woke up wanting…

… a tuna melt! So I had one at, oh, 9:30 in the morning. (Note that I didn’t wake up at 9:30… at least on that particular day. I tend to spend the morning pleasantly loitering, perhaps doing crossword puzzles in bed, until my appetite wakes up. This is an absolute luxury of funemployment- my temporary state til classes start up in January- and I am thoroughly taking advantage of it).

Anyway, the tuna melt was everything I dreamed of and more.

 

Joining the tuna melt on the plate (along with Sriracha-spiked ketchup) were a few leftover green tomatoes and sweet potatoes I’d made earlier.

At long last, my summer tomato adventure had ended (*sob*), finding me picking tomatoes in my boxers at 11 at night before the first frost came. They came in green, and I figured I’d take advantage of the assertive texture and mild flavor and make the all-so-famous fried green tomatoes.

While not actually wanting to deal with frying (or grease making me sleepy) at lunchtime.

I threw together a batter-ish of egg, paprika, cornmeal, etc. and dunked the sliced tomaters in it.

 

Then “fried” them in a skillet with cooking spray.

The day I actually cooked them, in the general bar-food spirit I was in, I was also jonesing for sweet potato fries, so I sliced sweet potatoes and tossed ‘em with olive oil and cajun seasoning (yes!) and baked ‘em til tender.

 

Served with another craveworthy item: yogurt with fresh pomegranate. HMart had a ridiculously good sale- a pomegranate for like a buck? And perfectly ripe and fresh and awesome.

 

Woke up another morning craving pizza. This time I managed to wait until lunchtime, and made a healthy yet shockingly good version.

Flatbread (I get it from Costco), whole wheat, revived from my freezer (I find they go bad fast so I keep them there) in the toaster oven. Baked til crispy on one side, then flipped and smeared with marinara. Sprinkled with GOAT CHEESE and red pepper flakes. Baked til the other side is crispy.

Half the fun of making homemade pizza is using a pizza cutter. Tip: Target sells them for like $2. Can we say stocking stuffer?!

Served with roasted broccoli and mushrooms.

Such a virtuous yet amazingly awesome meal.

And finally, as you may be able to tell, I crave cheese almost continuously. There was a (skinny) period of my life where I didn’t eat any cheese and I am SO glad that period of my life is over, because cheese brings a lot of enjoyment to my life and life is just too short not to eat something you love, even if it makes you skinny.

In addition, for my birthday, Steve gave me a Groupon to Red, White and Bleu, a cheese shop I’ve literally passed every Saturday on my way to the farmer’s market for years and years and never gone into! Shame shame shame.

I made up for it.

Beware: the following series of photos were taken on my iPod. They are not very good.

Let’s review the cheeses I opted for. Steve didn’t go to the cheese store with me and didn’t answer his phone when I called for a cheese consult so he just had to SUCK IT UP if he didn’t like it. Fortunately, the person at the store was not only very friendly and nice, she also gave great cheese tips.

On the left is Hook’s black truffle cheddar (so deep! So decadent!). At the top is the Beemster, an intensely scented and crumbly textured very aged gouda. To the right is smokey bleu (this bleu cheese was smoked over hazelnut shells. Sounds amazing, right? Really, it just tasted like bleu cheese. I like bleu cheese, so this was not a bad thing). A recommendation from the person at the counter was the St. Marcellin, which was EXCELLENT! Like a brie on steroids. It came in its own dear tiny tureen and we put it in the oven and it got all melty… mm mm mm. SO GREAT! All of them were strong-flavored cheeses, but that’s how I like ‘em.

 

Meanwhile, Steve made pasta, I made- and burned- kale chips, and the microwave made edamame.

Steve opened up a nice Malbec- his and my fave- and I got out my other fun purchase, which was these cookies specifically designed for wine tasting. There was a sort of savory cheddar herb cookie, a chocolate-peanut butter-espresso cookie (which I never would’ve thought of with wine but was great!)- and a traditional shortbread. I was excited to buy them and support a local business. Truthfully they were a bit dry.

  

Cheese cheese cheese cheese cheese!

Feast.