My fight with fish

I am the type of person who hates disliking foods, let alone an entire group of foods.  As evidenced by this blog, I love food, trying new things, and sharing my experiences with others.  There are few foods I truly hate, but throughout most of my life I’ve despised seafood. 🙁 

This distaste for seafood has caused me a great deal of sadness over the years, and a while back I made it my personal mission to trick train myself to tollerate enjoy seafood.  Once during my teens, my mom actually bet me $20 I wouldn’t eat a piece of sushi.  This bet ended with me in tears and a lonely uneaten piece of sushi on my plate.  (BTW – my mom still paid me the $20–think she felt bad for envoking tears 🙂 ) 

Whelp, I must say I’ve come along way since then!  At this point, I thoroughly enjoy shrimp, crab, clams, and most other shell fish.  I L-O-V-E sushi and calamari.  (Insert golf clap here) 

Despite these applaudable advances in my palate, I have not been able to find a fish I thoroughly enjoy eating.  Every fish that I have tried comes up subpar (well unless it is fried — but fry pretty much anything and it’s tasty). 

All day, I’ve been dreading tonight’s dinner.  The plan:  to eat and thoroughly enjoy a salmon patty sandwich courtesy of my Sunday Trader Joe’s shopping excursion. 

When I got home, I noticed I was subconsciously avoiding dinner.  I found plenty of things to clean and straighten up even though my stomach was grumbling.  Finally I pulled the salmon out of the fridge and stood there staring at it for a few solid minutes.  After much contemplation, I decided I needed a sauce for the salmon patty so I whipped one together: 

Fish Sauce Recipe (not really sure what else to call this concotion…) 

• 2 tbsp breakstones fat free sour cream
• ½ tsp horseradish
• 1/8 tsp minced garlic
• ¼ tsp lemon juice
• Salt and pepper
• Frank’s red hottttt

Once the sauce was assembled, I started choppin excessive amounts of onion and lettuce to top the salmon patty.  

At this point, there was no more delaying the inevitable, so I threw the patty on the george.   😯 

When I finally mustered up the courage to try the sandwich, I realized it wasn’t horrible — but it’s not exactly something I would look forward to eating either.  I just don’t enjoy the flaky texture of fish, and I find it pretty bland.  I would rather sink my teeth into a hamburger, turkey burger, piece of chicken, steak, etc. 

 I guess it’s one small step for woman…  one giant leap still to come? 

Stats on the sammy with 1 tbsp fish sauce recipe (above):   200 calories, 24g carbs, 3g fat, 23g protein, 4g fiber 

Since dinner was mediocre, I figured I’d try something else new and throw together a protein shake using one of the samples the BF got me at the Vitamin Shoppe over the weekend. 

Here’s what went into my first ever protein shake: 

• 1/2 of a serving IntraPro Double Chocolate Pure Whey Protein
• 1/4 cup sliced frozen banana
• 3 ice cubes
• 8 ounces of water

Topped her off with a dollop of fat free whipped cream!  This was actually quite tasty!  I could really taste the bananas, but the chocolate was a little too subdued for me.   Next time, I may use coffee instead of water (mocha frap baby!) or try adding some different fruits and cocoa powder.  

Stats on the protein shake:  130 calories, 13g carbs, 2g fat, 13g protein, 2g fiber