(no subject)
Okay, so, lately, I've been trying to watch what I eat a little. (Only a little; as I am food-motivated, things like "Okay, I finish this bit and I can have a piece of chocolate" are excellent ways to ensure I finish a project.) Salad has become something of a fixture, as has trying to cut back on things like preservatives (where possible) and salt. Also, drinking water (well, water with Crystal Lite in it) instead of soda at home and ordering salad instead of fries in restaurants (not because fries potatoes are bad, I still eat fast food fries, although only from Wendys and Burger King. No, because I never EAT restaurant fries and thus they get thrown out and I WILL eat a side salad. It's a waste thing, not a waist thing).
Instead of getting the two-pack of eighteen-inch-long cucumbers at Costco, I talked Mom into getting the six-or-eight-I-forget-pack of tiny little six inch long 'gourmet' cucumbers, which were about a dollar more for slightly less by weight. My reasoning was, I like cucumber, I'd eat it in salads, but when I make a dinner salad for just me I feel stupid cutting a giant cucumber because I know I'm not going to eat but a little of it. So, eventually, those giant cucumbers go to rot. We already buy tomatoes on the vine, which is the closest thing to home-grown you can get without... home-growing, and they're the same way for salads-- they're small, a whole one or two in a dinner salad is just enough, and no full-sized tomatoes rot because nobody wants a whole one.
But the tiny little 'gourmet' cucumbers?
They taste good.
Yeah, I italicize that like it's supposed to be some kind of revelation; well, for me, it was. We've ALWAYS had huge cucumbers, and they've never tasted like anything more than a ranch delivery system. These, man, there is a taste and it is a good taste and even ranch dressing does not overpower it! My theory is they get to ripen longer or something.
Goddamn, eating produce that tastes good makes me want to grow foods.
Lettuce mix and the tiny cucumbers and tomatoes and some shrimp (I need some meat) and some tiny babybel cheese wheels cut into eighths and some mushrooms and DANG man but I have a tasty salad. Still using too much dressing, but I'm working on that. Also I wish I had some croutons, but there are a few drawbacks to doing all one's shopping at Costco. You can't buy rice or flour unless you need fifty pounds of it, and even if I'd ever seen croutons there, I don't think I could go through a package the size of my head before they went stale. It can't be all that hard to make croutons, anyway, right?
Instead of getting the two-pack of eighteen-inch-long cucumbers at Costco, I talked Mom into getting the six-or-eight-I-forget-pack of tiny little six inch long 'gourmet' cucumbers, which were about a dollar more for slightly less by weight. My reasoning was, I like cucumber, I'd eat it in salads, but when I make a dinner salad for just me I feel stupid cutting a giant cucumber because I know I'm not going to eat but a little of it. So, eventually, those giant cucumbers go to rot. We already buy tomatoes on the vine, which is the closest thing to home-grown you can get without... home-growing, and they're the same way for salads-- they're small, a whole one or two in a dinner salad is just enough, and no full-sized tomatoes rot because nobody wants a whole one.
But the tiny little 'gourmet' cucumbers?
They taste good.
Yeah, I italicize that like it's supposed to be some kind of revelation; well, for me, it was. We've ALWAYS had huge cucumbers, and they've never tasted like anything more than a ranch delivery system. These, man, there is a taste and it is a good taste and even ranch dressing does not overpower it! My theory is they get to ripen longer or something.
Goddamn, eating produce that tastes good makes me want to grow foods.
Lettuce mix and the tiny cucumbers and tomatoes and some shrimp (I need some meat) and some tiny babybel cheese wheels cut into eighths and some mushrooms and DANG man but I have a tasty salad. Still using too much dressing, but I'm working on that. Also I wish I had some croutons, but there are a few drawbacks to doing all one's shopping at Costco. You can't buy rice or flour unless you need fifty pounds of it, and even if I'd ever seen croutons there, I don't think I could go through a package the size of my head before they went stale. It can't be all that hard to make croutons, anyway, right?