Lunch (AKA: The Quest for Veggies)

[thistlechaser]

Got a salad for lunch. As intended, I at least tried everything in it. Didn't really learn anything new:

Tomatoes: One thing I've actually tried to eat a couple times before. Still hate them (flavor was too strong).

Cucumbers: If I've ever had one before, I don't recall it. I was hoping they'd be like a less-salty pickle. The flavor was fine (had nearly no flavor), but the consistency made me gag after eating my third one. (Ate the first one to try it, forced the second one to see if it'd grow on me, barely finished the third one.) I wonder if I was to make my own pickles (like so many of my LJ friends currently are), would they keep their vitamins? Or would they get leeched out into the brine?

Come to think of it, their slices were really more like chunks. Maybe I could try again with thinner slices...

Lettuce: Fine and dandy. I've eaten it before, I'll eat it again. I suspect there's not much "good stuff" in it though.

So add a Diet Coke and that's lunch. Meant to grab a little bag of popcorn to take back to work, but I forgot it. (Since I ate only about half of the salad, I'm expecting to be hungry long before dinner.)

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This week's hp100 drabbles. The challenge was to pick one or more sentences from a list, and write about them.

#1: A rather disturbing Draco writing a rather disturbing letter from prison.
#2: Three words: Draco's hot tub.

I'll probably do more before the week's finished.



Title: Bacon Fat and Peanut Butter Nipple Sandwiches
House: Slytherin
Words: 100
Note: Used two sentences from the list. The first one is the first line; for the second one, check the end.

In a cold, dark prison cell a young man sits alone, reflecting on his actions... or at least paused in thought. Draco twirls his quill, then goes back to writing.

I'd slather your nipples in bacon fat and then dip them in peanut butter.

Though imprisoned, he's still permitted to send letters.

I'd like to have a three-way between us and your aunt. Or us and my father.

Prison bars won't stop him.

Have you ever considered bestiality?

With a smirk, he folds and seals the letter, then stands and hands it to a guard to be owled to Potter.

A/N: 11) In a cold dark prison cell a young man sits alone, reflecting on his actions. (Lhazzie) and 12) Harry receives a letter that disgusts him. (Kitty)

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Title: Draco's Hot Tub
House: Slytherin
Words: 100
A/N: Using two again, and once more centers around Draco. (Man, doesn't it seem fitting for Draco to have a hot tub?)
8) Snape discovers that a surprising number of Hogwarts students are very, very gay. (Sajasma Lee)
19) Draco's got himself a hot tub. (harrypotterfreak)

Oh, and set sometime before GoF, otherwise this would be really disturbing.

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Draco's got himself a hot tub, but you can't take a dip unless you're invited. And male. And handsome.

How'd he get it set up in the dormitory without anyone finding out about it? And how did news of it stay quiet for so long? Draco isn't saying. But word got out, and as head of Slytherin, Snape went to investigate.

Announcing himself as he strode through the door, the scene before him caused him pause.

Draco atop Blaise, Wood all over Diggory, and Potter enthusiastically licking a Ravenclaw boy.

Snape tried to decide between punishing them and joining them.

Comments

[laurelwood.livejournal.com]

Oh, wow. Great drabbles! You're obviously on a roll this week. (A suitable pun, I suppose, given the, er, "sandwich" theme of your first entry.)

You sound a lot like me in the veggie-eating department in that "all you can eat" salad bars aren't actually a very good bargain. ;)

And hey- I saw a photograph-of-a-thistle icon that made me think of you; appropriately enough, greythistle has it.

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

greythistle

Okay... how freaky is that? They're using the same exact shade of blue as me, and this person lives not too far from me. It is a pretty thistle icon though!

You sound a lot like me in the veggie-eating department in that "all you can eat" salad bars aren't actually a very good bargain. ;)

At the moment, yeah. I'll eat lettuce and bacon bits and salad dressing. :P Trying to change though!

Oh, wow. Great drabbles!

Thanks!

[kaylarudbek.livejournal.com]

Hmm. I wonder if you had cucumbers with seeds? There are seedless varieties as well...

The darker the lettuce, the more nutritious. Bell peppers are also very good for you, and I personally rather like them. Phytochemicals, that's the ticket. A rainbow of colors on the plate is a good thing...

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

Yes, they had big, ugly, slimy, smushy, slidey seeds that felt really gross in my mouth. I'd be willing to try them again if they were seedless.

The darker the lettuce, the more nutritious.

The stuff I had today was so dark it was nearly purple! So odd! But it tasted like normal lettuce so that was fine.

[kaylarudbek.livejournal.com]

I'm trying to think of what kind of cucumbers are seedless now. IIRC, it's the "English" ones that are longer and skinnier than regular cucumbers. More expensive, but it's fiber, after all...
Not liking slimy or spicy stuff...(Yoda voice on) hmm, a challenge this is (Yoda voice off)...baby carrots are fairly crunchy, as are celery sticks. Fresh broccoli and cauliflower are also crunchy, and I find cauliflower to be quite bland, myself. But then again, I find radishes to be too sharp and burning for my tastes. Canned water chestnuts are crunchy and bland, but a bit wet in texture.

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

I actually don't mind bland, at least something tasteless won't taste "yucky"! Celery is really high on my list of things to try. They usually put some out with our fresh fruit here at work, but for some reason we didn't get any today...

[frances-jane.livejournal.com]

Love both the drabbles, especially the line 'and Potter enthusiastically licking a Ravenclaw boy' - well done madam!

How can you dislike cucumbers, however? How? They're like 90% water; they don't even have a taste! I now have the urge to eat cucumber. Mmm.

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

Glad you liked them!

Yeah, the taste of the cucumber was fine (like you said, they taste mostly like nothing), but the spongy outside and the icky slimy smushy slidey seeds in the center were just... yuck!

[frances-jane.livejournal.com]

*shakes head in disbelief*

I actually did go and eat a huge chunk of cucumber ten minutes ago cos of your post, y'know. Nothing spongey or smushy about it!

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

The lettuce in my salad was on the old side. Maybe cucumber gets smushy with age?

[frances-jane.livejournal.com]

Perhaps. Though it's also occured to me that we're probably talking about different things; I've never even seen a cucumber that has seeds - they're all seedless over here.

Interesting piece of trivia there, no?

(No.)

[kaylarudbek.livejournal.com]

So that's why it's called an English cucumber, then! Fascinating! I never understood the English liking for cucumber sandwiches before, as I thought they'd be mostly seeds. (the light begins to dawn for this American...) But do your pickled cucumbers/gherkins have seeds in them, or not? Ours tend to, although we pick smaller-seeded cucumbers to make into pickles. Smaller cucumbers in general, in fact...(pickled anything-but-cucumbers is designated by name as pickled xx. Pickles = pickled cucumbers/gherkins.)

[kaylarudbek.livejournal.com]

Oops, I meant to add, (pickles = pickled cucumbers for the Americans.) I know we're not the center of the universe...

[frances-jane.livejournal.com]

do your pickled cucumbers/gherkins have seeds in them, or not?

I'm not sure, I don't eat them cos I can't stand em... however, McDonalds & other fast food places put gherkins in their burgers (which a lot of people remove before eating) and they don't seem to have seeds, so I'm guessing no. I'm gonna push the boat right out and say that us Brits don't go near things with seeds in em :)

[quasilemur.livejournal.com]

I've never found cucumbers to be mushy or slimy in any way (except, of course, when I've found a rotten one). And if the seeds do bother you (for whatever reason that might be), they're very easy to remove. Just cut the thing in half lengthwise, and scoop out the seed pulp with a spoon. If you do it correctly (it's not hard at all), you won't lose too much meat.

As far as lettuce being nutritious, iceberg...well, isn't. However, most of the other varieties (all 96 million of them) are much better. If you get a quality salad, it will probably contain leafy greens of many shapes, sizes, and colors, and distinct tastes. Actually, they have a wall chart up at the school kitchen, describing many of the varieties of salad greens. Do some research!

The earlier suggestion of bell peppers is a good one, but if you just jump right in, I highly doubt you'll like them. They're a rather mature taste, if that makes any sense. They are very nutritious, however. Personally, if I were going to get into them, I'd start by introducing them in little ways. Extra thin slices in salads or in sauteed dishes, or diced up in tomato sauces. They're quite good, but probably something you'll have to work up to.

Veggies

[tersa.livejournal.com]

Just general commentary on your post and other people's comments:

* Cucumbers-The cukes on salad bars can be of less than perfect nature. They tend to get too cold, which mushifies the flesh. I agree with everyone else that you should either try fresh cucumbers you slice yourself, scoop out the seeds (which is pretty trivial), or splurge a little to buy English cucumbers.

I don't think cucumbers have much vitamins but, if they do, brining them to make pickles shouldn't leech them out. Vitamins are normally destroyed by heating/the cooking process. I have a couple of yummy cucumber pickle recipes, one a traditional dill pickle, the other more of an Asian style (which I absolutely love to death). I probably have both linked in my Memories, or I can dig them out.

* Bell peppers-I love bell peppers, and I do recommend trying them, but just as a warning, some people have a genetic variation which makes bell peppers absolutely nasty to them. So, if you have a strong and violent anti reaction, don't feel bad.

I tend not to really like raw bell peppers, except with ranch dressing. :) Cooked peppers, though, especially roasted, are the bomb. They sweeten up considerably.

* Lettuce-What they said. Try to go for stuff like romaine or butter lettuce, or what sounds like you got, the wild lettuces, and avoid iceberg for nutritional value.

Other good things on salads: baby spinach leaves, mushrooms (which have very little nutritional content but are low-cal and full of fiber), egg, kidney beans, sunflower seeds.