Born For This

First things first….

Lunch!

I couldn’t come up with anywhere good to go for lunch, so I dished out the chickpea stew I had been meaning to serve as tonight’s dinner (I made it yesterday during the afternoon cooking frenzy).  Funny how it’s so much less work to cook four things at once.

Yep, rough life – home-cooked lunch on the balcony.

Ingredients

• About 1 C cooked chickpeas
• Garlic (1-3 cloves, as you like it)
• Olive oil
• Eggplant (1 medium)
• 2-4 medium tomatoes (canned, fresh, whatever; if you’re using fresh, you’ll also need to add some tomato juice, stock, or water)
• Other veggies (I added some anaheim peppers from the farmer’s market)
• Salt, marjoram, turmeric, cumin, and black pepper (or whatever you like)

Procedure

1. Heat the olive oil in a saucepan on medium heat.  Chop the garlic; sauté until fragrant.
   
2. Slice the eggplant and add it to the pan.
   
3. If you’re adding other firm veggies (carrots, onions, peppers), add them after 1-2 minutes.  Otherwise, just heat the eggplant until it begins to soften.
4. Add the tomatoes and tomato juice.
5. Stir in the spices.
6. Stir in the chickpeas.
7. Bring to a boil.
8. Cover; reduce heat and simmer for at least 25 minutes.  Best served the next day, but tasty straight off the stove as well.

It’s got a good mediterranean feel.  I served it today with bread for WB and half a brown rice tortilla for me.  This batch made enough for two big lunches with 1/2 serving left over.

I also made lunch dessert:

Organic raspberry yogurt with lime-raspberry-watermelon-agave sauce (straight outta the blender) and a sprinkling of flax for WB

Plain organic (Nancy’s, yay!) yogurt with agave, lime and flax for me.

Strange – could be a smudge on my lens, but it does look like a lime shortbread cookie found its way into my yogurt.

But now the fun part -

Dinner!

We went for my fay-ay-ayvorite tacos.  I swear we keep this place in business!

And then for froyo:

XFYC!

(eXtreme FroYo Close-up)

And then to Starbucks, where I got a solo macchiato:

And then to see (500) Days of Summer, which was adorable.  If someone had screened it when I was in film school, I might have said it was parts were too slow or too reliant on the soundtrack, and some of the acting was nondescript; for a theatrical release, I think it was a solid 4/5.

I was set to be cynical and hard-hearted about it for some reason (film school comes to mind), but…they really hit the nail on the head.  Or they followed us for the first year of our relationship?  Not sure.  But…like, to the last drop.  It was good.  Except I’m not marrying anyone else, bwahaha.

I don’t think.

I mean, there’s no ring.

Anyway.

It’s hard to get cynical when evenings look like this.

I want to use my time off this week to clean out all the oddities that have been loitering in our fridge and pantry.

That is red quinoa! I cooked it with a vegan bouillon cube until it was fluffy.  I mixed it with some broccoli, yellow pear tomatoes, 1/2 ounce of mozzarella cheese, and some tomato sauce to make Pizz-oa!  (Pizza-quinoa )

I also put some chickpeas on to soak – they’ll be showing up soon, I’m sure.  I had been hoping to find some black beans hiding in the pantry to make a nice chilled soup, but no luck.

Then it was caponata time.  I used Jamie Oliver’s caponata recipe (this version has all of the ingredients listed out if you prefer more detail).

My last kitchen chore was to sauté some of the anaheim peppers we got at the farmer’s market.  I’m thinking they might be good in a frittata.

Dinner time!

I tossed some microgreens with a nayonaise and trocomare dressing that I whisked up (barely a tablespoon of dressing for four big handfuls of microgreens) and sautéed some broccoli to go with the caponata.

WB had his on a big piece of baguette…

…and I put mine on the leftover buckwheat crepes.  I split the last ounce of mozzarella cheese between the two of us. The caponata was delicious!  Tangy and capery and soft and hot.

I was really craving an espresso after dinner, but we couldn’t get it together to get out of the house   WB made some coffee, which I had with a leftover lime shortbread cookie. I can’t believe I have four more days off!

I get to entertain again today (I *love* having people over!), and I was feeling in a summer mood.  The theme that coalesced: cherries and limes.

I made some lime shortbread:

(adapted from this recipe)

Ingredients:

• 1/2 butter (1 stick) at room temperature- 1/2 cup (room temperature)

• 1/3 cup sugar

• zest of 2 limes (about 1 tablespoon)
  

• juice of 1 lime (about 1.5 tablespoons)
  
• pinch of salt
• 1.5 cups flour (I used a mix of buckwheat, tapioca, and brown rice)
• 3/8 teaspoon xanthan gum
• lime juice and turbinado sugar, plus some extra zest if you’ve got it

Procedure:

1. Preheat the oven to 350º. (The recipe I borrowed from says 375, but my first batch turned out a bit dark.)
2. Cream (or beat) the butter and sugar together until fluffy.
3. Add the lime zest and juice (I also added a splash of vanilla extract).
4. Add the salt, xanthan gum, and 1 cup of flour.  Mix until flour is incorporated.
5. Add the rest of the flour slowly until the dough forms a ball.
   
6. Turn onto a floured surface and roll 1/4″ thick.
   
7. Cut and place on greased baking sheet (or silpat, of course).  Brush with lime juice and sprinkle with sugar and remaining zest.
   
   (OR: pinch off balls about 1/2″ in diameter and place on prepared baking sheet. Dip a flat-bottomed drinking glass in sugar and press each ball into a disc.)
8. Bake for 10 minutes (the original recipe says 15-20, but again, at 15 minutes mine were too dark.)
   
9. Cool on a rack.  Enjoy with friends
   

I also made some cucumber white Tazo tea and added some lime slices and lime juice.

And I put together some kirsch cheese with crackers and cherries:

The whole spread:

(the red ramekin is for cherry pits and stems)

I still had some dough left over in the fridge from a healthy version of the lemon poppyseed cookies I made last week (I swapped out most of the butter for applesauce), so I used it in a batch of cookies for WB with cherries and lime sugar on top:

And while I was waiting, I made myself a brunch quesadilla with almost everything from the farmer’s market- lentil sprouts, microgreens, and a few yellow tomatoes, topped with cheese, pesto, and barbecue sauce because I couldn’t choose a flavor:

A strange tomato that was included in the quesadilla, after I “decapitated” it:

Dinner was rushed, boring and uneventful because we’ve got to get out the door for…swing dancing!  (It included the leftovers from the party, except for a few cookies.) I am so excited that WB is still interested…it’s fun to be able to swing dance again, and I know it will be more fun once we’re done with the big, awkward group classes and into fun stunts and patterns.

It was great to hang out with my friend – she’s training for a full marathon, so we commiserated about the strangeness of long runs, the awkwardness of camelbaks, and the joy of running in the humid heat of this city.  (And some good things, of course, like that awesome feeling of accomplishment at the end of the run that you really didn’t think you could do.)

I managed to pull off a tasty dinner last night after all: veggie risotto.

I started with a mirepoix (carrots, celery, and garlic sweating in butter):

Next I added the rice and sauteed until it was slightly translucent and began to smell toasty.  Eggplant joined the party:

(Check out those eggplants! I love the farmer’s market.) I also added a liberal 1/2 cup of white wine and a bit of olive oil.  WB kept me company in the kitchen for the next 20 minutes of stirring and adding veggie broth 1/2 cup at a time.  Just before the risotto was done I added some peas, the yellow tomatoes (photographed with the eggplant above, in their cute paper bag from the farmer’s market), about an ounce of manchego, and some salt and pepper.  This wasn’t just any salt, of course:

World, please meet my truffle salt.  It was an excellent addition to the risotto.

The finished product:

So creamy!  The eggplant mostly melted into a creamy sauce-like texture.

The cocktail, courtesy of WB, was some cava mixed with Odwalla pomegranate-lime juice.

The whole thing only took about 30 minutes from start to finish, which is about as long as it takes us to choose a restaurant.  Plus, I got to use up tons of produce so that the fridge would be ready for this weekend’s trip to the farmer’s market.

This morning I was still uninspired – breakfast didn’t sound appealing, but I didn’t want to eat cheese and crackers again.  I killed some time by taking the rest of the produce in the fridge:

Arugula and lemon (and pecans, though I didn’t use that entire huge bag)…

…into the food processor (the first “green machine” of the day) with some manchego, two bunches of basil that were close to their final days, and a drizzle of olive oil…

Ta-da! Arugula-pecan pesto.  I can’t wait to eat this with some quinoa pasta, or maybe even on a pizza…or both!  I ended up with about 1.5 cups of pesto.

I also prepped my kale for my green monsters.  I always prep my kale ahead of time because it stays fresh longer and I’m much more likely to make my smoothies in the morning when the ingredients are ready to go.  Everything takes me longer when I’m still the “walking dead” – coordination is not my forté before 5:45 a.m.

Step 1: Wash and trim the kale, then pat it dry on a clean kitchen towel:

Step 2: Roll up the towel and stick it in the crisper!

Adorable, isn’t it?  Another time-saver for my smoothies is to freeze my bananas ahead of time.

I peel them and freeze them in a single layer on a baking sheet, then bag ‘em and refreeze.  Fewer stumbly moments in the morning and fewer fruit flies (another inevitable Southern treat, it seems, especially on organic bananas).

After all that prep, I was finally inspired to make myself a green monster for breakfast:

In this beautiful concoction:

• 2 leaves of kale
• 1 frozen banana
• 4 frozen cherries
• 2 frozen strawberries
• almond milk
• a splash of coffee

It was quite a green morning with this smoothie and the pesto whirling away. I ended up with 24 ounces of smoothie! That was too much for one of us….

Not sure what the afternoon holds other than folding some laundry – hopefully something fun and exciting! And probably some yoga.