Friday, September 20, 2013

Green Juice Love and An Eclectic Supper

“Gratitudes” – September 20, 2013

Today I’m grateful for:

  1. The adrenaline rush that comes with a new job offer
  2. Starting the day off with green juice
  3. How the fall always makes me want to light candles and get cozy with a movie
  4. My fall apron
  5. Extra dish soap
  6. That the grocery store opens early in the morning
  7. A new bag of food for Jasper cat
  8. Cooler nights for sleeping
  9. Extra blankets
  10. Seeing Guinness glasses at the Goodwill (my favourite kind of water glass)
  11. Being able to sprout with a mason jar and a window sill
  12. The first page of a new journal
  13. Fall gourds 
  14. Cucumbers on sale (I really, really, love cucumber)
  15. The smell of cauliflower roasting in the oven
  16. Starting a list of soups that I want to make this Fall/Winter
  17. That I can learn how to twist my hair into up-do’s from the internet
  18. Bobby pins
  19. Beautiful red swiss chard
  20. Internet cafes with a printer
  21. The big, bright, beautiful, full moon last night
  22. The harvest baskets at the grocery store
  23. Salted peanuts
    (Salted peanuts in a retro peanut bowl from my childhood)
  24. New blooms on the houseplants
  25. Recipe cards
  26. Finding a “Christmas Cook” hat
  27. Learning that stepping outside my comfort zone won’t be comfortable, and that’s okay
  28. Green lentils
  29. Rediscovering an old favourite recipe
  30. An eclectic supper
I love food that inspires me when I'm in the kitchen. I was only planning on frying some leftover basmati rice with onion and cooking some green lentils. Quick. Easy. So, I started chopping an onion. Then out of nowhere my brain thought "lemon rice would be really easy to throw together right now." I didn't want to hunt down a cookbook though, so I just went with it and tried to remember what I'd used in the past. There was something really freeing about just using ingredients that felt right instead of trying to read a cookbook that is half-balanced under a large jar of sundried tomatoes that's trying (almost successfully) to keep it open to the right page. Sure, it was by no means an authentic lemon rice but the flavour hit the spot.

The lentils had halfway cooked when my mind piped up again, "tamarind lentils would go really nicely with lemon rice. You have all of the ingredients. Who cares that the lentils are half-cooked already?" I sometimes forget about the ingredients that I have in the cupboard because I'm too busy making lists of ingredients that I need for new recipes. I was already in the kitchen so I decided to roast a block of tofu that was in the fridge. Then since the oven was already hot I roasted half a cauliflower that was also hoping to be used up somehow. I found a kitchen groove and it felt good. Lessons learned: 1) cook with what you have and trust your intuition, 2) if you're already cooking and the oven is hot see what extras you can make at the same time, it means less cooking the next day, 3) cooking can be an act of self care -- nurturing the creative and nourishing the physical.

Clockwise from top right: Tamarind Lentils (Veganomicon, p123), tomato, sauteed red swiss chard, lemon wedge, roasted cauliflower, roasted tofu, lemon rice, avocado. Eclectic and tasty!



5 comments:

  1. what a beautiful post! so many little things to be grateful for in life. thank you for the reminder to be more conscious of gratitude, and how much there is to be grateful for! Also, I love your little retro peanut bowl. :) and your dinner looks so super delicious!!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks so much, Amey! Your nice comment is another thing I'm grateful for! :)

      Delete
  2. what a beautiful post! so many little things to be grateful for in life. thank you for the reminder to be more conscious of gratitude, and how much there is to be grateful for! Also, I love your little retro peanut bowl. :) and your dinner looks so super delicious!!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Congrats on the job offer, Elyse! And yeah, the moon was awesome last night! :D Also, your "eclectic supper" looks like it turned out great!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks Julie! :) I'm excited and nervous to be starting something new. So glad you had a chance to see the full moon too! The supper was kind of a mismatch of things but tasty.

      Delete