Dinner, Day Thirty-Six

• 1 oz semolina spinach spaghetti
• "fiery meatballs" made with 3 oz ground beef, 1/4 onion, 1 egg white, 2 tbsp bread crumbs, 1/4 cup vegetable broth & seasoning
• 1/4 cup tomato sauce & 1/2 tsp hot sauce
• 1 medium zucchini, sauteed & tossed with 1 tsp Dijon mustard, 1/2 tsp honey & 1 tsp apple cider vinegar
• 1/2 cup mandarin orange slices

Oh man, what a fantastic dinner! I read this recipe this morning and had been looking forward to it all afternoon - it totally lived up to my expectations. I questioned the vegetable broth in the meatballs (especially because the store did not have plain vegetable broth, so I reconstituted a can of vegetarian vegetable soup and skimmed some broth off the top), but it made them incredibly moist and flavorful - I will have to remember that for future meatball-cooking.

Rather than using jarred calorically-dense sauce as I'd been doing, I bought the plain canned sauce with no fancy chunks or added stuff (and hence much healthier), and when it was combined with the hot sauce, it was just perfect! I think had I used the typically sweeter flavored sauce, I wouldn't have been able to appreciate the juicy flavor of the meatballs. I think this is another case where following the directions more carefully will save me calories, though I would have liked about double the amount of sauce.

The zucchini was also fantastic. Rather than microwaving it, I cooked it in some of the meat drippings so it was soft and flavorful (though I'm not sure that was allowed - was I supposed to drain off the fat instead? probably). The sauce was tangy and delicious and an interesting complement to the spicy tomato sauce in the pasta.

All of these flavors were just spectacular, and I was really impressed. This definitely goes up there among the meals I've most enjoyed on this diet. Fortunately I thought ahead and made a double portion of it (my boyfriend is out of town again), so I'll get to enjoy it again tomorrow!

This evening I also began formulating a better exercise plan. I belonged to a gym in my old neighborhood but obviously have not been since I moved last August. I was becoming resentful of spending money and never going, but had not been able to locate a closer gym because I was relying on public transportation to get there (and all the ones I was looking at were in Manhattan, which always takes at least 20 min). So I went back on the website to update my payment information and realized there was a gym location much closer to my apartment than I'd thought - tomorrow morning I'm going to stop by and check it out and talk to them about transferring my membership. I went through their website and came up with a pretty easy 3 day a week exercise plan that I'm pretty excited about. I hope it goes well!