Oldies but goodies

After a week of mostly made-up on the spot meals, thanks to grocery shopping without a list last Monday, I was looking forward to meal planning for this week.  Instead I went to the farmer's market on Saturday and came home with my first real haul of the summer--chard, broccoli, cabbage, little round potatoes, beets and an irresistible pack of sticky buns--thus changing the order of my usual recipe browsing, list making, grocery shopping, and then cooking routine.  This week went shopping (vegetables), recipes, shopping (everything else), followed of course by cooking, but it's only the second day in and I have already departed from the meals I planned.

rainbow chard and precious little potatoes from the farmer's market

When I got back from my run at a little past 7 this evening, I wanted my dinner to be something more filling than the couscous salad I had planned.  Dinner also had to be quick--enter the classic tuna cheesy, served with roasted veggies (that were originally going to go in the salad).  

roasted veggies + ketchup = "fries"

More protein, and really easy to clean up after.

Speaking of cleaning...another oldie but goody that everyone should put into practice is the magical power of vinegar and baking soda.  I like to use it on my stainless sink to get rid of soap scum and water marks, but this past weekend I had the idea to use it in the shower too.  Yes, the bathroom smelled a little vinegar-y when I was done, but only until I took my next shower, and I prefer vinegar smell to chemical fumes any day.  Baking soda, vinegar and an old toothbrush also took care of a pair of dingy earrings that hadn't responded to either jewelry wipes or a soak in a tinfoil lined bowl.  Simple, cheap, and I feel oh so accomplished--a feeling I hope to maintain throughout the week!

Protein Punch

Dinner doesn't get on the table (or in my mouth) nearly quick enough these days.  As much I generally enjoy cooking, I am always hungry, (sweaty and tired) after exercising with my housemates, and I can't recall the last evening I didn't have school work that needed attention.  Plus, cooking usually requires cleaning up afterwards, and my dishwasher is back in Japan.

So, I've been eating lots of leftovers and quick meals of late, most of which taste fine and fit the bill.  But when I made this quick-n-easy salad a few weeks ago, it was one of the best things I had eaten for a while.

With this recipe as a starting point, I added some chickpeas and raisins and adjusted the spices to taste.

Served over a bed of spinach & carrots, with fresh bread and olive oil/balsamic vinegar on the side.

The chickpeas helped add volume and protein.  I read recently that I should be getting 46 grams of protein a day, which is way higher than I thought.  I also didn't realize how many things in my regular diet contain protein, (greek yogurt is one of my main sources, as well as the copious amounts of cheese I consume, and recently I've been eating a hard boiled egg at least every other day).  I counted up my protein intake on one random day, and it came out almost exactly to 46 grams!!  My foray into nutrition was kind of fun...maybe over the summer I will try and learn more about what I eat.

Sophisticated Tastes

Outside of my apartment when I got home yesterday:

Grey and damp. Guess I won't be eating on the patio:

But I will gladly have one of these:

To sip while I work on my tres elegante dinner of convenience with a side of comfort.

There's the convenience, made a bit fancier with tuna and some frozen veggies stirred in.

The comfort started with these guys, spoils from last Saturday's trip to the Graves Mountain Harvest Festival.

First sliced...

...then diced and thrown into a big pot.

With 1/4 cup brown sugar, 1 cup of water, 1 tsp cinnamon and a dash of nutmeg.

Then boiled 20-25 minutes, until resembling beef stew! (The result of some apples cooking faster than others.)

Thankfully, my home-made apple sauce didn't smell like beef stew, and tasted wonderful, all spiced and warm.

Two sublime antidotes to the weather outside.

More cheese, please!

I apologize for the cliche, but if you are looking for a gift that keeps on giving, consider the gift of Costco membership for all the hungry people in your life. I bought one for Keizo's birthday last summer, and it was probably the best thing I could have gotten him. In fact, trying to think of something to top it in terms of novelty and usefulness is pretty much impossible, which is why he only got some chocolate for Christmas.

Anyway, Costco is great for many things. Keizo likes to buy dried seaweed and instant ramen in bulk; I like to stockpile pasta and eat American bagels for breakfast. But the best thing Costco in Japan has to offer is large quantities of real cheese at reasonable prices, relatively speaking. On our last visit, not wanting to commit to five pounds of cheddar, we picked up a "party" tray with four varieties of sliced cheese.

And "party" it up we have! All by ourselves, with a myriad of cheesy recipes. First up, tuna casserole from Kay Kellog's Creative Cookery, copyright 1971! I snatched up this book when my mom was cleaning out her cookbook collection. While it's not quite as entertaining to read as the Betty Crocker home entertaining book from the same era (What? You don't have a tea trolley to serve dessert from?) the 7 cent coupons still stuck inside give it some historical flair.

The recipe said it served 6, so I cut it in half when preparing the sauce, but then doubled the amount of canned tuna and added some extra pasta when the two seemed dwarfed by the bucket of sauce. If I had followed the original recipe the result would have been a lot more like cheese soup! After 15 minutes in the oven, we were ready to eat.

Mmmmm cheesy!

Another acquisition from our last Costco adventure was an 8-can pack of diced tomatoes, since we seem to be buying them fairly regularly at the grocery store. When combined with a can of refried beans (another Costco acquistion from a previous trip) and some chicken broth, they make a deliciously simple "tortilla soup." The soup is edible on its own, but is greatly enhanced and turns into a full meal by adding a generous topping of tortilla chips with melted cheese, avocado slices and tiny dollop of sour cream.

Just for fun, let me wrap up with another cliche. Just as every cloud has a silver lining, hot cheesy casserole and steamy soup with a bit of spice wouldn't taste nearly as good without the frigid temperatures outside (or in the hallway, which as become like a second refrigerator for storing beer and root vegetables.)