Diets

So, my cardiologist wants me to "do the Zone Diet." According to him, it is a good, heart healthy diet and my whole family can benefit. I won't have to eat differently or prepare separate meals for myself. Sounds too good to be true. But I was willing to give it a try. If I am not successful, he wants me on meds. I haven't told him yet, that I won't take them even if this diet doesn't accomplish what he wants it to.

I went to Barnes and Noble to purchase two books he recommended. It sounded like it was a workable. We could live a normal life on it. Well, the first week life was too stressful to try it; A high school graduation, graduation party the next day...so the diet would have to wait a week.

Anyway, you don't want to hear about my procrastinations to start this new, incredible diet. So last night I began cooking one of these wonderful all-in-one dish meals. Sounded way too easy.

I am used to cooking for at least 7 people every night. Everyone living in this household is a teen, young adult, or full-fledged adult with the exception of one almost 3 year old. With teens and young adults come spontaneous invitations to dinner. So we often have extras, which translates into 7 to 10 people. I've learned to stretch meals by adding fresh fruit, bread, etc.

This is the meal I decided to create: Chicken Zucchini Italiano

Mmmmm...fresh basil, onions, chicken, mozzarella cheese, mushrooms, garlic...sounded delicious! It quickly became quite a chore, though. I did not have a pan big enough to cook all of the ingredients...I don't think my stove is big enough, and I did not have a serving dish big enough.

I cut up the chicken just fine. Then came the mushrooms, zucchini and onions. The orginal recipe called for:

4 cups zucchini
3/4 cup onion
2 cups mushrooms
2 tsp garlic

That is for 1 serving. So am I supposed to mulitiply that times 7??????? For those like me who don't like math, that means:

28 cups of zucchini
5 1/4 cups of onion
14 cups of mushrooms
1/3 cup garlic

You've got to be kidding! I figured I'd make less...but then was it ok to serve bread as a filler if that wasn't enough??? Of course there were other ingredients too. By the time I finished chopping and dicing and preparing small batches at a time, I was in tears.

The good news is, everyone pretty much liked it. The bad news is it was a lot to clean up, I didn't have the patience to prepare that much, and I was overwhelmed at the sheer volume of veggies. I don't have that much room in my 'fridge to store this much for daily consumption. I would have to shop every other day to cook like this.

So, do I call my cardiologist and tell him I can't follow the diet because it is too much work? Or tell him that I don't care if my family eats "non nourishing food" and gourges on bread and the likes and I will just prepare separate meals for myself?

For tonight's dinner? The doorbell just rang. It's pizza.