I could not decide what I wanted to eat. Pasta sounded tasty and we certainly have a lot of it, but the hot weather made me wary of a belly full of spaghetti. A salad was the perfect choice, minus the lack of lettuce in my fridge. Kath’s soba noodle dinner of a few days ago stuck out in my mind and I headed to the market for supplies (plus a few random groceries).

Greens ‘N Things

From left:

• Stonyfield yogurts (my beloved Chobani is no longer on sale for 99 cents and I’d have to start selling my belongings to pay the normal price.)
• Plain yogurt
• Soy milk (for green monsters!)
• Spinach
• Spring greens
• Broccoli
• Brussels sprouts
• Bok choy
• Frozen edamame (I picked up the last two items at the Asian market. Bok choy was half the price compared to the supermarket — woohoo!)

I started the meal by chopping bok choy, mushrooms, and broccoli, and cooking linguine. Buckwheat noodles or whole wheat spaghetti would have been heartier, but we have white flour pasta and I’m not made of gold (see “can’t afford Chobani”).   

For dressing I whipped up some of my favorite peanut sauce.

I originally couldn’t remember where I had found this awesome recipe but I knew I had written about it on the blog. Quick search of my old posts lead me to this post. Thanks, blog!

After the pasta cooked I let it cool and steamed the vegetables.

Assemble and enjoy!

The meal could have used more sauce in my opinion. But I also just tried to lick a freckle off my arm because it appeared to be peanut sauce. So perhaps I’m biased.

Otis Redding came on the radio while I was cooking — perfect music for a warm and sticky evening. I will leave you with this:

Not cooking and planning my meals has led to a lot of take-out, many a meal-on-the-go, and dinners that consist of an unusual assortment of foodstuffs from my fridge. Which is my fancy way of saying I’ve been eating a lot of Stewarts’ Cream and Coffee Fudge for dinner.

In addition to eating poorly, I’ve gone out a lot with friends (drinks and bar food galore!) to celebrate birthdays and out-of-town visits and Fridays. I’ve been stressed, I haven’t been sleeping well, and I feel drained of energy all of the time.

So not only do I need to perk up my attitude a little, I need to hit the refresh button on my body. I’ve been reading a little about detoxes and cleanses and all that, and for the most part I think it’s a load of phooey. For a week I followed the statuses of a friend on Facebook who was doing a juice cleanse. Sorry, but the “benefits” of drinking only fruit juice for 7 days do not outweigh the fact that I’d be a HUGE grumposaurus from denying myself solid foods. No Master Cleanse for me.

I wanted to do some sort of literal “detoxification” of all the crap I’d been putting into my body lately, but I was hesitant to call it that. I don’t want to spend a week depriving myself of essential nutrients — that’s just not safe. I’ve decided that, for at least this week, I do need to cut out foods that have no nutritional value. For a week I’m cutting out the following:

• Sugar (yes, this includes my beloved ice cream)
• Bread (yes, this means no bagels)
• Caffeine (yes, this means no 3 o’clock savior in the form of a medium coffee)
• Alcohol (yes, this means coming home after a loooong day and taking the edge off with a nice glass of… herbal tea)

Basically, I’m cutting out my four main food groups. Sigh. A lot of resources recommend cutting out dairy. Like cheese.

Um.

Sorry. I just need to take a moment. The idea of not eating cheese for a week is on par with spending a week holding my breath under water: guaranteed catastrophe.

Frankly, I’m not interested in deprivation; there’s no self-love in that. Cheese is in.

On Sunday night, to help kick-off the eve of Refresh Week, The Boyfriend and I did two things:

1. Ordered a cheese pizza.

Rome wasn’t built in a day, people.

2. Went grocery shopping.

I allowed myself to spend money on items I don’t normally buy because of cost: avocados, a new box of tea, Parmesan (see what I’m saying about cheese?).

Part of my Refresh Week is about getting back in the kitchen. As retro as that sounds, cooking is a good way for me to unwind after a day. I like spending 30-40 minutes preparing dinner for my little family. Plus my two furry boys usually keep me company while I chop, boil, and saute away the day.

I spent my Sunday night planning meals for the week. I’ve got some good recipes to try out, so stay tuned!

I know it’s best to buy produce in season, but I don’t always know when certain foods are at their peak for freshness and taste.  I printed this little chart and I’m going to hang it on my fridge.  Realistically, eating seasonally is not something I can stick to regularly.  This is due to the fact that I live in the Artic Circle northeast portion of the U.S. and I would end up eating icicles and pine needles if I didn’t buy at least some produce that was shipped from a tropic isle.  But I think it’s a good goal to aim for and this brightly colored chart ought to inspire you a little, even in the bleak midwinter.

But before I get to tonight’s dish, can I go on a cheese tangent? While picking up some extra sharp Cheddar at the store, I saw Price Chopper is having a 2 for $4 sale with Cabot cheeses. And imagine my delight when I saw this tucked away:

I pulled out Old Faithful and that block of cheese was reduced to shreds in the pulse of a finger.

I made minor adjustments to Smitten Kitchen’s recipe:

Homey Macaroni and Cottage Cheese

(Homey? Cottage? See what I did there??)

• 1 c. low-fat cottage cheese
• 1 8 oz. block Cheddar cheese, shredded
• 2 c. 1% milk
• Pinch paprika
• Pinch dry mustard
• Salt and pepper
• 1/2 lb. multi-colored vegetable pasta, uncooked
• 1 cup chopped broccoli

My pasta came from this box:

This dish is so easy to assemble:

1. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees and shred cheese.

2. In a food processor, combine the cottage cheese, mustard, paprika, salt and pepper, and blend. Slowly pour in the milk while blending the cottage cheese mixture.

3. In a large bowl combine all but 1/4 c. shredded cheese, cottage cheese and milk mixture, and the pasta.   Once combined, pour into a greased baking dish.

4. Cover the baking dish with foil and bake for 30 minutes. Remove, sprinkle the remaining Cheddar over the pasta, cover, and bake again for another 30 minutes.

Ta da!

The only hard part is waiting for this to bake.

Needless to say there has been a lot of running around, rearranging of the work schedule, and many a trip to the vet.  I’m just happy to have my little family intact again.

Let’s see what I have been up to four the past few days:

1. Dinner at the Melting Pot on Thursday night — Unfortunately the Melting Pot fundraiser coincided with the scariest part of Jack’s medical ordeal.  Jack had been admitted to the hospital that afternoon but we didn’t really know what was wrong with him, and I was on the phone with our vet until late that night.  All of this meant that I was barely aware of what I was eating that night.  I did snap a picture of this though:

Yin and Yang fondue, half white chocolate, half dark chocolate.  YUM.  Despite my deep concern, I was able to snag a few bites of strawberry dipped in this.  People cope in mysterious ways… Check out Ladies Night Out at the Melting Pot.  It’s a cheap and classy girls-only evening!

2. Lazy weekend — The Boyfriend and I were not feeling up to an exciting Saturday while our dog was recovering in the hospital, so we stayed in.  I enjoyed some leftover Chinese for lunch and leafed through the newest Real Simple (Real Simple fans: how do you feel about the new layout? I prefer the old one! Don’t get me wrong, though — it has not tainted my love for Real Simple.)

That night we channeled our inner teenager and wandered aimlessly through the mall.  And I lost The Boyfriend to a $1,000 massaging arm chair at Brookstone.

I was able to convince him to come home with me, but only with the promise of organic, uncured hot dogs from Applegate Farms.  These generous folks sent me a box of their sausages and hot dogs, so we got to work taste-testing.

Seriously, the Applegate Farms hot dogs are incredible.  We had a pack of “regular” hot dogs in the fridge, so I compared ingredients.  The first ingredient on the regular dogs was “mechanically-separated chicken.”  Insert many a ?!!?!!?!???!! here.  In the Applegate Farms’ dogs? Grass-fed beef.  Sea salt and spices.  Garlic, celery, and onion powders.  Paprika.  You know.  Stuff you’ve actually HEARD of.  If you’re concerned with fat content, these babies have only 8 grams, which is decent for a hot dog. They taste REAL.  And if you don’t do beef, check out the turkey or chicken hot dogs.  I’m really excited to get cookin’ with some of the sausages and kielbasa, so stay tuned for some yummy recipes!

I’m off to go make a quick n’ easy Sunday dinner for my family.  When the Roommate gets back from her weekend in Canada, we will all be under one roof again.  I’m sure there will be many cuddles to be had:

]]> http://notesonapage.com/2009/10/where-did-the-time-go/feed/ 3 http://notesonapage.com/2009/10/eating-down-the-fridge/ http://notesonapage.com/2009/10/eating-down-the-fridge/#comments Mon, 05 Oct 2009 01:42:36 +0000 Page http://notesonapage.com/?p=423 In my life there is a constant battle between my stomach and my wallet.  Who is right? Who deserves more? Fact: groceries are expensive and this is a bummer.  Fact: I like to eat.  And experiment with new recipes and flavors.  And feed my friends and roommates.

When it comes to food, though, I don’t really believe that you have to spend a ton of money.  I try to be constantly aware of what I have in my fridge and cupboards and make good use of it.  I hate throwing food away and wasting money.  Sometimes it takes a little creativity to put together a really great meal.  And it doesn’t have to cost an arm and a leg.

So I was intrigued by Kim O’Donnel’s article over at Licking Your Chops on True/Slant.  She’s proposed this plan called Eating Down the Fridge.  The basic concept behind EDF: don’t go grocery shopping for a week and see if you can eat up what’s in your fridge and pantry.  EDF is supposed to instill in awareness in your eating and shopping habits (and possibly save you a little money).

I’m kind of intrigued by this idea, especially since this is something that I try to do.  I’m partaking in EDF for the week of October 3-10.  For me, there is one hitch: Thursday is The Boyfriend’s birthday, so sneaking in a grocery trip for that. I’m But overall I think it will be a good exercise in frugality and creativity! Wonder if I’ll come up with any interesting recipes this week? Give it a try yourself and see what EDF can do for you!