Beef shanks cover everything I need for diet meat. They are high in protein, the texture is amazing and, if you don’t eat the marrow (save it for after the diet), have a relatively low calorie count (on average, 35 calories per ounce, raw). For those of you playing at home the marrow is 222.8 calories per ounce of delicious, slithery goodness.
A lot of my recipes come about from eating out. Either I’ll have a really good meal and want to make it for myself, tweaking it a bit or I will have a really shitty meal that disappoints me so badly that I must go home and make my own take on it, accentuating what I really thought was missing in the restaurant version. The latter one of those times.
The tacos were a bitter disappointment. The texture of the meat came across as boiled within an inch of fading into unreality and was so lacking in flavor many of my British friends would have reached for anything at all in order to taste something while eating them. Oh, and factory-made flour tortillas. Taco Bell style. Somehow, they always remind me of albino Laffy Taffy; not as sticky, but just as gummy.
What I was not expecting was an overall mood change as well as a marked decline in my cognitive abilities. I’m a fucking dumbass right now. I lack focus, which is relatively normal for me, but this is amazingly bad. Likewise, my memory, long and short term is pretty much non-existent, which got me to thinking about the first time I did this.
The saving grace of this is that it's 80 calories per serving and is fairly satisfying. The braised shallots really bring out the sweetness of the caramelized cabbage wedges and the whole garlic cloves add a buttery sensation on the palate that is quite lovely.
Why Monday? Because Monday traditionally sucks anyhow and it is usually my heaviest day of the week. Friday is my lightest. If you’re doing this, too, you’ll find your heaviest and lightest day. I choose Monday to keep realistic. I weigh more in the mornings. The only slack I cut me is waiting until after I poop. I need to feel like I’m achieving something.
