Thing-a-day.com

Today I made my favorite salad.  This salad was made for me over 10 yrs ago and ever since then there has be no other.  Not only is it tasty, but it’s easy to make.  The key ingredients are a ripe avocado and the dressing.  Today’s salad included baby romaine lettuce, baby arugula, celery, carrots, cucumber, grape tomatoes and diced avocado.   The dressing is a simple balsamic vinegar and olive oil mixture  with crushed garlic, salt, freshly ground pepper and squeeze of lemon. Pour dressing over salad and toss.  I also added some freshly shredded Parmigiano-Reggiano. Yum!  Of course, I would advise not eating this if you have an important meeting any time in the near future.  

 I had some beets in the fridge and wanted to try some sort of food carving on ‘em, but there was nothing in the book I had, so I went literal:

raw cut  

cooked and on salad

I also tried a viking ship made out of a cucumber from the aforementioned book:

That ugly bird head with what looks like a mickey mouse hat on was my way of trying to recreate one of those dragon/ loch ness monsters you see on some old depictions of viking boats.. not so much.

But hey, it floats in water! (without the mast which is heavy and messes up it’s balance)

This was dinner tonight as I was too lazy to leave the house to buy any groceries and decided to use what I had on hand. Lucky for me we had some multi-grain tortilla chips left over from the Super Bowl last month and some frozen ground beef. I used spinach instead of lettuce and topped it up with an old can of refried beans in the cupboard, some cheese, sour cream and some salsa.

I swear the spinach is under there. It really is. Not a bad dinner at all. Very hearty and tasty.

On Day 13…

 I fed myself (yet another salad, and an improvised blt using pancetta for bacon- which works pretty well):

I planned to feed others (lemony “sunshine cupcakes” from William Sonoma Deserts cookbook, frosting forthcoming):

and I did my laundry:

exciting, no?

My previous batch of beet eggs ran out around Christmas and I haven’t had time to make some more. So I took this opportunity during thing-a-day to make a fresh batch.

I hard-boiled 6 medium sized eggs and peeled them. Then I opened a jar of pickled beets, poured the juice in a pan and arranged the beets with the eggs. To the juice I added 150ml cider vinegar and half that in volume of sugar. Dissolved the sugar and simmered for 10mins. Once done I immediately poured the hot liquid over the eggs and closed the jar. Now I have to wait at least a week.

These eggs are delicious. Perfect with a salad or on a sandwich. I can’t believe I’m so addicted to them. Here’s an old pic of the purple eggs on a salad of peppers, tomatoes, avocado and some of the beets.

More food y’all:

Pan-fried steak with carmelized mango, shallots and avocado “salsa”(?) on top.  Served with more grilled shallots and red bell peppers on the side.  Also a salad with raspberries, apple slices, almonds, shaved parmesan, avocado, parsley and cilantro on top of all the regular players.  I was hungry, thus portions were pretty mountainous today.

I’m also just starting a scarf that isn’t knitted, but held together with knots because…  I can’t knit.

As you can see, there were 4 main strands tied together to create a scarf with a little less width than I normally like.  So, now that I’ve taken this picture- I’m going to pull it apart and start all over with an extra two strands to hopefully fatten it up nicely. Here goes..

I love this dressing. It’s so cool and creamy but you can shovel it on, unlike ranch or bleu cheese. I got the idea for walnut oil from a co-worker, who uses it in vinagrette. I just take a few tablespoons of walnut oil and add about twice or three times as  as much plain yogurt. It doesn’t really matter how much…it’s up to you. Then add a little salt and lots of fresh pepper to taste. Whisk it up and pour it on to greens. It’s fantastic if you add avocado and walnuts to the salad. The one pictured is just mache.

Weekend means more cooking. This recipe is adapted from orangette who adapted it from the absolutely fantastic casa moro cookbook. I actually have the first moro cookbook, and it looks like I should get the second one too.

Pumpkin and squashes are high on my favourites list. Creamy soup, roasted as side dishes or as a substitute for mashed potato, there’s nothing that beats the chill of winter than a warming, welcoming squash dish. The tahini adds a touch of arabia to the proceedings, and lifts it up beyond just a warm pumpkin salad.

for the salad
Peel a whole butternut and dice into 1-1.5″ pieces
Season with olive oil, minced garlic, salt & pepper and mixed spice — the recipe calls for allspice but I didn’t have that
Roast at 200° for 25mins or until soft
At the last 5mins or so chuck in a can of drained chickpeas to warm them up

for the tahini dressing
Whisk together 2tbsp tahini, 2tbsp lemon juice, finely minced garlic and sea salt
Add water to dilute
Add oilve oil and whisk to a thick consistency
Season to taste
I found it still too lemony so I added a few drops of sesame oil for balance

assembly
After removing from the oven, cool the squash to warm temperature
The recipe uses red onions but I don’t eat onions, so I added celery chopped into small bits for the crunchiness
Toss vegetables in tahini and serve

Daily Photo:

For lunch I made up a salad with ingredients on hand. Recipe below.

 Spinach and Pear Salad with Pine Nuts

Fresh spinach leaves
Fresh ripe pear
Pine nuts (or substitute your favorite nut – almonds, walnuts and pecans would also be good)
Shredded mozzarella cheese (or substitute cheese you have on hand. Parmesan is quite good with pears.)
Italian Dressing

Toast nuts in the oven at 350 degrees for 2-4 minutes until they just start to brown. Watch carefully – they burn easily. Let cool.

Assemble spinach on individual serving plates.

Slice pear into thin slices and layer over spinach.

Sprinkle on cheese.

Add your dressing and then top with nuts. Adding the nuts last keeps them from all falling to the bottom.

Alright.. day 6 was kind of a throw away.  Copious amounts of school and tired left me looking to the closest thing for inspiration- Margaret, that jerk:

in pencil:

in conte (it won’t let me thumbnail all of a sudden):

a tuna salad with fixins:

and a homemade ice cream sandwich (this was technically thrown together yesterday to freeze up and devoured today right in margaret’s face):

I was going to do another watercolor today, but ended
up making a big salad for dinner (and to snack on the rest of the week)……
so here’s day 5. A simple salad with mixed greens, dried cranberries, carrots, tomatoes,
parmesan cheese, morningstar farms chick patties diced up with some cottage
cheese and pears on the side. Nothing fancy but it was tasty! I wish I would
have had some walnuts and avacado on hand to add to it.