My Lunch for the Past Three Months

Ok, so I'm not normally a person to go on a certain foods kick. I like variety. It's the spice of life, you know. I'll think about what I have in the fridge and concoct a meal from there. Usually it involves what's been sitting for a while and needs to be used up.

But lately, this summer, I've been eating these wraps for lunch, nearly every day. Something about the sweet, crunchy carrots and the soft tortilla emit a siren song that I can't ignore.

This wrap is similar to this one but without the cabbage and other fancy vegetables. Today, my wrap had julienned carrots (they must be cut in this shape so there's a little sweet, crunchy carrot in each bite. Carrot coins would be right out!), julienned cucumbers, pickled jalapenos, black olives, turkey bacon, roasted red pepper hummus and red pepper strips. The fillings vary from day to day, depending on the produce we have, as well as the wrap (most of the time it's a whole wheat tortilla) but it's been pretty much this wrap for the past three months. I think it's because the crunchy vegetables are cold, the wrap is soft and the hummus is creamy—also, the temperature this summer averaged approximately 500 degrees each day, and this involves no cooking.

On the side, I finished off this bag of chips, which was really just a bunch of chip dust at the end of the bag.

And three meatless meatballs for protein. I considered stuffing them into the wrap, but then I wouldn't have been able to dip them in my two different condiments: dijon mustard and ketchup mixed, and BBQ sauce and ranch mixed. (Side note: I love condiments. There are approximately seventy two different condiments in my refrigerator door at this precise moment.)

It's a quick and easy lunch to throw together using whatever you have in the produce drawer. If you have the means, I highly recommend picking one up.

Rice Paper Rolls

One of my favorite appetizers at Thai restaurants is the vegetarian rice paper rolls. The rice paper is chewy and the vegetables are fresh and crunchy, and the accompanying peanut dipping sauce is salty and tangy. It makes for a delightful combination. I purchased some rice paper rolls way back in the day and needed to use them up, so I made some homemade. They turned out pretty damn good--a pretty decent likeness to my favorite Thai restaurant's version.

Here we have the assembly line for the rolls. You want to make sure to have everything ready to go before you wet the rice paper, lest you end up with a soggy, rice papery mess and no roll. And that would be sad.

 

So, I assembled all my ingredients:

*Scallions

*Shredded carrot

*Shredded cucumber

*Shredded yellow pepper

*Avocado

*Cilantro

*Spicy wasabi peanuts (which were leftover from a random road trip but worked perfectly for these)

Then, you simply take the rice paper and run it under warm water for about 10 seconds, making sure to saturate the whole thing. Next, lay it flat on your work surface and place all desired fillings closer to one end, then roll up like a burrito. Try to roll them tightly so they don't end up falling apart when you bite into them.

I didn't make a tangy peanutty dipping sauce, but instead used Trader Joe's teriyaki dipping sauce, which I could drink with a straw it's so good.

I paired these rice paper rolls with my attempt at homemade pho. Stay tuned to hear about that adventure!

Tres Chic Salad

I was craving something light yet filling on one of our most recent 71-degree days. Though they were short-lived, they were certainly welcome springtime days, and they made me long for my quaint little patio deck, shaded by an ancient, enormous tree, where I would set up the hammock and nap in the lulling summer air. It was also the site of many a dinner al fresco.

I didn't want anything heavy for dinner, so I made a light yet still filling salad. Very French. Also inspiring the salad was an orange that needed to be eaten. These oranges are from our gentle neighbor to the south, the Sunshine State. SoSo good! I could not let it go to waste.

So, into this salad went:

*A bed of romaine lettuce (I would've preferred spinach or other mixed greens, but we were out)

*Aforementioned delicious, juicy orange segments

*Garbanzo beans

*Dried cranberries

*Chopped pecans

*Bleu cheese

*A homemade vinaigrette of honey mustard, lemon juice, S&P and a little olive oil

 So, as you can see, this salad is light, yet still calorically dense enough to satiate your appetite for dinner. I served it with a piece of leftover homemade Irish soda bread (exactly the same recipe I made last year) spread with a little of my mother-in-law's todiefor homemade jam.

And normally, on a weeknight, I don't drink wine. But this tres chic Frenchy salad, along with the 70-degree weather, just begged for a nice, crisp glass of Pinot grigio.

I picked this up for $6.99 I think, and it was really good. Especially alongside the salad!

I poured myself a small glass, taking a page from my previous post by paying homage yet again to another fabulous thing from my home state in my choice of drinking vessel. 

Especially for one of the first warm springtime days after a winter of a record-breaking 54 inches of snow, this was a tres chic and delightful dinner.

Just wish I could've enjoyed it on my patio.

Leftovers for Lunch

For lunch yesterday, I had a plate full of leftovers. Leftovers are usually fine with me, and I more often than not reinvent them into something different. This time, though, their original preparation was the best, so that's how I ate them.

 

We have roasted Brussels sprouts, leftover pizza and a surprise.

 

 

That looks like a big pile of mashed potatoes, right? Wrong! It's actually cauliflower puree. I just steam the cauliflower until it's a little overcooked, then pulverize in my mini food processor with  chicken stock to thin it, a little butter and S&P. It's really good and if you close your eyes, you almost think it's mashed potatoes. 

 

The pizza was from a local place called Tutti Gusti, and it was broccoli, ricotta and tomato pizza. SO GOOD! As is requisite with leftover pizza, it was eaten cold. 

The Brussels sprouts I roasted in a hot oven (about 450) with a little olive oil, S&P until they were nice and caramelized and some of the outer leaves had turned crunchy.

After the photos, I added a dollop of cilantro jalapeno hummus and a few cracker pieces. 

Tasty lunch!

Greek Salad

I made a tasty Greek salad for lunch the other day. Here's what I put in it:
A mix of butter lettuce + baby spinach

Phallic-shaped vegetable, aka cucumber

Pepperoncini

Kalamata olives

 

Lowfat feta cheese

1/4 cup chickpeas

And a dressing I made from Greek yogurt, dill, scallions, garlic, season salt and hot sauce.

(Some unpictured leftover roasted eggplant also went into the salad.)

 I served my salad with one side of a whole wheat English muffin, toasted, then topped with lowfat cream cheese, thinly sliced radishes and S&P.

All together now: A tasty lunch is served!

Fun with Polenta

Feeling a bit whimsical (I have no idea why this hit--I usually feel more "stoic" or "morose," but whatever, I went with it), I came up with a fun dish that would delight any seven-year old. Since there is only one twenty seven-year old and one twenty eight-year old in this house, we found delight in said dish instead. But I bet my nephews, ages 9 and 11 months, respectively, would've loved it.
I started by preparing the polenta. I'm aware there's another longer, much more complicated method of preparing polenta, which involved lots of babysitting and stirring and infinite amounts of patience. Bah! Bah! I say. My method works just fine, and it comes together in about 3 minutes. I boil two cups of water, then add enough cornmeal until it starts to bubble and thicken. I then dump it into a shaped receptacle, which I have thoroughly grease beforehand, and let it set. After about 2 minutes, it's ready. If your receptacle happens to be a shallow rectangle, your polenta will look like this:

Then came the fun part: the shapes! I found my best "fall-themed" cookie cutters, which were a ghost and a half-moon. Voila! Polenta shapes! See?

I served mine with some zucchini "noodles" I made by simply shaving long strands of zucchini with a vegetable peeler. I put them all in a small saucepan with a bit of water and steamed until all the water evaporated, then sauteed for just a bit.Dressed with S&P and some parmesan cheese, they were really tender and tasty!

I topped the polenta with some marinara sauce and a few cubes of goat cheese.
Here is Cookie Monster's plate: a serving of whimsical polenta befitting for a child alongside extremely phallic-shaped meat. Ah, the inappropriate dichotomy.

And my plate. I also had some leftover roasted eggplant topped with a bit more marinara sauce and a Tofurky. It looks like I have served myself so much more food; really, it's that Cookie Monster doesn't like the vegetables I made.

Oh well! More vegetables for me!

Cream of Broccoli Soup (+ salad)

I had some leftover steamed broccoli in the fridge, and I didn't feel like just heating it up for lunch--I wanted something a bit more exciting. Enter "cream" of broccoli soup (I say "cream" because it was actually soy milk. If I'd had nonfat regular milk, that's what I would've used).

I started by sauteeing some onions in a little olive oil. Then I added some mushrooms and garlic.

After the onions had softened a little, I added a little zucchini to the mix.

Then I got out my chicken stock. I froze some of it in ice cube trays to have smaller amounts readily available, as opposed to having to defrost one giant block of frozen chicken stock in a tupperware.

To go with the soup, I made a salad. I made a weird dressing for it: I combined Greek yogurt for some creaminess, then added pineapple salsa and taco sauce. I was trying for a sweet/spicy/creamy dressing but it just ended up kinda weird. I think it'd be good for a taco salad, but it wasn't that great on a regular salad.

While the vegetables were simmering, I scrounged in the cupboards for a crunchy topper for the soup. There were just a lot of crumbs left, so I used these. They are quite possibly my new favorite kind of chip. In Baltimore, they are crab chip flavored. This does not mean they are flavored to taste like crab. (Side note: Yuck! Seafood-flavored chips? Reminds me of our trip to the bonito flake factory in Japan, where a lot of the high school boys ate the bonito chips like potato chips. Blech! And yes, we went to a bonito flake factory when we were in Japan. Don't ask me why.) It means they are flavored with Old Bay, a popular seafood seasoning blend.

On a funny side note, this is the clip that was holding the chips closed. It was a souvenir from our recent trip to Amish country in Pennsylvania. An Amish town called Intercourse. Ironic, no?

After I added the chicken stock to the pot, I then added my already steamed broccoli (plus a small amount of leftover roasted butternut squash to thicken it a little) and some S&P. Then in went a bit of milk for the "cream" part of the soup. After a healthy dose of hot sauce, I pureed the whole thing with my handy-dandy immersion blender, and voila! Healthy, homemade cream of broccoli soup.

Soup + salad = healthy lunch at home.

Hummus/Balsamic Wrap

This wrap is a recreation of a crazy good wrap my good friend D made when we shared meals on a camping trip this summer. In hers, she put red cabbage, mozzarella cheese, hummus, carrots and balsamic vinaigrette. (I think she put some other vegetables in too, but I can't remember which ones.)

Hmm... D does not seem a befitting name for my friend. D is a nickname I associate with a different friend of mine, who is, in fact, a boy, and this D is, in fact, a girl. Perhaps I should come up with another nickname for her? Let's see... Oh! I got it! One of her favorite treats is this ridiculous (as in outrageously decadent) chocolate gateau from a gourmet dessert place in Portland called Papa Haydn. Hence, she shall be known now as Mama Haydn. Because we've already established that she is not a boy.

Ok, back to the wrap. Mama Haydn is a gourmet and she makes lots of delicious things, so I knew our camping dinner would not be just burgers and dogs. This combination of vegetables, even the red cabbage (which I always thought I didn't like much), worked so well together. But the best combination was the hummus paired with the balsamic vinaigrette. It was creamy and tangy and just awesome. I have been trying to recreate that wrap ever since we had it. I got pretty close today.

I used this hummus, which is really fucking tasty. It's safe to say it's one of my favorite hummuses (is that how you pluralize hummus? Oh well. It is now.).

I spread about a tablespoon of hummus onto a whole wheat tortilla, then topped with a slice of deli turkey. Then came the vegetables: red cabbage, carrots, radishes and cucumbers. I then drizzled balsamic vinegar over it all and wrapped it up. I'm not sure if making an actual vinaigrette with the balsamic would've enhanced the flavor; I think what I really like is the tang. I also added the requisite S&P.

I could not taste the turkey at all and would probably leave it out next time, since the hummus has protein in it, too.

I served my wrap with a side of roasted butternut squash (which is my absolute favorite squash! Yes, I have a favorite squash. I am a food nerd. I am ok with it.) and a few spoonfuls of full-fat cottage cheese, which I bought because they didn't have anything lower in fat. Whoo! It is rich when you're used to nonfat dairy! And, because I am weird and really, really like dipping sauces, I added a side of taco sauce with the squash. It got on the cottage cheese, too, and I was fine with that. There was also a bit of extra vegetables that wouldn't fit into the wrap, so I just ate them on the side like a mini salad.

All together now. Lunch is served!

Pear and Gorgonzola Mini Pizzas

This is just about the simplest thing to make ever. I had mini whole wheat pitas from Trader Joe's, and all I did was first brush with a thin layer of olive oil. Then I thinly sliced a very ripe pear and added some crumbled gorgonzola cheese on top. I was already using the oven to cook up a butternut squash and some roasted broccoli, so when they were almost done, I added the pizzas. They took about 10 minutes in the oven, and the cheese got all melty and oozy, and the pears softened and sweetened. With a quick grind of pepper, they were ready to nom. Awesome! This would be easy on a regular pizza crust, too, and additional toppings like honey, sliced pecans or caramelized onions would make it aweseomer.*

Bon appetit!

*No, that is not a word. But I just used it anyway.

What to do with a cauliflower the size of Rhode Island

My mom came to visit recently to help us settle into our new digs here on the East Coast. It's fall, and there are many lovely leaves and fall-ish things going on around here, including fun autumnal things such as apples, pumpkins and squash. We took a trek out to the country to Weber's Farm (ok, it was really not the country. It was two miles off the main freeway essentially) to partake of these fall delights. It was not a pumpkin patch like the one I was expecting (and spoiled by) but it was a country store with yummy things to eat, so I was ok with that. We did not buy a pumpkin, but we did buy a lot of produce (among other things) for not too much money. I think we came home with:
*7 apple cider doughnuts. We started with a dozen. Mom and I each had one, Cookie Monster had three. Three doughnuts in one sitting! I wish I had Cookie Monster's metabolism.
*pumpkin butter
*an enormous bunch of kale
*a butternut and acorn squash
*green pepper
*yellow summer squash
*spinach
*a cauliflower the size of Rhode Island.
See? I put my hand next to it for scale.

Instead of wrestling with our bamboo steamer, I just steamed about 2/3 of the cauliflower by slowly cooking in a saute pan with some chicken stock. My final intention for it was to make a puree; it almost has a mashed potato consistency.

Cookie Monster and Mom were having some sort of meat dish for dinner, so I cooked up my own veggies. But you better believe I had some of the crusty bread we got!

I also sauteed the cauliflower greens. I had never tried it before and figured: what the hell? I cooked them in the same way--steamed with a bit of chicken stock until it evaporated, then browned with olive oil, garlic, S&P. Since these are much tougher than the cauliflower, I did them first.

Cookie Monster got some St. Andre brie cheese and spread it on a baguette, then toasted lightly in the toaster oven. The cheese melts and takes on almost a buttery consistency; it's awesome.

Here are the finished cauliflower greens, garnished with a bit of parmesan cheese.

After the cauliflower was quite tender, I pureed it with a bit of "butter" (this stuff) and S&P. Since I overcooked the it a little, the puree was a brownish color. But no worries. It tasted great! Garnished with some parmesan cheese and a bit of leftover gravy, it was delightful!