The Pig and I

This is, for sure, a lazy soup. I'm sick, so I just wanted something warm, nutritious and requiring little effort from me. Normally I would've fried up the veggies first but today, it all gets boiled together. You should, of course, make it as you see fit. Hope you enjoy! 3 chicken tenders 1 can chicken broth 1 can diced tomatoes salt and pepper to taste 1 dried lime (optional) 6 whole cloves garlic 1 slice dried galanga or ginger (or fresh slice) 1 cup each: zucchini, cut into planks; celery, cut into 1-2" chunks 1 onion, peeled and quartered 1/2 cup lentils water as needed 1 cup shredded cabbage Put everything but the cabbage in a pot, cover with the lid and bring to a boil. Boil 20 minutes. Then add the cabbage (and water if you need to), replace the lid and cook another 20 minutes. Check that the lentils are done, and if they're not cook a little longer. Serves 1 sick person or 2-4 regular ones. No picture today, since I don't know where my cam...

I used up some stuff this week. Mostly by baking lots of cookies. Woo! golden raisins many oats most of the all-purpose flour most of the nopales most of the butter

This week I actually went to the store. Are you guys proud of me? :) I set this new rule for myself that I'm supposed to have breakfast from now on, since my metabolism is just zipping along at record speeds and it makes me nauseated a little. So in the interest of doing this in the 15 minute window that exists between waking up and leaving for class, I'm going to be doing one of the following each morning: protein shakes, labneh and/or shanklish sandwiches or yogurt with honey. I've been flying through olive oil lately, primarily because I've been eating so much pita dipped in oil dipped in za'atar recently. And when I say "so much," I really mean that there are some days where I eat nothing but that all day. Since I was nearly out of oil, I decided to go to Phoenicia to get a big tin of oil. Especially since I didn't do any shopping last week at all, I figured it would fit into the budget (here's a good instance where rolling over the money...

This week, I wasted: Nothing!

And, we're on to the last of the inordinate amounts of wild rice I made. Just in case you're keeping count, that makes for 3 meals and 1 bread made with the same item. 3 of those, of course, being ways to use up leftover foods you've prepared. This time it was a quick stir fry. Well, mostly fry - there was a bit of poach happening too. Anyway, it was good. Once I'm allowed to buy rice again, I will probably make more frequent use of wild rice in my kitchen. I'm not entirely sure why I forgot how much I love it. If you wanted to meat it up (which I was too lazy today to do), tossing some chicken or beef in, or even just a couple eggs into the mix would also be quite good. Hope you enjoy! 1 tablespoon each: sesame oil, olive oil 1/2 - 1 teaspoon each: sriracha, hoisin sauce salt and pepper as needed 1/4 cup white wine (I had some leftover, so....) 1/2 large onion, sliced 2 stalks chopped celery 1 small zucchini, cut into planks 1 small eggplant (I used the lo...

I had quite a bit of wild rice leftover after the chicken dinner, as you might have expected. One cup of it I set aside to make one of Peter Reinhart's breads (onion and wild rice), and the rest I'm eating by itself, or putting into stuff here and there. This is one of those here and theres. I also had those egg whites left over from the cranberry curd, and of course I didn't want those to go bad either. I always lie to myself and say I'll make meringues, but I don't think I've actually cooked those since I was a teenager. It's possible I'm wrong but I doubt it. AND I had some leftover tomato from sandwich eating. Thus, this is a leftovers gone wild meal. I think sometimes for me at least, when I'm looking at preventing food waste I think of it more in terms of just eating leftovers, rather than in terms of making leftovers into new creations. I want to get away from that a little bit, since people always talk about using leftovers creatively but n...

This week wasn't great in terms of usage, mostly because I ate piles of sandwiches. Okay, and some Taco Bell. But here's what I used anyway: 2 chicken breasts all the wild rice jasmine and green ring teas

Not much to tell you guys this time. I pretty much was too lazy to go to the grocery store, despite the fact that I need a bit more fruit in the house than avocados. Thus, this week I spent: Nothing! Should I get roll-over when I don't spend my $20? Or should it evaporate like the money did during the summer?

This week, I wasted: NOTHING!!

Is that a weird name? I think it must be. But that's what this is. It's salty and it's citrusy from the sumac. And it's chicken. Basically how this happened is that in one of my classes, we have to do an "inquiry" which is basically an experiment. I decided to use chicken, mostly because I thought I'd like to eat chicken with wild rice and I wanted to use the wild rice up (see? That's me, right here, using up some food storage!). So basically, the rules for the experiment were that we had to use common household goods, do it on a high school kind of level, and do it at home, not in the lab. My experiment was to cook one chicken breast from a cold pan, and one from a hot pan to see if searing really "keeps in the juices." Of course, we all know the answer to that, but we're not doing original research or experimentation here. Just small stuff. Anyway, I worked my homework into a recipe for y'all. And that should make you happy since ...

I saw these bars on thekitchn , and they looked and sounded delicious. I also thought they'd be great to off-set the baklava for my gaming group, so I made them for that. They were, in fact, delicious, despite me absent-mindedly forgetting a rather important ingredient. I forgot to add in the butter that goes in the curd. Like, totally, completely, forgot. I saw the stick of butter sitting on the counter, right next to the stove, and I was like, "Oh. Oops. Hope they don't suck." They didn't - you can make them as per the recipe's directions, or leave the butter out. I think you should make them. I'll be making them again and again. Oh, I forgot to take a picture, so y'all will have to rely on the picture from the original recipe (where the link is in the first sentence of this post). Hope you enjoy! As per usual, my changes are in italics. The stuff in the body of the post that's in bold was in italics on the original recipe. But I made it bold i...

This week I used up a lot of stuff. So proud! 4 ounces jasmine tea (I gave this to a friend; I didn't actually drink it all myself) 1/2 ounce tea, green ring and jasmine (this I actually did drink) 1 pound walnuts 1/2 pound pistachio nuts 1/2 pound almonds (all these nuts went to baklava for my gaming night and some cranberry bars) some flour some powdered sugar (I'm not sure if somehow I lost the open bag or if I used it, but I had to open the reserve bag) 1 bag cranberries

Well, I just want to say a couple things. Going to Kroger in the evening freaks me out a little. Perhaps I watched too much Hitchcock as a kid, but the thousand+ birds in the parking lot make me a little nervous. There're usually a couple dozen on each car and hundreds more chilling out on the asphalt. Not only do I find it unnerving, but additionally I don't particularly appreciate the roof of my car being covered in fecal matter when I get done shopping. If I remember to bring my camera next time (I'll try!), I'll take a picture of the parking lot (not the fecal matter) so you can see just how many birds we're really talking about here. The other thing I want to say? It's about bread. Normally I bake my own bread, which costs maybe fifty cents if I'm being generous with what it costs. This week I've just been so busy (as evidenced by sandwich city the last few days), that I needed bread but lacked the time to make it. Holy COW they are charging a sma...

This week, I wasted: a little of the chocolate pasta salad. Just couldn't get through all of it before it was too late.

As promised, another sandwich. This one is veggie friendly. 2 slices bread olive oil or whatever you like on the outside 1 slice cheese 2-4 slices tomato (I sliced mine very thinly) 1/2 avocado, sliced mustard (optional) salt and pepper to taste Coat the outsides of both sides of bread with oil of choice, ad the insides with mustard if you're using it. Layer cheese, then tomato, then seasonings, the avocado, then seasonings, then last piece of bread. Grill in whatever manner you like to use. Serves 1.

I'm going to be doing lots of hot sandwiches this week. It occurred to me that I have such an incredibly stupid amount of stuff to do right now that I can barely find time to do the dishes, let alone cook really creative stuff. I'm basically doing chocolate pasta salad for breakfast (because really, who can be sad about eating chocolate and fruit every morning?) and sandwiches when I get hungry throughout the day. I have been craving extraordinary amounts of fat the last couple days, daydreaming about In'N'Out (c'mon, guys. Build one in Houston. I promise I'll make it worth your while), Whataburger, Wingstop, pizza, and Popeyes. Clearly the last few days I've gone without potato chips is having a dramatic effect on how I need to rethink my other meals. More fat, more fat, more fat. Anyway, here's a sandwich. Tomorrow there'll be another one. Probably Thursday too. Hope you enjoy! 2 slices bread olive oil (or non-stick spray, or butter, or mayonn...

This is a kind of a weird recipe. I got this chocolate pasta some years ago and haven't known what I wanted to do with it. I finally decided. I just wanted to make a dessert pasta salad from it. Use up some fruit that was going to go to waste otherwise, use something from the pasta bin, and see how this chocolate pasta really is. That way, once Amazon decides they want to sell it (and I've used up enough pasta to be allowed to buy more), I can get some more and experiment with it. It's fairly expensive, but the taste and smell totally make it worth it. So, here's the recipe. Hope you enjoy! 1 granny smith apple, unpeeled but cored and cut into 1" pieces 1 navel orange, supremed with the supremes cut in half and juice reserved 1 mango, cut into 1" pieces 1 bag of chocolate pasta, cooked according to package directions Dressing: 1 tablespoon vegetable oil 1 teaspoon balsamic vinegar 1-2 tablespoons orange juice reserved from cutting the orange 2 t...

Okay, here's what I used this week: some cornmeal some flour the last of one tub of baking powder the bag of chocolate pasta (recipe tomorrow) still working through the chinese green ring tea, but it's slow going. I just can't keep up that pace I used to have a few weeks back. 1 box tortellini pesto

I didn't really buy much this week. Which makes sense, since I didn't actually cook anything other than ramen and corn gems (I used Lon's recipe this time, since I didn't want to melt a single tablespoon of butter on the stove; the recipe was quite good). I'd planned to go get olives too, but I forgot so they'll just be part of next week's budget instead (olives may be all I buy next week). I'm not sure why I really haven't been cooking. It seems like I cook once a week and just eat that all week. And lately I've been cooking stuff you guys already know (hence the lack of recipes). What I need to do is start really working on making smaller portions so I have to cook more than one time a week. Anyway, I'll work on it. And, on to the spending. I was well, well within my budget this week. Additionally, I bought ZERO junk food. Are you proud? I keep plowing through the junk food at record rates. Aside from liking it, it's also helping t...

Well, this week wasn't perfect, but it wasn't too bad. My goal is to actually bring you guys a recipe or two next week, so let's all try to look forward to that. This week I wasted: 1 carrot

This post also got eaten, so once again I'm relying on my poor memory. :) Not a whole lot got used up this week, since I focused a lot on leftovers. I used: 1 pound pasta 2 cans crushed tomatoes 1 can tomato sauce 1 can diced tomatoes 1 tin anchovies the last of the kalamatas :( can of beans (turns out I really do not like canned beans) And I think that's it, though I may be mistaken.

Okay, this is kind of weird. I'd written up my Saturday post, and then I threw the receipt away. But Blogger appears to have eaten the post, so I don't really know what to say about all of that. As a result, this post is going to be really incomplete, but I'll do the best that my absent-minded brain can. Kroger: total spending: $18.36, comprised of (that I can remember): 1 large apple 1 large navel orange 1 multi-pack chips (22 of the little bags. I know, I know) 2 cans coconut juice triscuits (after all, a whole jar of banana peppers was lying about, so....) 3 packages of ramen 3 cans tomato sauce head of garlic some other stuff I've now forgotten.