lunch, part 2

Like the oaf I am, I forgot my cell phone again. Not having my cell phone doesn't stress me that much because (1) I'm not really addicted to my cell phone (although, admittedly, I'll use it if I have it), and (2) I'm an introvert who's happy not to be connected with the world, anyway. But because I didn't have my cell phone, I had to rely on my Korean coworker to take pictures of today's luncheon. Here's a pic of my first plate of food. I'd forgotten to add the rest of the veggies (olives, lettuce, tomatoes):

chili with trimmings on keto cornbread (not visible)

Here's plate #2, the fuck-it plate because I went for the Doritos:

chili and trimmings on Doritos

I made two loaves of keto cornbread. Here's the second loaf, looking a bit tan:

2nd loaf of keto cornbread, left at home

But the inside looks fine:

keto cornbread, cross section

The cornbread was heavy and cakey, as was to be expected given that the bread dough/batter was loaded with eggs and butter. It has a rough look because I used up the rest of my coarse-ground almond meal, which I combined with more finely ground almond flour. All in all, the bread was edible, and while it hinted at real cornbread, it wasn't like real cornbread at all. I used the corn extract to impart a cornlike flavor, but in the end, the extract's alcohol content left a teeny bit of an unpleasant aromatic undercurrent plus a slight aftertaste that, while not exactly off-putting, didn't quite endear me to the final product.

Of all the things I made, I think the star of the show was the awesome salsa. The salsa ingredients were fresh; they really popped, and I wished I had plain corn chips instead of Doritos (which were, admittedly, an impulse buy while I was at Costco). The chili was good; my boss was happy to have his chili with beans plus some fresh tortillas. I told the boss that his cravings were a bit confused: if you want tortillas, then that usually means tacos (or burritos, enchiladas, chimichangas, etc.), and while taco filling has elements in common with chili, it's not chili (apologies to all my readers who use UK English; we Yanks don't spell it "chilli"). I offered to wrap up the boss's "tacos" and pan-fry them, but he was happy just to microwave his tortillas and make his weird little tacos.

Because my boss and coworker both elected to take some food home with them (my Korean coworker took half the remaining chili, some cheese, some salsa, some guacamole, and some sour cream; my boss took the rest of the chili, some cheese, some sour cream, and the rest of the guacamole), there wasn't much in the way of leftovers except for some trimmings. No more olives—since I had few olives to begin with—but I do still have plenty of sour cream, cheese, lettuce, and tomatoes. I'm thinking of finishing off the leftovers on Monday by bringing in more tortillas and also frying up some large shrimp and chunks of skirt steak. I'll bring the rest of my chimichurri along, and that ought to make for an awesome fajita-ish meal (sorry, but I refuse to cook the onions that usually go into a fajita... I can compromise by sprinkling some onion powder onto the proteins).

Tomorrow, we're back to the strictness. I told my boss that I'd still like to cook for the office once a month, but with the CEO being so erratic, it's going to be hard for me to specify dates. For now, the best I can do is give a few days' notice.