Pinstrosity for Dinner

Last night was a double Pinstrosity night at our house. Let me set the scene for you. 

After a week on the road I'd collected quite the excess of water weight and car munchy flub. So I was determined that this week I'd get back on track and eat right, starting with a few days off of carbs to get my carb addiction curbed a little. 

The kids and I went to the grocery store, stuck to the grocery list, and I didn't even take a "Mommy tax" bite of Darrow's maple glazed donut. I was going to rock this. 

All day I was good. No sneaking treats, keeping up on my water, eating small meals every 3 hours. I had it down. Even when my salad for lunch was just ho hum, I stayed strong because I had a plan for dinner that was going to rock. Eggplant Parmesan and Curried Carrot Soup. Two of our favorites, both from Pinterest! 

Everything went great until I pulled out the ingredients to start making dinner and realized I'd have to improvise a little. There was only 1/3 c. of parmesan cheese left. But I'd already sliced the Eggplant and had the eggs beaten, so I was committed. Running to get more from the store would be a 20 minute venture and we were hungry now...so I decided to just run with it and make it work. 

I only coated one side of the eggplant in parmesan, but still only got 2/3 of the way through before I ran out. So I just seasoned the rest with garlic powder, onion powder, and Caribbean Jerk seasoning and popped them in the oven. 

It was then time to get the soup going. I sauteed the onions without burning them and knew this was going to shape up to be something tasty and filling. I'd been looking forward to this all day. Just as it was time to add the final ingredients for the soup, the timer dinged that the eggplant was done. All I had left to add to the soup was the cayenne pepper, so I figured I'd throw that in really quick and then grab the eggplant. 

And that was my mistake. 

In my hurry to just get the cayenne in I figured I'd eyeball it rather than pull out a measuring spoon. So I opened the cap and went to add a few shakes of cayenne and realized that unlike most of my spice canisters, this one didn't have the handy little shaker/filter top. It was just open. So in dumped about 1/3 of my cayenne pepper container...which was about 20 times the amount the recipe called for. 

I quickly grabbed a spoon and went to scoop out the cayenne to see if I could salvage it. Cayenne dissolves FAST! I couldn't get it out. So I stirred it all in and then drained off 3/4 of the liquid and added the last of my chicken broth in, adding a little water to make it stretch some. 

And then I realized I hadn't pulled the eggplant out! Eek! Last time I left it in too long it was gross and burned bad. But this time...with the lack of Parmesan, they were just kinda slimy and meh. But I flipped them and added sauce anyway. Maybe they'd still crisp up. Maybe. 

I finished making everything, got it served up and we went to dig in. I'd been waiting for this all day. 

And then nearly burned my throat off. I muscled down a few spoonfuls of soup before I stopped. I like spicy food, but the only thing I could taste was the cayenne and the heat. Pushed that aside. The eggplant parmesan was edible, but just meh. Without the Parmesan to soak up the excess moisture and crisp up, they were just kinda mushy and weird. 

I downed the rest of my water for the day, cleaned up dinner, and then Cameron and I sat and ate Peanut Butter M&M's while playing board games because so far I haven't found a way to mess up the system of opening the bag and getting that orb of peanut butter goodness in me. 

Wait...yes I have. That one time I was opening a bag in the movie theater trying to be quiet and the bag ripped down the sides and M&M's went flying everywhere and you could hear them rolling down the slanted floor and hitting the wall/screen in front. 

Yeah, you can Pinstrositize anything. Or at least I can, bahahaha!