Curried Farfalle Chicken Salad

It happened again.  I got home from work today and decided that I needed to make two meals, instead of just one.  Why do I do this?  Much like the Boy Scouts who are taught to “always be prepared,” it seems I am ingrained with a need to always be prepared for my next eating experience.  This leads to endless thinking ahead about meals, wondering how to use leftovers while I’m cooking the main event, and many other future-food-related habits that leave A shaking his head and wondering who this food beast is that he married. 

This endless food scheming has its advantages, however.  Nothing pleases me more, especially in the winter, than spending a Sunday afternoon making large batches of soup, breads, snacks, stews, and the like, giving us a rich cache of foodstuffs to eat for lunch and otherwise throughout the week.  I’ll often make up a pasta salad or other cold dish to keep in the fridge for A to eat when I’m at work and to fill my dingy old lunch bag.  I like to have food on hand, all right?  Because god forbid I’d ever let the fridge go bare.

With this thought in mind, I set about making a recipe that had been bookmarked for ages – so long, in fact, that I had totally forgotten about it: Curry Chicken Pasta Salad from The Pioneer Woman. The combination of sweet golden raisins, crunchy celery & almonds, and spicy curry powder was enticing, and it seemed a great single-bowl lunch dish to eat the week through.

Then, I noticed the dressing: full-fat mayo, full-fat sour cream, and heavy cream?  Have mercy.  I dunno, I just can’t cook like that.  I mean – I’ll eat the crap out of crap at restaurants (fried cheese?  Sign me up) but when it comes to my own kitchen, I just cannot do it.  Still, it had lots of good ideas – cooking the pasta in the water you poach the chicken with, adding flavor to the noodles while saving a pot and re-using the water; mixing chicken and fruit and nuts and veggies into what some might at first glance assume to be an unhealthy dish.  But I wanted to change that perception.

Instead, I scrapped her three-fold fat attack and used 2% Fage Greek yogurt, thinned with a bit of 1% milk.  I also left out the sugar, figuring the raisins would be sweet enough.  I also added in some green onions, since it just seemed right for the recipe (and I had bought a giant bag of them at Trader Joe’s).  And I decreased the amount of chicken to 1.5 small breasts, in fact only cooking one and chopping up the remainder of a leftover chicken breast that was just hangin’ out in the fridge.  Since you use a large amount of curry, and I took the initiative to add Old Bay (I am ADDICTED to it) it needed barely any additional seasoning but a pinch of salt.

We loved the combination of flavors from the curry and the raisins with the more vegetal elements.  It dried out a bit in the fridge overnight – I probably should have reserved a bit of the yogurt to mix-in as needed in the days following, but then again bringing it to room temperature loosens it up a bit too.  It’s packed with protein, so it’s a nice filling, nutritious lunch.  Now, where did I put those cheese sticks…? 

Visit the link above for the original recipe, or see my slight adaptations after the JUMP.

A. G. Ferrari's Deli in San Francisco

Across the street from this little hotel is a small Italian specialty food store and deli.  It looks like a nice, new little place.  A quick Google search reveals that it's a mid-size California chain, although it doesn't feel much like a chain when you walk in.  It carries Italian candies, wines, imported pastas, and olive oils, in addition to its well stocked deli of italian meats, cheeses, and prepared food items.  It would be a fun place to explore were I a local resident. 


But I'm not, so none of these food finds really caught my eye, since my 50.5 lb suitcase can take no more contents unless I want to pay a $100 oversize bag fee when I fly back to Chicago on Wed.  No matter how special that olive oil is, I'm not paying a hundo to take it with me on the aeroplane. 

They look like black-eyed peas to me...

Sandwiches, on the other hand, are something I can enjoy.  And A.G. Ferrari makes those by the tenfold.  Their "seasonal" (doubt it" menu lists about 20 varieties, and I'll give them credit that only one or two feature deli smoked turkey.  Instead, they stuff their (freshly baked?  maybe) bread with cured Italian meats, roasted veggies, house-made dressings, and less-common cheeses.  A welcome find. 


Going back to that across the street location, it's no surprise that it has fed me lunch two days running now.  Yesterday I selected #4, a tuna and celery salad with tomato, arugula, and olive tapenade on foccacia.  The not-too-mayo-y tuna salad had a fair bit of crunch, and the chunky olive tapenade cut through the richness with its salty brine.  The foccacia as well wasn't greasy like this olive-oil laden bread can sometimes be, making it a nice counterpoint to the savory contents it held.

Today the #9 Veneto called my name.  Layers of spicy, rich sopprasetta, asiago cheese, red leaf lettuce and--the deal clincher--pickled vegetables on crusty italian bread.  A side of cannellini bean, celery, and pecorino cheese salad with red wine vinaigrette somehow made its way into my cart, too.  Strange how these things happen.  


This was a great sandwich.  Great.  The peppery, salty salami balanced perfectly against the vinegary, crunchy vegetables, and mixed with the creamy asiago and the chewy bread it became perhaps my perfect sandwich. 


If you find yourself near this place (as I will tomorrow) I highly suggest helping yourself out and heading inside.  The #8 sure sounds good too.....   

Trader Joe's Adventure

I think I am getting sick.  Why this prompted an urgent trip to Trader Joe's, I can't say really, but it did, and my quest was simple--SOUP.

TJ's is a great store, especially if you like wine.  I suppose they are sorta on the Whole Foods bandwagon of promoting organic, local, etc., but they aren't nearly as hippy-dippy.  Instead, they have a lot of interesting pre-made foods (frozen and prepared) as well as a random assortment of sorta gourmet items.  Like, you can't get peanuts there, but you can find Marcona Almonds and 40 other varieties of fancy nuts.  Fancy nuts.  Hee hee.

Anyway, people love and hate the store.  I love it, probably because it's right by my office and is always tempting me with new, worldly things to try (and CHEESE.  they have lots of cheese).  Anyway, TJ's has these boxed soups that always have caught my eye, because they're in a box, but also because they're kinda interesting flavors and seem a step up from Campbell's.  Like Carrot & Ginger, Butternut Squash, Roasted Tomato & Red Pepper. The threat of cold made me less adventurous--I really wanted that carrot soup--and directed me toward the Creamy Tomato. But, since I love TJ's, I couldn't stop there, and wandered the store for another 15 minutes talking myself out of buying many things...and loosing the debate a handful of other times.

My entire lunch, and a few other snacks that are now stashed in my desk drawer, represent my TJ extravaganza:

Multigrain Entertainment Crackers.  My favorite cracker, currently.  They're big and seedy, slightly sweet, and addictingly crunchy.  I've been eating a lot of them with light mini Baby-Bel cheese and Dijon mustard.  Three are a perfect snack.

Light Mini Baby-Bel Cheese.  Not a TJ brand, but a nice little snack to keep in the office fridge.  Each one only has 35 calories (I think) and can be "thirded" to fit on top of three Entertainment crackers.

Creamy Tomato Soup.  The TJ brand.  Although it says creamy, the soup itself isn't loaded with fat--just 1.5 grams in a 1-cup serving, fairly low caloric content, and low sodium (for canned soup, anyway).  Since I can't consider 1 cup a sufficient serving of soup, I ate about 1.5 cups (restraint) so this box should get me until Thursday's lunch. Overall, it's pretty good--maybe a little dull in flavor (I kept wishing for something acidic to squeeze into it) but, still, altogether satisfying with the aforementioned accouterments.

Miso Soup and a Ginger Chicken Bowl are awaiting their turn to GET IN MAH BELLEH.  Soon, my chickadees, very soon.

New recipe time for dinner tonight!  Hope to have good things to report tomorrow.

We all live in a turkey submarine

As I verified today, a small slice makes a perfect breakfast.

My mom deserves all the credit for this post.  When we go to a tailgate or picnic or cottage on Lake Michigan, she'll often make one of these great big submarine sandwiches.  Made on a large loaf of French or Italian bread, they sit in the fridge overnight, wrapped tightly in plastic, so that all of the flavors can blend together and the sammich can "become one."  Instead of the hassle of making a bunch of individual sandwiches, you just slice this one up and serve.  It's easy and so good.  Somehow, the overnight sit softens up the bread, melds the flavors, and makes this bad bay so much more delicious than it would be assembled & eaten straightaway.  And it lasts for several days, so you can just slice off portions and eat as the hunger grabs you (if you're me, that translates to often).  I love having things prepared and ready-to-eat.  That's why I like to spend Sunday afternoons cooking, making big batches of salads, soups, etc for lunches the next week; cutting up veggies to keep in the fridge as snacks; puttering around and keeping myself busy with food...

That said, you do have to avoid a few potential pitfalls.  First, you gotta keep the veggies to a minimum (this should make you happy, Aunt L!!!) because they have a tendency to make the bread soggy.  And you need to be mindful to use a fairly sturdy loaf, otherwise you're going to have an unappetizingly gummy loaf on your hands the next day.  Also, I try not to stuff them too much, because you don't want "backsliding" to be an issue (a term coined by Serious Eats/A Hamburger Today to describe the unpleasant phenomenon of having sandwich contents shoot out the back end when you bite into the front).

Check out the innards.  I think they call this the "money shot."

Otherwise, you can experiment and layer it on to your heart's content.  I've used supermarket and bakery bread to equal success (supermarket bread's less crusty crust might even be preferable--see "backsliding" above), and any variety of meats and cheeses.  For the add-ons, try onions (give them a 5-minute bath in ice water or red wine vinegar to mild them down, if you're not a red onion fan), olives, giardinara, sliced peppers, cucumbers--just not anything watery like tomatoes or that will get unpleasantly wilted like lettuce.

A few weeks back I made up a classic American version, and yesterday I used the remainder of my D'Amato's loaf to make a spicy turkey sub, complete with my favorite sauce of all time.  Recipes for all three after the jump...

And fall comes back in a day

What is with the weather? An 85-and-cloudless sunny day one special weekend (we did!) and 60 and breezy the next.  Then 80 again, then 60 again.  And the nights?  The nights are COLD...at 55 degrees (ask me in January what my perception of cold is, OK?)

I love it.  I know, the above seemed "complainy." But the fall is the best of all seasons.  Who doesn't love pulling on a sweater for the first time, getting a blanket back on the bed, hearing the leaves crunching underfoot, watching football, eating chili, starting bonfires, and any other iconic fall image?  Don't even get me started on how much I love midwesterny thrills like pumpkin carving (PUMPKIN SEEDS!  YOU ARE ALMOST HERE!) and apple orchards (apple cider, cider donuts).  See, fall brings in a whole new wave of foods...not to mention halloween candy and THANKSGIVING.

But I'm already digressing.  The fall weather we're getting our first taste of has me thinking about fall flavors--squashes, baked casseroles, braised meats, earthy root veggies, and the like.  I've had this recipe torn out for the better part of a year--it comes from Bon Appetit's Thanksgiving issue as a suggestion for a meat-free dish to put on a vegetarian holiday table (specifically, from the column by Molly Wizenberg of Orangette).  It just looked goooooood--butternut squash, kale, and a mustard-wine custard mixture all baked into a savory bread pudding.  Or stuffing, or dressing, as it's called in these here parts.  All those fall flavors in a hearty, one-dish meal.  I had to have it.

But then I read a few things that freaked me out.  Two-and-a-half cups of cream?  Good lord.  How many extra steps before baking?  10 cups of bread?  Seven eggs?  Suddenly I realized why it was in the Thanksgiving issue, when indulgences are basically mandatory, and not an everyday, easy vegetarian section.  Because, seriously.  Three cups of cream in 6 servings?  I can't even pretend that I'm going to make it.  Order it in a restaurant, maybe, where I can be willfully ignorant of how much fat I'm eating, but in my own kitchen?  No.  My fat ethics won't let me.

So I adapted the recipe.  It's basically similar, but different enough that I'm going to post it as sorta my own.  But Molly, darling, all the credit goes to you.  I just don't want all the credit to go to my paunch.  Here's the original recipe in all its glory on Epicurious.com (and you can read a bunch of comments there, although I've always found the advice on them rather hit-or-miss).

In addition to lowering the fat content significantly, I changed up some ingredients.  I didn't have kale, only chard, and it was very, very wilted.  I had 1/2 lb of creminis to use up, and thought their earthiness would play right into the flavors going on in here.  And the amount of bread just seemed too hefty.  I really, really liked the result, and honestly can't imagine how indulgent the full version would taste (although maybe on Thanksgiving I'll find out...)  It's hearty and satisfying, but with the squash and chard it has enough veg going on that it doesn't feel too heavy.  My adapted version after the jump.

..they call me 'Tater Salad'

Potato salad, what is it about you that I can't get enough of?  Most times I run into you, you're gloppy, mushy, and sadly stuffed into a deli counter bin. Seeing you so disrespected--cold, overcooked potatoes drowned in mayonnaise and mustard with no discernible flavor or texture--makes me sad.  You see, it's so, so easy to make potato salad that's infinitely better than these gloppy messes (although, really, I'll still eat them).  Why are so many potato salads so bad, when they can be so, so good?  Let's discuss.

First, behold the humble potato.  Revered, and rightly so, for its versatility, alone a potato is not exactly the most flavorful of vegetables.  Some try to remedy the relative blandness of the potato by mixing them with excessive amounts of mayo, mustard, and god knows what else.  This kinda works, but do you really want to eat spoonfuls of mayonnaise?  And the potatoes themselves are still as potatoey as ever.  Why not season the potatoes themselves before mixing with the dressing?  A hot potato is like a sponge--it will readily absorb flavors, especially those in liquid form.  After boiling my cubed tubers in salted water until done, I drain them and then immediately toss them with a few tablespoons of something acidic--anything from white vinegar to pickle brine to vinaigrette.  Let them cool, then taste one.  The potato is slightly seasoned and tangy from the salted water and the acid bath.  Step one to a better potato salad complete!

The second issue with many potato salads is the thick, gloppy texture--all mush, all the time.  I like a little more variety in each bite, something crunchy, something to sink your teeth into.  And what better than veggies to fill this textural void!  Celery is the obvious choice, but OH are there more.  Red peppers are a big favorite, as are green onions, and cucumbers provide a nice cool counterpart (especially in a dilled potato salad, like this one from Smitten Kitchen...mmm).  Plus, these crunchy nuggets also bring a lot of color and visual appeal with 'em. 

Now let's talk dressing.  Mayo, mustard, I hear your entirely valid call and recognize that you bring a great deal to the plate.  But let's not forget about vinaigrette, sour cream, yogurt, and salad dressing--or even a softly poached egg--as contributes to the salad as well.  Before you dump in a cup of the white stuff, think about what type of salad you want, what flavors you're seeking, and think about more creative options.  Or mix something into the mayo to up the flavor and give it more interest.

In the hard boiled egg and pickle debate--to include or not to include--I say yes.  But not always, not always both, and sometimes neither.  Try new things, try other things, try more things.

Like this little trick: including a small amount of vinegar in the potatoes' cooking water.  Something chemical happens, I guess, and it makes the potatoes keep their shape and not break down, although they don't get quite as tender as they would cooked without vinegar.  For a creamier salad, don't use it, because you want some of the 'taters to mash up into the dressing.  But if you want them to retain their structural integrity, then go for it. 

The recipe after the jump is one of, say, 100+ potato salads I've made in the last few years.  I'll post a few more recipes this week, both my own and borrowed, for those interested in stepping outside the deli container.

Mmmmm, Mmmm Good!

No, not Campbell's, although I do find their soup delicious. When I was little, I used to love to eat the broth, vaggies and chicken out of Campbell's Chicken Noodle soup, then save all the soft, squishy noodles to eat in one gigantic bite at the end! Almost 30 years old, and that still sounds like fun.

Today's lunch is decidedly more wholesome, as it features lots of veggies, fruits, and hardly any fats.  Brought in a serving of Mexican Black Bean Soup, along with some green grapes, multi grain crackers, and few small slices of horseradish-chive havarti cheese to go on top with some dijon mustard. 

This soup is good.  Chock-full of veggies, it gets a little bit of heat from the peppers and cumin but not enough to light a fire in your mouth.  The beans make it filling and give you a hit of protein, while the sheer number of veggies just make me feel healthy.  It's like summer's bounty in a bowl. And, to me, nothing's quite as wholesome and satisfying as soup.

Except maybe cheese.  This horseradish-chive havarti came from a lovely, prolific cheesemonger at the Wicker Park farmer's market.  Too bad I didn't have the foresight to get the name and recommend it to you, internet, but hopefully you'll forgive me.

Frizzle Rizzle

There is a lot of great, authentic Chinese food to be had.  In Chicago we have a Chinatown bursting with fancy Shanghai palaces, grungy oriental food stores, and tiny little mom n pop dive restaurants, the latter being probably your best bet at eating what real Chinese people eat.  Instead of the sugary, syrupy fried chicken concoctions we Panda Expressers call Chinese, real Chinese cuisine is very veggie and rice-heavy--and, to speak very generally about a cuisine that spans one of the world's largest and most populated regions, fairly healthy as well.

I don't really know that much about Chinese food, to be perfectly honest, except what little I glean from magazines, TV and the good old web regarding food in general. I surmise that Chinese food is extremely regional,with variations to be found in every village.  I think the southern "sichuan" food is more spicy and obviously coastal areas are focused more on fish--basically, you eat what's around you.  And, surprise surprise, I don't really have much of a point, except that most of us probably are eating versions of Chinese food that a Chinese person wouldn't recognize as supposedly indigenous to his or her country of origin.   And perhaps I might do my food education well to try to eat more of the real and less of the Panda.

With all that nonsense said, I love Chinese food--all Asian food, almost.  And I'm getting better about trying more authentic, less Americanized things.  Like green papaya salad and massoman curries at thai restaurants instead of pad thai and pad see eiu.  Baby steps, I know--watching No Reservations shows that even these are paltry cousins to their authentic counterparts.  But sometimes the "challenging" foreign foods, while not as instantly likeable to our western palates, bring a deeper satisfaction...

But then there's fried rice. I love you, fried rice, because you are so deceptively simple and so heartily satisfying.

Not authentic, the way we think about it, although I'm perfectly willing to accept that home cooks everywhere find ingenious uses for leftovers, a tradition I appropriate all the time.  If you have extra rice on hand (day-old or older rice works best) there are far worse ways to use it up than this one.  It's simple, satisfying, and surprisingly healthy, if you go easy on the oil.  A "recipe", if you could call it that, follows.

Used up some of last week's CSA garlic and zucchini, and a few old store-bought mushrooms--waste not.  Brought in a portion of rice for today's happy monday lunch, along with some CSA cherry tomatoes, carrots and green peppers.  Happy tummy.

What's Spanish for Soup?

 The idea of cold soup really freaks me out. Something just seems...wrong...about it. Yet I'm inexplicably drawn to it. I have recipes torn out for cold watermelon soup and cucumber soup, and even a chilled dessert berry soup. I suppose when you really think about it, there isn't a good reason that soup is supposed to be warm...except that it's supposed to be warm, dang it!  That's just the way it is!

When I get over these bizarre battles waged between warring factions inside my head, I realize that, freaky though it may be (and I blame vichyssoise) they're actually pretty good.  Especially during the summer, when similarly inexplicable soup cravings come knocking, and I'm forced to answer them.

I visited Spain in high school, and there I had a bowl of simple gazpacho that was served with a cutting board of different chopped up veggies, cheese, croutons, and the like. It was perhaps the perfect meal--a base of sweet, tangy, richly orange, smoothly blended tomato soup to which you could add any number of things, making eat bite more perfect than the last.  Since then, my nostalgia for that trip, and plenty of bad versions of gazpacho, have convinced me that it's hard to find a good one state-side.  More often than not I get a bowl of what seems to be salsa, or chunky V8, or just any other gross image you can think of. (Although Emilios, if my memory serves me at all, does a great little bowl.)

But a recipe from a Martha Stewart I ripped out last summer looked, at least, a lot like what I remembered.  It was a fairly straightforward recipe, but of course I can't make it that simple.  Instead of crustless, day-old bread, I just used a loaf I bought that day, and maybe took the crusts off half, cause I'm lazy.  I didn't make the croutons, either, cause I like to dip hunks of bread into soup, warm or cold. Used regular cuke, not english, and didn't have sherry vinegar so I used rice vinegar instead (wine might have been a better substitution).  And I used like, less than 1/2 of the oil it called for.  And it's still delicious! Since I don't have a blender, just a cuisinart, it could have been smoother, but after a few bites I just didn't care.

Had a bowl for lunch today with some of the cut-off crusts, a baby bell cheese, and two more delicious plums.

Both the original recipe and my small changes are after the jump.

And she's back!

Last week really put a damper on my best intentions.  I worked out all of ONCE all last week, I cooked dinner perhaps twice, and let's just say that I didn't entirely resist the cookies and chocolate croissants that beckoned from every catering platter in every room of every meeting I attended.  Damn those professional pastry chefs and their evil plans for world domination...or just domination of my waistline, which grew an inch or so last week.  I blame all the salt--when you don't cook for yourself, it's nearly impossible to keep tabs on salt consumption, leading me to feel a bit pickled, bloated, and dehydrated...

But, all that said, at least I did work out once, and while i may have eaten a cookie I didn't eat any chips, cheese, or mayo (aside from a tuna sandwich one day) ... and I maintain that working 12-hour days, hauling ass around a huge hotel from meeting to meeting, and the stress that all of that work entails probably did a fair job in burning a few extra calories.  Still, though I made an effort not to just give in to the fatty that lives in my brain, it's really remarkable how much worse you feel when you are eating food you don't normally eat--tons of carbs, tons of salt, too few green veggies and fruit.  And just too much of everything, probably. 

Well, it's over, and though I haven't had a day off in 2 weeks (almost....I'm exaggerating to gain sympathy, internet, so let me play my world's smallest violin for just a little longer), and though I missed my CSA pickup this week (tears!  I had to work through the pickup window), I did finally make it to the grocery store for the first time this month, meaning I can once again start cooking...and A doesn't have to eat a whole bag of salted peanuts in the shell for lunch again, as he did on Sunday. 

So what did I eat for lunch today?  ....Au Bon Pain.  Wait a second...didn't I just spend three paragraphs ranting about eating restaurant and prepared food, and now that I have real ingredients I go and eat leftover Au Bon Pain?  Yes, reader, I did.  Do you know why?  It's a word puzzle. FInd the word that explains why.

Leftover.  You did it!  Yes, I could not let leftovers be thrown away (nor could I miss a free lunch) so when yesterday's meeting ended, I scavenged 1/2 a grilled chicken pesto sandwich with lettuce, tomato, red peppers & feta, and filled up a tupperware with some leftover salad (romaine, radicchio, tomatoes & cukes).  A pickle somehow found its way into my lunch bag too.  No, I don't remember saying anything about eating too much salt.  

Tomorrow I leave again for a trip to DC, where cuz and I will rendezvous for dinner of either fondue or Ethiopian...will I be brave enough to take photos in public where somebody possibly could be watching me?  Wait and see, internet.  Wait and see.

Hotel Food, day two

Work meetings continue...

But buffet lunches are fun!  Hotel food is never the greatest, in my experience, but there is just something I love about a buffet---sheer volume of food, of course; all the choices, all the many dishes to sample; trying to strategically organize the plate to allow as much to fit on it as physics allow. It's endlessly entertaining...and delicious.

Trying to eat healthily at a hotel buffet, however, poses many more challenges.  Yes, large vat of mayonnaise, cheese platter and salami tray, I see you all.  But my 1/2 slice of whole-wheat bread, dijon mustard and smoked turkey don't need any of your glamor right now.  Potato salad, chicken salad, oh how I adore thee...but just a tiny scoop of you will have to do, since I have to give the majority of my plate to the greens and veggies--mixed baby greens, sliced cukes, radishes, carrots and cherry tomatoes, with a bit of balsamic vinaigrette.  See--not too bad.

I may have eaten a cookie, although since nobody saw me do it did it even really happen?

Because I'm awesome

Or cheap, but let's go with awesome....I saw my leftover chicken breast as not just a reheatable, but a puzzle piece just waiting to be fit into a whole new meal.  And also because I'm awesome/cheap, I decided that one small chicken breast (minus 3 bites, due to a late night fridge forage by A) could easily make two sandwiches.  And, decidedly because I'm awesome, I left one of said sandwhiches for A to eat today, because he is a growing boy and all (although the CSA radishes I put on it got a nose-up-turn in disgust, but I can't be blamed for helping him to eat his veggies!)

I sliced the chicken breast horizontally, on a slight diagonal, to make 4 oblong pieces that would fit on a sub-like bun (or leftover trader joe's whole wheat hotdog buns, whichever you had on hand...guess which I used for my sandwiches?).  I spread both sides of the bread with ripe avocado (i read a tip to use it in place of mayo for healthier fats and veggie creaminess).  Except A's, who got low-fat mayo instead (avocados make his mouth itch!).  Layered on lettuce, radishes, and some of the poblano strips out of the chorizo potato cake (if some chorizo stuck to the strips, nobody had to know...), then the chicken, then smashed the roll halves together!

It was a rather impressive lunch-time sandwich, if I do say so myself--and I don't have to, because a coworker commented on it herself!  Flanked by the rest of the leftover chipotle potatoes and some corn salad (recipe after the jump), it was one heck of a southwestern fiesta on my sad little dixie plate. 

Finally, a vegetable...

Yes, I did it!  After a weekend where 90% of my diet consisted of encased meat products or alcohol, I finally did it--ate a vegetable!  Several, in fact.  Made a salad out of my CSA red leaf lettuce (though I forgot the purslane...dang it!), the last of last week's CSA spring onions, sliced cucumbers, and a tiny bit of feta cheese and balsamic dressing.  Some CSA carrots on the side, along with 3 crackers with dijon mustard and baby bell cheese and some little slices of chicken sausage.

So I was congratulating myself on being healthy and realized while typing this that I typed the word "cheese" twice.  Two kinds of cheese in one supposedly healthy lunch. 

Well, you see, it wasn't much cheese--much under an ounce total, I think/hope.  I guess my definition of healthy is just a little different.

In the meantime, I have a boatload of greens--kale and chard, mostly--that I need to use and soon.  Any ideas?  It's hard to be really creative with cooking greens.  I'm thinking maybe a minestrone soup with a bunch of chard in it...we'll see what happens.....hoepfully a recipe to share tomorrow!

Garlic is my only friend...

OK...I think I'm going to have to call that garlic scape pesto a bust.  Maybe I went too far down on the stalk's roots; maybe the arugula's bitterness is what's overwhelming me; maybe I'm just not used to eating anything made with the recommended amount of olive oil.  But between the overpowering pungency of the garlic, a strange, off-putting bitterness, and the overabundance of olive oil...I don't like it at all (although it was much better cold yesterday than heated up today).  Yet I still have about 2 servings left in the fridge, and I'm going to have a hard time throwing them away for no reason other than the taste...

Oh, well.  I brought 1/2 the head of red leaf lettuce from this week's haul for a salad, had a hard-boiled egg and some dried cranberries too.  I didn't eat much of the pasta...but I may have had a small bag of chex mix to make up for the carbs I was missing.  I can't go without them!

GARLIC scapes pesto

Man, not feeling like anything today.  Crabby, emotional, blah.  Lady hormones leave a lot of emotional stability to be desired. 

But at least I maintained enough of my sanity not to give in to said hormones' ferocious cries for a cheeseburger-and-fried chicken feast for lunch, and ate the relatively healthy pasta, salad (CSA lettuce) and almonds I brought for lunch.  And a nectarine.  Mmmmmmmmmmmm.

Let me tell you something about garlic scapes: the word "garlic" should be bold and a font size at least 300x larger than scapes.  STRONG was this pesto!  And even though I threw a handful of arugula in to temper the garlic, its peppery bitterness that I usually find so appealing in salads was distracting here.  I think this would be greatly improved by using 1/2 basil, 1/2 scapes, then proceeding as written.  Even that's not how I did it, that's how I'm editing the recipe Julia shared.  Otherwise, it's a pretty good pasta.  My coworkers just might not bother me as much today.  Hey, that makes it a pretty great pasta...

Recipe after the jump.

Did somebody say sundae party?

Jesus christ.  In a moment of weakness before lunch, I spent 10 minutes searching aroudn my purse, desk, floor, etc for a dime.  One little dime.  See, I had 45 cents, and the bag of sun chips I wanted from my office's snack machine are 55 cents.  Who knew a dime could still buy so much?

Then I realized that I don't really want to eat sun chips.  I think I do, but the healthy kale & rice I brought will serve a body much better than sun chips (especially after I added the leftover caramelized onions and browned pancetta from last night's flatbread feast...mmmm).

Yes, willpower won over.  That, or the fact that I remembered we have an ICE CREAM SUNDAE party at work today...let's see how willpower does with that challenge.  (I'll be happy with a small sundae. I don't need 500 spoonfuls of hot fudge...keep repeating that.)

Today's lunch--remainder of Monday's Kale Au Gratin doctored as described above, and some cherries.  I need some more cherries.

The last of the radishes

Leftovers made a predictable return in my rushed lunch today.  And, since I forgot to turn my camera to "macro" focus it's not a very clear shot of my over-the-hill radishes and last night's gratin.

I still like the Kale Au Gratin dish, although the texture problems are more apparent in the microwave.  It's dry.....but tasty, I swear (although I agree that it's one of the ugliest things I'm made in recent memory).  A little more egg, a little more cheese, some cream/stock would improve greatly.  Although what really can't be improved with dairy fat?  Tastes bad, just cover it with cheese and nobody will know.  My dad always says he could eat shoe leather if it was cooked in butter! 

I guilt-ate my radishes, which we a bit shriveled and browning, seeing as they are 9 days old.  But throwing them away seemed wasteful--after all, they weren't bad, just old.  So the delicious radish-butter sammich made its last appearance for the week (although my farmer says more radishes were seeded this week, so hopefully not my last for the season). 

OOOOOH and cherries!  I love cherries, love them love love love them.  These are just Jewel cherries, not from a farm, not all that great.  But they're still cherries, and I bet I'll finish off the 2 lb bag I bought before Friday.

Tuscan Tomato Panzanella

Leftovers for lunch today, of course, seeing my royal status with respect to old food.  This example in fact combines another aspect I'm famous for trying--freezing! I will freeze--or at least try to freeze--almost anything.  I figure if it's going to go to waste by not being eaten right now, I may as well freeze it and eat it later.  If it gets ruined or gross in el deepo freezeo, well, it's no big loss since I was going to throw it out anyway.

Take for example this Tomato Panzanella.  Unlike the more traditional salad version, this is baked like a casserole or Thanksgiving dressing, making it somehow more satisfying and hearty than the cold version.  It combines day-old stale bread cubes with white beans, tomatoes, mushrooms, peppers and onions, with a little basil and balsamic vinegar thrown in for flavor and topped off with mozzarella cheese. And it makes a TON--at least 6-8 servings.  It's really easy and really good (though not really photogenic, at least not in its defrosted and rewarmed form).  Try the recipe after the jump.

And in the background of that lovely camera phone image is the registration form for one of my MANY new kitchen toys and gadgets bestowed upon me my my kind, generous, and thoroughly awesome friends and family at my bridal shower this past weekend.  Lucky, I am. 

Leftovers from another mother

I am a leftovers queen.  I feel almost morally bad throwing food away and have been known to eat yogurt months past the "sell by" date.  FYI, in my view, that "sell by" date is in no way, shape or form an expiration date--it's a cover-your-ass maneuver by supermarkets and brands to make sure they don't sell you anything that might be near spoiled.  So they "sell by" whenever, and people get all aghast and disgusted if you take a sip of the milk a week later and deem it acceptable to use.  Seriously, people, the date is not the gospel.  Six days past the date don't matter--get to KNOW your food, look at your food, and decide if it's spoiled.  I'm pretty sure spoiled milk and rotten eggs will let you KNOW they're spoiled.  And cutting the mold off cheese and using it anyway isn't gross, its resourceful and thrifty, and just really wasteful if you don't. 

Of course, I'm talking straight out of my ass here, so it's probably wise to do whatever makes you feel comfortable.  But the only time I've ever had food poisoning was from a restaurant, so I'm doing fine so far with these methods.

Yes, anyway, Internet, back to the subject at hand: LUNCH.  A big ol' meeting in our office on Tuesday resulted in several leftover catering trays of chicken breasts, asparagus and fingerling potatoes.  I loaded up a spare Tupperware (yeah, i keep Tupperware in the office. You never know when the opportunity to scavenge will arise).  I brought it a container of CSA lettuce this morning, then chopped up all the stuff and made myself a big ol' salad with some leftover balsamic vinaigrette, potatoes reheated on the side. Pretty, pretty, pretty good. 

And asparagus, I love you, especially when you announce your presence in the bathroom 3 hours after being consumed.  Yeah, I went there.  And I LIKE IT.

Holy Touchdown Jesus....

(If you don't know what I'm talking about--and who could blame you--click this link.)

My stomach just growled three times so loud that passers-by my office door would surely have heard the strange (for an office) sounds of a mama grizzly protecting her young.

Guess who's hungry?  Lunch is out at Volare today in honor of a coworker getting her master's degree.  Mmmm...