food

I am bursting with food fondness for multiple delectable dishes I've had the pleasure of enjoying lately so I just must share.

(Stevie Nicks rules and this clip relates to our little food topic b/c I read about it @ Orangette)

I'm not sharing tonight's dish because it was super simple (penne w/ pesto) but the wholly satisfying part about it was that the pesto came from a batch I whipped up last summer when the basil was abundant and verdant and made the whole house smell like fresh heaven. I froze it and kinda forgot about it 'til yesterday when I placed it in the (recently spring-cleaned) fridge to thaw. And it was extra satisfying because we were driving home around 6 after going to the movies (a little slow but super sweet as usual Studio Ghibli) and I was thisclose to driving to Chipotle since everyone was starving and not in the mood to wait. But, then I remembered the bright green pesto waiting to be devoured and called an audible...pesto it would be. Touchdown peeps...touchdown!

Almost all my food gushing comes from that cookbook right there: Super Natural Everyday by Heidi Swanson. 

I cannot get enough of it.

(just in case you wanted to see our indoor compost bucket)

(the recipe called for fingerlings but I bought nutrient-dense purple potatoes instead)

YUM!

These are two bad pictures of a surprisingly delicious soup: roasted garlic and beet.

Woody and I both refrain from eating beets but we decided to give it a try. 

Full disclosure: we were on a 3-week cleanse/detox and had to eat it. 

On Day Two, after eating a humongous, ho-hum salad for lunch I texted Woody:

Me: Are you starving?

Woody: And nauseous.

So, we lasted 2.5 days. 

Oh well.

But now we're fans, well supporters, of the dirt-tasting beet (which loses a lot of the dirt flavor when you roast it).

That photo below is another meal we had on our cleanse. We liked it. I substituted sweet potato for delicata, as the sweet potato was local and the delicata was international. :)

OK, but back to Heidi.

Last night we made this. Shut the front door! So good.

My main alteration was I added fresh ginger to the onion-garlic-coconut oil mixture.

Woody had made a simple ginger syrup for a cocktail he was whipping up and had some leftover. I would do that again. I also pan-fried the paneer in the same pan I made the curry brown butter...would mos def do that again too.

This cauliflower soup of hers was on heavy rotation in January and February. (It's in the cookbook but not on her blog...so my link goes to a different blog but with the recipe we used).

I also made these carnival cookies for a work potluck. Sugar, flour, butter, and egg-free. But so good. And they have popcorn in them...weird I know, but just right. I used this popcorn and brought the rest of the bag to the potluck. Big hit. That's good stuff.

OK, Food 52 is new to me but I'm really liking it.

I've made this granola a half a dozen times and it seems to be a keeper. I usually make my granola with butter but the recipe calls for, wait for it (Maya says this all the time, I just had to throw it in here), olive oil. A modern take on an old-school recipe.

I don't add the brown sugar (half a cup) and it is plenty sweet. We eat it with plain organic yogurt (from TJ's). Woody usually eats cereal for breakfast but he prefers this because instead of being starving by 10am after eating a bowl of Puffins, he remains satiated right on through to a proper lunch hour.

Gotta keep your man full. :) 

p.s. OM generally don't eat a bite of any of this. O is open to tasting new things but usually doesn't like what we eat (tho, I made a giant pot of pinto beans this week and made him a burrito that he took down..I wouldn't have touched a pinto bean with a 10 foot pole when I was his age...way to go O!). Anyway, they eat a lot of peanut butter sandwiches for dinner...I have high hopes that they'll expand their culinary horizons sooner than later.