Food
So, food: I've been cooking it. We are on a self-imposed challenge not to go out to eat until our vacation at the end of the month. I am also on a (also self-imposed) no dairy/sugar/grains/legumes trial, in an effort to fix some minor health issues and maybe aid in weight loss. This means I am making dinner far more often, and making really sensible choices about daytime eating.
I love the 50 recipes thing that people are doing around here, and I would do it too except I rarely cook from recipes. So I am just going to write down what I'm cooking (if it is exceptional or interesting), partly as a reference for meal planning later, and partly to remind myself of how well we eat when we eat at home. Not to toot my own horn, but home-cooked meals beat most restaurants that I can afford. And, we're starting to get some produce from the garden, so the * notes a home-grown veggie/herb!
So this week, we had:
Grilled salmon with lemon and dill
Grilled portobellas with balsamic/garlic (garlic from my mom's garden)
Roasted broccoli* with lemon
Chicken in a chipotle/orange/thyme* rub
Spinach salad with pear, slivered almonds, and mustard vinaigrette
Cucumber and dill salad (had to use up that dill)
Seared ahi steaks with red chili paste marinade and a little sriracha aioli
Zucchini with the same marinade
Raw snap peas*
Chicken that I accidentally brined for almost 48 hours (don't do that), grilled to perfection by toph
Roasted broccoli again
Roasted sweet potatoes with chipotle
Pork tenderloin with lemon/rosemary*/garlic marinade
Fennel/apple/kale salad with a tarragon honey mustard vinaigrette (tarragon from mom's garden)
Most of my lunches were giant spinach/lettuce* and chicken salad with some fruit on the side.
Breakfast for most of the week was a quinoa/dried fruit sort of oatmeal style cereal thing? I call it quinola. I cooked the quinoa in coconut milk and then mixed in a splash of vanilla, cinnamon, chopped dried cherries, cranberries, crystallized ginger, and freeze-fried blueberries. Topped it with slivered amonds and some roasted sunflower seeds. Tasty and filling!
I'm looking forward to stone fruit season, which isn't really happening here yet, but will be soon. Jasper and I ate a nectarine today.
Next week, my goal is to make at least one vegetarian dinner (I am so bad at that) and also to start figuring out some more meals that aren't "Chunk of meat, side of veggies and salad." We eat like this for most of the summer because we grill so much (in fact, we grilled all of the meat we ate this entire week), but I'd like to start having meat be more in the "adds flavor and some protein to a mostly vegetarian meal" category and less in the main event category, if that makes sense. Everything I am reading these days suggests that we only do our bodies, our pocketbooks, and the earth more good by eating less meat. So I am trying to get over the feeling that I need the protein. We've been cutting our portions down over the last year, so we already buy and eat less meat than we used to, but I think we can do better. If you are still reading and you have some ideas for meals like that, I'd love to hear them.
We're also making a continued effort to buy local, to know the source of the meat we buy, and to keep things organic where we can (and where it really makes a difference). But I'll choose local over organic, because I want food that is fresh and hasn't been refrigerated for days on trucks or trains, and I like my food to come from the same hemisphere I live in, when possible. I also try not to be too obnoxious about it -- I eat apples year round, and there are plenty of things that never grow here locally that I am not giving up -- oranges and bananas and whatnot. But not tomatoes, man. Because a refrigerated tomato is just sad and there's no good reason for it.
( I am also very aware of my own white middle-class privilege here, that I get to be so picky about the food choices I make, that I have farmer's markets and natural food stores within walking distance, a garden where I can grow my own produce, and the means/opportunity to buy pretty much any ingredient I could ever think of, not even to mention the available time to plan, shop, and cook my own meals. I mean, Jesus. I am so, so fortunate. We are surrounded by an culinary embarrassment of riches.)
So that is where I am about food right now. Did I mention I am not eating any dairy? It is killing my coffee habit, because there isn't a "milk" out there that I really like in my coffee. Although, an iced coffee with hazelnut milk and a splash of almond extract is pretty much just like an iced almond latte. If you don't think about it too hard.
I love the 50 recipes thing that people are doing around here, and I would do it too except I rarely cook from recipes. So I am just going to write down what I'm cooking (if it is exceptional or interesting), partly as a reference for meal planning later, and partly to remind myself of how well we eat when we eat at home. Not to toot my own horn, but home-cooked meals beat most restaurants that I can afford. And, we're starting to get some produce from the garden, so the * notes a home-grown veggie/herb!
So this week, we had:
Grilled salmon with lemon and dill
Grilled portobellas with balsamic/garlic (garlic from my mom's garden)
Roasted broccoli* with lemon
Chicken in a chipotle/orange/thyme* rub
Spinach salad with pear, slivered almonds, and mustard vinaigrette
Cucumber and dill salad (had to use up that dill)
Seared ahi steaks with red chili paste marinade and a little sriracha aioli
Zucchini with the same marinade
Raw snap peas*
Chicken that I accidentally brined for almost 48 hours (don't do that), grilled to perfection by toph
Roasted broccoli again
Roasted sweet potatoes with chipotle
Pork tenderloin with lemon/rosemary*/garlic marinade
Fennel/apple/kale salad with a tarragon honey mustard vinaigrette (tarragon from mom's garden)
Most of my lunches were giant spinach/lettuce* and chicken salad with some fruit on the side.
Breakfast for most of the week was a quinoa/dried fruit sort of oatmeal style cereal thing? I call it quinola. I cooked the quinoa in coconut milk and then mixed in a splash of vanilla, cinnamon, chopped dried cherries, cranberries, crystallized ginger, and freeze-fried blueberries. Topped it with slivered amonds and some roasted sunflower seeds. Tasty and filling!
I'm looking forward to stone fruit season, which isn't really happening here yet, but will be soon. Jasper and I ate a nectarine today.
Next week, my goal is to make at least one vegetarian dinner (I am so bad at that) and also to start figuring out some more meals that aren't "Chunk of meat, side of veggies and salad." We eat like this for most of the summer because we grill so much (in fact, we grilled all of the meat we ate this entire week), but I'd like to start having meat be more in the "adds flavor and some protein to a mostly vegetarian meal" category and less in the main event category, if that makes sense. Everything I am reading these days suggests that we only do our bodies, our pocketbooks, and the earth more good by eating less meat. So I am trying to get over the feeling that I need the protein. We've been cutting our portions down over the last year, so we already buy and eat less meat than we used to, but I think we can do better. If you are still reading and you have some ideas for meals like that, I'd love to hear them.
We're also making a continued effort to buy local, to know the source of the meat we buy, and to keep things organic where we can (and where it really makes a difference). But I'll choose local over organic, because I want food that is fresh and hasn't been refrigerated for days on trucks or trains, and I like my food to come from the same hemisphere I live in, when possible. I also try not to be too obnoxious about it -- I eat apples year round, and there are plenty of things that never grow here locally that I am not giving up -- oranges and bananas and whatnot. But not tomatoes, man. Because a refrigerated tomato is just sad and there's no good reason for it.
( I am also very aware of my own white middle-class privilege here, that I get to be so picky about the food choices I make, that I have farmer's markets and natural food stores within walking distance, a garden where I can grow my own produce, and the means/opportunity to buy pretty much any ingredient I could ever think of, not even to mention the available time to plan, shop, and cook my own meals. I mean, Jesus. I am so, so fortunate. We are surrounded by an culinary embarrassment of riches.)
So that is where I am about food right now. Did I mention I am not eating any dairy? It is killing my coffee habit, because there isn't a "milk" out there that I really like in my coffee. Although, an iced coffee with hazelnut milk and a splash of almond extract is pretty much just like an iced almond latte. If you don't think about it too hard.