#one clove of garlic? for a whole pasta sauce? god help me

[oswaldthatendswald]

You know, every day I grow more convinced that recipe blogs are actively trying to sabotage me. There is no goddamn reason to put onions and garlic in the pan at the same time unless you want burnt and bitter garlic and yet every damn recipe I've ever found online says to put the garlic and onions in the pan together. This is conspiracy, I say, conspiracy and sabotage. And also bullshit.

[bethestaryouareradio]

Fall in a Pot!

Digging Deep with Goddess Gardener, Cynthia Brian

Fall in a Pot! By Cynthia Brian

“Truth comes out in wine.” Pliny the Elder

“The people who give you their food give you their heart."  Cesar Chavez

The fires and smoke have ravaged farms and vineyards throughout Northern California, including my family vineyards in Napa County. The grapes are plump, juicy, and ripe. Harvesting would normally be in full swing this month, but, sadly, with so much smoke suffocating fields throughout the region, wineries require red grape samples to be tested for smoke taint. 

Smoke taint is concentrated in the skins and during fermentation glycosides break down, releasing the volatile phenols and smoky flavors into the wine. The result tastes like licking an ashtray. The damage is not detectable by looking at or eating a grape. It is only noticeable in the wine. Since white wine isn’t barrel-aged nor use skins, white wine doesn’t experience this smoke taint.

The largest testing laboratory, ETS in St. Helena is swamped with results backlogged for weeks or, as some growers are finding out, over a month away. If a grower or winery is not a client, they won’t be able to process samples until November. By then the window for harvesting will be over. The grapes will be dried raisins, not suitable for pressing. 

What this means for viticulture in 2020 is that farmers may lose their entire crop and face increased financial hardships as the grapes hang on the vines. There may not be a 2020 red wine vintage as wineries are not allowing deliveries of grapes under contract until the lab results have confirmed an absence of smoke taint. Truth is always evident in the wine.

With the stifling smoke of the past weeks, my normal September gardening tasks have been placed on pause. I am sheltering indoors and suggesting to clients and readers to do the same to maintain health as smoke inhalation peril is increased during Covid-19.  But this doesn’t mean that I’m avoiding my garden. I’ve been asked to write another gardening book and am brainstorming in my library. And, I’m bringing the fruits of my labors inside to my kitchen while I chef it up. 

“Oh, I can smell the sauce from here,” my charity collaborator and friend, Terry in Washington, emailed me when I wrote her that, to mask the smell of smoke, I was making my family’s traditional homemade spaghetti sauce with ingredients from my waning garden. My process reminded her of being in her Italian great-grandmother’s kitchen. 

With the intense sunshine and heat of the summer, tomatoes, onions, garlic, peppers, and herbs are filled with flavor. Being Italian, neither my Nonie, Mom, nor relatives measured anything. A recipe was handed down throughout the generations by watching, doing, and adding “a little of this, a pinch of that”, lots of garlic, and several splashes of wine. We have always cooked by taste, adding spices as needed. Naturally, numerous “malfatti’s” or mistakes occurred, which oftentimes, were our greatest successes.

The best cooks that I’ve ever encountered have also been avid gardeners. Gardeners experience nature using their senses. Gardeners amber through a potager snipping, smelling, nibbling, feeling, and seeing with a profound sensitivity to the innate characteristics of each legume, bloom, or crop. Being an astute chef requires one to know how to mix and match fruits, flowers, vegetables, and herbs to enhance any dish, allowing the natural essences to imbue their zests and aromas. Food must look good, smell good, taste good, and be ultimately satisfying, making one feel good.

Autumn is harvest time. Besides eating our tasty produce now, it is also the perfect opportunity to can or freeze fresh crops to savor during the winter months. 

What herbs can you dry or freeze: Basil Bay Oregano Sage Rosemary Dill Thyme Parsley

I prefer to freeze basil and parsley or make “sauce ice cubes” with those. The rest of the herbs, I dry, then store in labeled jars. 

Cynthia’s Italian Family Spaghetti Sauce “Recipe”  In a pestle and mortar grind together oregano, sage, rosemary, and thyme. You can also use a blender if that is easier for you.  Chop red and yellow onions and several cloves of garlic.  Saute onions and garlic in olive oil until translucent.  Stir in chopped mushrooms.  Add 3 or 4 whole bay leaves and a handful of the mashed herbs.  Gently brown meat (ground beef, lamb, pork, chicken) in the mixture. If you want a vegetarian sauce, skip this part.  Cut 6-10 tomatoes into small pieces. Smash half of the tomatoes. Add cut pieces and the tomato paste to the meat mixture.  Pour in red wine.  Tear 4 or 5 basil leaves into pieces and stir into pot.  Continue adding more wine as necessary.   Simmer at lowest heat for several hours until all the flavors have melded together. Turn off the burner to let sit.  Sprinkle sea salt and freshly ground pepper to taste.

Optional ingredients include peppers or eggplant. To make a Puttanesca, add olives and capers. 

The final sauce will be thick, rich, and delicious. Don’t be afraid to make this in advance as flavors are more delectable the next day. Freeze or can any extra sauce. (I always make a big pot and freeze tubs for later consumption.)

Pour over spaghetti, ravioli, lasagna, or any pasta. Toss lightly to blend the sauce. Top with chopped parsley, torn basil leaves, and grated parmesan. Serve with crusty sourdough, a romaine lettuce salad, and a glass of sustainable, locally grown, aged, and bottled Captain Vineyards Petite Sirah. Finish off your meal with fall fruits: a bunch of grapes, tangy tangerine segments, crunchy Asian pears, and a few figs. Buon appetito.

What are you harvesting in your garden right now? Do you have a family “Fall in a Pot” recipe to share with others? 

My Mom taught me that expressing love came from gardens and home-made food. My Dad taught me that farmers feed the hungry and wine is the nectar of the gods. Both gave their hearts. During these very challenging times as we pray that our California vineyards survive this ordeal, let’s toast to life with a glass of local vino and welcome fall with a pot of goodness from our gardens. 

In my next column, I plan to be outside once again offering you guidance for autumn gardening. Until then, limit your outdoor exposure when it’s smokey and make sure to water your landscape deeply in the early mornings or late evenings.  Be aware that your containers may need a daily dose of H2O.  For the next two to three months until the rain begins to fall, our area is at imminent risk of fire danger. Be ready to evacuate. Read my article on what you need to know and do to be prepared. https://www.lamorindaweekly.com/archive/issue1414/Are-you-ready-to-evacuate.html

  For a ZOOM presentation of, “Tips, Tricks, and Tonics in the Garden” join me on Thursday, September 17th, as I kick-off the 50th Anniversary of the Moraga Garden Club. For information on this ZOOM meeting, call Membership Chair Jane Magnani at 925-451-7031 for times to join in the conversation and presentation. I’ll be participating from my patio for a light, fun, informative, and hopefully smoke-free lecture. 

See photos and more:  https://www.lamorindaweekly.com/archive/issue1415/Digging-Deep-with-Goddess-Gardener-Cynthia-Brian-Fall-in-a-pot.html

  Happy gardening. Happy growing.

Cynthia Brian, The Goddess Gardener, is available for hire to help you prepare for your spring garden. Raised in the vineyards of Napa County, Cynthia is a New York Times best-selling author, actor, radio personality, speaker, media and writing coach, as well as the Founder and Executive Director of Be the Star You Are!® 501 c, celebrating 21 years of service to the community. www.BetheSTARYouAre.org

Tune into Cynthia’s StarStyle® Radio Broadcast at www.StarStyleRadio.com.

Buy copies of her best-selling books and receive extra freebies, Chicken Soup for the Gardener’s Soul, Growing with the Goddess Gardener, and Be the Star You Are! Millennials to Boomers at www.cynthiabrian.com/online-store. 

Cynthia is available for virtual writing projects, garden consults, and inspirational lectures. Cynthia@GoddessGardener.com www.GoddessGardener.com

  keywords:

#garden,,spaghetti,#pandemic,,#outdoors,#plants,#patio, septembergardening, #wine,#grapeharvest,# gardening, #cynthiabrian, #starstyle, #goddessGardener, #growingwiththegoddessgardener, #lamorindaweekly

[goddessgardener]

Fall in a Pot!

Digging Deep with Goddess Gardener, Cynthia Brian

Fall in a Pot! By Cynthia Brian

“Truth comes out in wine.” Pliny the Elder

“The people who give you their food give you their heart."  Cesar Chavez

The fires and smoke have ravaged farms and vineyards throughout Northern California, including my family vineyards in Napa County. The grapes are plump, juicy, and ripe. Harvesting would normally be in full swing this month, but, sadly, with so much smoke suffocating fields throughout the region, wineries require red grape samples to be tested for smoke taint. 

Smoke taint is concentrated in the skins and during fermentation glycosides break down, releasing the volatile phenols and smoky flavors into the wine. The result tastes like licking an ashtray. The damage is not detectable by looking at or eating a grape. It is only noticeable in the wine. Since white wine isn’t barrel-aged nor use skins, white wine doesn’t experience this smoke taint.

The largest testing laboratory, ETS in St. Helena is swamped with results backlogged for weeks or, as some growers are finding out, over a month away. If a grower or winery is not a client, they won’t be able to process samples until November. By then the window for harvesting will be over. The grapes will be dried raisins, not suitable for pressing. 

What this means for viticulture in 2020 is that farmers may lose their entire crop and face increased financial hardships as the grapes hang on the vines. There may not be a 2020 red wine vintage as wineries are not allowing deliveries of grapes under contract until the lab results have confirmed an absence of smoke taint. Truth is always evident in the wine.

With the stifling smoke of the past weeks, my normal September gardening tasks have been placed on pause. I am sheltering indoors and suggesting to clients and readers to do the same to maintain health as smoke inhalation peril is increased during Covid-19.  But this doesn’t mean that I’m avoiding my garden. I’ve been asked to write another gardening book and am brainstorming in my library. And, I’m bringing the fruits of my labors inside to my kitchen while I chef it up. 

“Oh, I can smell the sauce from here,” my charity collaborator and friend, Terry in Washington, emailed me when I wrote her that, to mask the smell of smoke, I was making my family’s traditional homemade spaghetti sauce with ingredients from my waning garden. My process reminded her of being in her Italian great-grandmother’s kitchen. 

With the intense sunshine and heat of the summer, tomatoes, onions, garlic, peppers, and herbs are filled with flavor. Being Italian, neither my Nonie, Mom, nor relatives measured anything. A recipe was handed down throughout the generations by watching, doing, and adding “a little of this, a pinch of that”, lots of garlic, and several splashes of wine. We have always cooked by taste, adding spices as needed. Naturally, numerous “malfatti’s” or mistakes occurred, which oftentimes, were our greatest successes.

The best cooks that I’ve ever encountered have also been avid gardeners. Gardeners experience nature using their senses. Gardeners amber through a potager snipping, smelling, nibbling, feeling, and seeing with a profound sensitivity to the innate characteristics of each legume, bloom, or crop. Being an astute chef requires one to know how to mix and match fruits, flowers, vegetables, and herbs to enhance any dish, allowing the natural essences to imbue their zests and aromas. Food must look good, smell good, taste good, and be ultimately satisfying, making one feel good.

Autumn is harvest time. Besides eating our tasty produce now, it is also the perfect opportunity to can or freeze fresh crops to savor during the winter months. 

What herbs can you dry or freeze: Basil Bay Oregano Sage Rosemary Dill Thyme Parsley

I prefer to freeze basil and parsley or make “sauce ice cubes” with those. The rest of the herbs, I dry, then store in labeled jars. 

Cynthia’s Italian Family Spaghetti Sauce “Recipe”  In a pestle and mortar grind together oregano, sage, rosemary, and thyme. You can also use a blender if that is easier for you.  Chop red and yellow onions and several cloves of garlic.  Saute onions and garlic in olive oil until translucent.  Stir in chopped mushrooms.  Add 3 or 4 whole bay leaves and a handful of the mashed herbs.  Gently brown meat (ground beef, lamb, pork, chicken) in the mixture. If you want a vegetarian sauce, skip this part.  Cut 6-10 tomatoes into small pieces. Smash half of the tomatoes. Add cut pieces and the tomato paste to the meat mixture.  Pour in red wine.  Tear 4 or 5 basil leaves into pieces and stir into pot.  Continue adding more wine as necessary.   Simmer at lowest heat for several hours until all the flavors have melded together. Turn off the burner to let sit.  Sprinkle sea salt and freshly ground pepper to taste.

Optional ingredients include peppers or eggplant. To make a Puttanesca, add olives and capers. 

The final sauce will be thick, rich, and delicious. Don’t be afraid to make this in advance as flavors are more delectable the next day. Freeze or can any extra sauce. (I always make a big pot and freeze tubs for later consumption.)

Pour over spaghetti, ravioli, lasagna, or any pasta. Toss lightly to blend the sauce. Top with chopped parsley, torn basil leaves, and grated parmesan. Serve with crusty sourdough, a romaine lettuce salad, and a glass of sustainable, locally grown, aged, and bottled Captain Vineyards Petite Sirah. Finish off your meal with fall fruits: a bunch of grapes, tangy tangerine segments, crunchy Asian pears, and a few figs. Buon appetito.

What are you harvesting in your garden right now? Do you have a family “Fall in a Pot” recipe to share with others? 

My Mom taught me that expressing love came from gardens and home-made food. My Dad taught me that farmers feed the hungry and wine is the nectar of the gods. Both gave their hearts. During these very challenging times as we pray that our California vineyards survive this ordeal, let’s toast to life with a glass of local vino and welcome fall with a pot of goodness from our gardens. 

In my next column, I plan to be outside once again offering you guidance for autumn gardening. Until then, limit your outdoor exposure when it’s smokey and make sure to water your landscape deeply in the early mornings or late evenings.  Be aware that your containers may need a daily dose of H2O.  For the next two to three months until the rain begins to fall, our area is at imminent risk of fire danger. Be ready to evacuate. Read my article on what you need to know and do to be prepared. https://www.lamorindaweekly.com/archive/issue1414/Are-you-ready-to-evacuate.html

  For a ZOOM presentation of, “Tips, Tricks, and Tonics in the Garden” join me on Thursday, September 17th, as I kick-off the 50th Anniversary of the Moraga Garden Club. For information on this ZOOM meeting, call Membership Chair Jane Magnani at 925-451-7031 for times to join in the conversation and presentation. I’ll be participating from my patio for a light, fun, informative, and hopefully smoke-free lecture. 

See photos and more:  https://www.lamorindaweekly.com/archive/issue1415/Digging-Deep-with-Goddess-Gardener-Cynthia-Brian-Fall-in-a-pot.html

  Happy gardening. Happy growing.

Cynthia Brian, The Goddess Gardener, is available for hire to help you prepare for your spring garden. Raised in the vineyards of Napa County, Cynthia is a New York Times best-selling author, actor, radio personality, speaker, media and writing coach, as well as the Founder and Executive Director of Be the Star You Are!® 501 c, celebrating 21 years of service to the community. www.BetheSTARYouAre.org

Tune into Cynthia’s StarStyle® Radio Broadcast at www.StarStyleRadio.com.

Buy copies of her best-selling books and receive extra freebies, Chicken Soup for the Gardener’s Soul, Growing with the Goddess Gardener, and Be the Star You Are! Millennials to Boomers at www.cynthiabrian.com/online-store. 

Cynthia is available for virtual writing projects, garden consults, and inspirational lectures. Cynthia@GoddessGardener.com www.GoddessGardener.com

  keywords:

#garden,,spaghetti,#pandemic,,#outdoors,#plants,#patio, septembergardening, #wine,#grapeharvest,# gardening, #cynthiabrian, #starstyle, #goddessGardener, #growingwiththegoddessgardener, #lamorindaweekly

[jessiewre]

Day 37

Mon 10th Feb 

Phil the crazy runner got up to his alarm ‪at 6:30am‬ and was out running by ‪7am leaving me with the double bed to myself instead of the‬ 10% of bed space I normally have.

He returned by ‪8:30am‬ with a half marathon under his belt and was feeling rather happy with himself. I was quite proud of myself too as I'd managed to press snooze on my alarm only twice.

We went to the little outdoor kitchen and actually felt all excited to be cooking our own food. Ok fine, we were literally boiling some eggs. It was good though. Eggs, avocado and sweet sweet toast 👌🏼

We got some worrying messages from Jimi though, so spoke to him on the phone. He told us he'd had some tragic news - a friend had been hit on their motorbike by a taxi and passed away from his head injuries. Really really sad. Jimi was upset but was able to get a lot of comfort from his belief in God which is something. A reminder of the fragility of life.

We sat down to do some research to work out our next move and decided on Lake Naivasha & Hells Gate national park as there was the option of cycling through it to spot the animals. No big carnivores there don't worry, more like giraffes and zebras and them chill animals that don’t eat humans 😝

It wasn't long before Phil got really hungry though and we agreed (I suggested) that he should pop out to the local market to get some food so we (he) could cook lunch and dinner. It would save us $50 if we avoided ordering from the hotel that day so it was a no brainer, especially for me, as I'd offered to keep an eye on things at the camp while Phil went off to do all the buying. 

Phil went to the market on a hotel boda and returned about an hour later (bit slow but what can I do, I was busy minding camp) with a loot:

2 red onions

10 rather green looking tomatoes 

Garlic clove

3 avocados

Spaghetti packet

8 carrots

We got to work cooking (I reluctantly agreed to get involved though I was sure the camp still needed my supervision) and to keep Phil's hunger under control, I cut a mango open and we attempted to bite at it. I'll tell you what, they are more hassle that they're worth. Phil looked at me with pure disgust and disdain as he bit into it, repeatedly getting mango strings stuck in his teeth. We gave up within 10 seconds and gave the half eaten mango to one of the staff guys to crack on with. Not sure anyone in the UK would have taken it, in fact they’d have been offended with the offer, but this guy was well happy with his new car crash of a mango 🥭

We made a pasta sauce with cubed carrots in (recipe available on demand) but made the mistake of cooking all the pasta in one go thinking we'd prep dinner at the same time. 

As soon as it was done I realised it was a very bad shout. That cooked pasta was not going to improve throughout the afternoon. It wasn’t like a tasty sauce, getting better as the time passes. It was pasta for gods sake.

But it was too late, the stuff was cooked now, so we bunged half of it in a bowl for the evening, crossed our fingers, and ate the rest of it. Wasn't too bad! It wasn't amazing, but it wasn’t bad. Totally edible...

By the time we ate lunch, it was nearly ‪4pm (as I said Phil should have been quicker on the buying really but I let it go)‬. 

Phil had made friends with his boda driver Edward, who also worked at our camp, and he sneakily arranged for us to visit Edward’s Masai village instead of doing the touristy one for $20. It wasn't just about the money but sometimes the touristy things are really contrived and feel like a performance. Walking round to Edwards village was totally impromptu so without expectation. 

On the way, we walked from the road to the grass through a muddy ditch and despite my best efforts trying to avoid the bad patches, my trainers were getting muddy. Then I stood on a particularly soft sticky patch and my trainer went quite deep. As I pulled my foot out, it got totally stuck and then my foot flew up and the trainer CAME OFF in the mud while I hopped around like an idiot. That’s me, providing top quality entertainment in all its forms.

We narrowly avoided the hidden barbed wire in the grass as we walked through shrub land and over little streams that Edward put big rocks in to build us a bridge and arrived.

Edward’s village was all about simplicity and necessity. He showed us where they kept the different animals (cows, goats, chickens), the separate buildings they had for kitchens and living spaces, and the fenced areas they grew vegetables in. I helped add a few more sticks to the fence on his vegetable patch as there was a pile that needed doing but after maybe 6 sticks, I thought I’d better stop incase he was being polite about my talent for it. There were 5 puppies wandering round doing cute yapping barks and we met Edwards mum & some of his young siblings as they went about her business.

He showed us the large pen they'd built for the cows to be in overnight and it was like a gladiator colosseum made of corrugated metal and wood, with churned up mud as the floor. I tried to walk over this mud to the other side of the doorway and what I didn't realise was this mud was actually PURE COW SHIT.

And obviously I stood in a giant pile of this shit that I thought was dry, and my foot broke the dry crust and went about 3 miles south into the pile of shit - did I mention it was shit? And for the second time in an hour, my trainer was fooked, but now it was covered in stinky cow dung. 

Edward looked a little awkward but Phil was wetting himself laughing.

Edward kindly found me a cleaning brush and got a bucket of water for me to clean my shoes while the shite was fresh. It’s important to get it when its fresh like (top Masai tip that). So there I was, in a Masia village, scrubbing my shit stained trainers while everyone watched on at the silly muzungu👌🏼

A young boy about 7 years old (I think it was his brother) in purple wellies was told to herd up the goats that had naughtily crawled under the fence to outside the village and he casually got them together, carrying some of the smaller ones into their little pen. Skills.  

Edward proudly showed us into his living room with his smart sofas he’d saved up for and after 25 mins of prep by his mother, he gave us hot chocolate powder with hot water to make. Phil poured it all out and definitely gave me the bigger one on purpose. I couldn’t quite hide my aversion to the 8 million flies in the room but tried to minimise my flapping around as much as I could. One of his little 2 year old relatives was hanging around staring at us which was so cute. She never smiled and never looked sad either. She was just staring at us, watching, working us out. She had about 10 flies round her face and mouth the whole time which definitely bothered me more than it bothered her.

One of the smallest puppies that looked on the verge of death was nearby and I’ll be honest, I wasn’t loving the hot chocolate, so without thinking I offered the puppy the remains of the drink. The lil pup enthusiastically drank away and I was so pleased to be able to give it some calories, but when I looked up at Phil his eyes were wide and he was giving me absolute daggers. He shook his head the tiniest amount as if to say JESS STOP FEEDING THE PUPPY EDWARD’S SPECIAL HOT CHOCOLATE and I suddenly became aware of my surroundings and tried to subtlety bring the chocolate back to me as if I was going to finish it. A few minutes later I went outside to see the sunset and lobbed the rest of the drink behind the hut.

After thanking his mum and waving goodbye to the people milking the cows and all kids who had gathered to say hi, we headed back to camp for dinner. Despite his reluctance, we gave Edward 500ksh to buy something to thank his mum for hosting us.

Unsurprisingly, our dinner of spaghetti-a-la-lunch-repeat was not amazing . Let’s call it Noodle Mush (recipe available on demand). Phil seemed more enthusiastic than me about the taste one again, I think buying the ingredients sometimes makes you like it more 😂

But the saving grace of the meal was my garlic bread. What a thing of beauty. Definitely worth burning my hand twice for. 

We chatted to the family who’d returned from their 2nd safari day and they’d had a brilliant time seeing tons of stuff like leopards & a little cat that looks like a house cat called a servat. Would have been cool to see it, but we knew we would safari in other countries and you can’t do them all or we’d run out of cash in about a week.

Booked our transport for the morning journey back to Narok and went to bed.

[amatchgirl]

How To Meal Prep 12 Easy Vegan Recipes In 90 Minutes For A Beginner

How To Meal Prep 12 Easy Vegan Recipes In 90 Minutes For A Beginner

– All these things are found at your local grocery store. 99 cent store, honey. You can even go to Dollar Tree and get spices, okay? (laughing) Hey y'all, I'm Tabitha Brown and I'm here with my friend Destiny. – Hello, hey girl. – Hey! – And I'm gonna show her how to prep 12 vegan meals in 90 minutes. – I am new to this whole vegan thing. I don't really know where to start with my meal prepping. – I can help you out with this. – Okay! – So for breakfast we're gonna do tofu scramble with a little sweet potatoes in there, that's one of my favorites. – Yum. – Then for lunch, we gonna create a couple of grain bowls, you can do all kind of things with those. And then for dinner, we'll have a little bolognese as y'all call it, I just call it spaghetti growing up. But I'm also gonna show you how to like mix and match it, so it doesn't get boring and you get a variety. – Awesome, I love that. Well I'm really excited to see like if we can get all this done in 90 minutes. _ Girl, I'm up for the challenge. It's very possible. – All right, I trust you. Let's do it. – Okay, so we got our rice cooker here. And this is for our quinoa. And we're gonna use a rice cooker because you pretty much cook it the same way. And the great thing about this is it's got a little button that say rice. Hello. You just push it and it do all the work for you. – Okay. – All right, so we'll add our bowl of quinoa, okay? And then a salt. We're only gon' add a pinch. Then we're gonna add the water. Make you feel like you're doing something. Child, but this is the only part you're doing. And then we gon' add on the top. And then we just hit the rice button. (beep) – That so simple. You can just put it in and walk away. – So now we got our veggies. – All right. – Okay, this is what we gon' use for our grain bowls. To save time, we leave the skin on the potatoes. We just make sure you scrub 'em, clean 'em real good because the skin actually has so many nutrients in it and it's so great for it. – Awesome. – So tell me a little bit more about why you decided, I'ma go vegan. – In my family there's a lot of diabetes, heart disease, high cholesterol, high blood pressure. And so I kinda was trying to figure out what's a way that we can like help with these things, and so I did my research and kind of found that eating more plant based is better for that. I recently also had kind of like a pre-diabetes scare. – Oh, wow. – Yeah. And that really put everything into perspective for me. So I was like, let's try this. I've tried every diet in the book, but being vegan or plant based is something I haven't tried, so. – Well good for you! – Thank you. You know I had this resting headache in the back of my head for one year and seven months. – Oh my goodness. – Every single day I would be dizzy, I had chronic fatigue. I tried all kind of drugs that the doctors, you know, prescribed, because they couldn't even figure out why I was having this. – Right. – And when I did a 30 day challenge, after 10 days my headache went away. – [Destiny] Wow! – And then after like 20 days or so, I started getting energy again, I started feeling better, and I was like wait a minute. Honey, this thing seem to be working! – Yeah, wow. – I'ma stick with this. – Love that. – And it literally changed my whole life. – Wow. – Absolutely. – So inspiring. – Yeah, girl! Okay, so we gon' put our yams here, or sweet potatoes, whichever you wanna call them, okay? And then our peppers and broccoli, and our chickpeas, and then we gon' season 'em up – Awesome – so then we can get ready. Okay, so everything gets a little bit of garlic powder. – Awesome. – I love garlic powder because, you know, you can use as much as you like. – Oh! – If that's your business. Okay. (laughing) And then a little bit of salt. And then we got chili powder for our chickpeas here. And then paprika for the yams. So now they all seasoned up, we gon' put a little bit of oil, I prefer grape seed oil, yes. Very good. Girl, yes, you doin' great. Go on ahead. Now we gon' roast them for about 20 to 25 minutes. Set a timer, but baby check it 'bout half way through. Okay? You know when you get doing' stuff and you forget that you got stuff roasting, you don't want burnt veggies. Here we have five cloves of garlic. So we're gonna use three of these for our bolognese, and then we'll use two of them later when we make our pesto. – Great. – Now the great thing about this is a little trick. All right, if you shake this really hard, the peeling off of the garlic cloves with come off. – Really? – You go ahead and give it a try, girl. – Okay. – Shaking hard enough? – Yeah! Yeah! – Oh my god! – You see that? – Look at that! – You see that? – That is so cool. – So another great way to like save time when you're prepping, is to use a food processor. Okay, so we gave our veggies here like a rough chop. We let the food processor mince 'em up real good. So we gon' go ahead and take our celery. Carrots in there. Some onion. And then let's put the garlic too. (food processor whirring) All right, so now we have these all minced up. Okay, and then we'll just at them to the pot. So now we'll take the walnuts. Nuts in general are great on a plant based diet for a meat substitute. And honey, ain't no need of you cleaning it out, 'cause it's all one together. – [Destiny] That's true. (food processor whirring) That looks like ground beef. – Very good, very meaty. And then we gon' set it aside. So now what we're gonna do is we're gonna add a little bit of our grape seed oil into our veggie base. We got a little bit of our dried basil, dried parsley here, and our good friend oregano. This is gonna be our good base for our bolognese. One of the great things about meal prepping, honey, is multi-tasking. So while I am stirring these veggies, I want you to make us a little dressing for our grain bowls. All right, so this will be like you by yourself imagining in your kitchen that I'm there with you. – Okay! – You too. So we're gonna take so basil. Some arugula. We got a little sea salt here. Some lemon juice. Some water. Our garlic cloves that we had and a little bit of walnuts. Then olive oil. We gon' blend it up and make a good old sauce. (food processor whirring) – Yeah! – Oh! – We're gonna take this and we're gonna transfer it into a mason jar. So we got a little bit of tahini, some water, lemon juice, salt and some maple syrup. And you know, we could've just kept the one dressing, the pesto sauce or whatever, but we don't wanna get bored. – [Destiny] Keep it interesting. – [Tabitha] Yes! – This is like one of the first times I've been really excited about like changing the way I eat. Like I've never been excited, but I love this. – Yes! – I'm so excited. – That make me excited. – Wow, look at that. That was easy. – Girl, you'd a made pesto and a dressing. – I'm a chef now. – Honey! So see how our veggies are soft, they look good. Okay so now we gon' add a little bit of tomato paste. All right, we stir it on in. Let it get brown. Smooth it on around. Let it get brown, okay? So now we gon' add everything else that we need. So we got our veggie stock, the walnuts that we minced earlier, we got our tomatoes, a little bit of salt, and some lentils. – [Destiny] Awesome. – Stir it up til it gets all mixed in together. We gon' cover it, reduce the heat and let it simmer for about 35 minutes. So now are bolognese is simmering right now. I also put on a pot of boiling water for some pasta that we're gonna make later. While of all that is happening, we're gonna go ahead and make our tofu scramble. Make it taste like some good old scrambled eggs. Ooh, I see your face now. Tell me how you feel about tofu. – The times I've had tofu – Ooh! – It just was like spongy and just kinda like no flavor. – I don't like nothing bland myself, so I ain't gon' feed it to you, all right? I put it in a towel just to kind of pat it dry. You don't have to worry about pressing it. I know tofu gives you a lot of water, but this will be fine once you break it up. It'll absorb all the other flavors right and nice. – Little oil. – Feels weird! – I know it does feel right weird, child. But it's all right. There you go. – [Destiny] Okay, looking like eggs. – So we got a little bit of low-sodium soy sauce and then we got nutritional yeast, garlic powder because you know we love garlic – Sure do. – And it makes everything better. Now this is the black salt. – Oh! – You only need just a couple of pinches of it. And the black salt it to give it a egg flavor. Now we adding turmeric 'cause that actually gives us a little bit of the color so it looks like we got some real eggs going on. But also it's great for the inflammation, especially when we add the black pepper 'cause this activates the turmeric. – I did not know that. – Okay. – We don't have time to be inflamed. – No. – [Destiny] Wow, like this looks like scrambled egg! – It is lookin' like a little scrambled egg, right? Ans we're gonna add a little bit of spinach. And you know like right here is tons of protein. Your tofu is protein, – Ooh! – Your greens is protein. So when the people be like "Oh my god, "you're gonna go vegan, how you gon' get your protein?" Message. (laughing) Give me a wrap with some guacamole and salsa, baby. – Ooh, yum! – Oh, honey. – We eating' big girl. So we have our bolognese still simmering. We always need a fresh green salad. So we have some mixed greens here, a little spring mix, with some arugula already in here. And a little fun fact, when you have 'em in your container in the refrigerator to keep them fresh, just put your little paper towel like that. And that just kina helps soak up the moisture. – Right. – I throw away so much spring mix, it's like shameful. – Right! – So that's good to know. – Let's go ahead and chop these up. – So something that I really like about everything we've bene cooking today is that these are all ingredients that I've heard of, or like can find at any grocery store. So that's really exciting – Right! I think that's the misconception, right? A lot of times, people here the word vegan and they freak out first and foremost. – I did. – Especially people in our community. Listen, I ain't even gon' lie to you, when I would hear the word vegan, I really thought "Oh, that's for white people that do yoga." Me, I'm from a little small town, it was never even mentioned. Now, it's like a movement but really in the black community, which makes me excited because need it. – We do. – We are the high percentage in all of the like, you know, diabetes and high blood pressure. And this is so great for us. Right? – Yeah, I agree. – So it doesn't have to be expensive. All of these things are found at your local grocery store 99 cent store honey, you can even go to Dollar Tree and get spices, okay? (laughing) Now we're gonna add it in, aint that pretty? – [Destiny] It's so pretty. – Ooh, I get excited about a good colorful salad, child. So the hemp seeds are great because they have fatty acids in them which is like Omega-3s, and it's so good for us. This is a life bowl. Ooh, look at that honey! – Yum! – It has simmered on down. – So now what we'll do it add a little bit of our red wine. Then a little bit of salt just for taste. Let's go ahead and stir it up. And then what we'll do is we'll leave this uncovered and let the wine kind of cook down in there for about 10 minutes. And now, it's been enough time that our boiling water, it's time to add the pasta. – Let's do it. – Voilà! Okay. So let's start with our breakfast. So we have our breakfast scramble with our sweet potatoes. You can have it just like this, or you can get fancy, and make a breakfast burrito. – Yum! – And we add a little bit of our roasted red peppers in there, you know, that add a little flavor. – You see that? – That's really good! Wow! – We have these amazing grain bowls, under the bottom we have our quinoa – Yum. – We just mix up our dressings so we have our pesto, and then we got our tahini dressing which you made. And then if you noticed you see we have half with the sweet potato and then half with the red peppers 'cause we mixed it with out breakfast burrito. That way we won't get so bored. Try it out. – Mm! – Girl, you did that. – That pesto's good. – Who made it? – Me! – Go ahead, girl! For breakfast and lunch these are using bowls that you take on the go with you. So you individualize them in containers. But with dinner, I keep the bolognese sauce in the pan and like our big salad we keep that in a container because we make our dinner at home. So we have our standard way with our noodles and our bolognese on the top. And then if you say "you know what, "I'm trying to do right with my life." You can use some zucchini noodles, or whatever veggies noodles you wanna use. And then if you get to the point and you say "Honey, I am bolognesed out." – No more. – I don't want no more. Put that thing on in the freezer. And freeze it until you ready for it again. You still got your pesto sauce that you know, you had in your little mason jar. – That's right. – Put that on your pasta, whip that up honey. Now you got a little pesto pasta. – I love that. – And then you pair it with just salad. And you can have that salad with every meal. And you can also take some salad to work, if that's what you wanna do. – It's your business. It tastes like a meat sauce. – That the lentils and, you know, the walnuts and all the veggies. So say you wanna switch it up, right? Some days you may just wanna do your pasta like how you have your pesto pasta. Use some of your veg. – Ooh, okay. – Mix it up in there. Okay, your peppers and broccoli and chickpeas. Baby that's a pasta salad. – Yeah, options. I love this. – Yeah, you got options. – Well I cannot believe we were able to make 12 meals in 90 minutes. – Yes we did. – And all this food is vegan and easy to find and healthy and good for you and feels good. – I'm so proud of you! – Thank you! – You know, 'cause the first step is being open to just trying something new. And plant based living can be super easy. If you want me to come back, comment below say "Y'all bring Tab back to the room." – Yes. – We'll come back and do some more meal prepping ideas and have some fun in the process. – I'd love it. – High five! – Love that. – So proud of you. (gentle music)

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[mealsforsquares]

Spaghetti and Regular Old Red Sauce

The period after the new year has been, to be charitable, pretty crazy. There’s always a bunch of re-ordering of the house and stuff, and the catching-up of things that were left to slide because of the holidays/hosting new years and all that really brings to light some of the things that are in want of doing. So anyway, buying a chair became necessary. So I went chair shopping all day and came back and it was time to make dinner.

I had used up all my decision-making power as well as all my ability to think constructively. So it was time for the old standby: spaghetti with red sauce. Now, I hadn’t eaten particularly well that day*, so I was trying to get some vegetables in there, so I bumped up the vegetable content of the sofrito the sauce was based on and sort of called that a half-assed win. So I loaded a couple of carrots and a couple of celeries in addition to a big onion into the food processor, and let them become a fine mix**.

I got some oil hot in the pan, then added a couple of minced anchovy filets and some of the oil they were packed in, as well as a bunch (four cloves I think?) of garlic and a generous pinch of chili flakes. I wanted it to taste pasta-y, and not carrot-y, so I made sure to bump up the things that made it taste pasta-y. Thinking it would provide a reasonable distraction from things being to vegetal, I also added some of this Penzey’s herb stuff that came free in one of their boxes. It’s ostensibly a pizza blend, but I figured it was an informal occasion, and I was just trying to get some pasta-sauce flavor in there.

When the oil was fragrant and all the smells had come together, I emptied the food processor bowl in there and stirred it around, letting it release some liquid, and then started some salted water boiling.

I decided on garlic bread for sauce mopping, partly because we had a loaf of bread we might not otherwise ever get to, and partly because, well, I guess if I’m already being weird about making a meal with any kind of nutritional value, I might as well add fucking garlic bread to it. So I melted some butter in a small pot with some more garlic in it, fortified with a little olive oil (which stays liquid) and some onion powder (which doesn’t taste like onions, but does have a flavor that says “garlic bread” to me, which I’m sure has something to do with the “garlic bread” I ate when I was a kid). I minced some parsley to go over the top, but I forgot to add it, so there wasn’t any parsley. I’m a failure at everything I try.

I cut the bread into garlic-bread type pieces and then dipped each of the pieces in the garlic butter/oil, then reassembled the “loaf”, grated some peccorino over the top and ran it under the broiler until it was toasty and brown.

I did make a salad, since it does make the whole thing seem more like a complete meal and less like a capitulation to the calorie gods. Some mesclun, a sliced apple, some pepitas, some raisins and a grated carrot***. I did decide to make it a treat by making some homemade ranch - I combined some mayonnaise and some buttermilk with some salt, pepper, a dash of white vinegar, some dried dill and some dried oregano****, and it was very good.

The meal was a major success with the hungry members of the household, and I have to say that I was pretty pleased with it, even though it was basically a meal assembled on autopilot out of my basest skillset and desires. The spaghetti sauce was clearly not the pomodoro-style wonder that I make the rest of the time, the extra vegetables did bulk it up. It probably would have taken well to being cooked a lot longer - more like a vegan bolognese, if not an actual marinara - but it held up pretty well and tasted nice. The garlic bread provided plenty of starchy, salty counterpoint, and making a creamy dressing for the salad helped the salad hold its own (a vinaigrette would have just piled more acidic ingredients in there).

There are going to be a couple more such “end of the day panic” meals in the coming days, because apparently that’s just how early January works. So stay tuned for some last-minute slinging, and some extremely desperate, hopefully-creative use of leftovers*****

* the night before it was just me and R, so we went out for a giant meat-covered pizza, and then I kind of staggerred through the morning’s grocery shopping without really doing much else about it

** I almost never use the food processor for this kind of thing, but I did actually want there to be some reasonable tomato sauce character, rather than making some weird vegetal concoction, so I did it.

*** I know I’ve spent a lot of time here talking about how I was fighting the carrots, but I genuinely do love carrots. I think they’re a magical vegetable that does all the things that healthy vegetables do as well as carry a nice sweetness, and are also a reasonable plate starch. They’re cheaper than parsnips, healthier than potatoes, and easier than squash. They’re amazing, and I eat so many carrots all the time

**** this is, more or less, Peter Meehan’s recipe from Power Vegetables!, which is a real workhorse volume around these parts.

***** a true thing is that, between one thing and another, these are being written well after the meal, which, since I’m the only one reading them, is great, because it gives me time to look back upon them and consider them outside of the heat of the moment. Y’know, such as it is.

[meditationsinausterity]

A Little Goes A Long Way: donated green tomatoes and a cheeky bit of chicken.

So initially I'd envisaged these zero-waste food posts as neat little triptychs of three meals that succinctly used up primarily one product, as that's how it's worked before. But leftovers and cooking with them is never that neat and tidy, especially if you're only really using enough for one person every time, as things get carried over to different days of the week to avoid repetition, and you tend to be working with different combinations of the same ingredients a lot of the time, as most things aren't readily available in the small portions necessary for those of us extending our early twenties living situations indefinitely (and we are legion, just as a heads up).

This juggling the same combinations of ingredients is increasingly the case of what is now becoming a typical cooking week for me, in which I bring home surplus produce from the trash cafe, often in larger amounts than i would need for one meal, and have to think of creative ways to use it. I'm not sure I actually purchased a single ingredient for this particular set of meals, because I didn't need to, most of it coming from my volunteering stints. As I'm employed now, I'm sure purchases will start to pop up here and there in the form of storecupboard ingredients and so on, but actually, I'm rather enjoying the challenge of my ingredients choosing me rather than vice versa, and it feels pretty good to be feeding myself on food that would otherwise have been going to waste (probably landfill as well, which it doesn't bear thinking about).

Meal 1: Cumin-fried Green tomatoes and cream cheese on toast.

Purchased for this meal:

Nothing

Items I already had:

Green tomatoes: Donated to me by my lovely friend Lou, after a fry up and a catch up about work, art, the universe and everything. She'd bought the plants from her son's school and had a glut, so it was really sweet of her to share them with me.

Cream cheese: Surplus from cooking pasta at the trash cafe

Bread: last few bits from a loaf kicking about in the freezer

Gram Flour: the bedfellow is having a major Push Toward Adulthood as well at the moment, and it's manifesting itself in him clearing out the kitchen cupboards at his. He had loads of bag ends of flour that he wanted rid of and I shotgunned them rather than letting them get chucked out.

Cumin, ghost pepper garlic salt.

Pretty straightforward this one. I actually really love fried green tomatoes, I can still remember the first time I ate them, in bed with the American head waiter from the bar across the road from mine, still pretty buzzed from the night before, idly talking about theatre and drinking coffee. I usually dust mine in cornmeal, but I didn't have any, so I went down more of a pakora route with cumin and gram flour, and just shallow fried them in batches until crispy, before turning them out onto kitchen roll and absolutely dusting them with chilli salt. Then you just pile them onto toast spread with cream cheese and dig in.

I can't really recommend this enough; it's basically like a socially acceptable version of jalapeno poppers, which are the deep fried, ruthlessly chavvy, junk food of the gods. I would eat an order of them right now, or any time in fact, stone cold sober, i don't even care. It was a most excellent breakfast, to the point where I was actually tempted by a repeat the next day.

Leftovers from this meal:

None

Meal two: Salami and Mushroom scrambled eggs on toast with green tomato 'salsa'

Purchased for this meal:

Nothing

Items I already had:

Green tomatoes: half a bag left from Lou's donation

Rye bread: from the trash cafe

Salami with black truffle: We had diced this in the kitchen in preparation for a spicy tomato pasta, but then we got delivered a load of defrosted chicken from a famously 'cheeky' peri peri franchise, so a change of plan resulted in me bringing what we'd already diced home.

Eggs: we got delivered loads of eggs mid-service at the trash cafe so had no time to put them out that day because we have to check the dates and for breakages. I made scrambled eggs on toast for another volunteer's little boy, because he was poorly, so I put the rest of the box with the things I was gonna take home.

Mushrooms: had half a pack left after making lemongrass and coconut chicken at the trash cafe, so true to my 'open it, use the whole thing' policy they came home with me

Parsley: half a bag left from use in the kitchen at the trash cafe. Onion (left over from my last food shop which was aeons ago now) Lime juice (bottled, blech, but needed using),

Ghost pepper garlic salt.

I am not going to insult you by telling you how to fry things off and scramble them with eggs. And if I ever have to explain to somebody how to toast bread then I've gone wrong somewhere in life, or had children; neither of which are scenarios I'm holding out for.

I will have a word about my salsa though; obviously my default salsa recipe is diced onion, chopped tomato, lime, salt, and coriander. I had fresh parsley, and honestly, while it may not be 'authentic', and may be a slightly different flavour profile, I'm a 'love the one you're with' girl in the kitchen. I don't need my food to be by the book, I need it to be tasty. And this so-called-salsa managed that just fine. It was spicy as fuck as well, which is how I like pretty much everything. This was a definite breakfast of champions, and made me glad I didn't just lazily repeat the previous day's efforts, tempting though it was.

Leftovers from this meal:

Half a jar of salsa: fridged and kept to use on something else (with the hope of it becoming more spicy as the flavours melded).

Meal three: Chicken noodle soup

Items purchased for this meal:

None

Items already had for this meal:

1/2 precooked chicken, bone in: A leftover from cooking at the trash cafe, I shredded and stir fried 2 half-chickens, and ended up bringing home one half-chicken on the bone and some leftover shredded meat, because it had already been frozen and defrosted, therefore and needed using up. onions, carrots, garlic

Parsley: leftover from use in the kitchen at the trash cafe

Tub of mixed, chopped, stir fry vegetables: From the kitchen of the trash cafe, We had several packs of these that needed to be used on that Wednesday or they would have to be chucked. I think I got through about eight packs and took two home with me,but there were still, sadly, loads left. If I had more freezer space I'd have bought more home, but there's no sense in me taking what I can't use.

Birdseye chillies: leftover from a packet opened in the kitchen at trash cafe.

Noodles: I always have noodles. Still on those Aldi straight to wok badboys.

Soy: requisitioned from my mother's cupboard on my last visit cos she had two bottles.

So my shift at the trash cafe on this week involved the surprise curveball of several alarmingly big-titted (I speak from envy) half-chickens, pre-cooked, and frozen, from a well known peri peri chain. I merrily defrosted and shredded them and served them stir fried in a chilli coconut lemongrass sauce with insane amounts of stir fry veg. Sadly, during service, I didn't get through as much of the chicken as I would have liked, so I ended up bringing home half a bird on the bone, and probably about half a bird's worth of shredded meat. If I'd have been really thinking, I'd have saved the bones from the birds I shredded during service, because I knew I was going to make stock with what I bought home; in true zero waste style. But I wasn't thinking, in true Kirsty Mitchell style. 

So first thing in the morning I diced onion and carrot, smashed a few garlic cloves, and lopped the stalks off the parsley, gently frying it without colouring on a low heat. I stripped the white meat off the half chicken, not too intensely, as I wanted the dark meat to help flavour the stock. I lobbed in the bones and topped the pan up with water, then once bought to the boil I left it to simmer away for the whole morning, skimming off any scum and occasionally topping up with water so that the bones were covered, before straining.

The actual assembly of the soup took literally minutes. I fried off a sliced chilli with as much stir fry veg as I could fit in a pan with a block of noodles, before topping up with the stock, chucking in a handful of shredded chicken meat, and letting boil until the noodles were just done. chucked it in a bowl, topped it with a splish of soy and loosely chopped parsley and that was literally it.

Is it beginning to be obvious how into noodle soup i actually am? I honestly eat enough of it in different guises to really notice how much BETTER it is with homemade stock. I was so impressed with the quality of the stock i managed to get out of these pre-cooked chain restaurant chickens. As I mentioned, they were incredibly top heavy birds, and often you find birds bred for their meat aren't much in the bone department, but actually this was one of the better chicken stocks I've made in a long time. I know that a lot of what I cook isn't very complicated, at least I don't think I'm using any skills that could be considered above and beyond the average home cook, but it's the taking the time to make every last ingredient count, as in the case of making stock, that I find really makes the difference between an alright meal and a deeply satisfying one. This was a perfect example of that.

Leftovers from this meal:

2x portions of stock: I will own up to the fact I liked this so much I had it three times over the course of the week. Good job and all because I had a glut of stir fry vegetables and shredded chicken meat to use, but it definitely undermines my 'I don't like to eat the same thing all the time' protests. I guess there should be a noodle soup get out clause on that, cos I really do eat it all the fucking time, and it doesn't irritate me one little bit. I think it's because I can be quite remiss at eating carbs as I don't like the soporific effect of them, but in a soup they tend to slip into my system unnoticed.

Meal Four: Herbed chicken and Green Tomato open sandwiches

Purchased for this meal:

Nothing

Items I already had:

Rye bread (from the trash cafe)

Shredded pre-cooked chicken (from the trash cafe)

Creme fraiche (From the trash cafe)

Parsley (from the trash cafe)

Green tomato salsa (leftover from previous cook)

Black pepper (storecupboard)

So this was a really simple, not-really-cooking-whatsoever thrown together number that I whipped up after I'd got home from my interview and accepted the job offer. I was absolutely starving, and the pressure I've been under had lifted, so my body seemed to finally let me feel tired, all at once, meaning i was also absolutely aching for a nap.

I had the tomato salsa leftover from my scrambled eggs the other morning, but also a whole world of chicken, so I decided to be lazy and make sandwiches. I try, as previously mentioned, not to overcarb, so I went the open route to minimize that, toasting the rye bread as it was frozen due to being a trash cafe, due-to-expire rescue. all I really did was toss a load of the chicken in creme fraiche, black pepper, and shredded parsley, mainly to combat any dryness that might be going on because the chicken had been pre-shredded and fridged.

I just piled it on the toast, whacked the salsa on top, and ate it curled up in bed with my book before nodding off to sleep. By no means complicated, but it doesn't always have to be, does it? Delicious nonetheless, especially since the salsa had been allowed to sit and get spicier in the fridge.

Leftovers from this meal:

None.

Meal Five: Spaghetti with Salami, chilli, and Tomato

Items purchased for this meal:

Nothing

Items I already had:

Diced Salami with black truffle (i by no means used all I had at breakfast the other day)

Cherry tomatoes (A handful not used in the salads at the trash cafe kitchen)

Parsley (the last handful from my trash cafe kitchen leftovers)

Oregano (trash cafe leftovers)

Spaghetti

Birds eye chilli (from my neverending stash from the trash cafe kitchen leftovers)

Onions, garlic. Black pepper

An exercise, pretty much, in clearing the fridge before another shift at the trash cafe, combined with a need for some quick fuel for a writing burst on a day off.

 Really simple, as most of my pasta dishes tend to be. I put the spaghetti on to boil, and sliced some garlic and onion, which I softened in some oil without colouring. I threw in the salami, sliced chilli and oregano leaves, and turned up the heat to let the meat give up it's oil in the pan and crisp. at the last minute i put the cherry tomatoes, untouched as they were so small, into the pan, and lightly crushed them as they softened to let them give up their juice to the mix.

When the pasta was done, all I did was toss it through the mix with a few spoonfuls of the pan water, until thoroughly coated, before adding black pepper liberally and chucking some shredded parsley over the top.

So spicy, and satisfying, eaten while typing furiously and, therefore; shamefully, not necessarily given the attention food should deserve. Modern life is rubbish, and so on. At least in my hasty multitasking I'm eating something satisfying and homemade, I suppose. My days off these days seem to be either stuck in a whirlwind of inspiration at keyboard, or furiously swearing at tumblr's html formatting - it's odd how quickly i've gone from oceans of time to write, to having to force it into my schedule around shifts, and I need to make sure I don't slip into bad habits of procrastinating around the house. A quick, twenty minute burst of cooking like this, followed by a kitchen clean, is a good way to take a breather before going back to re-edit, without getting myself lost in a meditative kitchen session. Don't get me wrong, those are handy sometimes, but the best way to be a writer is to write, and if I'm constantly at stove, that's not happening, is it?

��Anyway this was another dish that felt more than the sum of its hastily thrown together parts; it's great when things that really need to be used up come together in a way that doesn't feel like deprivation, no?

Leftovers from this meal:

None. I was obviously on another cold-snap carb rampage.

Another week of not feeling in any way hard done by in my quest to use up every last bit of food that comes into the house. Amazingly, purchase-free, as well. I'm pretty sure the only edible I bought this week was a jar of instant coffee, because, well, remember that episode of the simpsons where Barney gives up alcohol and becomes a tweaked out caffeine addict? That's basically what's happening at Mitchell towers. And don't say shit, yeah? until caffeine ruins my emotional health the way alchohol did, I'll be using it as a crutch. Especially since nicotine is rapidly becoming less and less of a viable option. The fact that adulthood seems to mean slowly relinquishing things I love makes me revise my previous pride to have made it through the 27 club.

I think with my next one of these posts, what I might do is begin with a run-down of what I bought back with me from the trash cafe, and take it from there. Just because then I'll avoid repeating myself too much, and it will also, I feel, be more coherent in the reading. When you have a fridge literally teeming with things begging to be used up, you have to get somewhat creative in the order you use them in, so I feel like this week's meals skipped around a little bit, since I was trying to mix it up so I didn't get bored of the same thing day after day, not to mention trying to get various different food groups included in my diet. i feel like starting with a 'master list' of sorts will help everything make more sense.

Still, I'm pleased with how this is shaping up and evolving; it's giving you a far more accurate and coherent picture of how I cook and eat day to day in order to avoid wasting anything; and I'm also looking forward to seeing how patterns emerge as I get more time-poor due to full time work. I'm gonna have to get more savvy on prep and re-use of leftovers in order to feed myself at, and after work, which I feel might make my writing more relatable to more people, who don't have all day to potter. It's all welland good being unemployed and having all the time in the world to let things sit on the stove while you get on with things around the house, but with only two days off a week to fit in all that and the other things that keep an adult life ticking over like laundry, volunteering, and let's face it, in my case, getting laid, I'll be interested to see what directions my cooking develops in.