When I was younger, I worked at Morgan Stanley in midtown Manhattan. I had just graduated high school and had been working there part time my last year in school. I was offered and decided to take the job, as they had a program that would pay for me to get my undergraduate degree. I remember telling my parents that I’d be moving out at the end of the month. Both were shocked, as I was only 18 years old and had just graduated high school. I remember my mom freaking out that I was leaving the house at such a young age. I remember my aunt asking me how I could possibly do this to my parents. Truly, my only initial supporter in this move was my grandmother. She reminded me how proud she was of me that I was so independent. She reminded me that being a strong, independent woman who could take care of herself was a good thing. I wonder now if she saw some of herself in me. I wonder now if she wished her life had turned out differently, as she had married at the age of 16 and had two children by the age of 18. Maybe she wished she’d been just that much more independent in her time.
During my years at Morgan Stanley, I reconnected with running. I had a group of friends at work that liked to run after work in Central Park. When we signed up for some races, I knew I’d have to be more consistent with my training. I grew up across from a beautiful park in Middle Village, NY – Juniper Valley Park. When I was running at Juniper Park, I much preferred running on the track. It was soft and flat and I had no trouble guessing how far I’d run. Remember, those were the days before technology kept track of your distance. Since there was really no place to run, that I felt comfortable running alone, near my new apartment I drove back to Juniper Park to run.
Every year on Memorial Day there was a fun run in our neighborhood. My dad and I would run this race together, though he was always much faster than me. He still tells the story of how some friends of mine came upon him out on the course and asked if I had left him behind. Nope, he had left me behind likely in the first mile. I’m now the age he was then and gone are the days of running together. Memories of those runs linger with me still. Each Memorial Day as I stand at the starting line, I feel his presence and chuckle at his much told story of being that much faster than me.
Four years ago, we started a Biggest Loser competition at my school and I decided to start running again. When I saw a Memorial Day fun run in the neighborhood, I signed up immediately. I posted on my school’s communication board that I was running the race and hoped someone would join me. A few teachers did sign up and we had a great day. We still run this race together each year to kick off the running season. Through the years people have come and gone, but there’s still a core group of us that show up each year. The course is flat and fast, but we don’t really care. We just really go to honor those who have given their lives to ensure our safety. We run to spend time together as a team. We run to kick off the summer season with a great after race party.
Today, as we prepare for the holiday, it rained all day. I went early this morning to a yoga class to begin my day. Then I went to the market to pick up some fresh vegetables for meals this week. They had some beautiful eggplants out, so I picked one up to cook today. My husband really wanted Sunday sauce, but I really wanted to keep it light if possible. I decided to cut back on the cheese and avoid breading, or frying the eggplant. I only used two slices of mozzarella in the entire recipe. I decided to skip the eggplant parmesan and make stuffed eggplant instead. This would enable my husband to have sauce and meatballs and me to avoid the extras I didn’t want. It was a delicious and filling meal. We split one half of the eggplant and have another left over for another meal during the week. We chose not to have any pasta and plated the eggplant with a nice arugula salad. The recipe for my sauce can be found here – Sunday Gravy
Stuffed Eggplant
Ingredients:
- Chopped sirloin (1/2 pound – use the other 1/2 for meatballs)
- small onion chopped
- 2 cloves garlic chopped
- olive oil
- 1 medium eggplant
- Tomato sauce (Sunday Sauce, or marinara)
- 1/4 c breadcrumbs
- 1 egg
- 1/4 c parmesan cheese
- Mozzarella (2 slices)
Directions:
- Cut the top off the eggplant and then slice in half lengthwise.
- Scoop out the eggplant leaving enough meat to hold the shape when baked.
- Cut up the inside of the eggplant you scooped out into small pieces.
- Boil the cut up eggplant meat in water for 10 minutes.
- Brown the onion in olive oil in skillet. (4 minutes)
- Add the garlic and saute. (1-2 minutes)
- Add chopmeat to the pan and brown until cooked through.
- Add the drained, cooked eggplant meat
- Add scoop of Sunday sauce, or marinara sauce and stir.
- Remove from heat.
- Add 1/4 c breadcrumbs and one egg and stir to combine all
- Scoop meat mixture into the insides of the two eggplant halves
- Cook on baking sheet for 50 minutes at 350 degrees
We ate our meal without pasta, but you can certainly serve this over rice or pasta. We had a meatball on the side and some arugula salad and topped all with some parmesan cheese. This picture is one half of the eggplant, which you can see is large enough for two.
Reclaiming My Health 