New Trick!

Oooh, check out the arty effects I got from my new app, Hipstamatic!

Food for this Week

Last week I mentioned the Fresh 20, a meal planning service I've been trying out. I find I adapt a lot to suit schedule, tastes, opinions about how to cook, etc. But the fact that I adapt doesn't mean I don't like their ideas! Last week was a good example, both in terms of switching up their suggestions, and also trying things I wouldn't normally cook.

So, the instructions were to braise some flank steak for dinner one night and use the leftovers for risotto another night. I pan-fried the steak . . . see below. A proper dinner with a vegetable side (green beans with lemon and almonds) and a starch! So exciting.

And the next night we had tacos -- I took the leftover steak, sliced it, sprinkled with fajita seasoning, and tossed it around with peppers and onions. We enjoyed the meat with tortillas, cheese, and delicious smoky paprika cream.

For the risotto component of the week I roasted the butternut squash that came in our Dominion Box and stirred it into a basic risotto. No pictures because risotto looks like risotto. I put the leftover squash on a salad, which was pretty good. I do not come from a winter squash eating people, but butternut squash is nice.

Extracurricular activities this week included whole wheat bread from Bread by Jeffrey Hamelman, a birthday present from Mom and Dad. It used a pate fermentee, which was a first for me. It's meant to enhance the texture (I think it did) and help it keep longer (we'll see). I didn't take as much time as I should have to shape the loaves properly, but that doesn't affect the taste!

Really, Blogger?

Seriously, you make it just impossible to either predict the order in which photos will post or rearrange them once they have posted in their nonsensical order. THEN you refuse to post my photos at all today. Maybe a server error is your fault, maybe it isn't, but I'm blaming you.

What I've been up to

Not a whole lot, actually . . . it's been busy at work, cooling off outside, and we've been settling into a fall routine. I'm trying a meal planning service for the next few months. The Fresh 20 sends out a weekly menu for five meals (designed to serve four people with moderate appetites), featuring seasonal produce, whole grains, lean protein, etc. I've enjoyed it so far! I usually end up omitting the meal that includes seafood -- because I don't like seafood -- and often rearrange the suggested order to suit the house schedule (leftovers before Bible Study on Tuesdays, something that holds well on Wednesday so John can eat while I'm at yoga, etc.) and it turns out a pretty good amount of food without being wasteful. It's certainly encouraged me to try different recipes and to cook with meat more than I usually would.

I see I don't have any pictures of a Fresh 20 meal, but here are a few things I've made over the last little while:

Overnight Oatmeal, as suggested by Kath of Kath Eats Real Food. The idea is you mix up equal parts of raw, rolled oats, yogurt, and milk, let it sit in the fridge overnight, then top and eat in the morning. Muesli, in other words. I've been eating it since I discovered Sam's no longer stocks Go Lean Crunch. This particular morning I had it with dried apricots, almonds, and a bit of palmetto honey.

Wow, we've been broke out in eggplants this year! I've got two sitting in the fridge right now, and I get a least one in every Dominion box. I'm not absolutely crazy about eggplant, but it can be okay, I guess. Below is eggplant glazed with pomegranate molasses, served with goat cheese toasts.

We went to visit the Tidewater gang in late August and brought an almond-peach cake. I believe the recipe was from Food52. It mixed up easily on a Sunday morning (didn't even use a mixer) with butter, eggs, almond flour, nutmegged sugared peaches, and some other stuff I'm sure. By the time we headed down it had baked and cooled. Delicious! Love almonds.

And then this summer's project: baking without turning on the oven. I made pita using the recipe in How to Cook Everything. Only one of them puffed, but they were all tasty. We had a Sunday mezze spread as pictured below: Tomatoes, cucumbers, Halloumi cheese (John would live on this if I let him) and, I think, leftover eggplant. Below that is my one puffed pita. It's not a great picture, but it needed to be recorded.