Day 34 The Harvest Moon was calling me...

So...this year's autumnal equinox coincided with a beautiful full harvest moon, and despite the fact that the magic was rather lost on my family, I decided to make a Harvest inspired dinner. Admittedly some of the things were **not** diet, but I tried to select recipes that used healthy ingredients, all fresh stuff, minimal butter and saturated fats, lots of veggies...that sort of thing.

The menu: roast pork chops with rosemary-garlic-mustard glaze and baked over carrots, onions and parsnips; mashed potatoes with basil-garlic-olive oil and blended with low-fat yogurt; butternut squash soup made with carrots, squash, onions, celery, veggie broth and topped with curried apples. And the very last item is maple oatmeal scones,

Now before anyone starts thinking that I totally blew it here, I want to point out that I ate exactly 1/2 of a pork chop (about 200 calories), about 3-4 each of parsnips and carrots (maybe 50 calories), a half bowl of the butternut squash soup (95 calories), and 1/2 of a maple scone (about 200 calories). I skipped the mashed potatoes altogether. And we had mulled cider to drink (about 90 calories).

Note: the scone recipe used whole wheat flour and oatmeal, and contained a whopping 1/2 cup sugar in the entire batch of dough (which made 18 scones).

Admittedly this was not an ideal dinner, especially with the scone. But the big accomplishment for me was portion control. And I actually felt good both physically and mentally because I didn't stuff myself. So I can eat tasty non-diet food and still not blow it.

And here is the pretty Harvest Moon!