CSA Box so far!

Fava beans are dumb. I have 330g of waste to show for 170g favas. Add in the shelling, blanching AND peeling, and its stupid. Going to saute those with bacon and shallots., topped with a few sprigs of microbasil.

Made an ugly soup the other day. The colors were glamorous but the texture was not. Carrot, peppers, shallots and chicken stock finished with a bit of cream. There's still a serving or so in the fridge.

Today, I'm going to blanch the chard and possibly make a quiche. That or a chard/biscuit/tomato bake.

I need to eat more salads!

Also, found out my new favorite egg salad ever. Good quality eggs + 1/2 slice of bacon minced and rendered + dab of spicy mustard + mayo. With sprouts and tomatoes on mini pitas = amazing.

CSA!

Its been a while! I joined a CSA, so I'm going to use this as my little idea spot!

This weeks box:
3 mini pumpkins
eggplants
peppers (red beaver dam & corno di toro)
tomatoes
mini cucumbers
rainbow chard
lettuce greens
fava beans
red okra
mini yellow watermelon
microbasil
red clover sprouts
parsley
rainbow carrots!

Definitely worth the 25$/wk.

My current plans are:
fava bean salad with goat cheese and basil
quiche with odds and ends (lookin at you, parsley, chard and peppers)
roasted red pepper bisque
squash soup (pumpkins and a butternut i have on hand)
grilled okra
eggplant parm or lasagne
egg salad sandwiches on whole grain bread with sprouts
cucumber sandwiches
cucumber salad (with onions??)

Shopping list:
bacon
eggs
chevre
mini pitas
onions
cream (totally optional and i shouldn't do it!)

Dinner tonight!

Today's dinner is going to be amazing, if improperly timed.
First done is balsamic glazed brussels sprouts.
- Trim brussels sprouts, halve (depending on size), and soak in lemon water for however long, about a half hour.
- In a pan over med-high or so heat, combine butter and olive oil in not so scary proportions.
- When butter's melted, add brussels sprouts. Toss about until browned and awesome. Add some garlic and let it cook another minute or so.
- Up the heat. Add in some balsamic vinegar and chicken (or turkey!) stock. Toss about until tender and glazed. Enjoy.

Alternatively, set aside until cold because that's when the chicken's done.

Paprika & onion chicken
- Thinly slice a small onion. Add paprika til bright orange and salt & pepper. Add about a tbsp of butter for each chicken breast (i used two freakishly large ones). Toss with chicken. Add stock and put in the oven at like 425F until done. I should probably check on mine any minute now.

Lastly! I'm trying the basic bread recipe from the 5 minute artisan bread book! I made the dough up earlier, and there's a boule of it resting on the counter. If this works, it will be the best thing ever. Because its easy. And cheap. And we know how I like the cheap and easy. Its going into the oven after the chicken comes out.

So, its an ill-timed affair, which is more my speed than everything coming together all at once. Someday I'll learn.

Roasted Butternut Squash Soup

So my tendency whilst cooking is to reference actual recipes for time&temp, but to kind of do my own thing the rest of the way.
I volunteered at the Mercato today, and got $20 to spend there for my troubles. I came home with eggs, mint, beets, a pearapple, squash and white cheddar. The squash is being made into soup! It tastes pretty good so far. Here's what I did:

2 x small butternut squash, peeled, seeded, and diced (~3/4")
1 x handful baby carrots, cut in half
1/4 onion, slivered
3 x cloves garlic, smashed
2 tbsp oil, drizzled
salt, pepper, & cinnamon to taste
chicken stock (like 3 cups? 4ish?)

1. Preheat the oven while you chop the veggies. Put the veggies in a pan (used 9x13 pyrex) drizzle with olive oil, season with salt, pepper & cinnamon, and add ~1 cup chicken stock. Put pan in oven.
2. Stir every 20 minutes or so, add additional liquid if needed. I didn't need to. When everything's soft & mushy, move into a heavy bottomed pan. Add additional chicken stock and simmer for a while.
3. Blend. Thin with more chicken stock or water if need be.

Lately I've been buying whole chickens and either roasting them whole, or chopping them. And then making chicken stock! Yay! I love it.

NOTE: Had to add a whole lot of water while pureeing. Also, more salt and less pepper. The less pepper part is difficult, so don't put too much on to begin with. Also added a hint of ginger, and a splash of honey.

End: not the best I've had, but for once in my life, I've mastered the luscious texture that butternut squash soup needs.

Crockpot Love

So, I'm trying to cook more, so we don't do things like get pizza, or anything silly like that. Or subsist on pb&js. Here are two things that might make it into rotation.

Chicken "Cacciatore"
- 1 huge boneless skinless chicken breast, diced (about 12oz)
- 1 15 oz can diced tomatoes, no salt added
- 1 8 oz can tomato sauce
- 1/2 onion, slivered
- 3 cloves garlic
- Italian Herbs
- Fresh ground pepper
- Crushed red pepper flakes
- Salt, to taste, when finished.

Throw the onion slivers in the crockpot. Toss the diced tomatoes, garlic in. Add the chicken breast. Top with the herbs and peppers. Add the tomato sauce. Cook on low for 6-8 hrs. Season to taste when done. Serve with breadsticks, garlic bread, pasta, etc. Made 3+ servings. Ate the leftovers for lunch today.

"Salsa Chicken"
- stolen off a message board:
- 1 huge chicken breast (see above), diced
- 1 jar salsa (roughly, i tossed in the remainder of one jar and a splash of another)
- 1 can corn, drained
- 1 can beans, drained (can be pinto or black bean)
Combine all, with the corn on the bottom, and the salsa on top. Cook on ow for 6-8 hour. Enjoy as is, with tortillas, or with tortilla chips. Its almost like a ridiculously easy chicken chili.

Its kind of weird, it seems like ground beef used to be the cheaper animal protein, but I regularly find chicken breast for like half the price. These are both very cheap, very easy, and while not the quickest in the world, the active prep time is pretty minimal. Especially if chicken's on sale and you process (dice!), separate, and freeze or fridge.

Swordfish and tomatoes

So everyone went up to a concert in LA today. I stayed home. So I got stuff to make dinner! I ended up with swordfish because it looked the best. Here's what I did

- some slices off a half onion
- 3 tiny inner cloves of garlic sliced
- 1 can tomatoes
- 1-9oz swordfish steak
- salt
- olive oil
- olives
- handful wild arugula

Heat the olive oil in a pan (or in my case, a wok). Add the onions. Cook a minute or two. Add the garlic. Cook a few more minutes. Remove to a plate. Salt the fish on both sides. Add the swordfish to the pan. Cook around four minutes. Flip. Cook another four minutes or so. Add the tomatoes, lift the fish to get tomatoes under. Add the onion and garlic back. Stir to distribute. When swordfish seems done, remove it to a plate. Add the sliced olives. Stir to distribute. Keep cooking til desired consistency. Add the arugula, stir to wilt. Serve with the swordfish.
NOTE: ate about half the piece of swordfish. will use the rest for chowder or something.

xoxo

Fairly Quick Zucchini

Been meaning to make this for a while. Its just a really simple way to eat a lot more zucchini.

Take a medium to small zucchini, cut the ends off. Take a vegetable peeler and peel off lengthwise layers of the zucc. Don't worry if some pieces break or are half or whatever, so long as they're roughly even in thickness.
Heat some olive oil in a small skillet. Add the zucchini, and toss to coat in oil. Season to taste. As pieces of zucchini get tender, remove them to a plate or bowl. When it's all done, grate up some parmesan and toss on tovep. Enjoy!

Grilled Marinated Veggies

Grilled veggies are great to have in the fridge. They are easy to bring out when you have people over, easy to snack on, and pretty healthy. Also, its quick to make up a bunch for the week.

Here's what I did the first time around:
veggies cut into 1/2" slices. (used 1 onion, 1 green pepper, 1 red pepper, 2 zucchinis, 1 carrot the first time around)
half olive oil / half balsamic vinegar. salt & pepper

In a shallow tray, lay the veggies out in flat layers, salting and peppering each layer lightly. Mix the olive oil and balsamic til emulsified. Pour over the veggies, stirring them around slightly to get everything touching it. Let sit for at least a half hour, preferably more. Stir around every so often to make sure things are getting the marinade.

When ready to grill, turn your grill on high to med-high. Lay the veggies our in a single layer, until nice and done on each side. Put back in the marinade when done. I liked to cook vegetables with similar cooking times together Like onions with peppers, zucchini with carrots. Also, might be handy to use a nifty grill pan if you have one. Our grill is gas with odd grates that are filled in directly over the burner, so it made it really easy for the small veggies like carrots.

Anyway! Enjoy quick munching :D

Next time, I may use the giant squash from my parents' neighbor. And maybe eggplant. And red peppers were cheap so I have a few of those to use :D Oh and maybe chop a clove or two of garlic for the marinade.

Panzanella

I've got a few things to update, just been lazy for the most part. Or making the same things over and over (eggs, i'm lookin at you).
Anywho. Panzanella is a rustic bread sort of salad. Its almost a mix between like stuffing and pasta? I don't quite know how to describe it. But its delicious!

For one large serving or two small ones:
1 slice nearly stale, extra thick bread or rustic italian (so i used this cherry blossom bread from nijiya. probably would have worked better with a french or italian sort), cut into 1 inch cubes
1 medium to large tomato (from my parents' garden!), peeled and roughly chopped
1/8 of a medium onion, roughly chopped
1 huge or 2 medium cloves garlic, roughly chopped
olive oil
apple cider vinegar
handful of basil (parents' garden!)

1. In a decent sized skillet, toss in the bread cubes, drizzle with olive oil, season lightly with S+P, and toss about until browned. Alternatively could probably be done in the broiler or oven. Its basically making croutons :D Set aside when browned.
2. Add the onion to the same skillet, with a bit more olive oil if necessary. Wait til half translucent and add the garlic. When its all translucent, throw in the tomato and any juices that accumulated. Season to taste with S+P and ACV.
3. Remove from heat, toss in bread cubes and tear basil over the top. Serve!

Quick and Easy Gazpacho

I think I'm going to attempt to keep gazpacho around for the summer. This version is quick, easy, fairly inexpensive, etc etc. And healthy. It is tomato juice based, with two eggs and a dollop of olive oil included. No bread. I think I could eat this with every meal no problem. And its quite filling and definitely versatile. Oh! And a poached egg makes it all creamy and even better for a quick meal.

I portioned this out, and it lasts decently long. Anyway, here goes!

1 quart tomato juice (store brands would be fine, as would just about any combination of tomato sauce & water, tomato puree & water, and tomato paste & water)
1/4 - 1/2 red onion
2-3 cloves garlic
1 small cucumber or 1/2 large one, ~1/4" dice
1 bell pepper, ~1/4' dice
handful of jalapeno stuffed olives, minced
2 hard boiled eggs
1 tbsp olive oil
salt & pepper to taste

1. Finely mince / grate / process in a food processor, the red onion and garlic. Combine with the tomato juice.
2. Separate the eggs. Combine the yolks and olive oil into a paste. Mix into the tomato juice.
3. Finely dice all of the vegetables and the egg white. Add to the juice.
4. Stir, season to taste, enjoy!

Makes about 6x ~8oz portion.

Nutrition: 89 calories, 4.2g fat, 10.9g carbs, 7.7g sugar, 1.5g fiber, 3.7g protein
Vitamins: A 30%, C 95%, Calcium 4%, Iron 7%

Chicken Cacciatore - bastardized

So I've gained about 5 lbs since my dear lovey sister moved down. That, on top of the 5 lbs through the holidays, means I'm really not happy with where I am right now. Granted, I'm still sub-135, but not quite fitting into clothes is not where I'd like to be.

So! I decided now is as good of a time as any to attempt a gluten-free, dairy-free trial run. The fact that I'll be eating more whole vegetables, no bread/pasta and no candy should help me get back to where I ought to be without going crazy about dieting. An all around healthier situation should probably make me feel better too. Possibly make my body feel alive sometime before 10am even?

Anyway. This recipe was adapted quite a bit from a old diet cookbook I picked up at the used bookstore downtown a while back. It has daily menus for about a year of 600 calorie days. Damn, right? Anyway, it says itself that no one should really go to those extremes unless on Dr's orders, and how the fat lil old lady it was originally designed for was sedentary and seeing her Dr once a week and all that. And that its easy to scale. Either with additions (particularly at breakfast where it has a list of items to add and the calories they'd add) or simple multiplication (you want 1200 per day? eat 2 servings!). That's all besides the point though. There are quite a few recipes in there that I'm probably going to modify. They tend to be heavy handed with vegetables, moderate on meat, and nearly nil on grains.
So! Here's the bastardized version of chicken cacciatore:

1 tbsp olive oil
1.5 lb chicken thighs (note, i removed fat first. they were boneless and skinless to begin with)
2 big cloves of garlic, minced
1/4 large red onion, diced
1 28 oz can tomatoes (diced here, cause its what i had)
4 oz tomato paste
3/4 cup chicken broth (using better than bouillon which has whey but has no gluten containing ingredients that i could discern confirmed gluten free)
1 tsp olive oil
7 oz cremini mushrooms, sliced (from an 8oz package that my sister ate about an ounce or so of)
s&p
'italian herbs'

1. Heat the tablespoon of olive oil in a non-reactive heavy pan large enough to hold everything. I used a wok. Attempt to brown the thighs (please note that i'm terrible at this. however, all the bits that stuck to the bottom ended up helping the sauce a lot). S&P as you go. Set aside
2. Toss the onion into the pan, stir about until they start to lose the red color. Toss in the garlic. Cook a minute or two.
3. Add about half a cup of the chicken broth. Use a whisk to get the good browned bits off the bottom of the pan.
4. Return the thighs, add the tomatoes, paste and herbs. Simmer for about an hour or so? Stirring occasionally.
5. In a small pan, heat the additional 1 teaspoon of olive oil. Add the mushrooms and a dash of salt. Cook through, then add to the sauce. Stir in. Simmer a bit longer.
6. Remove from heat.

Since I used 7 chicken thighs, I separated it into seven servings. Each got 1 thigh, then I added spoonfuls of sauce roughly evenly around until it was gone. I ate it on its own, but would be good over zucchini cut into long strips and blanched, spaghetti squash, rice, etc. Or pasta, if that suits you. :D

Nutrition facts per serving:
257 cal, 11g fat, 8g carbs, 4g sugar, 2g fiber, 29g protein


Today, I ate a serving with a over easy egg on top and it was pretty good. I shredded the thigh before putting the egg in. Its also a pretty cheap meal what with finding things on sale and chicken thighs being pretty cheap.

Modified Pommes de Terre Boulangere

Potatoes of the bakery! I had dinner planned tonight, and wanted to do a potato side dish beyond mashed potatoes. I thought about scalloped potatoes or a gratin, but realized I should be a bit healthier. This sounded easy and like it could work out amazingly! I wanted a bit of the creaminess of scalloped potatoes, so I subbed a cup of milk for some of the chicken broth. Also topped with a bit of parmesan cheese. For the hell of it.

Here goes:
4-5 small potatoes, peeled and diced THIN. I do not have a mandoline, so I just sliced very thinly and discarded the end, when I felt I might be in danger of losing fingertips
1 cup milk
1 cup water
2 tsp chicken base (better than bouillon. use however much bouillon/base it takes to make 2 cups!)
2 cloves, sliced (not minced or crushed. sliced means you can use more, subtly)
couple sprigs thyme (using them in chicken also) or whatever herbs you have on hand
couple grinds pepper

1. Preheat oven to somewhere between 325 and 400F (i started at 325 with the chicken and increased when that was done). Combine all in a saucepan Liquids should just cover potatoes. Cook until potatoes are just tender. Depends on your thickness and potato type.
2. Put potatoes into a oven safe casserole with a slotted spoon. Pour liquid in until just covered. Sprinkle with a bit of parmesan.
3. Pop in the oven uncovered for a while. Like 40 minutes? Til browned a bit and bubbly. Let rest for about 15 minutes and then slice and serve.

Should make about 6 servings.

Definitely can fill the void of scalloped potatoes.

Scallops with Pasta!

So I had some scallops I had to use (trader joe's frozen. i thawed the last 4oz yesterday, but didn't end up making dinner. so today). I knew I wanted something nice and simple flavors and whatnot. And the ingredients I had on hand.

Anyway, I decided to pan sear the scallops with a good dusting of salt and fresh ground pepper. Then I pan roasted some thick cut tomato slices in the same pan. Then I made a garlic spiked white sauce in the same pan.

Here's the ingredients and what I did!

- 4 oz scallops, thawed. about three large ones
- 1 roma tomato, sliced about 1/2 inch thick. i had cut two, but one was devoured before it hit the pan. and matthew stole one of the slices.
- salt & pepper
- 1/2 tsp or so finely chopped rosemary (from my nearly depleted freezer stash)
- 1 tbsp olive oil (does anyone ever measure that? it was probably closer to two)
- 2 oz angel hair pasta (penne would have been better. something sturdier to hold up to the sauce)
- 2 cloves garlic, sliced thin
- 1 tsp butter
- 1 tbsp flour (heaping spoon)
- 1 cup milk (i have no idea how much i actually used)

1. Heat a pot of salted water for the pasta to boiling.
2. Heat the olive oil in a pan over medium heat. When nice and hot, toss in the salt and peppered scallops. Cook for a few minutes, to sear it nicely. Turn. Cook the other side. It should not be too firm. A little squishy is great. :D Remove from the pan.
3. Salt and pepper the tomato slices, toss on the rosemary. Put it in the same pan. Cook a couple minutes per side. Cook the pasta around now. Remove the tomatoes and set aside.
4. Reduce the heat to medium low. Add the butter. When its melted, add the garlic. Cook a couple minutes until translucent. Add the flour, stir.
5. Cook a minute or two. Add the milk. Whisk vigorously. Taste for seasoning. When its nice and thick, toss in the pasta to coat.
6. Place pasta in bowl. Top with tomatoes. Top with scallops. Enjoy. :D

Pros: easy good white sauce! garlic flavor was not overpowering! tomatoes disintegrated into sauce nicely! that combo would work well alone or with chicken.

Cons: scallops were a tad cold. skin on tomatoes had to be peeled off and eating first. but would not have cooked well with skin off. basil may have been better than rosemary.

Spinach Artichoke Dip

This is based on Alton Brown's recipe. And on what I had on hand. Note, his recipe only said it yielded a 'batch', so I doubled it. And made waaaay too much. Oh well. Easily halved.

Ingredients
3 cups frozen chopped spinach (i use the loose bags because I like the convenience. boxed would have to be thawed and squeezed dry)
1 box frozen artichoke hearts, diced small
3 jarred artichoke hearts, diced small
1 clove garlic, minced (would double next time)
12 oz reduced fat cream cheese (aka neufchatel)
1/2 cup sour cream
1/2 cup mayonnaise
2/3 cup shredded parmesan
1 tsp red pepper flakes
1/2 tsp salt

Cook frozen artichoke hearts (before dicing) in a small amount of water until tender. Drain. Dice.
Microwave cream cheese with garlic, adding in a cup of spinach at a time and stirring between heatings.
Combine mayo, sour cream, parmesan, artichokes, red pepper flakes and salt. When cream cheese/garlic/spinach mixture is thoroughly warm and melty, combine with sour cream-mayo mixture.
Realize you made a whole lot, and put about half into a bowl. Microwave another 30 seconds or so, to meld everything together.

Can be topped with additional parmesan and baked, if desired. I didn't want to turn the oven on.

In addition to being a great dip, can be used as a pasta sauce, if thinned with milk. Or on baked potatoes. :D

Nutrition: I dont want to scare you! :D

Garlic-Mustard-Rosemary Grilled Pork Tenderloin

Dinner tonight was great. Pork tenderloins were on sale at Ralphs, so I grabbed a 1lber.

Marinade ingredients:
1/2 shallot, minced fine
4 cloves garlic, minced fine
Handful rosemary, minced fine (dipped into my frozen herb supply)
3 tbsp white wine (used a 'california table white')
3 tbsp lemon juice
3 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
2 tbsp Dijon mustard
1 tbsp honey mustard (can easily do 3 tbsp of one kind, but i wanted a hint of the honey taste in there)
2 tbsp sugar
1/2 tsp salt
1 dash worchestershire sauce

Combine all, taste, realize it would make a good salad dressing (if thinned with more olive oil). Set in a glass bowl or a large ziploc bag.
Meanwhile, in another part of the kitchen, clean up the tenderloin. Remove the silverskin and any excess fat. I dont really like this part. But, its a necessity!
Put the now-pretty tenderloin into the marinade. Refrigerate and smush around every couple hours. I marinaded it for over 8 hours.

Heat up the grill! I used about medium high heat. Throw it on there. Flip it over every so often, preferably on the four different sides for a few minutes each. I only managed three sides and when I sliced it up, it wasn't done. The temperature reading was probably from the wrong place. :/ Oh well, a few minutes per side on the stove top and it was great!

Will update with the rice pilaf stuff that went with it. Also, roasted broccoli. Would have been excellent if I'd had fresh broc instead of frozen, but whatever. Good flavors.

"Mediterranean" Rice Salad

This is the second time I've made this! It was great the first time, and kept well for nearly a week (probably would last a week, but it was gone by then!). The amount of veggies is pretty variable, I chop up about what looks right.

So here goes:

1 cup Texmati rice blend (with red rice, wild rice, and texmati rice)
112 g cucumber (half a large one), diced
24 g green onions (the good part of three), diced
17 g calamata olives, chopped
59 g red onion, small dice
160 g garbanzo beans (oh i use the canned. the rest will be combined with asaigio, lemon juice, olive oil, minced rosemary and salt)
277 g grape tomatoes, quartered (a pint less 1-2 for munching)
2 tbsp olive oil (right now i've got some cold pressed organic that is herbal and delish)
1 tbsp lemon juice
S&P to taste

1. Cook the rice! Spread out on a plate and throw into the fridge to let chill. Chop up veggies in the meantime.
2. Whisk olive oil, lemon juice, salt and pepper together. I'd start with about 1/4 tsp salt and a few grounds of pepper.
3. Throw veggies (besides tomatoes) and garbanzo beans into a bowl. Add in the rice. Toss (used my hands). Add the dressing, toss. Add the tomatoes, toss gently.
4. Package into single servings!

Yield: 6 servings

Per Serving: 175 calories, 7.8g fat, 24.5g carbs, 1g sugar, 3.7g fiber, 3.8g protein



I would like to have this with an additional protein, such as chicken breast or tuna fish, for lunch just about every day. Its filling and delicious, and like I said, keeps well. It is also good both cold and room temperature, and should not spoil between leaving for work and eating for lunch. Would also be great topped with a bit of feta, or with that mixed in.

Anyway. More experimentations / recipes to come. I bought some Dreamfields pasta today, and would like to give that a go. Its supposed to have a very low GI, and still taste/feel/etc like regular pasta. Will definitely report any adverse side effects.

Haven't been eating as well as I'd like to lately, what with pizza and whatnot. Dreamfields still has gluten, so even if its good, I'm going to be avoiding it soon. Will be planning another start date soon, but I'd like to be more prepared this time. Its difficult to do when all you've got on hand is pasta because you didn't go shopping and won't throw away perfectly good food to start a whim of a diet. The dairy part's been a little bit easier. The coffee part... I've been sticking to one or no cups a day. Oh and wine. Uhmmm I tried the Black Box Cab the other day. It should last me a little while. I dont know that I'll want to give up wine entirely, so I dont know that I need to try life with out it. Gluten's a little bit like that, but there are so many gluten free products now a days, and there will only be more as more people are coming down with Celiac and other gluten intolerant syndromes. My problem with them right now is the lack of pronouncable ingredients (ok my issues with saying quinoa is that i pronounced it wrong for like 6 mo before i learned better). Eventually, the health food sector will get in on stuff and utilize gluten free sources for replacements.

Baby artichokes

SO! I missed the Farmer's Market again! I lose at this. Especially because last week, I stopped by (i guess i like the suncoast farm in Lomboc, CA's artichokes) and picked up two massive artichokes. I prepped both and steamed one the first night, and steamed the other the next morning. I quartered the big one and took out the choke, and left it in the fridge with some faux-aioli. The other one, my sister ended up halving. Anyway, great snack to have on hand. And at 8$ for roughly 8 servings... Not bad at all. Plus, artichokes take time to eat, so then I'm not eating anything else...

Anyway! I missed it this week. Thought about going to the Hillcrest market Sunday, but was too lazy.

So I picked up some baby artichokes at Ralphs.

Now, the way you're 'supposed' to prep baby artichokes leaves the whole thing edible. I LIKE the fact that I have to work for my artichoke-y goodness. So I prep them more like a regular artichoke. Cut off the base (with regular ones, trim and steam the stem. soooo good), trim the lower, smaller leaves, and trim a bit off of the top of each. Put them in acidulated water (water with lemon juice :P) while you prep the rest.

Steam in a single layer until the leaves are tender, and you can poke a knife in easily. If you need to do a second batch, leave the water boiling and switch around.

Enjoy as you would a regular artichoke, but don't worry about cleaning the choke! Once you get to the totally tender leaves, eat all of it. :D

SO! The cool thing about the babies is that there is a way to prep them so they're entirely edible. This morning, I decided eggs with artichoke, garlic, and onion sounded amazing. I set aside the tough leaves of two artichokes, trimmed a bit more of the top, eighth-ed them, and set them aside. Sliced a clove of garlic. Chopped a bit of onion.
In olive oil, saute onions, add garlic, add artichoke. Add a bit of butter, add eggs beaten with milk. Cook til just set. Add a bit of parmesan. Top with a bit of tabasco, and eat. :D

Ugly as sin, but so delicious.

NOW: If I'd been thinking, I'd have added some chopped red pepper too.

Anyway. Delicious. I ate the tougher leaves later, and they were still great.


Dinner was some great red meat and a glass of red wine. :D Yum.

Salad!

The only thing that would have made this salad better would be cheese. And maybe a smaller portion size.

-2/3 small head romaine, sliced ~1/2-3/4 inch thick
-1 tomato, diced i used a large tomato that was going bad and cut off the bad parts.
-1/4 medium red onion, sliced
-1/2 cup garbanzo beans (i put the rest in a container with lemon juice, olive oil, parmesan and to mix it a bit, a pinch of smoked sea salt)
-1 can tuna, packed in olive oil
-2 tsp lemon juice
-S&P to taste

Toss everything in a bowl, serve.
I love tuna in olive oil. It makes this salad filling and rich, without using salad dressing. Also, I know what's in it (not 'vegetable oil' or 'vegetable broth', both of which can have soy). And its yummy. Bonus: it was 1.50$/can last time I bought groceries.
Nutrition: will update this later, when I'm not too lazy to grab the can of tuna. Under 400cal for a huge salad though.

Quiche with Asparagus

Today's quiche is using up that asparagus I got at the farmer's market! Its a monterey jack cheese, bacon and onion quiche with chopped asparagus and whole pieces laid on the top.

:D So good. I gotta get it in the oven so I dont eat all the asparagus.

This turned out to be a great success! I like having serving size differentiators on top of quiche... I'm a million times more likely to just grab one serving rather than 1.5 or two at a time. I think i should do that from now on. Also, the fresh taste of the oh so in season asparagus was amazing.

Pasta in a tomato-ricotta sauce

Dinner tonight was a quick, easy pasta. With some garlic bread (from that baguette!). Garlic bread still needs to be perfected, so I'm not going to go into it. We had garlic croutons. Oh well!

For 3 servings of the pasta:
- 1 carrot, diced
- 1 stalk celery, diced
- 1/2 onion, diced
- 2-3 cloves garlic, minced
- 2 tbsp olive oil
- 2 cans whole tomatoes
- salt and pepper to taste
- pinch red pepper flakes
- 2-3 tbsp ricotta (i used part skim. just adds richness and creaminess without tooo many calories or too much in the way of cost)
- 6oz whole wheat pasta
- fresh grated parmesan to serve

1. Heat olive oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Set a large pot of salted water to boil.
2. Add the carrot, celery, and onion (this is also known as a mirepoix). Sprinkle with some salt. Cook until onion is translucent, about 5 minutes. Add garlic and red pepper flakes. Cook another few minutes.
3. Add 1 can of tomatoes with juices. Add the other can of tomatoes, and set the juices from that aside. Break up tomatoes with a spoon. (sometimes, i dice the tomatoes beforehand. depends on my mood and how much i'm willing to put into it)
4. Cook the sauce, stirring occasionally, until it thickens. Another idea is to add a spoonful or two of tomato paste, but I like to let everything simmer. Also, I dont always have tomato paste on hand. Season with salt and pepper to taste. I had to add some more red pepper here.
5. When sauce is almost thick enough to enjoy, put the pasta in the (should be boiling) water. Cook for however long, until its al dente. If sauce gets too thick during this time, add some of the reserved juice from the tomatoes.
6. When pasta is done, add directly to the sauce with a slotted spoon. Add about a half cup of the pasta water also. Stirrrrr. When the sauce starts to coat the pasta well, add the ricotta. Stir to evenly distribute. Salt and pepper to taste again.
7. Serve! (optional: top with fresh grated parmesan)

Nutrition per serving: Cal=336, Fat=12.3g, SatFat=2.1g, Carbs=57.1g, Fiber=9.9g, Sugar=8.8g, Protein=11.5g