Making Food While Pregnant. Period. Amazing is irrelevant.

Hormones have not changed my love of cooking, nor have they taken away my enjoyment of a good meal.  Au contraire, eating has taken on a whole new meaning, as it is the primary way I fend off nausea.  But the nausea becomes a whole new obstacle in cooking.  Just the other day, in the middle of making tomato basil soup (recipe below) for my husband's dinner, my body decided that it couldn't handle the smell of tomato basil soup.  He had to finish cooking the food himself as I hunkered down in the bedroom to avoid smelling the kitchen.  Another aspect of this is that I skip "hungry" and go straight to "nauseated."  This means that I will not feel like standing and cooking a meal while waiting to eat.

Thankfully, the latter issue is relatively easy to fix.  I grab a cereal bar, a piece of fruit, or some graham crackers and peanut butter, and I can snack while I prepare the meal.  Bye bye, nausea, hello, breakfast!

To the aversions, I'm not sure what to do quite yet.  I'm only 7 weeks along, so I know that fried foods and strong-smelling foods are not doing so hot for me.  I can avoid those, but smells come with cooking.  Ahh, well.  We shall see how it all goes.

Now, to the recipe for a delicious tomato soup (unless you're in your first trimester)

1 quart canned tomatoes, juice and all (I home-canned mine)
1/2 cup cooking wine or apple juice (apple juice is usually cheaper)
2 slices bacon, cooked
1 onion
1 clove garlic
a few leaves of basil
a tiny bit of lemon juice or zest

You can cook the onion and garlic in the bacon grease for an easy flavor enhancer.  If you do this, you may even be able to put the bacon pieces into the tomato stuff whole and fish them out later, so you get the flavor without mouthfuls of bacon fat.  Or, if you really like bacon, you can just cut up the bacon and put it in.  Other than sauteing the onion and garlic and cooking the bacon, just toss it all in a pan, be sure you mash the tomatoes with a fork or whisk, and cook until desired thickness.  If you chop up the basil leaves, you can leave them in as well.

Slider heaven

My dear husband always encourages me/us to eat healthily--organic, all-natural, complex carbs, veggies, free-range....

But he LOVES hamburgers.  In fact, after a foray through Five Guys, the next night he was still craving a good burger.  Apparently his appetite was only whetted.  So I intervened.

In the same pan, I fried an egg (runny yolk), a couple slices of bacon, cooked some small turkey burgers (for a recipe, see previous post on burgers), and sauteed onions, garlic, and mushrooms.  

The bottom layer or "bun" was a piece of sourdough bread that I lightly buttered and turned upside down onto the pan to "grill" or "toast."  Next came a little mayo and mustard and some spinach leaves as a lettuce substitute.  Then the burger and a half piece of all natural Vermont white cheddar, followed by the mushroom/onion mixture, the egg, and topped it all off with a slice of bacon, curled as a garnish.  I used a toothpick to hold it all together, and it caused the yolk to drip down over the entire dish.  In short, it was fantastic.  He ate three that evening and two the next.

I haven't heard a peep about burgers since!  Mwahaha!  And all that with only 1 lb of turkey meat and a couple slices of bacon.  (We normally use turkey bacon, but this was given to us so we're using it)

I'd like to make one with avocado next time, and maybe some sauteed bell peppers.  The more veggies, the better!