The Pig and I

I came home today to discover a pile of ripe tomatoes on the vine. I've been eating tomatoes a lot, since this one little plant seems to want to feed me the whole summer, but this amount was just too much for me to use for snacking, sides, salads and sandwiches. So I decided to roast them and make a pasta sauce, since roasting brings out so much flavour. There was also a red onion I needed to use pretty quickly, as well as a lot of garlic. So score one more in my efforts to not waste my food. Anyway, this is pretty easy to make. Serve it over pasta or maybe on some parmigiana, or maybe use this as pizza sauce. Or cook up some sausage and add it in. I'll probably use it for pasta, pizza and with sausages. For today, I just made it and tasted it (a lot) but I didn't get to use it for a meal yet because I had to finish the tom yum (which, by the way, was somewhat painful as it wasn't nearly as good as I hoped it'd be) before I was "allowed" to eat anything ...

As promised, lentil salad. I found some puy lentils in the freezer that I only have vague memories of buying. I think I must have bought them for mujadarrah, which I love but which I only infrequently make. Anyway, since it's most definitely summer here already (we've had heat in the 90s), I want to focus on doing cool (as in temperature, not as in impressions) things with some of the grains in the house. Which leads me to salads. Aladdin , one of my favourite places in Houston, makes a fantastic lentil salad. But if I'm going there all the time for it, there is no way I'm going to stay within any approximation of a budget for eating this summer. So I decided to make a lentil salad. It's not the same as theirs by any stretch of the imagination, but it's similar in style. I think next time I will put carrots in it. I didn't have any carrots but I did have a massive pile of little tomatoes that came from the "garden," so I used those. You should feel...

P is gone for the summer, for an internship in Chicago. While this makes me sad, this does have the minor bonus of me being able to eat anything I want instead of balancing what I want with what he wants to eat. The other bonus is that it will be much easier for me to manage food waste, because for the entirety of the summer there will be no food in the house that I don't like. My goal for this summer is to eat out of the pantry and freezer, only going to the grocery store when I need fresh produce. If I'm able to accomplish this, not only should I be wasting little to no food (my preference, of course, is no food wasted), but I shouldn't really be spending more than $5/week to eat. Anyway, on to the waste. This week I wasted: NOTHING! I think this is 2 weeks in a row. WOO!

I go over this a bit in my post tomorrow for Food Waste Friday (and a massive, massive thank you to The Frugal Girl for getting me hooked on doing this!), but I wanted to talk a little about my summer plans, food-wise. P is out of town for the remainder of the summer doing an internship, so this leaves me on my own almost until the fall semester starts. I was poking about my freezer and pantry, and I realised that I have quite a lot more food than I think I do. And really, food that needs to be used up a little more frequently. There's a lot of meat and fish in the freezer (and not just meat that belongs to Francis) that I haven't really been using. So I'd like to go through it all and use it up, oldest to newest. I believe there's actually enough meat in there to last the remainder of the summer, given that I only eat meat a couple times a week. Today, I'm using up the remaining frozen shrimp in a tom yum (I have a mix for the soup, but it needs shrimp and mushroo...

I recently promised a coworker I'd bring her some apple butter, since she'd gone through the pumpkin butter I'd given her so quickly. Now that I'm finally starting to feel better, this seemed like a good way to get reacquainted with my kitchen. Conveniently, j at 365 Dollar Year was holding a "make something from scratch you might normally buy" challenge. Although I must confess that I never buy apple butter, I also never make it. So it seemed okay for the challenge even if it is stretching the rules just a touch. However, the rules also stipulate that you can't spend more than $5 to make whatever it is you're making, and since I only had one apple in the house, I went out and spent $2 on the rest of them, leaving me well below the budget rules. That compensates for the cheating above, right? Anyway, I've eaten some apple butters, and I always feel like they're missing a little something. But I never know what that something is. I was poking...

No waste this week! I guess this is the upside of not feeling well - you don't shop for food because you know you won't eat it, so there's nothing to waste!

This is not so much a recipe as an idea which can easily be adapted to any level of laziness, illness or lack of time. My finals finished up well and I got the grades I was expecting, so all was well there. But, I've wound up with a particularly uncomfortable illness which has kept me on the couch, cooking nothing. Nonetheless, I get snacky sometimes and want something light. So I've been keeping some salad mixes in the fridge as convenience food. Sorry to have neglected you all so much, but sadly this is the best I have to offer for the time being (though believe me, I have lots of ideas in the works for when I am feeling better!). Here's the silly salad I made tonight. Hope you enjoy! 1/2 bowl romaine with carrots mix (or whatever salad mix you prefer) 1/4 cup celery slices 1/8 cup pistachios 3/4 cup broccoli, cabbage and carrot mix (or whatever else you prefer) some dried fruit if you like (optional; today I didn't opt but sometimes I do) salad dressing of c...

I'm a little shocked I forgot to post this yesterday, but here it is, albeit a day late. It was a bad bread week in my house. I lost: 2 hamburger buns 1/4 loaf garlic bread 1/2 load jalepeno bread

My food waste was a lot better this week, though still not perfect. I lost: 4 ounces green cabbage

I neglected to tell you all, but I ate my first tomato. I actually ended up picking it a day after it would've been perfect, but it was still just delicious and wonderful. I sliced it and ate it with just salt and pepper.