Food Plan Week of July 10, 2011
Red Beans and Rice was super good but our version is Decidedly Carnivorous. You CAN make it vegan, but adding smoked meat just makes it over the top with deliciousness. Last week we could hardly wait to eat our lunches and that wasn't just because I was slow about making them. We used this amazing cajun beef spicy sausage from the new and amaaaazing charcuterie in town, El Salchichero, in place of hard-to-get and porky andouille (I still have intermittent issues with pork) and then filled that rather pricy sausage out with the much cheaper but still smoked chunk of turkey breast, a turkey thigh, and a turkey drumstick. All of this flavored a triple recipe so we have some in the freezer. Yay! We also ended up with at least a jar of the delicious fennel/squash/greens soup in the freezer, too.
So it is now vegetarian week, and we're going back to one of our favorite vegetarian staples, Sudha Koul's well-named Delicious Everyday Dal. We like to add different mix-ins so this week it's potatoes and little chunks of elephant garlic and some delicious-looking Portugese chard. We'll serve it with quinoa and I like to cook eggs in the dal when I'm reheating it to make it a heartier main dish.
The soup will be spinach, summer squash, garlic, and basil. Soup sounds weird in the summer, but we have these foggy summers here, and it's even been RAINING (gasp) so it fits in, and the soup keeps the main dish part of the bento warm.
Salad is a wing-it week; I still have a bunch of citrus so probably citrus-based vinaigrette, and flavored with purple basil, but I might do vinegar instead. Something light to highlight the basil, whatever I do. I made a lime/cilantro vinaigrette last week that I liked. Brad has requested Fewer Radishes and it is possible that last week's salads were kind of radish-heavy, so I didn't buy any at all this week to give him a radish break. We do eat an inordinate amount of radishes around here because I love them, and you can get my favorite watermelon radishes (how can you say no to a hot pink vegetable?) in the winter when the summer radishes aren't growing, but I should be nice.
I splurged on Dirty Girl strawberries because while they are always good, they were PARTICULARLY perfect this week, and the Ridgecrest blueberries are still in, so it will just be an amazing berry week.
We also got some super tasty sorbet from Mission Hill Creamery, AND bacon caramels and rum caramels from the pricy but amazing chocolate place. This all at Westside Farmer's Market, because I wanted to make sure we got some more of those Ridgecrest blueberries (they aren't at Aptos.)
I am sooo behind at uploading pictures, but the lunches haven't been super pretty anyhow. There is only so much you can do with red beans and rice.
So it is now vegetarian week, and we're going back to one of our favorite vegetarian staples, Sudha Koul's well-named Delicious Everyday Dal. We like to add different mix-ins so this week it's potatoes and little chunks of elephant garlic and some delicious-looking Portugese chard. We'll serve it with quinoa and I like to cook eggs in the dal when I'm reheating it to make it a heartier main dish.
The soup will be spinach, summer squash, garlic, and basil. Soup sounds weird in the summer, but we have these foggy summers here, and it's even been RAINING (gasp) so it fits in, and the soup keeps the main dish part of the bento warm.
Salad is a wing-it week; I still have a bunch of citrus so probably citrus-based vinaigrette, and flavored with purple basil, but I might do vinegar instead. Something light to highlight the basil, whatever I do. I made a lime/cilantro vinaigrette last week that I liked. Brad has requested Fewer Radishes and it is possible that last week's salads were kind of radish-heavy, so I didn't buy any at all this week to give him a radish break. We do eat an inordinate amount of radishes around here because I love them, and you can get my favorite watermelon radishes (how can you say no to a hot pink vegetable?) in the winter when the summer radishes aren't growing, but I should be nice.
I splurged on Dirty Girl strawberries because while they are always good, they were PARTICULARLY perfect this week, and the Ridgecrest blueberries are still in, so it will just be an amazing berry week.
We also got some super tasty sorbet from Mission Hill Creamery, AND bacon caramels and rum caramels from the pricy but amazing chocolate place. This all at Westside Farmer's Market, because I wanted to make sure we got some more of those Ridgecrest blueberries (they aren't at Aptos.)
I am sooo behind at uploading pictures, but the lunches haven't been super pretty anyhow. There is only so much you can do with red beans and rice.