Monday, March 02, 2009

Monday Meal Melange

It's raining. Hard. I'm listening to some new music (Eric Hutchinson "Ok, It's Alright by Me"), finishing up a salad, and happy to be warm and dry, as opposed to yesterday's 2+ hour run in the rain.

I've been cooking more recently. Cooking and I have a love/hate relationship with each other. The bottom line is that I believe it's best for me to cook for myself and my family, but that's been hard to do consistently. The good news is that I keep trying. So yesterday and last Sunday, I decided to spend a few hours in the kitchen, prepping stuff for the week. Here's what I made:
  • Better Salad (like tuna salad, but with chopped chickpeas instead of tuna)
  • Hummus
  • Oatmeal Raisin cookies (new recipe -- cookies spread into a gooey layer in the pan, so I cooked them a little more, then crumbled the cooked result as an indulgent granola-ey sort of mix. Tim and Austin both love it!)
  • Rainbow peppers (well, I didn't "make" them but I chopped them and put them in the fridge
My hope is that by having some healthy basics around, it will be easier to eat better. Oh, I also made a salad dressing that has become my new favorite. I'm pretty sure I'd eat cardboard if it were drizzled with this:

Honey-Tahini Dressing
from March/April 2009 Cooking Well

1/2 cup lemon juice (fresh is best, of course!)
1/3 cup olive oil
1/3 cup tahini
2 tablespoons honey (I use agave nectar)
2 cloves minced garlic
1 teaspoon salt

Blend in food processor or shake in jar with tight fitting lid. Enjoy!

NOTE: I JUST REALIZED THAT I POSTED THIS RECIPE A FEW DAYS AGO! OOPS!

So today's salad with mixed lettuces, shredded coleslaw, avocado, and that dressing. My friend Tracy Reifkind talked on her blog about using cabbage in salad, almost a year ago. Guess I'm a little slow on the uptake, but hey, I'm doing it! I like the cabbage because it adds the crunch of iceberg lettuce (but has vitamins unlike iceberg) and it's filling.

So what's for dinner tonight? I've got chili (beef, black beans, white beans) in the crock pot, and I'll be making cornbread and coleslaw when I'm done writing here. Remember the Daily Docket thing I was using? Well, I've refined that and created my own. So yeah, dinner's simmering (I'm inordinantely proud of that!) and that's a very good thing!

5 comments:

Aron said...

i have a love/hate relationship with cooking too... mostly hate. i have the hardest time coming up with things to make, but we are trying really hard to eat in most of our meals to save money and because its just better for you!

you are doing great i think, and great job on the rainy run yesterday! its been pouring here too.

Irene said...

I love cooking, but I love cooking all the stuff that's not supposed to be good for us on a regular basis, like cookies. HOWEVER, I find that I'm able to control my weight better when I make my own meals, opposed to buying something pre-made from the freezer section of the grocery store. I know exactly what's in it when I make it myself!

Anonymous said...

I'm glad things are going well with you.

Take care and best wishes.

:-) :-).

Matt

Diana said...

I've gotten lots of good recipes from Tracy! She is definitely a wealth of information for food and the bells!

Unknown said...

Great job. Your family appreciates it.