Beauty and the Beast: PRK and cooking

"If she doesn't eat with me, then she doesn't eat at all! Grr" - Beast, Beauty and the Beast

The day before yesterday (aka the day after I got eyeball surgery -- that's the technical name for it, by-the-by, PRK is just fancy), I was feelin pretty good. Sure, my eyes felt uncomfortable but I really had no idea what people were talking about when they said it was so difficult. They had me so nervous. That morning, the doctor assured me the worst was yet to come, and that by the afternoon it would probably be pretty painful, and to expect things to get worse before it got better. "PRK is just an intensive post-operative recovery process" she warned me. I smiled. I'd be fine. I didn't even bother getting the eye-numbing drops prescription filled. Why? Because they're supposed to be avoided if possible, and because, well, I didn't need them...

The night before last I woke up four times because my eyes started really feeling uncomfortable. You could almost call it...

Pain.

Eyes are swollen, burny, stingy, and super-light sensitive. I keep them shut unless I absolutely have to have them open...

When yesterday came, I had to pry my eyes open to put in the antibiotics. They did not want to be open, no matter how dark my room was, it just wasn't dark enough. And the stinging and burning! I found some motrin and took it; afterwards I realized, I had made all these grand plans with people because the day before I had been so delightfully smug about my recovery process!

I found my phone, and, to be able to unlock it, tilted it an angle so I didn't look straight into the light, and finally unlocked it and called my friend, J. J took me to the doc for the procedure, drove me back home, made me go to sleep while she went to two different pharmacies and waited for three hours to get prescriptions filled. While I slept. I owed her and her boyfriend brunch, at the least. But that was not for yesterday. She understood.

After a few more naps and motrin and sensory deprivation, I realized I was a little hungry. We don't have much in the kitchen as we're still trying to unpack stuff, purchase food items, etc. So I made a yummy salad out of some organic baby greens, diced cucumber, a few sliced grape tomatoes, cubed peach pieces, chopped celery, blueberries, and pine nuts. But what for dressing?

I dug around the fridge, avoiding the light--I had mustard. Looks like honey mustard vinaigrette!

To make a honey mustard vinaigrette is super easy: it's just spicy brown mustard, honey, extra virgin olive oil, and vinegar. I like white wine vinegar for this. Like everything else, I eyeball and taste my way to figure out what I like. For my salad, which was on the large side, as it was my entire lunch, I used more or less the following:

1 T (tablespoon) spicy brown mustard.
2 tsp honey (you can use more or less, to taste)
2 tsp white wine vinegar
2 tsp olive oil

Mix it all up and toss your salad in it--it is so nice and light and fresh and great for salads with nuts, berries, and veggies. If you have horseradish, that will bump this dressing up into awesome.sauce. Or, use it as a marinade on your poultry next time you want to bake/pan fry a dish with a lighter, but still flavorful taste!

It definitely lightened my mood. After which I took another two naps, had another motrin, and made...veggie soup...coming up next!