I am a salad lover and I love to make awesome salads – but when I’m going to make a salad, any “plan” I have usually consists of:
Step 1: rummage through the fridge for vegetables
Step 2: throw it all together
Step 3: eat
Some plan, eh? Salads (and smoothies) are just not something I think to use a recipe for – but this also means I often make the same thing over and over again.
Are you sick of zucchini yet? Well hang tight, we’ve still got a few weeks of summer left.
With a frittata on the dinner menu, I gathered up the latest round of CSA zucchini (both yellow and green) for shredding and salting before I made it sit in the corner to think about what it did wrong.
Oh Zucchini, you didn’t do anything wrong. You’re just so… so… plenteous! So abundant! I’m at my wits end trying to come up with ideas for you.
Have you ever found yourself eating a grilled hummus and coleslaw sandwich for lunch and wondered how on earth such a concoction happened to land on your plate?
Oh right, I think it started because I was making soup.
Soup that began with potatoes.
And then some beans were added too.
And then Bean and Potato Soup turned into Bean Potato Onion Carrot Cabbage Soup as I went pawing through the CSA produce to find more soup ingredients.
Right Kermie?
(something like that.)
Random fact: my kids never took any interest in Sesame Street. I WAS TOTALLY LOOKING FORWARD RELIVING MY CHILDHOOD, GIRLS! That was part of the reason I had kids in the first place.
Anyways.
Peaches! More peaches! Peaches are turning out to be one of my new favorite smoothie additions.
They are just so… peachy?
Layered with frozen banana slices and some spinach, they make a great smoothie trio.
My other new favorite smoothie additive –
Tonight we had the BEST and EASIEST pizza ever – but that’s NAAN of your business.
Kidding. I’m nice – really. Please don’t go. I really do want to tell you about the best and easiest pizza ever.
“Best” thanks largely to naan, Indian flat bread.
Garlic Naan for Grown Ups
Plain Naan for Pip Squeaks
Pre-heat oven to 500 degrees. If you’ve got a pizza stone, slip that sucker into the oven while it’s getting hot and then start working on your pizza toppings.
Once upon a time I always ate processed, snacky type foods like Kashi crackers, pretzels or frozen, baked french fries as my “side” at lunch. While those are certainly better than some foods and are of course OK once in a while – one of the best habits I ever created for myself was learning to automatically put vegetables on my plate instead.
A pile of steamed veggies, vegetable sticks, a side salad – I don’t even miss crackers or pretzels anymore and don’t feel like I’m depriving myself either.
When it comes to what to eat after workout or run, I don’t think much beyond “eat real food” unless that workout has been particularly long and hard. (I am purposefully ignoring the obvious joke here. This post just started!)
The neighborhood running group I occasionally run with sent an email yesterday saying they were going 10 miles Saturday morning. I haven’t run much more then 4 or 5 miles at a shot all summer – but I decided to join them for 10 today, and my reasons for doing so were three fold:
I’ve been waiting and waiting for eggplant to show up in the CSA share this summer so I could make Ratatouille.
Finally, the good word arrived in my inbox yesterday.
(more peaches. did ya catch that?)
Well what do you know – this week I’ll be picking up just about everything I need to make Ratatouille!
From inbox to counter top:
I think Peach and Corn Ratatouille is on the menu tomorrow.
I followed my own Ratatouille directions from last year’s premiere stewed veggie attempt – and good news! I didn’t steer me wrong.
Sarah’s comment the other day about having five pounds of cucumbers made me realize that I too have plenty of cucumbers right now.
So what the heck can you do with a lot of cucumbers? Am I crazy or do people make cucumber soup? Cold cucumber soup? Haven’t I heard of that before? Doesn’t that sound right?
Yeah, that sounds right.
If you are a gazpacho lover, then cucumber soup will be right up your alley. Even if you aren’t a gazpacho fan (cause Zak’s not and he loved this) it could still be worth a try.
We’ve gotten a slew of peaches from the CSA share in recent weeks – more peaches than we can eat.
Or really, more peaches than I am currently in the mood to eat.
Don’t get me wrong – summer peaches are fabulous. But frankly, I am peached out. I’ve thrown enough Peach Pits into our compost pile this month to change my zip code to 90210.
(it’s possible I had a poster of Luke Perry hanging on my bedroom wall from approximately 1992 until 1994…)
More Mama’s Weeds
