tea sandwiches redux

For my grandfather’s memorial on Thursday, it being an afternoon event and all, my mom and I made tea sandwiches.

This is the midpoint process. I’d show the final ones but… it doesn’t matter how cute the food is if the event sucks.

However, when one makes tea sandwiches, it is tradition to cut off the crusts. Wasted food! Quel horreur! Naturally, I salvaged them. First I got leftover fillings:

Tomaters, cucs, and a TON of smoked salmon!

I used them, in part, to make myself a crazy tasty sandwich for yesterday’s lunch:

Picture does not do it justice :(

On side A, we have sliced avocado and tomato. On side B, we have spinach and smoked salmon. CRAZY TASTY!

But the main job, of course, is these:

The crusts! Fortunately I remembered something my love Mark Bittman said about panzanella- bread salad. I put the crusts in an oven with salt and pepper to toast up.

Meanwhile, I chopped up some veg (tomatoes and cucs), salted and peppered them, and added some basil, olive oil, and red wine vinegar

And the final result:

Bread and salad! Two of my favorite things! How can you go wrong?!

extra time

I had extra time this morning because I got off work to go to the memorial service for my grandpa. Extra time. Lucky me x_x

But it did make for something new for my oats:

Apple n cinnamon oats. I love the idea of the apple-cinnamon oatmeal packets, but they are too sweet for me (and instant oatmeal is generally gluey). So I sauteed some apples in the oat pan til they’d browned and softened a bit, then sprinkled on some cinnamon, then added my usual oats, water, and milk and cooked on medium til done.

The final result, topped with pb (we have crunchy at the moment, kind of a fun twist):

  

The verdict? Pretty good. It actually probably could’ve used just a LITTLE bit of sugar, because I’m used to banana oats and bananas are a bit naturally sweeter than apples. Still, it’s worth repeating (but definitely only on mornings when I have extra time—it took awhile)

I didn’t really have “lunch” today, just general bereavement nibbles of the unhealthy, made of white flour variety.

I felt icky and obviously sad. A walk with my mom this afternoon helped, and I knew that for dinner I wanted something fresh tasting, and we thawed some chicken last night. What better than a salad?

First the veg:

Last of the green beans, cucs, chopped green onion, mushrooms, and shredded carrot for color and sweetness.

To dress:

 

For bottled dressing, this aint bad, but it’s quite sweet, so I zinged it up with some lime juice (I also ended up adding some seasoned rice vinegar, my favorite ingredient du jour).

Then I sauteed up some chicken, which I cut into strips and seasoned with ground ginger, garlic salt, and crushed red pepper flakes:

And behold, a lovely Asian-ish chicken salad:

A nice refreshing, nourishing mix of flavors.

recycling!

Okay, this is a post dedicated to the awesomeness of the blog world. Because I never would’ve had the courage/wherewithal to make this ghetto recipe without the genius of Sarah and her baked good recycling recipe.

So we had leftover shortcake from Ma’s strawberry shortcake. Oh yeah, egg yolks in the fridge! Grabbed those. Oh yeah, still a stupid quantity of cinnamon sugar! Grabbed that.

Hmm, seasoning. Raisins are traditional, but we have currants… ooh, and we have red currant jelly, also from the strawberry shortcake!

Diced up shortcake+ batter of milk (1/2 to 3/4 of a cup), egg yolks (I probably ended up only using the equivalent of one egg yolk- I tried to pick out clumpy bits to avoid scrambled egg situation), and a sprinkling of cinnamon sugar (just a little, the shortcake was already a bit sweet)+ currants+ currant jelly dotted on top=

Baked in the oven for 12 minutes or so yielded:

The verdict: DELICIOUS!

Bready, eggy without being scrambly, not too sweet but with the occasional sweet burst from the jelly blobs. Comforty, carby, and an excellent use of ingredients!

Texture shot:

As you can see, I dug right in!

Yet another cooking mountain conquered- baked goods recycling!

good start

I have been ALL ABOUT BREAKFAST lately. My job is wearing me out, and I still am feeling guilt/sadness over not being able to be with my family.

That being said, having a quality breakfast and some peaceful time in the morning (tea sipping, sudoku-doing, mind wandering) has really helped me through the past coupla days.

Beautiful breakfast number one:

 

Yogurt bowl! A layer of plain nonfat. A layer of sliced banana. A layer of Life cereal (in the original flavor). A layer of strawberries for color. A layer of slivered almonds for crunch.

Beautiful tasty layers! It’s perfect, because the nonfat yogurt isn’t sweet but the fruit, cereal, and even almonds make for sweetness, as well as some tang/nuttiness/oatiness. Lovely flavor combination!

The star of this morning’s breakfast was more fruit:

I am seriously in danger of cutting out all other food groups. Summer fruit is just so perfect!

However, I balanced it out: bite-sized shredded wheat with milk, and an egg.

Isn’t there something about brown eggs that’s just… cuter?!

But back to the fruit!

This salad featured apple, banana, strawberry, kiwi, and cantaloupe. It was the PERFECT sweet/tart soft/crunchy balance. The sweet/tart was also complimented by the dressing- I usually do honey and lemon or lime juice. Today I mixed it up and did lemon juice, currant jelly, and a bit of cinnamon sugar. It was great!

So great, in fact, it made a return appearance at dinner.

Along with half a corn on the cob, salad, and the BBQ meatballs I made over the weekend.

The meatballs were KILLER! I did this batch with more of the wetted garlic bread breadcrumbs, and flavored it up with some fresh dill. They tasted like SMOKE! I love grilling so very much. And it’s an inherently healthy cooking technique- when you pan fry meatballs, you add fat to them. When you grill them, you take fat away!

I admired my plate because I did what you’re supposed to do. Make your plate mostly fruits and vegetables, and small portions of starch and protein.

The green salad was quite good, too—mixed greens (red raddichio and baby spinach), sliced cucs and shrooms, and a very simple dressing of dijon mustard, lemon juice, salt and pepper, fresh chives from the deck pot, and of course olive oil.

choco chip!

I wanted cookies wicked bad. This craving was of the sudden onset variety, so I had no pre-softened butter. I also had a reaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaal ripe banana to use up.

So I made Tina's recipe for banana oatmeal chocolate chip cookies!

I put out the ingredients mostly to brag baout my MASSIVE MASSIVE BAG OF CHOCOLATE CHIPS! Oh Costco.

This used up my current carton of oats! Good thing I have a MASSIVE MASSIVE CONTAINER OF OATMEAL! Oh Costco.

Over 100 servings. For most people, that would be a lot of oatmeal. For me, the fear of running out of oats is strong. Maybe now it’s a 2 out of 10, instead of my usual 8 or so.

The batter:

No eggs means cookie dough sampling! Huzzah!

I scooped out the dough with my super classy COOKIE SCOOP! I usually think kitchen gadgets are for people who don’t actually know how to cook, but my godmother, a registered dietitian with a serious sweet tooth, swore by these, and they are FANTASTIC for baking.

  

Here they come out of the oven!

As you can see, these guys don’t really spread. They are sort of sweet, simple, cookie blobs. (totally just wrote “blogs!”)

As for flavor, they are quite enjoyable indeed! Definitely chewy and soft, not crisp, and with enough chocolate chips to make me happy :D

little bites

So with the family craziness I haven’t felt like sitting down and writing a coherent blog, but I’ve still had the urge to take various pictures. Here are some common themes of my summer eating.

1. Lentils are awesome- they’re comforting and they make you saaaaaatisfied.

So I made a big batch:

I simmered 1 cup raw, which results in about 2 cups cooked, so 4 servings.

Serving number one was the hot, comforting, quickly-scarfed-down work lunch.

Lentils, brown rice, carrots for crunch and color, a spoonful of tapenade for flavah. Nuked all of those together, then added that bit of wrapped-up avocado you seen on reserve at the top.

A perfectly balanced combination.

Here’s a cold salad, in saturday’s lunch:

1.5 or so servings of lentils (for Ma and I), delicious homegrown green beans quickly blanched, chopped celery for crunch, and green onions and homemade ranch dressing for flavah.

Theme #2: My meals often evolve. Take this breakfast yogurt bowl.

Nonfat plain yogurt, then apples and cantaloupe, then shredded wheat, then chopped walnuts:

A thing of beauty, no? Look at the stratae:

However, the cantaloupe was no good! And the shredded wheat wasn’t soggy! And that’s how I love it!

So minus cantaloupe and plus milk and stirring/soggifying.

Hot mess but DELISH!

Theme #3: No matter how bad a mood I’m in, making a perfect omelet lifts it:

 

This morning’s gorge brunch :D Following serious agony over what I wanted to eat! Ultimately: omelet filled with cheddar and avocado (swoon!), grilled zucchini (heaven!), and warmed up pita (carbs!)

With yogurt n tea

 

Theme #4: In the summer, if I could pull it off, I would live on fruit.

Gorgeous fruit salad:

And my mom’s STRAWBERRY SHORTCAKE!

She does the “traditional family method”, aka the Bisquick shortcake recipe!

It is somewhat redeemed by using real whipped cream and tossing the sliced strawberries with currant jelly, mmm. I just WENT TO TOWN on some of this stuff.

Then I felt bad and did some much-overdue strength training with all my gung-ho energy from the sugar high. A great evening!

gazpach-oh!

Oh, gazpacho! How I love you! I tried to think of some clever title for the post, but gazpacho speaks for itself.

I had another great night with the ladies :D

I also made my first summer batch of gazpacho :D

My version of gazpacho is soooooooooooo easy and delicious. Really any gazpacho is so easy and delicious. It’s classic summer food. Here’s what I do.

Take a bell pepper- broil it.

Then skin it. Blanch your tomatoes, skin them. Chop everyone up. Get your plants together:

The pepper, tomatoes, english cuc if possible (less watery), garlic, green onion, and fresh oregano from the deck for flava.

Pantry stuffs:

Red wine vin (lots), olive oil (just a little), crushed red pepper flakes (to taste, quite delish), and old pita, ripped up. Use whatever breadstuffs you have. Or none. Totes nonessential.

Then I felt like I was missing something. Durr, salt. Here it is, with the veggies all layered all nice in the chopper.

Pulse the veggies til they resemble pico de gallo ish.

At this point I break out my secret ingredient that ties it all together:

Yeah that’s right. Incidentally, spicy V8 is great for black bean soup!

Here’s the final product, in my preferred gazpacho tupperware, which is actually an old hot and sour soup container we got with Chinese delivery!

Just look at the lovely colors and layers. It’s also delicious with red bell pepper, but if you do it, add parsley so you still get the great color

 

Now for my new faaaaaaaaavorite cooking medium, the grill!

Since Lydia was coming over (she’s a vegetarian), I got some of her favorite childhood vegetables:

As she called it, keeny! AWWWW!

Awesome grill marks, no?!

Not so vegetarian:

Once again, I used the leftover beef to make gorgeous grilled meatballs. This time I went for dill for the seasoning. I’ll update on this batch!

Here’s some of our gorgeous spread, laid out on the decksie:

And my burger, which is once again just beef, oregano, worcestershire sauce and salt and pepper. PERFECTION!

 

Gorgeous gorgeous grill marks!

Some may have spotted a mysterious orange something in the center of the shot. That would be GRILLED PEACHES!

Oh my goodness gracious, my new favorite thing in the land. Literally, cut a peach in half and stick it on a hot grill. That’s it.

Top with vanilla ice cream!

There’s also some meh homemade cantaloupe sorbet on the side. It was an experiment.

Anyway, this weekend has been an absolute gift. Good friends, good food. THE BEST.