – I’m thinking of this as a lucky escape. Right now I’m sitting at my desk in the study with my injured leg iced and propped up on cushions. It’s already a lot better than yesterday, but I’m hoping that staying home today and taking things easy has helped it heal up even more. But obviously I won’t be able to do much exercise or run for some time.
Anyway, here’s a nicer story for you.
I was exhausted last Monday night and went to bed early. I’d decided not to bother making lunch to take to work, but on Tuesday morning I woke up feeling inspired and motivated to rustle up a few quick dishes.
This was the lunch I packed for Jac in our trusty Tupperware sandwich keeper: French toast, salad, butter corn and sauteed mushrooms.
I cooked the mushrooms in a frying pan in olive oil; I cooked them only slightly, long enough to remove their rawness, but not so long that they shrank and got really dark in colour. I cooked them on one side for maybe a minute to a minute and a half, then flipped them over to cook the other side. They were still really juicy and plump. I placed the cooked mushrooms in a bowl, tossed them with a sprinkling of dried chives and let them cool down before loading up our lunch boxes. I would’ve cooked more mushrooms but we only had five left, so we each had a measly two and a half mushrooms each. :)
I’ve mentioned butter corn before – we ate butter corn at a Japanese restaurant and really loved it. It’s so easy to prepare and if you love corn it’s a really tasty snack or side dish. I cracked open a can of corn kernels, drained them and used about half the can to make two side servings for our lunches. I rinsed out the same frying pan that I used to cook the mushrooms in, then heated it up and added a knob of butter. Once the butter had melted I threw in the corn, and added a little soy sauce. I just tossed it all through until thoroughly coated, mixed and warmed – voila! Butter corn. I put the butter corn in little containers that with lids, so it wouldn’t spill everywhere in transit.
For some reason I really felt like French toast, and I thought it would go well with the other dishes. I used two slices of bread, each cut in half to make four pieces. I whisked a jumbo sized (67 g) egg with a little soy milk and a teaspoon of raw sugar and dipped the bread in the mixture, making sure all surfaces were well-soaked and coated. I fried the eggy bread in a little butter until golden brown on both sides.
I packed myself the same lunch in my new lunch box. French toast and butter corn and mushrooms in the top containers…
…and salad on the bottom.
I also packed a couple of chocolate coins for dessert. :) They travelled to work in the salad compartment. Jac didn’t get any chocolate coins – she’s not fond of compound chocolate. I might buy some Lindt balls (one of her all-time favourites) and surprise her with one or two every now and then. ;)
Jac’s said she really looks forward to the lunches I make for her. I think that’s great, I feel like I’m sort of paying her back for all the yummy meals she cooks for me!