The Pig and I

This week was a good one, though still not perfect. Food wasted: 2 jalepeno tamales This weekend, P is out of town again. As a result, I'm going to cook absolutely nothing all weekend in order to try to work through a large pile of leftovers. I've made some good progress thus far, but hope to eat up the brunt of it this weekend.

Sometimes, the yummiest treats come about completely by happenstance. Today was one of those days for me. I like to make muffins for my dog, Francis. He's a big fan. I make a tray, let them cool, then freeze them and dole out one every day or two. Since he's so into pumpkin (oddly, even more than blueberries) and since I have so much fresh pumpkin I'm working through he's mostly been eating pumpkin muffins these days. I have several recipes for pumpkin muffins, but I never really can decide which one I like best, so I rotate them. This time I was using this recipe for pumpkin ginger muffins . Today, it just so happened I was in kind of a hurry, since I was making other treats, canning pumpkin butter and beef barley soup, and have a lot of homework to deal with. So I started making modifications based on the "he's a dog, so this won't bother him" premise. I tasted the batter before I put it in the muffin tins and it was amazing . I tried to get P to t

One day, I was perusing one of my favourite food blogs, One Perfect Bite . I like that site a lot, because Mary posts the most wonderful recipes, pictures, and stories about the food. She makes me want to live in her kitchen and sample everything, and I never leave her blog without feeling really hungry. On this particular day, though, I was entranced by some maple bars that had been posted. They looked luscious and crunchy and soft and beautiful. And I needed to eat some. And eat some I did. A lot more than some. P ate a lot more than some also, and I took many of them to school to share with my professors from the teachHouston program. The people there are really wonderful, and equally wonderful about helping me dispose of my baked goodies. Everyone who tried these enjoyed them so much that I began circulating Mary's recipe, with my added tips, all over the place. And then Friday, not even an hour after I had finished an email exchange about this very recipe, P said to me, &q

Alright, so that title is kind of a lie. There's no cream in this. There's butter, and there's milk, but no cream. It'd be better if you used cream, but I didn't have any. Either way, this cooks up in about 10 minutes, which makes it perfect for a weeknight meal. I served it with this salad and these eggplants (we used the eggplants to mop up extra sauce), and it was a filling and diverse meal that we really were excited about. Hope you enjoy! 2 tilapia filets 2 tablespoons each: butter, olive oil salt and pepper to taste 2 tablespoons capers (people who aren't caper freaks like me should use less) 1 tablespoon milk or cream 1/2 teaspoon Wondra flour 2-3 tablespoons lemon juice Heat butter and oil together over medium heat. Season both sides of the fish liberally with salt and pepper. Put in the pan, and cook for 3 minutes. Flip over and cook 2 minutes more. Remove fish to plates, then add capers and lemon juice to the fat that remains in the pan. Sc

Another less than perfect week. That's okay. I'm still trying to get the waste down to nothing, and even if it isn't nothing on any given week, the fact that I'm trying to waste nothing helps me waste a lot less than I otherwise probably would. 1 ounce Greek cheese 1/8 cup bean sprouts 2 servings strata

Sometimes I just really get in the mood to eat some grains. I think later this week I'll be making Dave's Mom's Beef Barley Soup too, because I'm all about grains right now. Don't ask me why - I have no control of the cravings! Anyway, I felt like spelt would be a great addition to a cucumber salad. And of course, cheese makes everything better, right? :) This is pretty easy to make, and is a refreshing addition to any meal. Hope you enjoy! 1/4 cup spelt 2 cups water 1 teaspoon salt 1 omani (dried lime) 1 large cucumber, peeled and diced 3/4 cup roughly chopped celery leaves 3 roma tomatoes, diced 1/4 red onion, sliced paper thin 1/4 pound feta, crumbled Dressing: 1 teaspoon salt 1 teaspoon each: oregano, aleppo pepper 1/2 teaspoon freshly ground coriander 3 allspice berries, ground 1/4 teaspoon pomegranate molasses 1/4 cup lemon juice 1/8 cup olive oil Combine salt, omani, spelt and water. Simmer for an hour, or until spelt is soft. Drain

Today, I was bitten by a nasty sweet tooth. Although I have more candy in the house than I particularly care to admit to, I mainly wanted to eat something that was sweet but still had some nutritive value while I watched a Primeval marathon. I remembered I had an acorn squash that needed to be used (actually, I have more than just this one squash I need to use, but baby steps) and I thought it'd do the ticket. It's prepared similarly to "the usual method" of loading up the cavity with brown sugar and such, but coconut is added for a little diversity in both taste and texture. I serve it still in the shell and just scrape the insides out with my fork, as though it were a baked potato. Less work than the nightmare of peeling acorn squash with all their little ridges. I also let this cook in both a heating and cooling oven, to conserve some energy. Hope you enjoy! 1 small acorn squash, cut in half and seeds removed 2 tablespoons butter, divided 3 tablespoons light br

It seems I am simply not in the frame of mind to come up with my own recipes currently. I've got school fever. My break, which when school starts, will be a full six weeks (maybe not having to take finals isn't such a great thing, since it gives me an extra two weeks off), is starting to drive me batty. All I can think about is my excitement over abstract algebra and differential equations. I'm a nerd. Luckily, when I have nothing up my sleeve to experiment with, there's a whole world of exceptional food bloggers out there to give me inspiration. In my efforts to reduce my food waste, I've been tossing stale bread in the freezer to be used later for bread puddings and other such things. Happily, Smitten Kitchen's Deb recently posted a recipe for spinach and cheese strata . Yum. I happened to have a pile of frozen bread (and admittedly, still do), so this seemed like the perfect thing to prepare the night before P left town. Not only would it give him a good,

Well, I'm just disappointed. No waste last week, but it just didn't hold this week. All of this week's waste was COMPLETELY avoidable if I'd simply paid attention to what was going on in the fridge. I'm kind of bummed, but will try to do better next week. The Waste: 3 pears (this is the most disappointing part, since I'd planned to make pear sauce with them) 1/2 cheese enchilada (why didn't I eat this?) 3 donuts (I knew this was going to happen; our donut guy snuck in several extra free donuts, and I just couldn't get through them all)

I love gelatin. I almost never work with it, because frankly, I'm just not that type of creative. But whenever I see a recipe that looks delicious, easy and fast that still has gelatin, I'm inclined to jump all over it. So when I saw this recipe over at A Slice of Cherry Pie , I got excited. However, because gelatins vary in strength from manufacturer to manufacturer, type to type and country to country, I plied Julia with a billion questions so I could work out how to make it, before I got started. She very kindly took the time to check out her own gelatin supply so we could work it out. If you're in the UK, you'll want to use the Platinum gelatin that has a strength of ~250. Here in the States, Knox is just fine. I didn't have any passion fruit in the house, and to be honest, I am too lazy to wander off to the store, so I changed the passion fruit in her recipe to orange juice (since I had that). I also used slightly more gelatin than the recipe calls for, bec

Well, I'll be. No waste this week. Apparently coming home from travels is good for keeping the food waste at bay.

I hope you all enjoyed your holidays! I had a great time during mine, visiting with friends and family. Food Waste Friday will, of course, resume this week for me. When I came home, P had purchased and set up a new pantry rack for me in place of where my other "main pantry" was (I have a second shelf for baking goods, dried fruit and the like). I was very excited and immediately set to work organising it. I love how the sides are both deep and open, since it allows me to have a perfect view of what canned goods I'm lacking, rather than estimating what's there before I head to the store. And now that the baskets are in place, it's extra organised so I can stay on top of everything (which should help me prevent even more food waste!).

This week I didn't use much. I used: 1 can beans (turns out I really don't care for canned beans) the last of the tomato sauce crushed tomatoes ham frozen egg whites 1 cup frozen pumpkin (I just ate this plain and slightly warmed, with only salt added)

I did not go over this week. That's good. Here's what I spent: Kroger : $6.48 - Frito Lay multipack of the little bags of chips $2.00 - triscuits (I have a whole bottle of banana peppers for them!) $1.00 - 3 cans tomato sauce $1.30 - celery (when did celery get that expensive?) $0.88 - granny smith apple $1.00 - massive navel orange $0.45 - 3 packages ramen $0.34 - head of garlic $1.00 - 3 avocados (OMG on sale woo!) $1.96 - frozen lasagna (for lazy days) $1.98 - 2 large cans coconut juice Total: $18.39 Grand total: $18.39