Dining at kid-friendly places

Posted on June 12, 2019 by

Yay! We have started our trip! One of the challenges for me is to find dining selections that now are supposed to be 1) things I like. 2) lower in carbs. 3) lower in calories. This is not an easy task especially since I think eating a salad for a meal is like eating air.

Our lunch stop is at the Habit where I know I can eat a char-burger for under 500 calories especially if I do not have cheese and do not eat all the roll.

For dinner we go to the Lost Coast brewpub in Eureka. Almost everything is breaded or battered and fried! I order chicken wings and a small salad. There are too many wings and they are overcooked and dry, and way too spicy. I eat 4, give 4 away, and leave 2 on the plate. The salad is fine but hard to manipulate in its tiny bowl.

A flatter plate would have helped in the eating of this salad

This is a smaller (?) portion of chicken wings. They are too spicy!

We also stopped for ice cream. I had one bite of John’s. Sometimes my eating life seems so sad.

 

 

Posted in American, Beef, Dining out, Holidays, Legumes, Poultry, Vegetables | Leave a comment

Salad, collard greens, and steak. 6/10/19

Posted on June 12, 2019 by

My doctor has told me I need to eat differently. Cut down on the carbs because of rising blood sugar. I am really at a quandary with this because I eat quite a lot of carbs – pasta, beans, polenta, rice,  bread etc. I have switched to brown rice and whole grain pasta mostly. I eat almost no simple carbs such as desserts or candy and no fruit. I am going to have to do some serious research on this!

Tonight instead of the chickpea and ditalini stew with collard greens that I had planned, I sent John out to the grocery store for a steak. We had a tasty salad and then a hunk of meat on a plate with a pile of collard greens. So boring and how is eating a hunk of meat better than chickpeas and various veg?

Salad

Collard greens with shallots and garlic with steak

We are taking our son and grandkids on a road trip for the next five days so my posting will be scanty. I imagine a lot of kid-centric food in the near future!

 

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Fried rice. 6/9/19

Posted on June 9, 2019 by

On Tuesday John and I along with our son and grandkids are taking an intergenerational roadtrip! We are heading up the North Coast to commune with redwoods, Paul Bunyan, small Victorian towns, and the spectacular coastline. So we are in eat-down mode to try to finish off our perishable vegetables before we leave.

Our fried rice consists of brown rice and a piece of jalapeño from our Chana dal meal, leftover broccoli from steak night, mushrooms from who-knows-what, and usual staples like carrots, celery, onions, ginger, and garlic. There is also a scrambled egg and some leftover Chinese take-out. This dinner can be vegan, vegetarian, or omnivore depending on what you have at hand.

Fried rice

 

 

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Pasta with tuna, snow peas, and parsley. 6/8/19

Posted on June 9, 2019 by

Today, for my half birthday celebration (what? you don’t celebrate your half birthdays?!) I made campanelle with a lot of snow peas and parsley plus a can of tuna. I sautéed a little onion and garlic and then, when the pasta was ready, I added it along with the tuna, parsley, and snow peas to the onions and garlic. The heat of the pasta warmed up the veg and tuna. The sauce was basically just some pasta water and EVOO. It probably could have benefited from a little acid like some lemon juice or a handful of cherry tomatoes. I will have to remember that for next time.

P.S. Always de-string your snow peas or they will be unpleasant to eat!

Campanelle with tuna, snow peas, and parsley

Posted in Easy, Fish, Italian, Kitchen tips, Pasta, pescatarian, Vegetables | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Working with take-out. 6/7/19

Posted on June 7, 2019 by

Apparently I have thrown my menu out the window. Being short of prep time yesterday, I froze the chicken we were supposed to have and John ran out to the store to pick up something pre-prepared. He chose ribs, potato salad, and cole slaw. I was thinking of just not posting these two days due to embarrassment over what we have consumed. But this blog is supposed to be “It’s what I eat!” So here it is.

We ate some of ribs and salads on Thursday and the rest of it  on Friday. Since there was only a tiny bit of coleslaw left, I augmented it tonight with more cabbage, onions, mayo, vinegar, and celery seed. Seriously there was a time when we would have polished the whole thing off in one night. I think eating it over two days shows personal growth!

St. Louis style ribs with potato salad and coleslaw

Now we have a ton of veg left in the refrigerator that has gone uneaten. So I imagine this will be a fairly vegetable intensive weekend.

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New vegan recipe! Chana Dal with brown rice, tabbouleh, and pita

Posted on June 6, 2019 by

New recipe tonight! Chana dal is a stew made from split chickpeas seasoned with cumin seeds, chili powder, turmeric, and tomatoes. This is a snap to make with your Instant Pot. I found this super easy recipe at Piping Pot Curry. I paired the Chana dal with brown rice that I also made in the Instant Pot. Use twice, wash once!

I had lunch with our daughter at a new Mediterranean place and got a big plateful of falafel, hummus with pita, and tabbouleh. It was way too much for one person to eat so I took most of it home and repurposed the tabbouleh and the pita for tonight’s dinner. John and daughter munched up the rest of my lunch plate before dinner!

My enormous lunch of falafel, hummus with pita, and tabbouleh

After the split chickpeas have a 30 minute soak, they cook in the Instant Pot under high pressure for 15 minutes and then a natural cool down which took about 20 minutes.  But it is totally hands off once you get the onions, garlic, and ginger sautéed. The turmeric gives it a nice yellow color.

Chana dal with brown rice, tabbouleh, and pita

So I had a totally vegan day and enjoyed cooking this meal while John was at work. I hope it balances out the steak from yesterday!

Posted in Easy, Grains, Indian, Instant Pot, Legumes, Mediterranean, Vegan, Vegetables, Vegetarian | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Sous vide ribeye steak, grilled potato, broccoli and fava beans. 6/4/19

Posted on June 5, 2019 by

Today’s division of labor was like every other day, John cooks meat and grills and I do vegetable prep and cooking. John gave the steak a 2 hour immersion circulator bath at 130F and then seared the steak on the grill along with the Russet potato that I seasoned and cooked inside and then had him put some grill marks on. The broccoli was cooked in a little water and finished with some of our daughter’s wonderful fava beans and butter.

A note about broccoli – if you peel or cut off the outer layer of stem the inside is totally edible. Don’t throw away good broccoli or shy away from buying stalks as opposed to crowns. Usually the whole stalks are much more economical.

Broccoli florets and stems

This was a really good dinner with which we opened a very nice bottle of red wine. No reason not to celebrate a Tuesday. (Especially when Roger Federer won his match against Stan Wawrinka. Federer is an amazing tennis player especially for someone so old. 37!! LOL) This was too filling for me, though, and I ended up giving half my meat and potato to John.

Steak, grilled potato, and broccoli with fava beans

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