AH........good to be home.....long day at work......gearing up for the 4th of July and lots of "patriotic" decorations and crafts must be finished at the summer camp. It's all very interesting. Personally, the most patriotic thing I've experienced of late is Fahrenheit 9/11. Very moving AND VERY SUPPORTIVE of the troops fighting the war and their families (just not certain politicians :-) I don't think my school would like it very much if I organized a bulletin board paying homage to it though even with several of my older students interested in it. Sigh............censorship in America.....what else is new.....

Back to the diet, my cynicism the other day about it being hard to be beneficial is only because we need to go food shopping, desperately. When the pantry gets low, finding something to eat is always a challenge, let alone according to the diet. We are out of all the staples, Soy milk, eggs, Ezekiel bread, onions, tomatoes and fresh green veggies. But, I've been surviving. Eating organic eggs for breakfast the past 2 days (we're out now); tuna fish, or a veggie wrap from Subway for lunch (just lettuce, tomato, cucumber and red onions for us AB's - sometimes I get turkey or a tiny bit of the horseradish dressing) Or a steamed veggie platter from the Chinese restaurant. Lunch 2 days ago was egg drop soup, lots of white rice and a large serving of broccoli, carrots, snap peas, and some white Chinese vegetable. I'll have to ask for no "baby corn" next time but that was easy enough to pick out. You'd be surprised how full you get off of things that are beneficial/neutral. It was very tempting to get the General Tso's Chicken, one of my all time favorites back in the day. But, there was a sweet, thick sauce of some sort for the veggies that they put on the side - I used a smidgen of it - it was very sweet but all in all not satisfying. I've become very astute to wether or not CORN STARCH OR CORN SYRUP is in a product. Not only are they both avoids for most people (not my A family out there :-) but I don't even LIKE things any more that have too much of it in them. So my General Tso's Chicken probably wouldn't even taste that good anymore. Maybe I'll just see if they can make a General Tso's Tofu for me if I'm REALLY tempted :-)

I had monkfish yesterday for dinner and despite all the good reviews, was not impressed by it - only had a few bites. The recipe for it (the monkfish) out of Cook Right For Your Type works really well on tofu though! (which is what I'm eating right now) I still have a lot of monkfish to cook. I'm going to try to fix the rest of it more like lobster - maybe just steamed or poached with a little bit of my "Earth Balance Non-GMO 100% Expeller Pressed Oils" (a fancy name for healthy margarine :-D)

*Update: I'm a little sick this morning (Thursday) so will be going into work late. The reason? I haven't had a lemon in 3 days. Figures,.....just last night I was reading in Live Right FYT how Hippocrates biggest reccomendation for health is to "cleanse the bowels." Even with beneficial foods, the importance of lemons can't be emphasized enough for us with A in our blood. Can't wait to go food shopping.....

On the monkfish front.....since I have time this morning, I steamed & followed the Red Snapper recipe in Cook Right FYT using the monkfish and it IS DELICIOUS. Guess I'm just not crazy about it fried. This recipe is great because the sauce is sooooooooo good, even if you DON'T LIKE FISH, you'll like this recipe. The trick to the sauce is to put all of it's ingredients in a food processor so it's SUPER fine and THEN add your soy/tamari. Delicious. I even liked the monkfish plain and just steamed. I could definately taste that slight lobster flavor then and the consistancy when steamed is the same as real lobster meat. Will have to use it the next time I want to make "lobster enchiladas." So, like I learned, don't be afraid to mix-up the recipes. Just because you don't like the way one thing tastes with say oregano and crumbs (and my oregano rye crumb tofu last night was great!) doesn't mean you won't like it with something else. What a wonderful breakfast! Fish and Echinacea tea! :-)