july 31, 2012 lunch

leftover stovetop pork carnitas. i ate some last night for dinner too (with avocado! sadly, one did not make it into my lunch today), but it seems to have been consumed with no paparazzi in sight. today, though, a camera was ready and waiting and caught a bowl of citrus-y, cumin-y pork shoulder in the act of posing with a starlet of a salad.

july 12, 2012 lunch

i think the eggplant and sausage strata is officially no longer a strata, but the flavors really came together over the last few days! it is served up alongside the standard salad from this week and a cup of green tea.

july 11, 2012 lunch

more of the eggplant & sausage strata for lunch, plus salad with our homemade mayo dressing. have i mentioned lately how devourable the eggplant strata is? i might get sick of eating it everyday at some point, but not yet. good thing - there is a lot of it!

july 10, 2012 lunch

tuesday lunch is butternut squash, kale and chicken sausage, plus a salad of cucumber, tomato, celery, roasted red pepper, carrot, romaine and arugula. the creamy italian dressing made with homemade olive oil mayo tops it all off.

july 9, 2012 lunch

we had some chicken sausage to get through (we usually bring some sausages as back-up camping food), so we sauteed slices of it up with kale and butternut squash. a tasty combination! for salad, we're branching out from the usual vinaigrette with a homemade olive oil mayo-based creamy italian dressing (another great recipe out of well fed), tossed with romaine, arugula, tomatoes, cucumbers, and celery.

july 6, 2012 dinner

friday night dinner consists of a hempler basil sausage with copious peppers n' onions, dolloped with HOT horseradish mustard, accompanied by a salad of spinach, arugula, tomatoes, avocado and slivered almonds, topped with an olive oil/blood orange balsamic vinaigrette. yum! see you at 4:45am..

july 5, 2012 lunch

lunch is grilled organic chicken thighs topped with arugula walnut pesto (arugula, walnuts, garlic, lemon juice, pizza seeds (most people call pizza seeds crushed red pepper), salt and pepper) with a side of purplelicious coleslaw.

don't panic! i didn't forget the greek salad.

june 21, 2012 dinner

my sis and i made a belated father's day dinner for my dad and stepmom tonight. (on actual father's day, ungrateful daughter number one was camping and ungrateful daughter number two was hiking.) i decided to go with tried-and-true well-tested favorites.

here is a wilted arugula salad, topped with bacon, chopped walnuts, and shallots cooked in the bacon grease, a little olive oil, and a drizzle of blood orange basalmic. drizzled a bit on the tablecloth too. oops. a small cat toy was on the table for some reason, and also made it into the shot.

i repeated the shrimp recipe i did a couple of nights ago (baked in a sauce of pureed olive oil, shallot, garlic and red pepper flakes, with a few splashes of chicken broth). i suppose it would have been nice to have mixed it with some veggies or put it atop a nice bed of something or other, but we had four dishes going at once in the kitchen, and were trying to time them. it kind of felt like we were on an episode of top chef.

the spanish tortilla with rutabaga i've done a couple of times now turned out great. on top are some chives and the purple blossoms of the chives, which lend it a nice peppery, floral flavor.

and this was sheer awesomeness. my sister made these raw, vegan, gluten-free, grain-free brownies, using only ground nuts (walnuts and pecans), raisins and dates. the frosting is coconut oil brought to liquid state, then whisked with cocoa powder. it's then chilled to give it that shellacked frosting crust. top that with some fresh peaches, raspberries and strawberries tossed in lemon juice, lemon zest and mint, and i have a new favorite dessert.

we then sat out on the deck and watched anna's hummingbirds at the feeder. a pretty perfect evening all around!

june 13, 2012 dinner

we still had a fillet of copper river sockeye to get through (and boy, were we dreading that!), but wanted to do it a bit differently than monday night's version. so we decided to bake it instead of pan saute. basically the same ingredients went into it (shallots, garlic, fresh parsley, dill and oregano, lemon juice, salt, pepper, butter and olive oil), but we baked it, yo.
 you definitely get more of a sauce doing it on the stovetop, and continually spooning what's in the pan over the fish as it cooks, but this way yields a firmer flesh and more subtle flavor. quite nice.

i also had some arugula to use up, so i assembled this salad. (another great find from everyday paleo) it's topped with a warm, aromatic dressing that is as fun to make as it is delicious. chop up some bacon, fry it up, toss in some chopped shallots when it's almost done, sweat those for a couple minutes, add some olive oil to the pan, then drizzle that still warm mixture over the greens to wilt them. top with chopped walnuts, a drizzle of balsamic (we used a blood orange balsamic - yum!) and some fresh cracked pepper, and you have yourself one amazing salad.

here is the salmon, served alongside some wilted rainbow chard, simply cooked up with garlic and olive oil (i added the stems first, then garlic, then the leaves). i could have plated this a bit better, sure, but i was hungry!

june 8, 2012 lunch

lunch looks downright cheerful today, or it could be hidamari no tami (sunshine buddy) bestowing his benevolent lunchtime wishes on my tupperware. there is the standard greek salad with romaine, tomatoes, cucumber, kalamatas and red onion, tossed with homemade vinaigrette, plus the coleslaw i seem to eat every day (purple cabbage, carrot and red onion, tossed with homemade olive oil mayo, dry mustard, salt and pepper). the thing that looks like moldy cat food tastes better than it looks. it's wild planet tuna (pole/troll hand line caught - i think this means a troll caught my fishy) from costco. good quality, sustainably harvested tuna, and low mercury to boot, plus tasty as all get out - highly recommended. i mixed in leftover arugula pesto from last night's meatza (arugula, garlic, walnuts, olive oil, salt and pepper) and cracked some more pepper on top for good measure. quite nice!

june 7, 2012 dinner

it's a meatza! crust is grass-fed beef with italian seasoning, fennel, garlic powder, paprika, salt and pepper, prepped by baking in a 400 degree oven for about 10-15 minutes. instead of red sauce, i made arugula pesto in the food processor, whirring up arugula, garlic, walnuts, olive oil, and a wee pinch of kosher salt. after saucing up the crust, i layered it with cooked bacon, cracked an egg on top, and slid it back into the oven for about 10 more minutes. topped it all off with super fancy french-cut green onions (every once in awhile, you gotta let the super fancy out), drizzled it with olive oil, and ground just a little black pepper on top. it was crispy and crunchy and chewy, with good flavor. not bad for my first meatza attempt! next time, i'm going to take it out a little sooner, because i like a little more liquid gold in my egg yolk, but overall, no complaints.

the side dish was an experiment turned revelation. there was leftover bacon grease in the pan (can't let that go to waste!), so i tossed in a cubed parsnip and carrot, let them brown for awhile, added a handful of green onions and a half pinch of kosher salt and black pepper, and just let it keep browning and cooking. the parsnip and carrots ended up creamy, and the bits of green onion frizzled in the pan, creating an interesting texture and smoky oniony flavor. the ingredients sound a little odd, but some kinda alchemy happened in that pan, i swear!