Simple lunch

I just made a simple and delicious lunch. I ate it before I could take any pictures of it. Hell, I ate it, standing, in the kitchen, before I could even bother fetching a plate!

I took a piece of store bought whole wheat flat bread, made some quick homemade chimichurri (yum), spread it on the flatbread, and put some chopped roasted chicken I had leftover from last night's dinner.

I stuck that in the toaster oven, and had super simple gourmet tasting almost healthy flat bread pizza lunch!

Some fun new meals

I have been continuing to do low glycemic / South Beach / Mediterranean style cooking and eating. I am not specifically looking to fit some sort of weight ideal or BMI, but I have blood sugar fluctuations and can tend toward disordered eating. I think eating a diet heavier in vegetables, beans, proteins, natural oils and nuts is better.

I don't agree with sweeping bans on categories of foods, including fruit, like in the induction part of the South Beach diet. I just happily munched down on a Fuji apple with peanut butter on it.

I am really happy Z and S, for the most part, have been very cooperative about eating my dinners, and have not peeped ONCE about a lack of a white starch at the dinner. As predictable, Picky has been the biggest obstacle.

Elevensies today: "Fresh" mozzarella, presliced (my new favorite grocery item), with home roasted sweet orange pepper, and chimichurri. Mmm mmm mmm.

Elevensies yesterday: soft boiled eggs and asparagus (made the day before, simmered in chicken broth)

Some South Beach diet, some cheezburger

So, I have been mostly sticking to the South Beach diet. I have followed a low glycemic diet before, and I wanted to increase my vegetables. So, this is a good plan with recipes that fits with my ideas of what's healthy. And, hey, I went to high school on South Beach, so, I suppose it was meant to be.

This salad was divine. I made roasted orange peppers the night before, and they were so sweet, I am beginning to wonder if they are still low glycemic. Simply scrumptious. That, plus home grown tomatoes, spinach, fresh mozzarella, and homemade balsamic vinaigrette.



Of course, more eggs. I made a version of the creamed spinach from the South Beach diet book with garlic, onion and sour cream, then made bacon, then poached some eggs, then made a bastardized version of the Joe's Stone Crabs mustard sauce (I have been there many times. I never have the mustard sauce. Why, when there's drawn butter? *drool*) and the mock Hollandaise. Picky tried to dump my sauce, but I intercepted it. It would have been a real shame, since it was delicious and made the dish. The whole dish was also divine. Unlike the salad, no one wanted to share this one. They ate leftover frozen pancakes. Their loss.



C'mon, have a bite!



So, all the deviations from the diet happened around S's 11th birthday. For his birthday dinner, he chose pizza meatloaf. But, I didn't want it to be just any pizza meatloaf, so I made a special sauce with bacon, and used fresh mozzarella on the top.

This smelled divine. It is a base for a "bold" spaghetti sauce recipe from Eating Well. It is similar to this version, also by Lidia.

Then, the next day he had some friends over. He had an "I Can Has Cheezburger" themed party. I made cheeseburgers, of course. They were darned good, I must say. I doctor them up quite a bit. I am not one of those "Don't overwork the meat" people. I am one of those "throw some garlic and stuff in there" people.

Yin and yang

So, my garden is full of the liberally maligned arugula. It's getting more and more peppery as it gets older, and it's a little too strong to eat very much of it raw.

I love chimichurri on steak. I wanted to make a chimichurri inspired garnish for the porterhouse we were having for dinner tonight. But, with the arugula, which was too peppery to have raw. So, I sauteed onions, diced small (too bad I used the shallots last night!)in olive oil and butter and added finely chopped arugula. I added red wine vinegar and garlic and pepper. Yum yum!

So, does arugula get more conservative cred if it is paired with steak?

I ended the meal with a great combination: a yummy red Spanish wine and chocolate zucchini bread.

Salad dressing

While I don't have my camera, and due to another request for it, I am FINALLY posting my salad dressing recipe. Which is one of the reasons I started this dang food blog. And, the other reason was a loaf of bread I never tried making, so there.

Hilary's Honey Miso dressing:

3-4 tablespoons miso paste. (It is the only obscure ingredient but I can get it at my local grocery store, refrigerated in the hippie section. If you have a choice, get mellow yellow or white, not the red. It has been carried at every health food store I have ever worked at, and it should be available at Asian markets. It lasts FOREVER and it is actually a great condiment/ingredient for other purposes, too, including the obvious bowl of soup. I use it to cook chicken sometimes, and it is delicious.)

Grated ginger, at least a T
diced garlic, at least a T
honey, at least 2 T to taste
flax oil, about a cup (this can be substituted with olive oil or any other oil, but since I make a big batch and keep it in the fridge, I prefer flax oil because it stays liquid when refrigerated, unlike olive oil)
Apple cider vinegar, about 1/2 a cup
Trocomare, which is a herbed salt blend. Can be replaced by salt and pepper
You can add fresh herbs if you are fancy.
Blend and enjoy. I almost always tweak it based on taste testing, add a little more oil if it is too tangy from the vinegar and not creamy enough, add some honey if it is not sweet enough, adding garlic if it is not garlicky enough, etc.

The kids love it. Picky loves it. Everyone who visits loves it. My ex husband used to carry it with him to work for his salads - heh, I hope he misses it.

Roasted hot sauce

I keep talking about my roasted hot sauce, so I should really post the recipe up on here.

Here is a message board post from when I made it for the first time a month ago:

I am using tomatoes (halved and cored) from the garden, some itty bitty hot peppers, one left over mild pepper (too small but all I have), whole garlic cloves and green onion (cut up). Almost all from my garden.

I tossed all of the above in a roasting baste made of tomato paste, olive oil, salt, pepper and paprika (trying to make up for my lack of sweet peppers). I roasted all of the above under the broiler in my toaster oven. I took the green onions out first and the garlic is still in, but smells pretty insane. I will be blending it all up with some vinegar soon.

It is super tasty. I am nuking a frozen burrito so I have something to eat it with.

On a side note, S fed Z a hot pepper from the garden and made him cry while I was making this. Sigh. I let S be a taste tester for the hot sauce.

*****

I made it again today for my brother-in-law. Today I had more sweet peppers. It turned out great.